"Though printers condescend the press to soil With odes by Smythe, and epic songs by Hoyle." Of the injustice of these lines (unjust, it is but fair to say, to both the writers mentioned,) he, on the brink of publication, repented; and,--as far, at least, as regarded one of the intended victims,--adopted a tone directly opposite in his printed Satire, where the name of Professor Smythe is mentioned honourably, as it deserved, in conjunction with that of Mr. Hodgson, one of the poet's most valued friends:-- "Oh dark asylum of a Vandal race! At once the boast of learning and disgrace; So sunk in dulness, and so lost in shame, That Smythe and Hodgson scarce redeem thy fame." In another instance we find him "changing his hand" with equal facility and suddenness. The original manuscript of the Satire contained this line,-- "I leave topography to coxcomb Gell;" but having, while the work was printing, become acquainted with Sir William Gell, he, without difficulty, by the change of a single epithet, converted satire into eulogy, and the line now descends to posterity thus:-- "I leave topography to _classic_ Gell."[101] Among the passages added to the poem during its progress through the press were those lines denouncing the licentiousness of the Opera. "Then let Ausonia," &c. which the young satirist wrote one night, after returning, brimful of morality, from the Opera, and sent them early next morning to Mr. Dallas for insertion. The just and animated tribute to Mr. Crabbe was also among the after-thoughts with which his poem was adorned; nor can we doubt that both this, and the equally merited eulogy on Mr. Rogers, were the disinterested and deliberate result of the young poet's judgment, as he had never at that period seen either of these distinguished persons, and the opinion he then expressed of their genius remained unchanged through life. With the author of the Pleasures of Memory he afterwards became intimate, but with him, whom he had so well designated as "Nature's sternest painter, yet the best," he was never lucky enough to form any acquaintance;--though, as my venerated friend and neighbour, Mr. Crabbe himself, tells me, they were once, without being aware of it, in the same inn together for a day or two, and must have frequently met, as they went in and out of the house, during the time.