[80] They were not written by Dr. Franklin, but by John Dickenson, a citizen of Pennsylvania, and gained for their author the thanks of the Assembly of Massachusets. He warned his countrymen not to be deluded by the moderate rate of the new duties,--a circumstance which he characterized as artfully intended to prepare their reception of a collar, whose increasing weight would gradually bow them to the ground; and he encouraged them to hope that a deliverance from this evil would be obtained by a resumption of the same general and animated opposition which had procured the repeal of the Stamp Act. The arguments by which the author supported his doctrine of the illegality of internal taxes on America, are said to have converted Dr. Franklin. They had at least the merit of furnishing an excuse for his change of opinion.--(Grahame’s History of North America, vol. iv. p. 262.)--E. [81] See infra. [82] “Rodondo; or, the State Jugglers,” was published in 1763. The third canto soon followed the first and second; and a fourth was promised, but never appeared, probably owing to the author’s being rewarded with the post of Attorney-General of Grenada, where he died in 1774. He also wrote “Woodstock; a Poem,” reprinted in Pearch’s collection. His daughter married Dr. afterwards Sir John Elliot, the eminent physician.--(MS. note in the British Museum.) With abundance of humour and no mean skill in versification, this poem might have ranked high among English satires, had the author bestowed more pains on its action; this is below criticism. A description of Mr. Pitt after the manner of Hudibras, with an invocation to the Muse, fills the first canto.--The second contains little beyond a shrewish lecture delivered by Lady Chatham to Mr. Pitt, and a long message from the latter to his footman. In the third is Mr. Pitt’s capitulation to the gout, and the distribution of his defects among his followers. The various characters are introduced awkwardly enough, as if to show the author’s proficiency in the art of vituperation; and in the last canto, where he descends to attack some of the City politicians, his coarseness becomes disgusting. This particularly applies to his invectives against Churchill. The shafts which he aims at Pitt are more worthy of their object. The motto is ingenious and appropriate: “Uno minor est Jove--dives, Liber, honoratus, pulcher, rex denique regum Præcipue sanus, nisi cum pituita molesta est.” After fixing the date of his story:-- “When knowledge, courage, sense, and worth Were first defined by North and South, And Tweed’s irremeable waves Became the boundary of knaves;--” a portrait is given of the hero, of which these lines are a fair specimen.