She aids me, shields me, bears me on her wings, In spite of growling whelps, to high, exalted things, Beyond the miscreants that my peace molest, Miscreants, with dullness and with rage opprest. Hail, great Mac Swiggen![148] foe to honest fame,[149] Patron of dunces, and thyself the same, You dream of conquest--tell me, how, or whence? Act like a man and combat me with sense-- This evil have I known, and known but once,[150] Thus to be gall'd and slander'd by a dunce, Saw rage and weakness join their dastard plan To crush the shadow, not attack the man. What swarms of vermin from the sultry south Like frogs surround thy pestilential mouth-- Clad in the garb of sacred sanctity, What madness prompts thee to invent a lie? Thou base defender of a wretched crew, Thy tongue let loose on those you never knew, The human spirit with the brutal join'd, The imps of Orcus in thy breast combin'd, The genius barren, and the wicked heart, Prepar'd to take each trifling scoundrel's part, The turn'd up nose, the monkey's foolish face, The scorn of reason, and your sire's disgrace-- Assist me, gods, to drive this dog of rhime Back to the torments of his native clime, Where dullness mingles with her native earth,[151] And rhimes, not worth the pang that gave them birth! Where did he learn to write or talk with men?-- A senseless blockhead, with a scribbling pen-- In vile acrostics thou may'st please the fair,[152] Not less than with thy looks and powder'd hair, But strive no more with rhime to daunt thy foes, Or, by the flame that in my bosom glows, The muse on thee shall her worst fury spend, And hemp, or water, thy vile being end. Aspers'd like me, who would not grieve and rage! Who would not burn, Mac Swiggen to engage? Him and his friends, a mean, designing race, I, singly I, must combat face to face-- Alone I stand to meet the foul-mouth'd train,[153] Assisted by no poets of the plain, Whose timerous Muses cannot swell their theme Beyond a meadow or a purling stream.-- Were not my breast impervious to despair, And did not Clio reign unrivall'd there, I must expire beneath the ungenerous host, And dullness triumph o'er a poet lost. Rage gives me wings, and fearless prompts me on To conquer brutes the world should blush to own; No peace, no quarter to such imps I lend, Death and perdition on each line I send; Bring all the wittlings that your host supplies, A cloud of nonsense and a storm of lies-- Your kitchen wit--Mac Swiggen's loud applause, That wretched rhymer with his lanthorn jaws-- His deep-set eyes forever on the wink, His soul extracted from the public sink-- All such as he, to my confusion call-- And tho' ten myriads--I despise them all. Come on, Mac Swiggen, come--your muse is willing, Your prose is merry, but your verse is killing-- Come on, attack me with that whining prose,