_Parnassian_ Groves, and _Twick’nam_ Fountains, say, What Homage to the Bard shall _Britain_ pay! The Bard! that first, from _Dryden’s_ thrice-glean’d Page, Cull’d his low Efforts to Poetic Rage; Nor pillag’d only that unrival’d Strain, But rak’d for Couplets * _Chapman_ and _Duck-Lane_, Has sweat each Cent’ry’s Rubbish to explore, And plunder’d every Dunce that writ before, Catching half Lines, till the tun’d Verse went round, Complete, in smooth dull (c) Unity of Sound; Who, stealing Human, scorn’d Celestial Fire, And strung to _Smithfield_ Airs the † _Hebrew_ Lyre; Who taught declining (d) _Wycherley_ to doze O’er wire-drawn Sense, that tinkled in the Close, To lovely _F----r_ impious and obscene, To mud-born _Naiads_ faithfully unclean; Whose raptur’d Nonsense, with Prophetick Skill, First taught that Ombre, which fore-ran Quadrille; Who from the Skies, propitious to the Fair, Brought down _Cæcilia_, and sent ** _Cloris_ there, Censur’d by _W--ke_, by _A------ry_ blest, Prais’d _Sw----t_ in Earnest, and sung Heav’n in Jest, Here, mov’d by Whim, and there by Envy stung, Would flatter _Ch----s_, or would libel ‡ _Y----ge_, By _F----n_ left, by Reverend Linguists hated, Now learns to read the _Greek_ he once translated. [Footnote *: A Translator of _Homer_.] [Footnote †: Burlesque of the first _Psalm_, more profest than _Sternbold’s_.] [Footnote **: See Verses, in _P--pe_’s Poems, to the Memory of an unfortunate young Lady.] [Footnote ‡: _Sir W. Y._] Oh say, to him what Trophies shall be rais’d, That unprovok’d will strike, and fawn unprais’d! Each fav’rite Toast who marks, or rising Wit, To sketch a Satire, that in Time may fit; Still hopes your Sun-set, while he views your Noon, And still broods o’er the closely-kept Lampoon; The lurking Presents o’er the Tomb he paid, And thus atton’d our _British Virgil_’s Shade, A Mushroom * Satire in his Life conceal’d, Since chang’d to Libel, and in Print reveal’d; Who lets not † Beauty base Detraction ’scape, And mocks Deformity with _Æsop_’s Shape; Who _Cato_’s Muse with faithless Sneers belied, The Prologue father’d, and the Play decried, On ‡ _H----y_’s learned Page, dull-sporting trod, Betray’d his Patrons, and lampoon’d his God; Translator, Editor, could far out-go In _Homer_ _Ogleby_, in _Shakespeare_ _R----_ O! how burlesqu’d, great _Dryden_, is thy Strain, When little _Alexander_ ‖ _slays the Slain_! [Footnote *: Libel on Mr. _Addison_ in _P--pe_ and _Sw--t_’s Miscellanies.] [Footnote †: Lady _M. W. M._] [Footnote ‡: Lord B----p of _Salisbury_.] [Footnote ‖: See _Dryden_’s Ode on St. _Cæcilia_’s Day. ------Fought all his Battles o’er again; ------And thrice he _slew the Slain_.]