I need not all the rules of verse disclose, Nor how their various measures to dispose ; The tutor here with ease his charge may guide To join the parts and numbers, or divide. Now let him words to stated laws submit, Or yoke to measures, or reduce to feet; Now let him softly to himself rehearse His first attempts and rudiments of verse; Fix on those rich expressions his regard To use made sacred by some ancient bard; Tost by a different gust of hopes and fears, He begs of heaven an hundred eyes and ears. Now here, now there, coy nature he pursues, And takes one image in a thousand views. He waits the happy moment that affords The noblest thoughts, and most expressive words, He brooks no dull delay; admits no rest; A tide of passion struggles in his breaft; Round his dark soul no clear ideas play, The most familjar objects glide away. All fixt in thought, astonishid he appears, His foul examines, and consulte his ears; And racks his faithless memory, to find Some traces faintly sketch'd upon his inind. There he unlocks the glorious magazine, And opens every faculty within ; Brings out with pride their intellectual spoils, And with the noble treasure crowns his toils ; And oft meer chance Mall images display, That strike his mind engag'd a different way.

}

Still he persists; regrets no toil nor pain,
And still the task, he tried before in vain,
Plies with unweary'd diligence again.
For oft unmanageable thouglits appear,
That mock his labour, and delude his care;

Th'impatient bard, with all his nerves apply'd,
Tries all the avenues on every side;
Resolv’d and bent the precipice to gain ;
Though yet he labours at the rock in vain ;
By his own strength and heaven, with conquest grac'd,
He wins th' important victory at last;
Stretch'd by his hands the vanquish'd monster lies,
And the proud triumph lifts him to the skies.
But when ev'n chance and all his efforts fail,
Nor toils, nor vigilarice, nor cares prevail;
His past attempts in vain the boy renews,
And waits the softer seasons of the Muse;
He quits his work; throws by his fond desires
And from his task reluctantly retires.

Thus o'er the fields the swain pursues his road,
Till stopt at length by some impervious flood,
That from a mountain's brow, o'ercharg’d with rains,
Bursts in a thundering tide, and foams along the plains ;
With horror chill’d, he traverses the shore,
Sees the waves rise, and hears the torrent roar ;
Then griev'd returns ; or waits with vain delay,
Till the tumultuous deluge roils away.

But in no Iliad let the youth engage
His tender years, and unexperienc'd age ;

Let

Y 3

Let him by juft degrees and steps proceed,
Sing with the swains, and tune the tender reed :
He with success an humbler theme may ply,
And, Virgil-like, immortalize a fiy:
Or fing the mice, their battles and attacks,
Against the croaking natives of the lakes :
Or with what art her toils the spider sets,
And spins her filmy entrails into nets.

And here embrace, ye teachers, this advice ;
Not to be too inquisitively nice,
But, till the soul enlarg'd in strength appears,
Indulge the boy, and spare his tender years ;
Till, to ripe judgment and experience brought,
Himself discerns and blushes at a fault;
For if the critics eyes too strictly pierce,
To point each blemish out in every verse,
Void of all hope the stripling may depart,
And turn his studies to another art.
But if resolv'd his darling faults to see,
A youth of genius should apply to me,
And court my elder judgment to peruse
Th’ imperfect labours of his infant Mufes
I thould not scruple, with a candid eye,
To read and praise his poem to the sky;
With seeming rapture on each line to pause,
And dwell on each expression with applause.
But when my praises had inflam'd his mind,
If some lame verse limp'd lowly up behind ;
One, that himself, unconscious, had not found,
By numbers charın'd, and led away by found;

I should

I thould not fear to minutter a rana,
And give him stronger tset :) **** ;
Teach it to run along more timnd fire;
Nor would I thow the wound letore the core.

For what remains : site roer I entom
To form no glorions fekeme, no crear cletier,
Till free from butine:s be retires stone,
And Alies the gicidy tumnit of the towny
Seeks rural leafures, and enjoys the : fuper
And courts the thoughifni silence it

be
Where the fair Drvads haunt imr *.* * *
With all the orders of he følen 15.
Here in their foft retrsats be nefi
Serene, and blcft vith cheart
No guilty schemes of surat la
No cares, no profperis, T !!'.
No scenes of rezepte ? !
Here the then 1.**22*
And taste the Tietophe !
From a rock's, toma 117
Who dares 7111.17. *** Foto
By deeris ar

rrugen
A Taurs bet 2.1
Some la con: wow, WWW
On te
Anda se ga ********
Fice zicion to the famibia
Uerd, morais, let the parisien
Or dread o corpelding rengeance of thr tky i

Y 4

'The

The gods still listend to their constant prayer,
And made the poets their peculiar care.
They, with contempt, on fortune's gift look down,
And laugh at kings who wear an envy'd crown.
Rais'd and transported by their soaring mind,
From their proud eminence they view mankind
Loft in a cloud; they see them toil below,
All busy to promote their common woe.
Of guilt unconfcious, with a steady soul,
They see the lightnings fash, and hear the thunders roll.
When, girt with terrors, Heaven's Almighty Sire
Launches his triple bolts, and forky fire,
When o'er high towers the red destroyer plays,
And strikes the mountains with the pointed blaze ;
Safe in their innocence, like Gods, they rise,
And lift their souls serenely to the skies.

Fly, ye profane ;---the sacred Nine were given
To bless these lower worlds by bounteous heaven:
Of old, Prometheus, from the realms above,
Brought down these daughters of all-mighty Jove,
When to his native earth the robber came,
Charg‘d with the plunder of ethereal flame.
As due compassion touch'd his generous mind,
To see the favage state of human kind;
When, Jed to range at large the bright abodes,
And share th' ambrosial banquets of the Gods;
In many a whirl he saw Olympus driven,
And heard th' eternal harmony of heaven.
Turn'd round and round the concert charm'd his ears
With all the inusic of the dancing spheres;

The