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By being scandalously bold,

Attain'd the mark of thy defire.

And for traducing Virgil's name
Shalt share his merited reward;
A perpetuity of fame,

That rots, and stinks, and is abhorr'd.

STANZAS

On the late indecent Liberties taken with the Remains

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of the great Milton.*

Anno 1790.

E too, perchance, in future days,
The sculptured stone shall show,
With Paphian myrtle or with bays
Parnaffian on my brow.

"But I, or ere that season come,

Escaped from every care,

Shall reach my refuge in the tomb,
And fleep fecurely there."+

*The bones of Milton, who lies buried in Cripplegate church, were difinterred; a pamphlet by Le Neve was published at the time, giving an account of what appeared on opening his coffin. + Forfitan et noftros ducat de marmore vultus

Nectens aut Paphia myrti aut Pernafide lauri
Fronde comas-At ego fecura pace quiefcam.

Milton in Manso.

So fang, in Roman tone and style,
The youthful bard, ere long
Ordain'd to grace his native ifle
With her fublimeft fong.

Who then but muft conceive difdain,
Hearing the deed unblest

Of wretches who have dared profane
His dread fepulchral rest?

Ill fare the hands that heaved the ftones*
Where Milton's afhes lay,

That trembled not to grafp his bones
And steal his dust away!

O ill requited bard! neglect
Thy living worth repaid,
And blind idolatrous refpect
As much affronts thee dead.

August, 1790.

* Cowper, no doubt, had in his memory the lines faid to have been written by Shakespeare on his tomb:

"Good friend, for Jefus' fake forbear
To dig the duft inclofed here.

Bleft be the man that fpares these stones,
And curft be he that moves my bones."

TO THE REV. WILLIAM BULL.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

June 22, 1782.

F reading verse be your delight,

"Tis mine as much, or more, to write;
But what we would, fo weak is man,

Lies oft remote from what we can.
For instance, at this very time

I feel a wifh by cheerful rhyme

To foothe my friend, and, had I power,
To cheat him of an anxious hour;
Not meaning (for I must confess,
It were but folly to fupprefs)
His pleasure, or his good alone,
But fquinting partly at my own.
But though the fun is flaming high
In the centre of yon arch, the sky,
And he had once (and who but he ?)
The name for setting genius free,
Yet whether poets of past days
Yielded him undeserved praise,
And he by no uncommon lot
Was famed for virtues he had not;
Or whether, which is like enough,
His Highness may have taken huff,
So feldom fought with invocation,
Since it has been the reigning fashion

To difregard his infpiration,

I feem no brighter in my wits,
For all the radiance he emits,
Than if I faw, through midnight vapour,
The glimmering of a farthing taper.
Oh for a fuccedaneum, then,
To accelerate a creeping pen!
Oh for a ready fuccedaneum,
Quod caput, cerebrum, et cranium
Pondere liberet exofo,

Et morbo jam caliginofo!

'Tis here; this oval box well fill'd
With best tobacco, finely mill'd,
Beats all Anticyra's pretences

To difengage the encumber'd senses.
Oh Nymph of transatlantic fame,
Where'er thine haunt, whate'er thy name,
Whether repofing on the fide

Of Oroonoquo's fpacious tide,

Or listening with delight not small
To Niagara's distant fall,

'Tis thine to cherish and to feed
The pungent nose-refreshing weed,
Which, whether pulverized it gain
A fpeedy paffage to the brain,
Or whether, touch'd with fire, it rise
In circling eddies to the fkies,

Does thought more quicken and refine
Than all the breath of all the Nine-
Forgive the bard, if bard he be,
Who once too wantonly made free,
To touch with a fatiric wipe

That symbol of thy power, the pipe ;
So may no blight infeft thy plains,
And no unfeasonable rains;

And fo may smiling peace once more
Vifit America's fad fhore;

And thou, fecure from all alarms

Of thundering drums and glittering arms,
Rove unconfined beneath the shade
Thy wide-expanded leaves have made;
So may thy votaries increase,
And fumigation never cease.
May Newton with renew'd delights
Perform thine odoriferous rites,
While clouds of incense half divine
Involve thy disappearing fhrine;
And fo may smoke-inhaling Bull
Be always filling, never full.

MONUMENTAL INSCRIPTION TO

WILLIAM NORTHCOT.

IC fepultus eft

Inter fuorum lacrymas

GULIELMUS NORTHCOT,

GULIELMI et MARIA filius

Unicus, unicè dilectus,

Qui floris ritu fuccifus eft femihiantis,

Aprilis die feptimo,

1780, Æt. 10.

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