And told his tale with fuch a grace,
With fuch an eye, and such a face,
As made the nectar flow each cup o'er,
And fet the Synod in an uproar.

Learning had not the skill to hit
The comic caft, and life of Wit:
With look morose, and aukward air,
He fat ungraceful in his chair;
With diffidence and blushes spoke,
And had no relish for a joke;
So that the little urchin Cupid
Thought him infenfible, and stupid;
And Hebe, tho' a well-bred lafs,
Would scarcely offer him his glass.
However, when the fprightly bowl
Had thaw'd the ice about his foul,
He then, with majesty, began
To talk of letters and of man;
Correct, fententious, cool, fevere,
He gain'd upon the attentive ear,

Charm'd all the Gods, but Wit, and Comus,
And that abufive cynic, Momus.

In length of time, as oft the cafe is

In many fublunary places,
Thefe demigods with jealous eye
Began to look a little shy;

And oft, to wound each other's breast,
Let off a keen sarcastic jest.

Learning, with many a ftroke, would hit
The pert vivacity of Wit;

And Wit threw all his keenest fatire
On Learning's flow, pedantic nature.
It happen'd once when Jove had made
A feaft in Ida's holy fhade,

And all the Gods, whofe heade could bear it,
Had emptied each a flask of claret ;
Wit, who from his celestial liquor
Wagg'd his free tongue a little quicker,
Began, with many a bitter fcoff,
To play his brother Learning off;
Afk'd him if yet his pains and care

Had learned to make the circle square?

If all his vifionary ravings

Cou'd weave brocade from walnut shavings?
If his mechanic skill cou'd catch

Perpetual motion in a watch?
Or forge a pendulum endued
With power to tell the longitude?
Learning had much ado to fit,
And hear the petulance of Wit:
A gaftly paleness spread his look,

His nerves with quick convulfions shook :
At length, in accents loud and high,
Vefuvius flaming in his eye,

He burft" And dar'st thou, wayward chit!
Thou ideot God of ideot Wit!
Untaught as yet to know thy letters,
Affront, thou infolent! thy betters ?
Here, puppy! with this penny get
A horn-book, or an alphabet;
And fee if that licentious eye
Can tell a great A from an I?
Throw but another jeft on me,
I'li lay thee, mifcreant! on my knee,
And print fuch welks thy naked feat on,
As never truant felt at Eton.

Wit, with refentment raving wild,
Thus call'd an ideot and a child,

Without preambles, or excuses,
Seiz'd upon Mercury's caduceus,
And with fuch force the weapon throws,

It flattened half his rival's nofe:
While he, Minerva's boast, and care,
Pluck'd a large bodkin from her hair,
And aim'd the fteely pointed dart
With fuch dexterity of art,
That, had not beauty's lovely queen,
Fair Venus, fpread her fan between,
And taught the flying death to fix
Guiltless among the iv'ry sticks,
Wit's future triumphs had been o'er,
And Europe heard his name no more.

Jove, who had no fupreme delight in
Domeftic brawls, or civil fighting,
Since first he heard the nuptial tune flow
So fweetly from the tongue of Juno,
Vex'd that these two illiberal guests
Should dare to violate his feafts,

In a tremendous fit of choler,

Seiz'd both their worships by the collar,
And, minding not their meek fubmitting,
Kick'd them from Ida down to Britain.

Poor Learning had the luck to fall
Plump in the area of Clare-hall,
Juft as old Wilcox, from a flope,
Was gazing thro' his telescope,
To find a comet whofe bright tail is
Eccentric from the time of Thales.
Pleas'd with his fcientific look,
He fent him first to Sam the cook;
And having fill'd his empty belly
With mutton-broth, and meagre jelly,
Gave him a robe of fleek prunella,
And very wifely made him fellow.

Wit, as his destiny decrees,
Dropp'd in the court of Common-Pleas,
Upon a trufs of briefs and bills,
And took the fhape of juftice Willes :
But foon obferving round the columns
Reports in half a thousand volumes;
And, finding all those earth-worm fouts
Who hold th exchequer, or the rolls,
He left the law, and all its drudges,
With curses, to my lords the judges,
Call'd for a coach, and went to dwell
At Robin Dodfley's in Pall-Mall.

'Twas right for now where-e'er he came
He bufied all the tongues of fame ;
Was welcome to the feftal board,
And had his footman, and his lord;
Would often vifit in a chair

The noble Stanhope in May-fair;
Or dine, when bufinefs would permit,
With that great statesman William Pitt.
'Tis faid too he was fometimes feen
On Garrick's vifionary scene:
But Garrick, who prefers a guinea
To all the eloquence of Pliny,
Obferving this unlucky railer
Was neither mechanist nortaylor;
That half the audience of the day
Came not to hear, but fee, a play;
That many a fquire, and many a cit,
Were pleas'd with any thing but Wit;
Shut out, with much indecent rage,
The genius of the comic stage,

And open'd his theatrię inn

To Scaramouch, and Harlequin.

Learning would fometimes drop his gown, And take a winter-jaunt to town; Often call'd in at Hitch's shop, And din'd at Dolly's on a chopi On Thursday met the grave refort Of fpider merchants in Crane-court, To crack a cockle, or to fee The nice diffection of a flea : But having never chanc'd to wear A bag-wig or a folitaire,

And dreffing in a kersey, thicker

Than that which cloaths a Cornish vitar,
He feldom had the luck to eat
In Berkeley-square, or Grosvenor-street.
'Twas written in the book of fate,
These rivals should each other hate ;
No wonder then that each proud imp was
As wayward here as on Olympus.
Wit look'd on Learning, as he grew great,
Juft as a felon looks on Newgate :
While Learning, who could never hide
His haughty academic pride,
Had fuch a keen contempt for Wit,
He call'd him nothing but the chit;
And, if he met him at noon-day,
Would turn his face another way.

However on some festal nights

By chance they both dropp'd in at White's
With learn'd lords, and noble bards,
Who had no appetite for cards,
And could decide whene'er they met
Momentous truths without a bet.
Wit with vivacity of tongue
First led th' admiring ear along;
His fancy active, wild, and free as
Conception when the breeds ideas,
Flew o'er each undiscover'd part
Of nature, and the worlds of art,
And brought with fuch a nice decorum
A group of images before him,
So genuine, yet so uncommon,
With fuch a glow of tints upon 'em,
That all was fpirit, force, and sense,
Loose as the zone of negligence;
Simple as truth's fair handmaid nature,
And deadly as the fting of fatire.
Dejected Learning fat oppress'd;
Around him flew the taunt and jest:
Whatever just remarks he made,
Or to demonftrate, or perfuade,
Wit, by fome fly malicious comment,
Took off, or routed in a moment.
However, when a pause appear'd,
And fober reafon could be hear'd,
He then in all his thunder rifes,
Strips off his rival's thin disguises;
Shews where his misconceiving sense
Led to a groundless confequence,
Mistook an error for a wonder,
A demonftration for a blunder,
Or, having a delufive fcent got,
Affirmed the very thing he meant not.
Yet, after all, fince mirth and drinking
Are priz'd above fedater thinking,
Tho' Learning got a world of praise,
And added fplendour to his bays,

Their lordships, frighten'd at th' expence
Of lift'ning to exalted fenfe,

And deeming that the taint of knowledge
Would make the coffee-house a college,
Determin'd in a full committee,

'That man's great end was to be witty:
And therefore order'd, every foul,
Wit thou'd be enter'd on the roll,
And be allow'd, to raise his vein,
A weekly prefent of champaigne ;
That if proud Learning should prefume
To fet his foot within the room,
Arthur should shew him to the door,
And bid the pedant come no more.

Learning thus kick'd from ev'ry palace,
And left a victim to the gallows,
Began to fee that skill in letters
Would ne'er advance him with his betters;
That tho' he led them thro' the dark
With all the lights of Locke and Clarke,
And made his heart, and head, and eyes ach
With reading nature, and Sir Ifaac,
Yet all that wifdom could not be
Priz'd like a lively repartee:
He therefore, in a gloomy fit,
Refolv'd to fet up for a Wit;

But found, alas! howe'er he dreft her,
That science was a wretched jester ;

That tho' he jok'd from moon to moon,

He made a very dull buffoon;

For all his jocular narrations
Smelt of his algebra equations,

And came upon the tortur'd ear

Stiff as the periods of Dacier.

Wit, too, whofe excellence and merit
Was mere vivacity of spirit,
Obferving that your graver folk
Had little value for a joke,
Would needs, in nature's bold defiance,
Mount the tremendous chair of science ;
And dar'd to argue pro and con
As gravely as the grave Sorbonne :
But wanting all that fine difcerning
Which marks the character of Learning,
And all the elemental rules
Of erudition, and the schools,
The gay profeffor oft mistook
Alike his question and his book;
Dropp'd a conundrum out of feason,
And jefted when he ought to reafon.

Thus on the world's wild billows toft,
And half their moments idly loft,
Tir'd of applause, and fick of ftrife,
They each refolv'd to take a wife.
Learning, who often went to fee
Lady Anne Bentinck at her tea,
Met there a maid as fair as chaste,
In life's full bloom, whofe name was Tafte.
'Twas then his heart began to move
With the first tender throb of love,
And often heav'd, it knew not why,
With fomething softer than a sigh.

He gaz'd, he blush'd, he courted, preft,
And was at length completely bleft:
For fhe, who had not learnt to doat
On folly in a scarlet coat,

To learning's blissful arms refign'd
Her graceful forin, and lovely mind.

Wit too, when paft the fire of youth,
Was married to the veftal, Truth;
A nymph whose awful air and mien
Difplay'd the beauty, and the queen.
Tradition tells us, Hymen fwore
That, till this bright aufpic ous hour,
'There never in his holy houfe was
So fine a group of noble fpoufes;

For both the bridegrooms, on their marriage,
Improv'd in temper, fenfe, and carriage.
Learning, his charming wife to please,
Affum'd her elegance and ease ;
And Wit, to humour Truth agreed

To pause, to doubt, reflect, and read.
In short, they led delicious lives,
Belov'd, and honour'd by their wives;
And, happy in their nuptial duties,
Each had a progeny of beauties,
Matchlefs in feature, form, and parts,
Distinguish'd by the name of Arts.

And gravely fat in due decorum
With a fine gilded mace before him.
Upon the table were display'd
A British knife without a blade,
A comb of Anglo-Saxon seal,
A patent with king Alfred's feal,
Two rufted mutilated prongs,
Suppos'd to be St. Dunstan's tongs,
With which he, as the ftory goes,
Once took the devil by the nose.

Awhile they talk'd of ancient modes,
Of manufcripts, and Gothic codes,
Of Roman altars, camps, and urns,
Of Caledonian fhields, and churns:
Whether the druid flipt or broke
The mifletoe upon the oak;
If Hector's fpear was made of afh?
Or Agamemnon wore a fath?
If Cleopatra drefs'd in blue,
And wore her treffes in a queue?

At length a dean who understood
All that had pafs'd before the Flood,
And could in half a minute fhew ye
A pedigree as high as Noah,
Got up, and with a folemn air
(First humbly bowing to the chair)
"If aught, fays he, deferves a name
Immortal as the roll of fame,
This venerable group of fages

L

WHO LIVED ONLY TWO DAYS.

ET vulgar fouls endure the body's chain, Till life's dull current ebbs in ev'ry vein, Dream out a tedious age ere, wide display'd, Death's blackest pinion wraps them in the fhade.

Thefe happy infants, early taught to shun All that the world admires beneath the fun, Scorn'd the weak bands mortality could tie, And fled impatient to their native sky.

Dear precious babes!-Alas! when, fondly wild,
A mother's heart hung melting o'er her child,
When my charm'd eye a flood of joy exprefs'd,
And all the father kindled in my breast,
A fudden palenefs feiz'd each guiltless face,
And death, tho' fmiling, crept o'er ev'ry grace,
Nature! be calm-heave not th' impaffion'd figh,

Nor teach one tear to tmble in my eye.
A few unfpotted moments pafs'd between
Their dawn of being, and their closing scene:
And fure no nobler bleffing can be giv'n,
When one short anguish is the price of heav'n.

THE

And wear an amaranthine crown
When kings and empires are unknown.
Perhaps e'en I, whose humbler knowledge
Ranks me the loweft of your college,
May catch from your meridian day
At least a tranfitory ray:

For I, like you, thro' ev'ry clime,
Have trac'd the step of hoary Time,
And gather'd up his facred fpoils
With more than half a century's toils.
Whatever virtus, deed, or name,
Antiquity has left to fame,

In every age, and every zone,
In copper, marble, wood, or ftone,
In vafes, flow'r-pots, lamps, and fconces,
Thefe eyes have read thro? many a cruit
Intaglios, cameos, gems, and bronzes,
Of lacker, varnish, greafe, and duft;
And now, as glory fondly draws
My foul to win your just applause,
I here exhibit to your view
A medal fairly worth Peru,
Found, as tradition says, at Rome,
Near the Quirinal Catacomb."

He faid, and from a purse of satin,
Wrapp'd in a leaf of monkish Latin,
And taught by many a clasp to join,
Drew out a dirty copper coin.

A TAL E.

OME Antiquarians, grave, and loyal,

SOME a

Laft winter, on a Thurfday night, were
Met in full fenate at the Mitre.
The prefident, like Mr. Mayor,
Majeftic took the elbow chair,

On heav'n and earth a deep repose,
Loft in a trance too big to speak,
The Synod ey'd the fine antique ;
Examin'd ev'ry point, and part,
With all the critic fkill of art;
Rung it alternate on the ground
In hopes to know it by the found;
Applied the tongue's acuter fenfe
To tafte its genuine excellence,

And with an animated guft
Lick'd up the confecrated ruft :
Nor yet content with what the eye
By its own fun-beams cou'd defcry,
To ev'ry corner of the brafs
They clapp'd a microscopic glafs;
And view'd in raptures o'er and o'er
The ruins of the learned ore.

Pythagoras, the learned fage,
As you may read in Pliny's page,

With much of thought, and pains, and care,
Found the proportions of a fquare,
Which threw him in fuch frantic fits
As almost robb'd him of his wits,

And made him, awful as his name was,
Run naked thro' the ftreets of Samos.
With the fame fpirits doctor Romans,
A keen civilian of the Commons,
Fond as Pythagoras to claim
The wreath of literary fame,
Sprung in a phrenzy from his place
Across the table and the mace,
And fwore by Varro's fhade that he
Conceiv'd the medal to a T.

"It rings, fays he, fo pure, and chaste,
And has fo claffical a tafte,

That we may fix its native home
Securely in imperial Rome.

That rafcal, Time, whose hand purloins
From science half her kings and coins,
Has eat, you fee, one half the tale,
And hid the other in a veil :

But if, thro' cankers, ruft, and fetters,
Mishapen forms, and broken letters,
The critic's eye may dare to trace
An evanefcent name, and face,
This injur'd medal will appear,

As mid-day funshine, bright and clear.
The female figure on a throne
Of ruftic work in Tibur' ftone,
Without a fandal, zone, or boddice,
Is Liberty's immortal goddess;
Whofe facred fingers seem to hold
A taper wand perhaps of gold:
Which has, if I mistake not, on it
The Pileus, or Roman bonnet :
By this the medalist would mean
To paint that fine domestic scene,
When the first Brutus nobly gave
His freedom to the worthy flave,'

When a fpectator 'as got the jaundice,
Each object, or by fea, or land, is
Difcolour'd by a yellow hue,
Tho' naturally red, or blue.

This was the cafe with squire Thynne,
A barrister of Lincoln's Inn,
Who never lov'd to think or speak
Of any thing but ancient Greek.
In all difputes his facred guide was
The very venerable Suidas;
And tho' he never deign'd to look
In Salkeld, Littleton, or Coke,
And liv'd a ftranger to the fees
And practice of the Common-Pleas ;

He ftudied with fuch warmth, and awe,

The volumes of Athenian law,

Thar Solon's felf not better knew
The legislative plan he drew ;

VOL. VII

Nor cou'd Demofthenes withstand
The rhet'ric of his wig, and band;
When, full of zeal, and Ariftotle,
And flufter'd by a fecond bottle,
He taught his orator to speak
His periods in correcter Greek.
"Methinks, quoth he, this little piece
Is certainly a child of Greece:
rugo has a tinge of blue
Exactly of the Attic hue;
And if the tafte's acuter feel
May judge of medals as of veal,

Th'

I'll take my oath the mould and ruft
Are made of Attic dew and duft.
Critics may talk, and rave, and foam,
Of Brutus and imperial Rome;
But Rome, in all her pomp and blifs,
Ne'er ftruck fo fine a coin as this.
Befides, tho' Time, as is his way,
Has eat th' infcription quite away,
My eye can trace divinely true,
In this dark curve a little Mu:
And here, you fee, there feems to lie
The ruins of a Doric Xi.

Perhaps, as Athens thought, and writ
With all the pow'rs of style, and wit,
The nymph upon a couch of mallows
Was meant to represent a Palias;
And the baton upon the ore

Is but the olive-branch fhe bore."

He faid-but Swinton full of fire,
Afferted that it came from Tyre:
A most divine antique he thought it,
And with an empire wou'd have bought it..
He swore the head in full profile was
Undoubtedly the head of Belus;
And the reverse, tho' hid in fhade,
Appear'd a young Sidonian maid,
Whofe treffes, bufkins, shape, and mien,
Mark'd her for Dido at fixteen;
Perhaps the very year when she was
First married to the rich Sichæus,
The rod, as he cou'd make it clear,
Was nothing but a hunting-spear,
Which all the Tyrian ladies bore,

To guard them when they chac'd the boar.
A learned friend, he could con fide on,
Who liv'd full thirty years at Sidon,
Once fhew'd him, 'midft the feals and rings
Of more than thirty Syrian kings,

A copper piece, in shape, and fize,
Exactly that before their eyes,
On which, in high relief, was feen
The image of a Tyrian queen;
Which made him think this other dame
A true Phoenician, and the fame.

The next, a critic, grave, and big,
Hid in a moft enormous wig,

Who in his manner, mien, and shape was
A genuine fon of Efculapius,

Wonder'd that men of fuch difcerning
In all the abftrufer parts of learning,
Cou'd err, thro' want of wit, or grace,

So ftrangely in fo plain a cafe.

"It came, fays he, or I will be whipt, From Memphis in the Lower Egypt. Soon as the Nile's prolific flood

Has fill'd the plains with flime and mud,

K