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And hurl their pois'nous darts at Garrick's name ;
And while they talk of Truth, of Candour rave,
Insult the dead, and violate the grave.
In Magazines vile anecdotes appear,
And deal out dirty scandal through the year;
For desp❜rate libellers, when duns assail,
Dare lawsuits, whips, the pill'ry, and the jail.
This Hewson Clarke can tell, misguided youth,
What demon lur'd him from the path of truth,
With low ambition fill'd his canker'd mind,

can pass through the most venerable pile of sacred architecture which our metropolis can boast, without having his best feelings insulted by observing within a few yards of the spot from which prayers and praises are daily offered to the Most High, the absurd and impious epitaph upon the tablet raised to one of the miserable retailers of his impurities! Our readers who are acquainted with London, will discover that it is the inscription upon David Garrick, in Westminster Abbey, to which we refer."

* "Now stop your noses, readers all, and some, For here's a tun of midnight work to come!"

The "pertinacious, and never-enough quoted" Mr. Hewson Clarke, according to his own statement, (for Mr. Clarke has favoured the public with his autobiography in the third number of the " Scourge," written, it would seem, by a third person, but in reality penned by himself;) is the author of numerous and successful writings, chiefly anonymous. But of what these numerous and successful writings consist, it were impossible to say, except I name

To entertain the basest of mankind?

O! may he late for all his sins atone,

And while he gains their ears, preserve his own!*

Behold yon gorgeous Sign that swings in air, (A well-known refuge for the sons of Care,) There meet a piebald race, who cautious creep From garrets high, or in night cellars sleep; The courtier bland, the opposition churl, To taste the sweets of politics and purl.

"

a lamentable production in rhyme, called "The art of Pleasing," and the principal part of the scurrility that has appeared in the Satirist, Scourge, and Theatrical Inquisitor. 'Every one of his (Mr. Clarke's) productions has been composed in haste, and sent to the press without revision; his sonnets have not been ushered into the world after undergoing the ordeal of private criticism, nor his Essays assisted in their circulation by the officiousness of honourable friends, and the puffs of dependant critics." Let Mr. Clarke remember that the trade of a libeller is a dangerous

one:

"What street, what lane, but knows His purgings, pumpings, blankettings, and blows?"

and take the advice of honest Stephano,-" While thou liv'st, keep a good tongue in thy head."

* Warburton says,

"Scribblers have not the common

sense of other vermin, who commonly abstain from mischief when they see any of their kind gibbeted, or nailed up as terrible examples."

There needy scribes, whose trade is to abusé,
Forge lies and scandal for the next day's news;
There Whig and Tory wrangle, blockheads twain,
And Vetus* drops th' abortions of his brain;
There sits Britannicus and heaves a groan
For England's debts, unmindful of his own;
There party-drudges for their party scrawl,
And baser hirelings who are slaves to all ;
There whines Morality, a canting monk,
There roars Reform, heroically drunk ;
Stern Patriotism tries new schemes to find
To serve his country, and to cheat mankind;
There the vile Quack invents his pois'nous pill,
By royal patent privileg'd to kill;

And there the Atheist's nightly thunders roll,
That to destroy the body, this the soul.

Hail, happy days! when all shall equal be, And man and master shall alike go free; This land, created by the Spencean charm, The people's birthright, and the nation's farm! When those who toil, and those who labor not, Blest intercourse! partake one common lot; When nature's nymphs enjoy true past'ral lives; Glad, teeming mothers all-though none are wives!

* A nonsensical Letter-writer in the "Times" newspaper, when Doctor Slop was Lord of the ascendant.

Bright era! that shall banish all our fears,
And chain down order for a thousand years!
Treason shall walk abroad with giant stride,
And murder prowl, with rapine by his side;
Curs'd infidelity, and deep despair,

And anarchy, dire fiend! shall revel there.
Down with yon sacred altars! useless blocks!
Detested relics! -e'en vindictive Knox*

Shall rise from hell's dark caves with furious joy, And breathe again his spirit to destroy.

Then ask no more—yet if a doubt remain, Why thus to Satire I devote my strain; With this reply be satisfied at once,

While Bowles + exists, can Satire want a Dunce? Bowles who hath cherish'd as a costly pearl,

* Doctor Johnson hearing the question asked where the cruel fanatic John Knox was buried, exclaimed, "I hope in a cross-road!"

+ It would be a work of no small labour and little profit, to wade through the various productions of the Rev. William Lisle Bowles. Odes, Epics, and Sonnets innumerable, "pass in long review." A poem called " Time's Holiday," affords a beautiful specimen of rural simplicity:

"Golden lads and lasses gay,

Now is life's sweet holiday;

Time shall lay by his scythe for you,

And joy the valley with fresh violets strew."

Next comes a description of Loutherbourg's scene in France,

The horse-play, dull obscenity of Curll;
Th' accumulated trash of Smedley's page,
For why?-to vent on Pope his puny rage.
Is it not hard, (my Friend) nay, doubly hard,
A sorry critic, and more sorry bard,
Whose jaded Pegasus, 'yclept divine,

Cries out for quarter at the fourteenth line,
Should for base lucre (Oh, how vilely won!)
Complete what Ralph and Dennis left undone ?
Thus urg'd, thus prompted by the warm desire
To vindicate the genius I admire ;

where Mr. Bowles, in making an attempt to be witty, is only profane :

"And sure none ever saw a landscape shine,
Basking in beams of such a sun as thine,
But felt a fervid dew upon his phiz,

And panting cried, "Oh Lord, how hot it is!" We have " skiey blue," "bluey fading hills," and "The Sylph of Summer, or Air," being part of a projected poem on the Elements. All this might be forgiven; but why take up his pen against Pope? what service could he render literature, by defaming one of its brightest ornaments?... But enough of Mr. Bowles. We may excuse a dunce "that little dares and little means;" but not one that dares much and means nothing.

Mr. Bowles has lately published a poem called "The Missionary," (Corpus sine pectore!) full of his usual affectation, and prettiness... We read of one John Taylor, the Water-Poet; Mr. Bowles may be christened the " 'sky-blue," or Milk and Water Poet.

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