To Reynolds well pleas'd for relief we must run,
Rejoice in his shadow, and shrink from the sun.

VIII.

In this luminous portrait requiring no shade,
See Chambers' soft character sweetly display'd:
Oh! quickly return with that genuine smile,
Nor longer let India's temptations beguile,
But fly from a climate where moist relaxation
Invades with her torpor th' effeminate nation,
Where metals and marbles will melt and decay,
Fear, man, for thy virtue, and hasten away.

IX.

Here Garrick's lov'd features our mem'ry may trace, Here praise is exhausted, and blame has no place. Many portraits like this would defeat my whole scheme,

For what new can be said on so hackney'd a theme? 'Tis thus on old Ocean whole days one may look,

Every change well recorded in some well-known

book;

Till with vain expectation fatiguing our eyes,

Nor the storm nor the calm one new image supplies.

X.

See Thrale from intruders defending his door,

While he wishes his house would with people run o'er ;
Unlike his companions, the make of his mind,
In great things expanded, in small things confin'd.

Yet his purse at their call and his meat to their taste,
The wits he delighted in lov'd him at last;

And finding no prominent follies to fleer at,
Respected his wealth and applauded his merit : *
Much like that empirical chemist was he

Who thought Anima Mundi the grand panacea.
Yet when every kind element help'd his collection,
Fell sick while the med'cine was yet in projection.

XI.

Baretti hangs next, by his frowns you may know him,
He has lately been reading some new published poem;
He finds the poor author a blockhead, a beast,
A fool without sentiment, judgment, or taste.
Ever thus let our critic his insolence fling,
Like the hornet in Homer, impatient to sting.
Let him rally his friends for their frailties before 'em,
And scorn the dull praise of that dull thing, decorum:
While tenderness, temper, and truth he despises,
And only the triumph of victory prizes.

Yet let us be candid, and where shall we find
So active, so able, so ardent a mind?

To your children more soft, more polite with your servant,

More firm in distress, or in friendship more fervent.

* "I am at present in a tourbillon of conversations; but how came you to throw in the Thrales among the Reynoldses and the Beauclerks ? Mr. Thrale is a worthy sensible man, and has the wits much about his house, but he is not one himself. Perhaps you mean Mrs. Thrale."-Boswell to Temple, May 10th, 1775. This is not exactly the tone in which he distinguishes the couple in his book.

Thus Ætna enraged her artillery pours,
And tumbles down palaces, princes, and towers;
While the fortunate peasantry fix'd at its foot,
Can make it a hot-house to ripen their fruit.

XII.

See next, happy contrast! in Burney combine
Every power to please, every talent to shine.
In professional science a second to none,
In social if second, thro' shyness alone.
So sits the sweet violet close to the ground,
Whilst holy-oaks and sunflow'rs flant it around.
His character form'd free, confiding, and kind,
Grown cautious by habit, by station confin'd:
Tho' born to improve and enlighten our days,
In a supple facility fixes his praise:

And contented to sooth, unambitious to strike,
Has a faint praise from all men, from all men alike.
While thus the rich wines of Frontiniac impart
Their sweets to our palate, their warmth to our heart,
All in praise of a liquor so luscious agree,

From the monarch of France to the wild Cherokee.

XIII.

See Burke's bright intelligence beams from his face,
To his language gives splendour, his action gives grace;
Let us list to the learning that tongue can display,
Let it steal all reflection, all reason away;
Lest home to his house we the patriot pursue,
Where scenes of another sort rise to our view;

Where Av'rice usurps sage Economy's look,*
And Humour cracks jokes out of Ribaldry's book:
Till no longer in silence confession can lurk,
That from chaos and cobwebs could spring even Burke.
Thus, 'mong dirty companions conceal'd in the ground,
And unnotic'd by all, the proud metal was found,
Which, exalted by place, and by polish refined,
Could comfort, corrupt, and confound all mankind.

XIV.

Gigantic in knowledge, in virtue, in strength,
With Johnson our company closes at length:
So the Greeks from the cavern of Polypheme past,
When, wisest and greatest, Ulysses came last,
To his comrades contemptuous, we see him look down
On their wit and their worth with a general frown :
While from Science' proud tree the rich fruit he
receives,

Who could shake the whole trunk while they turn'd a few leaves.

Th' inflammable temper, the positive tongue,
Too conscious of right for endurance of wrong,
We suffer from Johnson, contented to find
That some notice we gain from so noble a mind;
And pardon our hurts, since so many have found
The balm of instruction pour'd into the wound.

* Till he got his pension, Burke was always poor; and the wonder is how he managed to make both ends meet at all.

'Tis thus for its virtues the chymists extol
Pure rectified spirit, sublime alcohol.
From noxious putrescence preservative pure,
A cordial in health, and in sickness a cure;
But oppos'd to the sun, taking fire at his rays,
Burns bright to the bottom, and ends in a blaze.