If fashionable grown, and fond of pow'r
With  SCOTS let Them disport their hour;
Let Them dance, fairy like, round OSSIAN's tomb;
Let Them forge  and  for HUME;
Let Them with HOME, the very Prince of verse,
Make something like a Tragedy in ;
Under dark Allegory's flimsy veil
Let Them with OGILVIE spin out a tale
Of rueful length; Let Them plain things obscure,
Debase what's truly rich, and what is poor
Make poorer still by jargon most uncouth;
With ev'ry pert, prim Prettiness of Youth
Born of false Taste, with Fancy (like a Child
Not knowing what It cries for) running wild,
With bloated Stile, by Affectation taught,
With much false Colouring, and little Thought,
With Phrases strange, and Dialect decreed
By Reason never to have pass'd the
With Words, which Nature meant each other's foe,
Forc'd to compound whether they will or no,
With such materials, Let Them, if They will,
To prove at once their pleasantry and skill,
Build up a Bard to war 'gainst Common Sense,
By way of Compliment to Providence;
Let Them with ARMSTRONG, taking leave of Sense,
Read musty lectures on
Or conn the pages of his gaping
Where all his former Fame was thrown away,
Where all, but barren labour, was forgot,
And the vain stiffness of a  SCOT;
Let Them with ARMSTRONG pass the term of light,
But not one hour of darkness; when the Night
Suspends this mortal coil, when Mem'ry wakes,
When for our past misdoings Conscience takes
A deep revenge, when, by Reflexion led,
She draws his curtains, and looks comfort dead,
Let ev'ry Muse be gone; in vain He turns
And tries to pray for sleep; an Aetna burns,
A more than Aetna in his coward breast;
And Guilt, with vengeance arm'd, forbids him rest.
Tho' soft as Plumage from young Zephyr's wing,
His couch seems hard, and no relief can bring.
INGRATITUDE hath planted daggers there,
No Good Man can deserve, no brave Man bear.