MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. AN EPISTLE, ADDRESSED TO SIR THOMAS HANMER, ON HIS EDITION OF SIR, WHILE, born to bring the Muse's happier days, While nursed by you she sees her myrtles bloom, Not with more grief the afflicted swains appear, Each rising art by just gradation moves, The Muse alone unequal dealt her rage, With kind concern our pitying eyes o'erflow, To Rome removed, with wit secure to please, As Arts expired, resistless Dulness rose; Goths, Priests, or Vandals, — all were Learning's foes. But Heaven, still various in its works, decreed Yet, ah! so bright her morning's opening ray, With pleased attention, 'midst his scenes we find The lover's wishes, and the virgin's fear. With gradual steps and slow, exacter France Till late Corneille, with Lucan's spirit fired, But wilder far the British laurel spread, |