Hail, Peter Pindar! true to Satire's laws, Nor fear the Critic's frown, nor court applause; Hail, Peter Pindar! thine the glorious task, To pluck from folly's face, fair friendship's mask. To vindicate old Johnson's murdered fame, Whilst gossip Boswell trembles at thy name; How do we laugh to hear the lisping Piozzi, Prattle alternate nothing with her Bozzi! Or, when in earlier times, thy lyric lays, With mingled irony, have scatter'd praise; O'er arts and artists, by the fostering wing, Of royal favor nursed, nor spared the king. How have we laughed — Gods, could a paltry louse, A monarch's soul to fiercest transport rouse! Yet, quit, my friend, this barren road of fools; Of flatt'ring coxcombs, and dependent tools; Ah, do not thus, thy vigorous thoughts confine, For nobler heights, sublimer flights be thine; Be thou — what Churchill was — with virtuous rage, Lash the bold vice of an abandoned age.— Indignant, rough, let Satire's torrent roll, Bear down the base, o'erwhelm the guilty soul: Enough of artists, kings, and little men, Heaven and thy country now demand thy pen. Temple, April 24.
