When Smollett and when Collins died, No Poetaster whin'd or cried; Mute all as Mackrel; O Disgrace To all the rhyming writing Race! Whereas when Goldsmith fell asleep, Ev'n Genius chang'd his Sex to weep.* This in the Scutcheon sure a Blotch Both of the English and the Scotch! —And yet in Nations civiliz'd, The Living, not the Dead, are priz'd; Tho' Huron, Catabaw, and Creek Lament the Scalp'd with horrid Shriek; Nay, the wild Irish still, 'tis said, Howl, like Barbarians, o'er their Dead.**
* See that insipid Mess of Flummery, entitled the TEARS OF GENIUS [by Samuel Jackson Pratt], in which, for the first Time, Genius is represented as an Old Woman.
** It is remarkable that all the Elegiasts and Epitaph-mongers on Dr. Goldsmith are of his own Country, Irishmen; not one English, Welch or Scotch Bard among them!
