For thee, O PASQUIN! whose satiric strain, (Replete with attic salt, and just disdain,) Strikes shame and terror to the guilty heart, And, daring Folly, wounds in ev'ry part: For thee the virgins of the choir divine, Th' immortal goddesses, the sacred nine, From Helicon's embow'ring heights repair, To bless thy labours, and attend thy pray'r; To thee, the scourge of Folly they entrust, As Juvenal severe, as Persius just. Astraeas friends, with joy, thy justice own, While Vice is tott'ring on her brilliant throne; The sons of Dulness sink beneath thy force, And Arrogance eludes thy dreadful course! Still more admir'd than CHURCHILL shalt thou be, A brighter fire than CHURCHILL'S glows in thee! Proceed, great bard, all meaner things disdain, And give a loose to thy satiric vein; Lash Error, Folly, Vice, reform the Stage, And blaze the Flaccus of the present age. Cambridge, Feb. 10, 1789.
