"Now, fir'd by Pope and Virtue, leave the age,
In low pursuit of self-undoing wrong,
And trace the author thro' his moral page,
Whose blameless life still answers to his song."
Mr. Thomson,
In his elegant and philosophical poem of the Seasons:
"Altho' not sweeter his own Homer sings,
Yet is his life the more endearing song."
To the same tune also singeth that learned clerk of Suffolk
"[1]Thus, nobly rising in fair Virtue's cause,
From thy own life transcribe th' unerring laws."
And, to close all, hear the reverend Dean of St. Patrick's:
"A Soul with ev'ry virtue fraught,
By Patriots, Priests, and Poets taught.
Whose filial Piety excells
Whatever Grecian story tells.
A genius for each bus'ness fit,
Whose meanest talent is his Wit," &c.
Let us now recreate thee by turning to the other side, and shewing his Character drawn by those with whom he never conversed, and whose countenances he could not know, though turned against him: First again commencing with the high voiced and never enough quoted
Who, in his Reflections on the Essay on Criticism, thus describeth him: "A little affected hypocrite, who has nothing in his mouth but candour, truth, friendship, good-nature, humanity, and magnanimity. He is so great a lover of falshood, that, whenever he has a mind to calumniate his cotemporaries, he brands them with some defect which is just contrary to some good quality, for which all their friends and their acquaintance commend them. He seems to have a particular pique to People of Quality, and authors of that rank.—He must derive his religion from St. Omer's."—But in the Character of Mr. P. and his writings (printed by S. Popping, 1716.) he saith, "Though he is a professor of the worst religion, yet he laughs at it;" but that "nevertheless, he is a virulent Papist; and yet a Pillar for the Church of England."
- ↑ In his Poems, and at the end of the Odyssey.
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