TO suppose that a Reformation can be effected, in the Political Principles of any set of men, by the pen of a Satirist, is as vain and ridiculous, as it would be to boast of commanding the English navy, and directing the motions of a K — g, by a couplet. If any thing comes peculiarly within the province of Ridicule, it is the vanity and. folly of such an attempt: and here the pen may be exercised with some success; for tho’ bad men are seldom to be ridiculed out of vices, which are founded in the Passions, — yet, bad Authors may be brought to see errors, which generally proceed from a disturbed Imagination; or, what is as good, tho’ they do not cease to write, they may cease to be read. I do not mean to infer, that the Hero of this Epistle is a bad writer; yet I do hope to convince him, that it were prudent in him, not to rely too much on his Muse’s fixt fame; nor, ‘till she “has nurs’d him up to man’s estate,” would I have him trust the vigour of her eagle wings, in flights, to which, I fear, she will prove unequal: Neither would I advise him, however warm’d with memory and public praise, to handle his energetic thunder in the great style which he proposes. This I hope to effect from his own conviction; for it is by no means improbable, that he may be brought to acknowledge some little trifling disqualifications for the char after he would assume when they are laid before him with temper; though it was very natural for him to overlook them during the fatigue of writing with such genuine carelessness, and the costive pains of producing such spontaneous-flowing rhymes. Or, if he be, indeed, the easy, genteel Writer he affects to be, he may, perhaps, be led to respect, that the genius which enables a man to fabricate an hundred lines, “stans pede in uno,” though wonderfully convenient to a polite Poet, is not always equal to the task of chastising a senate, stretching folks on racks, or converting them into garbage for hell-hounds. If he persists in the attempt, he must not expect, because his goddess of the song continues to write flying, that all ranks are bound to read running.
After all, if my familiar hints prove too weak and dull to make good my attack, there may, from their very failure, be drawn an argument again ft the careless and expeditious in Poetry; for my heroic Friend may be assured, that the Writer of this is as little addicted to spend time and trouble upon trifles as himself.