But hold-The change is so inviting

I own, I tremble while I'm writing.

Yet, WHITEHEAD, 'tis too soon to lose you: Let critics flatter or abuse you,

O! teach us, ere you change the scene

To Stygian banks from Hippocrene,

How free-born bards should strike the strings,

And how a Briton write to kings.

But hold-The change is so inviting

I own, I tremble while I'm writing.
Yet, WHITEHEAD, 'tis too soon to lose you :
Let critics flatter or abuse you,

O! teach us, ere you change the scene
To Stygian banks from Hippocrene,

How free-born bards should strike the strings,
And how a Briton write to kings.

ΤΟ

MR. GARRICK,

By the Same.

ON old PARNASSUS, t'other day,
The Muses met to sing and play;
Apart from all the rest were seen
The tragic, and the comic Queen,
Engag'd, perhaps, in deep debate,
On RICH's, or on FLEETWOOD's fate.
When on a sudden, news was brought
That GARRICK had the patent got,
And both their ladyships again
Might now return to Drury-lane.

They bow'd, they simper'd, and agreed
They wish'd the project might succeed.
'Twas very possible, the case
Was likely too and had a face-
A face! THALIA titt'ring cry'd,
And could her joy no longer hide;
Why, sister, all the world must see
How much this makes for you and me :

No longer now shall we expose
Our unbought goods to empty rows,
Or meanly be oblig❜d to court
From foreign aid a weak support;
No more the poor polluted scene
Shall teem with births of Harlequin :
Or vindicated stage shall feel
The insults of the dancer's heel.
Such idle trash we'll kindly spare

To opera's now-they'll want them there;
For Sadler's-Wells, they say, this
year
Has quite undone their engineer.

Pugh, you're a wag, the buskin'd prude Reply'd, and smil'd; besides 'tis rude To laugh at foreigners, you know, And triumph o'er a vanquish'd foe: For my part, I shall be content If things succeed as they are meant ? And should not be displeas'd to find Some changes of the tragic kind. And say, THALIA, mayn't we hope The stage will take a larger scope? Shall he whose all-expressive powers

Can reach the heights that SHAKSPERE soars,
Descend to touch an humbler key,

And tickle ears with poetry;
Where every tear is taught to flow
Through many line's melodious woe,
And heart-felt pangs of deep distress