The twinkling stars began to muster,
And glitter with their borrow'd lustre,
While sleep the wearied world reliev'd
By counterfeiting death reviv❜d.

Thus he could describe the evening. Morning finds him in the usual mood:

The sun had long since, in the lap
Of Thetis, taken out his nap.
And, like a lobster boil'd, the morn
From black to red began to turn.

In this meagre sketch, we have omitted to mention the author's smaller poems. They generally consist of parodies, or original drollery; and are such as the assiduity of his editors alone has rendered public.

HUDIBRAS.

IN THREE PARTS.

TO THE READER.

POETA nascitur, non fit, is a sentence of as great truth as antiquity; it being most certain that all the acquired learning imaginable is insufficient to complete a poet, without a natural genius and propensity to so noble and sublime an art. And we may, without offence, observe, that many very learned men, who have been ambitious to be thought poets, have only rendered themselves obnoxious to that satirical inspiration our author wittily invokes;

Which made them, though it were in spite
Of Nature and their stars, to write.

On the other side, some who have had very little human learning, but were endued with a large share of natural wit and parts, have become the most celebrated poets of the age they lived in. But as these last are rare aves in terris; so when the Muses have not disdained the assistances of other arts and sciences, we are then blessed with those lasting monuments of wit and learning which may justly claim a kind of eternity upon earth: and our au

thor, had his modesty permitted him, might, with Horace, have said,

Exegi monumentum ære perennius ;

or with Ovid,

Jamque opus exegi, quod nec Jovis ira nec ignis,
Nec poterit ferrum, nec edax abolere vetustas.

The author of this celebrated Poem was of this last composition; for although he had not the happiness of an academical education, as some affirm, it may be perceived, throughout his whole Poem, that he had read much, and was very well accomplished in the most useful parts of human learning.

Rapin, in his Reflections, speaking of the necessary qualities belonging to a poet, tells us, 'He must have a genius extraordinary: great natural gifts; a wit just, fruitful, piercing, solid, and universal; an understanding clear and distinct; an imagination neat and pleasant; an elevation of soul that depends not only on art or study, but is purely a gift of Heaven, which must be sustained by a lively sense and vivacity; judgment to consider wisely of things, and vivacity for the beautiful expression of them;' &c.

Now, how justly this character is due to our author, I leave to the impartial reader, and those of nicer judgments, who had the happiness to be more intimately acquainted with him.