So that here I need only tell you, that this ill-starred, good-natur’d, improvident man returned to Dublin, unhinged from all favour at court, and even banished from the Castle:  But still he remained a punster, a quibbler, a fiddler, and a wit.  Not a day passed without a rebus, an anagram, or a madrigal.  His pen and his fiddle-stick were in continual motion; and yet to little or no purpose, if we may give credit to the following verses, which shall serve as the conclusion of his poetical character.’

  With music and poetry equally bless’d[1],
  A bard thus Apollo most humbly address’d,
  Great author of poetry, music, and light,
  Instructed by thee, I both fiddle and write: 

  Yet unheeded I scrape, or I scribble all day,
  My tunes are neglected, my verse flung away. 
  Thy substantive here, Vice Apollo [2] disdains,
  To vouch for my numbers, or list to my strains. 
  Thy manual sign he refuses to put
  To the airs I produce from the pen, or the gut: 
  Be thou then propitious, great Phoebus, and grant
  Belief, or reward to my merit, or want,
  Tho’ the Dean and Delany [3] transcendently shine,
  O! brighten one solo, or sonnet of mine,
  Make one work immortal, ’tis all I request;
  Apollo look’d pleas’d, and resolving to jest,
  Replied—­Honest friend, I’ve consider’d your case. 
  Nor dislike your unmeaning and innocent face. 
  Your petition I grant, the boon is not great,
  Your works shall continue, and here’s the receipt;
  On Roundo’s[4] hereafter, your fiddle-strings spend. 
  Write verses in circles, they never shall end.

Dr. Sheridan gained some reputation by his Prose-translation of Persius; to which he added a Collection of the best Notes of the Editors of this intricate Satyrist, who are in the best esteem; together with many judicious Notes of his own.  This work was printed in 12mo. for A. Millar, 1739.

One of the volumes of Swift’s Miscellanies consists almost entirely of Letters between the Dean and the Dr.

FOOTNOTES: 

[1] Not a first rate genius, or extraordinary proficient, in either.

[2] Dr. Swift.

[3] Now Dean of Downe.

[4] A Song, or peculiar kind of Poetry, which returns to the beginning
    of the first verse, and continues in a perpetual rotation.

* * * * *

The Revd.  Dr. JONATHAN SWIFT.

When the life of a person, whose wit and genius raised him to an eminence among writers of the first class, is written by one of uncommon abilities:—­One possess’d of the power (as Shakespear says) of looking quite thro’ the deeds of men; we are furnished with one of the highest entertainments a man can enjoy:—­Such an author also presents us with a true picture of human nature, which affords us the most ample instruction:—­He discerns