received by you, but as they are likewise a Confirmation of my Arguments; for the Man who drew them is no very great Artist, but being a faithful Disciple of Nature, having delineated every Object in a Camera Obscura, he has not failed of gaining the uncontested Applause, which the Followers of that unerring Mistress will ever receive from Mankind.  My EUDOCIA calls me to administer with her Comfort to a little fatherless Family in the District of our Hamlet, therefore must conclude myself,

Your sincere Friend, &c.

LETTER

      TASTE: 

       AN

    EPISTLE

     TO A

  YOUNG CRITIC.

Range from Tower-hill all London to the Fleet,
Thence round the Temple, t’utmost Grosvenor-street: 
Take in your route both Gray’s and Lincoln’s Inn;
Miss not, be sure, my Lords and Gentlemen;
You’ll hardly raise, as I with[A] Petty guess,   }  5
Above twelve thousand men of taste; unless         }
In desperate times a Connoisseur may pass.       }

    “A Connoisseur!  What’s that?” ’Tis hard to say: 
  But you must oft amidst the fair and gay
  Have seen a wou’d-be rake, a fluttering fool, 10
  Who swears he loves the sex with all his soul. 
  Alas, vain youth! dost thou admire sweet Jones? 
  Thou be gallant without or blood or bones! 
  You’d split to hear th’ insipid coxcomb cry
  Ah charming Nanny! ’tis too much!  I die!—­ 15
  Die and be d—­n’d, says one; but let me tell ye
  I’ll pay the loss if ever rapture kill ye.

  [Footnote A:  Sir William Petty, author of the Political Arithmetic.]

    ’Tis easy learnt the art to talk by rote: 
  At Nando’s ’twill but cost you half a groat;
  The Redford school at three-pence is not dear, Sir;
  At White’s—­the stars instruct you for a tester. 21
  But he, whom nature never meant to share
  One spark of taste, will never catch it there:—­
  Nor no where else; howe’er the booby beau
  Grows great with Pope, and Horace, and Boileau.

    Good native Taste, tho’ rude, is seldom wrong,
  Be it in music, painting, or in song. 
  But this, as well as other faculties,
  Improves with age and ripens by degrees. 
  I know, my dear; ’tis needless to deny ’t, 30
  You like Voiture, you think him wondrous bright;
  But seven years hence, your relish more matur’d,
  What now delights will hardly be endur’d. 
  The boy may live to taste Racine’s fine charms,
  Whom Lee’s bald orb or Rowe’s dry rapture warms: 
  But he, enfranchis’d from his tutor’s care, 36
  Who places Butler near Cervantes’ chair;
  Or with Erasmus can admit to vie
  Brown of Squab-hall of merry memory;
  Will die a Goth:  and nod at [A]Woden’s feast, 40
  Th’ eternal winter long, on [B]Gregory’s breast.