By this Letter (the room of which, for your sake I could willingly have supply’d) you will plainly see, that no Place, however remote, is able to secure you from the Zeal of a_ Friend, and the Vanity of a Poet.

  For tho’ retiring to the Western Isles,
  At the long Distance of five thousand Miles,
  You’ve chang’d dear London for your Native Seat,
  And think Barbadoes is a safe Retreat;
  You highly err:  Nor is the Wat’ry Fence
  Sufficient Guard against Impertinence. 
  The Muse, which smiles on jingling Bards, like Me,
  Has always Winds to waft her o’er the Sea. 
  Blow on, ye Winds, and o’er th’ Atlantick Main,
  Bear to my Gen’rous Friend this thankful Strain.

You see, Sir, I have not left off that rhyming Trick of Youth; but knowing You to be a Gentleman who loves Variety in every thing, I thought it would not be ungrateful if I checquer’d my Prose with a little Verse.

After this Preamble, it is presum’d, that one who lives on the Other side of the Globe, will expect by every Pacquet-boat to know what is done on This.  Since Your Departure, Affairs have had a surprizing Turn every where, and particularly in Italy; which Success of our Armies and Allies abroad, have given a manifest Proof of our wise Counsels at home.—­Parties still run between High and Low. I shall make no Remarks on either; thinking it always more prudent, as well as more safe, to live peaceably under the Government in which I was born, rather than peevishly to quarrel with it.

But You will cry, Who expects any thing from the Politicks of a Poet?  How goes the State of Parnassus?  What has the Battle of Ramillies produc’d? What Battles generally do; bad Poets, and worse Criticks.  I could not perswade my self to attempt any thing above six Lines, which had not been made, were it not at the Request of a Musical Gentleman.  You will look upon them with the same Countenance you us’d to do on things of a larger Size.

  Born to surprize the World, and teach the Great
  The slippery Danger of exalted State,
  Victorious Marlbro to Ramilly flies;
  Arm’d with new Lightning from bright ANNA’s Eyes. 
  Wonders like These, no former Age has seen;
  Subjects are Heroes, where a Saint’s the QUEEN.

Mr. Congreve has given the World an Ode, and prefix’d to it a Discourse on the Pindaric Verse, of which more, when I come to speak on the same Argument:  There are several others on that Subject, and some which will bear the Test; one particularly, written in imitation of the Style of Spencer; and goes under the Name of Mr. Prior; I have not read it through, but ex pede Herculem. He is a Gentleman who cannot write ill.  Yet some of our Criticks have fell upon it, as the Viper