List'ning delighted to the jest unclean

Of linkboys vile, and watermen obscene; 100 Where as he fish'd her nether realms for wit,

She oft had favour'd him, and favours yet.
Renew'd by ordure's sympathetic force,
As oil'd with magic juices for the course,
Vig'rous he rises; from th' effluvia strong;
Imbibes new life, and scours and stinks
along;

Repasses Lintot, vindicates the race,
Nor heeds the brown dishonours of his face.
And now the victor stretch'd his eager
hand

Where the tall Nothing stood, or seem'd to stand;

A shapeless shade, it melted from his sight,

Like forms in clouds, or visions of the night.

In Tot'nam Fields the brethren, with amaze, Prick all their ears up, and forget to graze! Long Chancery Lane retentive rolls the sound,

And courts to courts return it round and round;

Thames wafts it thence to Rufus' roaring hall,

And Hungerford reëchoes bawl for bawl. All hail him victor in both gifts of song, Who sings so loudly, and who sings so long. This labour past, by Bridewell all descend

(As morning prayer and flagellation end) 270 To where Fleet Ditch, with disemboguing streams,

Rolls the large tribute of dead dogs to Thames;

The king of dykes! than whom no sluice of mud

With deeper sable blots the silver flood. Here strip, my children! here at once

leap in;

Here prove who best can dash thro' thick and thin,

And who the most in love of dirt excel,
Or dark dexterity of groping well:
Who flings most filth, and wide poliutes

around

Then [Hill] essay'd; scarce vanish'd out of sight,

He buoys up instant, and returns to light; He bears no tokens of the sabler streams, And mounts far off among the swans of Thames.

True to the bottom, see Concanen creep, A cold, long-winded native of the deep; 300 If perseverance gain the diver's prize, Not everlasting Blackmore this denies: No noise, no stir, no motion canst thou make;

Th' unconscious stream sleeps o'er thee like a lake.

Next plunged a feeble, but a desp'rate pack,

With each a sickly brother at his back: Sons of a Day! just buoyant on the flood, Then number'd with the puppies in the mud.

Ask ye their names? I could as soon disclose

The names of these blind puppies as of those.

310

Which most conduce to soothe the soul in

slumbers,

My Henley's periods, or my Blackmore's numbers;

Attend the trial we propose to make:

370

If there be man who o'er such works can wake,

Sleep's all subduing charms who dares defy, And boasts Ulysses' ear with Argus' eye; To him we grant our amplest powers to sit Judge of all present, past, and future wit; To cavil, censure, dictate, right or wrong, Full and eternal privilege of tongue.'

Three college Sophs, and three pert Templars came,

The same their talents, and their tastes the same! 380

Each prompt to query, answer, and debate, And smit with love of Poesy and Prate. The pond'rous books two gentle readers

Norton, from Daniel and Ostræa sprung, Bless'd with his father's front and mother's tongue,

Hung silent down his never-blushing head, And all was hush'd, as Folly's self lay dead.

Thus the soft gifts of sleep conclude the

day,

After the other persons are disposed in their proper places of rest, the Goddess transports the King to her Temple, and there lays him to slumber with his head on her lap; a posi tion of marvellous virtue, which causes all the visions of wild enthusiasts, projectors, politicians, inamoratos, castle-builders, chymists, and poets. He is immediately carried on the wings of Fancy, and led by mad poetical Sibyl, to the Elysian shade; where, on the banks of Lethe, the souls of the dull are dipped by Bavius, before their entrance into this world. There he is met by the ghost of Settle, and by him