The Cobler of Cripplegate's Letter to Robert Lloyd, a. M

Unus'd to Verse, and tir'd Heav'n knows, Of drudging on in heavy Prose, Day after day, year after year, Which I have sent the Gazetteer; Now, for the first time, I essay To write in your own easy way. And now, O Lloyd, I wish I had To go that road, your ambling pad; While you, with all a Poet's pride, On the Great Horse of Verse might ride. You leave the road, that's rough and stony, To pace and whistle, with your Poney; Sad proof to us you're lazy grown, And fear to gall your huckle-bone. For he who rides a nag so small, Will soon we fear, ride none at all.

There are, and nought gives more offence, Who have some fav'rite excellence, Which evermore they introduce, And bring it into constant use. Thus Garrick still in ev'ry part Has Pause, and Attitude, and Start: The Pause, I will allow, is good, And so perhaps, the Attitude; The Starts too fine: but if not scarce, The Tragedy becomes a Farce.

I have too, pardon me, some quarrel, With other branches of your Laurel. I hate the style, that still defends Yourself, or praises all your friends, As if the club of wits was met To make eulogiums on the Set; Say must the town for ever hear, And no Reviewer deign to sneer, Of Thornton's Humour, Garrick's Nature, And Colman's Wit, and Churchill's Satire? Churchill who—let it not offend, If I make free, though he's your friend; And sure we cannot want excuse, When Churchill's nam'd, for Smart Abuse— Churchill! who ever loves to raise, On Slander's dung his mushroom bays: The Priest, I grant, has something clever, A something that will last for ever. Let him, in part, be made your pattern, Whose Muse, now queen, and now a slattern, Trick'd out in Rosciad rules the roast, Turns trapes and trollops in the Ghost, By turns, both tickles us, and warms, And drunk or sober, has her charms.

Garrick, to whom with lath and plaister, You try to raise a fine pilaster, And found on Lear and Macbeth, His monument e'en after death; Garrick's a Dealer in grimaces, A Haberdasher of wry faces, A Hypocrite, in all his stages, Who laughs and cries for hire and wages; As undertaker's men draw grief From onion in their handkerchief, Like real mourners cry and sob, And of their passions make a job.

And Colman too, that little sinner, That Essay-weaver, Drama-spinner, Too much the Comick Sock will use, For 'tis the Law must find him shoes. And though he thinks on Fame's wide ocean He swims, and has a pretty motion, Inform him, Lloyd, for all his grin, That Harry Fielding holds his chin.

Now higher soar, my Muse, and higher, To Bonnel Thornton, hight Esquire! The only man, to make us laugh, A very Peter Paragraph; The grand conductor, and adviser In Chonicle and Advertiser, Who still delights to run his rig On Citizen and Perriwig! Good sense, I know, though dash'd with oddity, In Thornton is no scarce commodity: Much learning too I can descry, Beneath his perriwig doth lie.— —I beg his pardon, I declare: His grizzle's gone for greasy hair, Which now the Wag with ease can screw With dirty ribband in a queue— But why neglect (his trade forsaking For scribbling and for merry-making,) With Tye to over-shade that brain, Which might have shone in Warwick-lane? Why not, with spectacles on nose, In chariot lazily repose, A formal, pompous, deep physician, Himself a Sign-Post Exhibition?

But hold, my Muse! you run a-head: And where's the clue that shall unthread The maze, wherein you are entangled? While out of tune the bells are jangled, Through rhyme's rough road that serve to deck My jaded Pegasus his neck.

My Muse with Lloyd alone contends: Why then fall foul upon his friends? Unless to shew, like Handy-dandy, Or Churchill's Ghost, or Tristram Shandy, Now here, now there, with quick progression, How smartly you can make digression: Your rambling spirit now confine, And speak to Lloyd in ev'ry line.

Tell me then, Lloyd, what is't you mean By cobbling up a Magazine? A Magazine, a wretched olio Purloin'd from quarto and from folio, From pamphlet, news-paper, and book, Which tost up by a monthly cook, Borrows fine shapes, and titles new, Of fricasee, and rich ragoût, Which Dunces dress as well as You.

Say, is't for You, your wit to coop, And tumble through this narrow hoop? The body thrives, and so the mind, When both are free and unconfin'd; But harness'd in, like hackney tit, To run the monthly stage of wit, The Racer stumbles in the shaft, And shews he was not meant for draft. Pot-bellied gluttons, slaves of taste, Who bind in leathern belt their waist, Who lick their lips at ham or haunch, But hate to see the strutting paunch, Full often rue the pain that's felt From circumscription of the belt: Thus women too we ideots call, Who lace their shapes too close and small. Tight stays, they find, oft end in humps, And take, too late, alas! to jumps. The Chinese ladies cramp their feet Which seem indeed both small and neat, While the dear creatures laugh and talk, And can do ev'ry thing—but walk; Thus you "who trip it as you go " On the light fantastic toe," And in the Ring are ever seen, Or Rotten-Row of Magazine, Will cramp your Muse in four-foot verse, And find at last your ease, your curse. Clio already humbly begs You'd give her leave to stretch her legs; For though sometimes she takes a leap, Yet on All Fours she can but creep.

While Namby-Pamby thus you scribble, Your manly turns are merely fribble, Pinn'd down, and sickly, cannot vapour, Nor dare to spring, or cut a caper.

Rouse then, for shame, your ancient spirit! Write a great work! a work of merit! The conduct of your Friend examine, And give a Prophecy of Famine; Or like Yourself in days of yore, Write Actors as you did before: Write what may pow'rful friends create you, And make your present friends all hate you. Learn not a shuffling, shambling, pace, But go erect with manly grace; For Ovid says, and pray thee heed it, Os homini sublime dedit. But if you still waste all your prime In spinning Lilliputian Rhyme, Too long your genius will lie fallow, And Robert Lloyd prove Robert Shallow.