Christopher Smart

“ Melpomene's selected friend.
55Perhaps our great Augustan Gray [6]
May grace me with a Doric lay;
With sweet, with manly words of woe,
That nervously pathetic flow,
What, Mason [7] , may I owe to you?
60 Learning's first pride, and nature's too ”

“ Shalt in a dunghill or a stye,
'Midst filth and vermin rot and die.
1754 Notes First published in The Gentleman's Magazine (Feb. 1754, pp. 89-90) . Reprinted 1791.
↑ 27. gasconading: extravagant boasting/ ↑ 43. William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield (1705-93) was renowned for his oratory based on intensive study of classical models. Murray's wife Elizabeth Finch was the sister of Smart's patron, Duchess of Cleveland. ↑ 47. [Note: Demosthenes.] ↑ 49. Athenian Akenside: Mark Akenside (1721-70) dedicated his poem The Pleasures of Imagination to the "Genius of ancient Greece". ”