Reviews A59 
Then come, my friend, and try your skill ; 
You may improve me, if you will, 
(My books are at a distance) : 
With you I’ll live and learn, and then 
Instead of books I shall read men, 
So lend me your assistance. 
Dear Knight of Plympton, teach me how 
To suffer with unclouded brow, 
And smile serene as thine, 
The jest uncouth, and truth severe, 
Like thee to turn my deafest ear, 
And calmly drink my wine. 
Thou say’st not only skill is gained, 
But genius, too, may be attain’d, 
By studious imitation ; 
Thy temper mild, thy genius fine, 
ll study till I make them mine 
By constant meditation. 
The art of pleasing teach me, Garrick, 
Thou who reversest odes Pindarick 
A second time read o’er ; 
O could we read thee backwards too, 
Last thirty years thou should’st review, 
And charm us thirty more. 
If I have thoughts I can’t express ’em, 
Gibbon shall teach me how to dress ’em 
In terms select and terse ; 
Jones, teach me modesty and Greek ; 
Smith, how to think ; Burke, how to speak, 
And Beauclerk, to converse. 
Let Johnson teach me how to place 
In fairest light each borrowed grace ; 
From him I'll learn to write ; 
Copy his free and easy style, 
And from the roughness of his pile © 
Grow, like himself, polite. 
In no species of versification are there so many pre- 
tenders as the Vers de Société. Every one that can rhyme 
fancies he can execute the work indifferently well, and that 
it can be performed with ease, and without effort. But 
this is a mistake. Wit and humour are not sufficient for 
the writing of Vers de Société; the accomplishment can be 
only acquired by the combination of those gifts with that 
of irony. The best of our poets have made a very small 
figure in this branch of versification. The writer of Vers 
