Since the cold Muses, heedless of my mood,

Deny me pow’r to sing my gratitude;

These limping lines, in grace and genius slight,

Must feebly hint the warmth I yearn to write!

KLEINER! whose gift, and greeting nobly penn’d,

Reveal the brilliant bard and gen’rous friend;

Whose taste and judgment so acutely find

The very book to suit a Georgian mind;

Condemn me not, if dull thanks I deliver,

Or poring o’er the gift, neglect the giver!

Happy the day that prompted you to dare

The dingy bookstall’s subterraneous air;

The shadowy cave, within whose depths are mass’d

The ling’ring relics of a lustrous past:

Where drowse the ancients, free from modern strife,

That crusty pedants fain would wake to life!

As kindly souls an orphan’d waif remove

From publick refuge to paternal love,

So have you now a lonely volume sent

Where, warmly welcom’d, it will find content:

Midst kindred tomes in new importance rest,

With studious care and constant reading blest.

What mem’ries haunt the retrospective brain

That views once more the bright Augustan train!

See peerless ADDISON, whose virtuous quill

Retin’d the town, and purg’d the times of ill.

Whilst clumsy Puritans, with heavy rage,

But injur’d when they meant to help the age,

Our bland SPECTATOR ply’d a lighter art,

And with his humour cleans’d the gen’ral heart.

Vice thrives on preaching; feeds on melancholy—

He who would cure, must laugh it off as folly!

Turn now to Gay, whose sprightly thoughts embrace

A fund of fancy and a world of grace;

In whom simplicity and art, combin’d,

Shap’d the bright virtues of an active mind.

With him we tread the town, or roam the lawn;

Or are with beasts in fabled converse drawn;

At Lincoln’s Inn Fields clap his tuneful play

Till Nicolini flings his mask away.

The Dean we fear; the Guardian we approve;

Pope we admire—but simple Gay we love!

Attend, ye rural groves, and hear the praise

Of honest Somerville’s Arcadian lays.

Scorn not his theme, nor slight his rustic fires,

But hail the laureate of our country ’squires:

Honour to them, whose deeds our pride provoke;

Who form Britannia’s dauntless heart of oak!

Thrice blessed books, whose fav’ring pow’r permits

Our stupid age to scan the ancient wits;

From crystal springs a purer nectar draw,

And led by sages, learn each time-try’d law;

Keep from the past a few remaining gleams

Of Will’s and Button’s Heliconian beams,

Nor sink too deeply in the quicksand snares

Of modern manners and affected airs!

KLEINER, to your kind thoughtfulness I owe

This bright addition to the genial glow;

This golden guide to pastures rare and new,

Where classick beauties greet the grateful view.

Can I my pen with decent ardour lift

To sing in fitting strains so choice a gift?

Pleasure more keen one thing could bring alone—

A new-imprinted book of Kleiner’s own!