Where is the priestly soul of Catcott now?
See what a triumph sits upon his brow!

And can the poor applause of things like these,
Whose souls and sentiments are all disease,
Raise little triumphs in a man like you,
Catcott, the foremost of the judging few?
So at Llewellin's your great brother sits,
The laughter of his tributary wits,

Ruling the noisy multitude with ease,-
Empties his pint, and sputters his decrees.

Dec. 20th, 1769.

MR. CATCOTT will be pleased to observe that I admire many things in his learned Remarks. This poem is an innocent effort of poetical vengeance, as Mr. Catcott has done me the honour to criticise my trifles. I have taken great poetical liberties, and what I dislike in verse possibly deserves my approbation in the plain prose of Truth.-The many admirers of Mr. Catcott may, on perusal of this, rank me as an enemy: but I am indifferent in all things-I value neither the praise nor the censure of the multitude.

SINCE We can die but once, what matters it,
If rope or garter, poison, pistol, sword,
Slow-wasting sickness, or the sudden burst
Of valve arterial in the noble parts,
Curtail the miseries of human life?

Tho' varied is the cause, the effect's the same :
All to one common dissolution tends.*

THE DEFENCE.

Dec. 25th, 1769.

No more, dear Smith, the hacknied tale renew;

I own their censure, I approve it too.

For how can idiots, destitute of thought,
Conceive, or estimate, but as they're taught?

* Though it may not always be the effect of infidel principles, to plunge the person who becomes unfortunately infected with them into an immediate course of flagrant and shameless depravity, they seldom fail to unhinge the mind, and render it the sport of some passion unfriendly to our happiness and prosperity. One of their first effects in Chatterton was to render the idea of suicide familiar, and to dispose him to think lightly of the most sacred deposit with which man is entrusted by his Creator. It has been supposed that his violent death in London was the sudden and almost instant effect of extreme poverty and disappointment. It appears, however, that long before he left Bristol he had repeatedly intimated his intention of putting an end to his existence.-DR. GREGORY.

Say, can the satirizing pen of Shears,
Exalt his name, or mutilate his ears?
None but a Lawrence can adorn his lays,
Who in a quart of claret drinks his praise.
Taylor repeats what Catcott told before,
But lying Taylor is believ'd no more.
If in myself I think my notion just,
The Church and all her arguments are dust.

Religion's but Opinion's bastard son,

A perfect mystery, more than three in one.
'Tis fancy all, distempers of the mind;
As Education taught us, we're inclined.
Happy the man, whose reason bids him see
Mankind are by the state of nature free;
Who, thinking for himself, despises those
That would upon his better sense impose;
Is to himself the minister of God,

Nor dreads the path where Athanasius trod.
Happy (if mortals can be) is the man,

Who, not by priest but Reason, rules his span:
Reason, to its possessor a sure guide,
Reason, a thorn in Revelation's side.
If Reason fails, incapable to tread

Thro' gloomy Revelation's thick’ning bed,
On what authority the Church we own?
How shall we worship deities unknown?
Can the Eternal Justice pleas'd receive
The prayers of those who, ignorant, believe?

Search the thick multitudes of ev'ry sect,

The Church supreme, with Whitfield's new Elect; No individual can their God define,

No, not great Penny, in his nervous line.

But why must Chatterton selected sit

The butt of ev'ry critic's little wit?
Am I alone for ever in a crime,

Nonsense in prose, or blasphemy in rhyme?
All monosyllables a line appears?

Is it not very often so in Shears?

See gen'rous Eccas, length'ning out my praise,
Enraptur'd with the music of my lays;
In all the arts of panegyric graced,
The cream of modern literary taste.*

Why, to be sure, the metaphoric line
Has something sentimental, tender, fine;
But then how hobbling are the other two-
There are some beauties, but they're very few.
Besides the author, 'faith 'tis something odd,
Commends a reverential awe of God.
Read but another fancy of his brain,
He's atheistical in every strain.
Fallacious is the charge-'tis all a lie,
As to my reason I can testify.

I own a God, immortal, boundless, wise,
Who bid our glories of Creation rise;

These lines are an evident imitation of Pope, even to the cadence

of the verse.-DR. GREGORY.

Who form'd his varied likeness in mankind,
Cent'ring his many wonders in the mind;
Who saw religion, a fantastic night,
But gave us reason to obtain the light.
Indulgent Whitfield scruples not to say,
He only can direct to Heaven's high-way;
While bishops, with as much vehemence tell,
All sects heterodox are food for hell.

Why then, dear Smith, since doctors disagree,
Their notions are not oracles to me :
What I think right I ever will pursue,
And leave you liberty to do so too.†

• 'Sorts' is written under 'sects'; both in the author's hand-writing, and uncancelled.

+ Setting aside the opinions of those uncharitable biographers whose imaginations have conducted Chatterton to the gibbet, it may be owned that his unformed character exhibited strong and conflicting elements of good and evil. Even the momentary project of the infidel boy to become a methodist preacher, betrays an obliquity of design, and a contempt of human credulity, that is not very amiable. But had he been spared, his pride and ambition would have come to flow in proper channels; his understanding would have taught him the practical value of truth and the dignity of virtue, and he would have despised artifice when he had felt the strength and security of wisdom.CAMPBELL.