Part 1 — Pindar of Thebes to Tom. Durfey. By Mr. Brown.

HOWEVER it happen’d so, I can’t tell, but I could never get a sight of thy famous Pindaric upon the late queen Mary, ’till about a month ago. Most of the company would needs have me declare open war against thee that very minute, for prophaning my name with such execrable doggrel. Stensichorus rail’d at thee worse than the man of the Horseshoe-Tavern in Drury-lane; Alcæus, I believe, will hardly be his own man again this fortnight, so much concerned he is to find thee crowding thy self upon the Lyric poets; nay, Sappho the patient, laid about her like a fury, and call’d thee a thousand pimping stuttering ballad-fingers. As for me, far from taking any thing amiss at my hands, I am mightily pleased with the honour thou hast done me, and besides, must own thou hast been the cheapest, kindest physician to me I ever met with; for whenever my circumstances sit uneasy upon me, (and for thy comfort Tom, we poets have our plagues in this world, as well as we had in your’s) when my landlord persecutes me for rent, my sempstress for my linnen, my taylor for cloaths, or my vintner for a long pagan score behind the bar, I immediately read but half a dozen lines of thy admirable ode, and sleep as heartily as the monks in Rabelais, after singing a verse or two of the seven penitential psalms. All I am afraid of, is, that when the virtues of it are known, some body or other will be perpetually borrowing it of me, either to help him to a nap, or cure him of the spleen, for I find ’tis an excellent specifick for both; therefore I must desire thee to order trusty Sam. to send me as many of them as have escap’d the Pastry-cook, and I will remit him his money by the next opportunity. If Augustus Cæsar thought a Roman gentleman’s pillow worth the buying, who slept soundly every night amidst all his debts, can a man blame me for bestowing a few transitory pence upon thy poem, which is the best opiate in the universe? In short, friend Tom, I love and admire thee for the freedom thou hast taken with me; and this I will say in commendation, that thou hast in this respect done more than even Alexander the Great durst do. That mighty conqueror, upon the taking of Thebes, spared all of my family; nay, the very house I lived in: but thou, who hast a genius superior to him, hast not spared me, even in what I value most, my verification and good name, for which Apollo in due time reward thee.

Farewel.