BY JOSIAH BURCHET, ESQ .

Well fare thee, Allan, who in mother tongue
So sweetly hath of breathless Addie sung:
His endless fame thy nat'ral genius fir'd,
And thou hast written as if he inspir'd.
Richy and Sandy, who do him survive,
Long as thy rural stanzas last, shall live;
The grateful swains thou 'st made, in tuneful verse,
Mourn sadly o'er their late, lost patron's hearse.
Nor would the Mantuan bard, if living, blame
Thy pious zeal, or think thou 'st hurt his fame,
Since Addison's inimitable lays
Give him an equal title to the bays.
When he of armies sang in lofty strains,
It seem'd as if he in the hostile plains
Had present been; his pen hath to the life
Trac'd every action in the sanguine strife.
In council now sedate the chief appears,
Then loudly thunders in Bavarian ears;
And still pursuing the destructive theme,
He pushes them into the rapid stream:
Thus beaten out of Blenheim's neighb'ring fields,
The Gallic gen'ral to the victor yields,
Who, as Britannia's Virgil hath observ'd,
From threaten'd fate all Europe then preserv'd.

 Nor dost thou, Ramsay, sightless Milton wrong,
By ought contain'd in thy melodious song;
For none but Addie could his thoughts sublime
So well unriddle, or his mystic rhyme.
And when he deign'd to let his fancy rove
Where sun-burnt shepherds to the nymphs make love,
No one e'er told in softer notes the tales
Of rural pleasures in the spangled vales.

 So much, O Allan! I thy lines revere,
Such veneration to his mem'ry bear,
That I no longer could my thanks refrain
For what thou 'st sung of the lamented swain.