We'll think of all the friends we know,
And drink to all worth drinking to;
When, having drunk all thine and mine,
We rather shall want healths than wine.
But where friends fail us, we'll supply
Our friendships with our charity;
Men that remote in sorrows live
Shall by our lusty brimmers thrive.
We'll drink the wanting into wealth,
And those that languish into health,
Th' afflicted into joy, th' opprest
Into security and rest.
The worthy in disgrace shall find
Favour return again more kind,
And in restraint who stifled lie
Shall taste the air of liberty.
The brave shall triumph in success,
The lovers shall have mistresses,
Poor unregarded virtue, praise,
And the neglected poet, bays.
Thus shall our healths do others good,
Whilst we ourselves do all we would;
For, freed from envy and from care,
What would we be but what we are?
_Preface to the editions of Mr. W.'s Poems, in_
1815 and 1820.--ED.]
_November_ 1. 1833.
HOMERIC HEROES IN SHAKSPEARE.--DRYDEN.--DR. JOHNSON.--SCOTT'S NOVELS.--
SCOPE OF CHRISTIANITY.
Compare Nestor, Ajax, Achilles, &c. in the Troilus and Cressida of
Shakspeare with their namesakes in the Iliad. The old heroes seem all to
have been at school ever since.
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