This day, Time winds th' exhausted chain; To run the twelvemonth's length again: I see, the old bald-pated fellow, With ardent eyes, complexion sallow, Adjust the unimpair'd machine, To wheel the equal, dull routine. The absent lover, minor heir, In vain assail him with their prayer; Deaf as my friend, he sees them press, Nor

How wisdom and Folly meet, mix, and unite, How Virtue and Vice blend their black and their white, How Genius, th' illustrious father of fiction, Confounds rule and law, reconciles contradiction, I sing: If these mortals, the critics, should bustle, I care not, not I-let the Critics go whistle! But now for a Patron whose

Shrewd Willie Smellie to Crochallan came; The old cock'd hat, the grey surtout the same; His bristling beard just rising in its might, 'Twas four long nights and days to shaving night: His uncomb'd grizzly locks, wild staring, thatch'd A head for thought profound and clear, unmatch'd; Yet tho' his caustic wit was biting-rude, His