When will thou bring back wit and humour here?
the formal tribute is agreeable, but in this set of verses, while there is much that is complimentary, there is something perfunctory about the tributes he paid. He wrote of Pope and Swift and the rest as witty or humorous or generous or clever or learned or honest of mind: they wrote of the love they bore him. The two great literary giants took him under their wing, bore with his foibles, humoured him, championed him, and to the utmost of their power sought to protect their weaker brother of the pen from the rude buffetings of life.
Footnotes:
Swift: Works (ed. Scott), XVII, p. 498.
Swift: Works (ed. Scott), XVII, p. 502.