[Sent by the author to Mr. Urry.]
Opusculum hoc, Halberdarie amplissime, in lucem proferre hactenus distuli, judicii tui acumen subveritus magis quam bipennis. Tandem aliquando oden hanc ad te mitto sublimem, teneram, flebilem, suavem, qualem demum divinus (si musis vacaret) scripsisset Gastrellus: adeo scilicet sublimem ut inter legendum dormire, adeo flebilem ut ridere velis. Cujus elegantiam ut melius inspicias, versuum ordinem et materiam breviter referam. 1mus versus de duobus praeliis decantatis. 2dus et 3us de Lotharingio, cuniculis subterraneis, saxis, ponto, hostibus, et Asia. 4tus et 5tus de catenis, sudibus, uncis, draconibus, tigribus et crocodilis. 6us, 7us, 8us, 9us de Gomorrha, de Babylone, Babele, et quodam domi suae peregrine. 10us, aliquid de quodam Pocockio. 11us, 12us, de Syria, Solyma. 13us, 14us, de Hosea, et quercu, et de juvene quodam valde sene. 15us, 16us, de Aetna, et quomodo Aetna Pocockio sit valde similis. 17us, 18us, de tuba, astro, umbra, flammis, rotis, Pocockio non neglecto. Caetera, de Christianis, Ottomanis, Babyloniis, Arabibus, et gravissima agrorum melancholia; de Caesare, Flacco[131], Nestore, et miserando juvenis cujusdam florentissimi fato, anno aetatis suae centesimo praemature abrepti. Quae omnia cum accurate expenderis, necesse est ut oden hanc meam admiranda plane varietate constare fatearis. Subito ad Batavos proficiscor, lauro ab illis donandus. Prius vero Pembrochienses voco ad certamen poeticum. Vale.
Illustrissima tua deosculor crura.
E. SMITH.
[Footnote 125: Dr. Ralph Bathurst, whose Life and Literary Remains were published in 1761, by Mr. Thomas Warton. C.]
[Footnote 126: By his epitaph he appears to have been forty-two years old when he died. He was, consequently, born in the year 1668. R.
He was born in 1662, as appears from the register of matriculations among the archives of the university of Oxford.]
[Footnote 127: He was elected to Cambridge, 1688; but, as has been before stated, went to Oxford. J.B.]
[Footnote 128: Cowley on sir R. Wotton. L. B.]
[Footnote 129: See bishop Atterbury's Epistolary Correspondence, 1799, vol. iii. pp. 126, 133. In the same work, vol. i. p. 325, it appears that Smith was at one time suspected, by Atterbury, to have been the author of the Tale of a Tub. N. See Idler, No. 65.]