Such Roman eloquence adorns your lines,
That sure the Sibyl’s books this year foretold,
And in some mystic leaf was found inroll’d,
Rome, turn thy mournful eyes from Afric’s shore,
Nor in her sands thy Cato’s tomb explore!
When thrice six hundred times the circling sun
His annual race shall through the zodiac run,
An isle remote his monument shall rear,
And every generous Briton pay a tear.”
Or take the following by William Pattison, “To Mr. John Saunders, occasioned by a sight of some of his paintings at Cambridge.” It would be difficult to imagine a more incongruous bracketing of names than that in the sixth line. The italics are my own: