DEAR madam, with joy I read over your letter;
Your kindness still tends to confirm me your debtor;
But can't think of payment, the sum is so large,
Tho' farthings for guineas could buy my discharge.
But, madam, the Muses are fled far away,
They deem it disgrace with a milkmaid to stay.
Let them go if they will, I would scorn to pursue,
And can, without sighing, subscribe an adieu.
Their trifling mock visits, to many so dear,
Is the only disaster on earth I now fear.
Sure Sillar much better had banish'd them thence,
Than wrote in despite of good manners and sense:
With two or three more, whose pretentions to fame
Are slight as the bubble that bursts on the stream.
And lest with such dunces as these I be number'd,
The task I will drop, nor with verse be incumber'd;
Tho' pen, ink and paper, are by me in store,
O madam excuse, for I ne'er shall write more.