_July 12, 1781._
My very dear Friend,--I am going to send, what, when you have read, you
may scratch your head, and say, I suppose there’s nobody knows, whether
what I have got, be verse or not; by the tune or the time, it ought to
be rhyme; but if it be, did you ever see, of late or of yore, such a
ditty before?
I have writ Charity, not for popularity, but as well as I could, in
hopes to do good; and if the reviewers should say “to be sure, the
gentleman’s muse wears Methodist shoes; you may know by her pace, and
talk about grace, that she and her bard, have little regard, for the
taste and fashions, and ruling passions, and hoidening play, of the
modern day: and though she assume a borrowed plume, and now and then
wear a tittering air, ’tis only her plan, to catch if she can, the giddy
and gay, as they go that way, by a production, on a new construction;
she has baited her trap, in hopes to snap, all that may come, with a
sugar plum.”--This opinion in this will not be amiss: ’tis what I
intend, my principal end; and if I succeed, and folks should read, till
a few are brought, to a serious thought, I should think I am paid for
all I have said, and all I have done, though I have run, many a time,
after a rhyme, as far from hence, to the end of my sense, and by hook or
crook, write another book, if I live and am here, another year.
I have heard before, of a room with a floor, laid upon springs, and such
like things, with so much art, in every part, that when you went in, you
was forced to begin a minuet pace, with an air and a grace, swimming
about, now in and now out, with a deal of state, in a figure of eight,
without pipe or string, or any such thing. And now I have writ, in a
rhyming fit, what will make you dance, and as you advance, will keep you
still, though against your will, dancing away, alert and gay, till you
come to an end of what I have penned; which that you may do, ere madam
and you are quite worn out, with jigging about, I take my leave, and
here you receive a bow profound, down to the ground, from your humble
me--