"
In another instance we find him "changing his hand" with equal
facility and suddenness. The original manuscript of the Satire
contained this line,--
"I leave topography to coxcomb Gell;"
but having, while the work was printing, become acquainted with Sir
William Gell, he, without difficulty, by the change of a single
epithet, converted satire into eulogy, and the line now descends to
posterity thus:--
"I leave topography to _classic_ Gell."[101]
Among the passages added to the poem during its progress through the
press were those lines denouncing the licentiousness of the Opera.
"Then let Ausonia," &c. which the young satirist wrote one night,
after returning, brimful of morality, from the Opera, and sent them
early next morning to Mr. Dallas for insertion. The just and animated
tribute to Mr. Crabbe was also among the after-thoughts with which his
poem was adorned; nor can we doubt that both this, and the equally
merited eulogy on Mr. Rogers, were the disinterested and deliberate
result of the young poet's judgment, as he had never at that period
seen either of these distinguished persons, and the opinion he then
expressed of their genius remained unchanged through life. With the
author of the Pleasures of Memory he afterwards became intimate, but
with him, whom he had so well designated as "Nature's sternest
painter, yet the best," he was never lucky enough to form any
acquaintance;--though, as my venerated friend and neighbour, Mr.
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