While the warm blood bedews my veins,
And unimpair'd remembrance reigns,
Resentment of my country's fate
Within my filial breast shall beat;
And spite of her insulting foe,
My sympathizing verse shall flow:
Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mourn
Thy banish'd peace, thy laurels torn!

His first separate publication was, Advice, a satire, in the autumn of
this year. At the beginning of the next it was followed by a second
part, called Reproof, in which he took an occasion of venting his
resentment against Rich, the manager of Covent Garden, with whom he had
quarrelled concerning an opera, written by him for that theatre, on the
story of Alcestis. In consequence of their dispute the piece was not
acted; nor did he take the poet's usual revenge by printing it.

The fallacious prospects of his wife's possessions now encouraged him to
settle himself in a better house, and to live with more hospitality than
his circumstances would allow him to maintain. These difficulties were
in some measure obviated by the sale of a new translation which he made
of Gil Bias, and still more by the success of Roderick Random, which
appeared in 1748. In none of his succeeding novels has he equalled the
liveliness, force, and nature of this his first essay. So just a picture
of a sea-faring life especially had never before met the public eye.
Many of our naval heroes may probably trace the preference which has
decided them in their choice of a profession to an early acquaintance
with the pages of Roderick Random. He has not, indeed, decorated his
scenes with any seductive colours; yet such is the charm of a highly
wrought description, that it often induces us to overlook what is