So would I bridle thy eccentric soul,
In Reason's sober orbit bid it roll;
Spite of thyself would make thy rancour cease,
Preserve thy present fame and future peace,
And teach thy Muse no vulgar place to find,
In the full moral chorus of mankind."
In 1774 he collected his plays and poems, and published them in two volumes. His advertisement to the edition is as follows: "Most of the pieces contained in these volumes have already had their fate with the public; and would probably never have been collected in the manner in which they now appear, if the author had not imagined that his character as Laureate obliged him in some measure to revise and correct them. If in their present state they have any degree of real merit belonging to them, they will support themselves. If they are so unfortunate as to want it, they will naturally sink into the oblivion they deserve." This prophecy has well-nigh been fulfilled. English poetry abounds in so much that is good, that what is second-rate, is little likely to be read; but in most ages contemporary verse is read and praised which is very inferior to some laid on the shelf belonging to years gone by. Those who find time to read some of the meagre and mediocre verse of the day, would find more pathos and beauty in the dramas, and more good sense in the didactic poems of Whitehead, than they at present suppose.
In 1776 he published a story in octosyllables, called "Variety," a tale for married people, quoted by Campbell in his specimen of British poets. It is very nicely told. There is a song by him for Ranelagh, of which the first and the last stanzas are so applicable to modern Bloomerism that it must be quoted.
"Ye belles and ye flirts, and ye pert little things,
Who trip in this frolicksome round,
Pray tell me from whence this impertinence springs,
The sexes at once to confound?
