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138 that there is scarcely any coincidence found between the two performances, though upon the very same subject. The only instances are, in describing London as the sink of foreign worthlessness: 'the common shore, Where France does all her filth and ordure pour.'

'The common shore of Paris and of Rome.' . and, 'No calling or profession comes amiss, A needy monsieur can be what he please.'

'All sciences a fasting monsieur knows.'

The particulars which Oldham has collected, both as exhibiting the horrours of London, and of the times, contrasted with better days, are different from those of Johnson, and in general well chosen, and well exprest. There are, in Oldham’s imitation, many prosaick verses and bad rhymes, and his poem sets out with a strange inadvertent blunder: 'Tho' much concern'd to leave my dear old friend,

I must, however, his design commend

Of fixing in the country.' Rh