The complete works, poetry and prose, of the Rev. Edward Young prefixed, a life of the author, by John Doran ... With eight illustrations on steel, and a portrait. In two volumes ::

II. [VOLUME II.]

IMPERIUM PELAGI.

A NAVAL LYRIC. WRITTEN IN IMITATION OF PINDAR'S SPIRIT.

OCCASIONED BY HIS MAJESTY'S RETURN, SEPTEMBER 10TH, 1729, AND THE SUCCEEDING PEACE.

Monte decurrens velut amnis, imbres
Quem super notas alvere ripas,
Fervet, immensusque ruit profundo.
—Pindarus.

Concines lætosque dies, et urbis
Publicum ludum, super impetrato
Fortis Augusti reditu.
—Horatii Carm. lib. iv. od. ii. 41.

MDCCXXIX.

THE MERCHANT.

ODE THE FIRST. ON THE BRITISH TRADE AND NAVIGATION.

TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF CHANDOS.

Πλατειαι παντοθεν λογιοι-
σιν εντι προσοδοι
νασον ευκλεα ταν-
δε κοσμειν.
—Pindari Nemea, od. vi. 75.

PRELUDE.

The proposition.—An address to the vessel that brought over the king.—Who should sing on this occasion.—A Pindaric boast.

1

Fast by the surge my limbs are spread;
The naval oak nods o'er my head:
The winds are loud; the waves tumultuous roll.
Ye winds! indulge your rage no more;
Ye sounding billows! cease to roar:
The god descends, and transports warm my soul.

2

The waves are hush'd; the winds are spent:—
This kingdom, from the kingdoms rent,
I celebrate in song.—Famed isle! no less
By Nature's favour from mankind,
Than by the foaming sea, disjoin'd;
Alone in bliss, an isle in happiness!

3

Though Fate and Time have damp'd my strains,
Though youth no longer fires my veins,
Though slow their streams in this cold climate run,
The royal eye dispels my cares,
Recalls the warmth of blooming years;
Returning George supplies the distant sun.

4

Away, my soul! salute the “Pine”
That glads the heart of Caroline,
Its grand deposit faithful to restore;
Salute the bark that ne'er shall hold
So rich a freight in gems or gold,
And, loaded from both Indies, would be poor.

5

My soul! to thee she spreads her sails:
Their bosoms fill with sacred gales,
With inspiration from the godhead warm;
Now bound for an eternal clime,
O send her down the tide of Time,
Snatch'd from oblivion, and secure from storm!

6

Or teach this flag like that to soar
Which gods of old and heroes bore;
Bid her a British constellation rise—
The sea she scorns, and now shall bound
On lofty billows of sweet sound;
I am her pilot, and her port the skies!

7

Dare you to sing, ye tinkling train?
Silence, ye wretched, ye profane,
Who shackle prose, and boast of absent gods;
Who murder thought, and numbers maim;
Who write Pindarics cold and lame,
And labour stiff Anacreontic Odes!

8

Ye lawful sons of genius, rise,
Of genuine title to the skies!
Ye founts of learning, and ye mints of fame!
You who file off the mortal part
Of glowing thought with Attic art,
And drink pure song from Cam's or Isis' stream.

9

I glow, I burn! The numbers pure,
High-flavour'd, delicate, mature,
Spontaneous stream from my unlabour'd breast;
As, when full-ripen'd teems the vine,
The generous bursts of willing wine
Distil nectareous from the grape unpress'd.

The vessel that brought over the king.

STRAIN THE FIRST.

THE ARGUMENT.

How the king attended.—A prospect of happiness.—Industry. A surprising instance of it in Old Rome.—The mischief of sloth.—What happiness is. Sloth its greatest enemy.—Trade natural to Britain. Trade invoked: described.—What the greatest human excellence.— The praise of wealth. Its use, abuse, end.—The variety of nature The final moral cause of it.—The benefit of man's necessities.—Britain's naval stores. She makes all nature serviceable to her ends.— Of reason. Its excellence.—How we should form our estimate of things.—Reason's difficult task. Why the first glory hers. Her effects in Old Britain.

1

“Our monarch comes! nor comes alone!”
What shining forms surround his throne,
O Sun, as planets thee!—To my loud strain
See Peace, by Wisdom led, advance;
The Grace, the Muse, the Season, dance;
And Plenty spreads behind her flowing train!

2

“Our monarch comes! nor comes alone!”
New glories kindle round his throne;
The visions rise; I triumph as I gaze:
By Pindar led, I turn'd of late
The volume dark, the folds of Fate,
And now am present to the future blaze.

3

By George and Jove it is decreed,
The mighty months in pomp proceed,
Fair daughters of the sun.—O thou Divine,
Bless'd Industry! a smiling earth
From thee alone derives its birth:
By thee the ploughshare and its master shine.

4

From thee mast, cable, anchor, oar,
From thee the cannon and his roar;
On oaks nursed, rear'd by thee, wealth, empire grows:
O golden fruit! oak well might prove
The sacred tree, the tree of Jove;
All Jove can give, the naval oak bestows.

5

What cannot Industry complete?
When Punic war first flamed, the great,
Bold, active, ardent Roman fathers meet:
“Fell all your groves!” a Flamen cries;
As soon they fall, as soon they rise;
One moon a forest, and the next a fleet.

6

Is sloth indulgence? 'Tis a toil;
Enervates man, and damns the soil;
Defeats creation, plunges in distress,
Cankers our being, all devours.
A full exertion of our powers,—
Thence, and thence only, glows our happiness.

7

The stream may stagnate, yet be clear;
The sun suspend his swift career,
Yet healthy Nature feel her wonted force;
Ere man, his active springs resign'd,
Can rust in body and in mind,
Yet taste of bliss, of which he chokes the source.

8

Where, Industry, thy daughter fair?
Recall her to her native air:
Here was Trade born, here bred, here flourish'd long;
And ever shall she flourish here.
What, though she languish'd? 'twas but fear:
She's sound of heart, her constitution strong.

9

Wake, sting her up!—Trade! lean no more
On thy fix'd anchor; push from shore:
Earth lies before thee; every climate court.
And see, she's roused, absolved from fears,
Her brow in cloudless azure rears,
Spreads all her sail, and opens every port.

10

See, cherish'd by her sister, Peace,
She levies gain on every place,
Religion, habit, custom, tongue, and name.
Again she travels with the sun,
Again she draws a golden zone
Round earth and main,—bright zone of wealth and fame!

11

Ten thousand active hands—that hung
In shameful sloth, with nerves unstrung,
The nation's languid load—defy the storms,
The sheets unfurl, and anchors weigh,
The long-moor'd vessel wing to sea;
Worlds, worlds salute, and peopled ocean swarms.

12

His sons, Po, Ganges, Danube, Nile,
Their sedgy foreheads lift, and smile;
Their urns inverted prodigally pour
Streams charged with wealth, and vow to buy
Britannia for their great ally
With climes paid down: what can the gods do more?

13

Cold Russia costly furs from far,
Hot China sends her painted jar,
France generous wines to crown it: Arab sweet
With gales of incense swells our sails;
Nor distant Ind our merchant fails,
Her richest ore the ballast of our fleet.

14

Luxuriant isle! what tide that flows,
Or stream that glides, or wind that blows,
Or genial sun that shines, or shower that pours,
But flows, glides, breathes, shines, pours for thee?
How every heart dilates to see
Each land's each season blending on thy shores!

15

All these one British harvest make!
The servant Ocean for thy sake
Both sinks and swells: his arms thy bosom wrap,
And fondly give, in boundless dower
To mighty George's growing power,
The wafted world into thy loaded lap.

16

Commerce brings riches; riches crown
Fair Virtue with the first renown.
A large revenue, and a large expense,
When hearts for others' welfare glow,
And spend as free as gods bestow,
Gives the full bloom to mortal excellence.

17

Glow, then, my breast; abound, my store!
This, and this boldly, I implore;
Their want and apathy let Stoics boast.
Passions and riches, good or ill,
As used by man, demand our skill;
All blessings wound us, when discretion's lost.

18

Wealth, in the virtuous and the wise,
'Tis vice and folly to despise:
Let those in praise of poverty refine
Whose heads or hearts pervert its use,
The narrow-soul'd or the profuse:
The truly great find morals in the mine.

19

Happy the man who, large of heart,
Has learnt the rare, illustrious art
Of being rich: stores starve us, or they cloy,
From gold if more than chymic skill
Extract not what is brighter still:
'Tis hard to gain, much harder to enjoy.

20

Plenty's a means, and joy her end:
Exalted minds their joys extend:
A Chandos shines, when others' joys are done;
As lofty turrets, by their height,
When humbler scenes resign their light,
Retain the rays of the declining sun.

21

Pregnant with blessings, Britain! swear,
No sordid son of thine shall dare
Offend the Donor of thy wealth and peace,
Who now His whole creation drains,
To pour into thy tumid veins
That blood of nations,—Commerce and Increase.

22

How various Nature! Turgid grain
Here nodding floats the golden plain;
There worms weave silken webs: here glowing vines
Lay forth their purple to the sun;
Beneath the soil there harvests run,
And kings' revenues ripen in the mines.

23

What's various Nature? Art Divine.
Man's soul to soften and refine,
Heaven different growths to different lands imparts,
That all may stand in need of all,
And interest draw around the ball
A net to catch and join all human hearts.

24

Thus has the great Creator's pen
His law supreme to mortal men
In their necessities distinctly writ:
Even Appetite supplies the place
Of absent Virtue, absent Grace;
And human Want performs for human Wit.

25

Vast naval ensigns strew'd around
The wondering foreigner confound!
How stands the deep-awed continent aghast,
As her proud sceptred sons survey,
At every port, on every quay,
Huge mountains rise of cable, anchor, mast!

26

The' unwieldy tun, the ponderous bale!—
Each prince his own clime set to sale
Sees here, by subjects of a British king.
How earth's abridged! All nations range
A narrow spot,—our throng'd Exchange;
And send the streams of plenty from their spring.

27

Nor Earth alone, all Nature bends
In aid to Britain's glorious ends.
Toils she in trade, or bleeds in honest wars?
Her keel each yielding sea enthralls,
Each willing wind her canvass calls,
Her pilot into service lists the stars.

28

In size confined, and humbly made,
What, though we creep beneath the shade,
And seem as emmets on this point, the ball?
Heaven lighted up the human soul,
Heaven bid its rays transpierce the whole,
And, giving godlike Reason, gave us all.

29

Thou golden chain 'twixt God and men,
Bless'd Reason! guide my life and pen:
All ills, like ghosts, fly trembling at thy light.
Who thee obeys, reigns over all;
Smiles, though the stars around him fall:
A God is nought but Reason Infinite.

30

The man of Reason is a god
Who scorns to stoop to Fortune's nod;
Sole agent he beneath the shining sphere.
Others are passive, are impell'd,
Are frighten'd, flatter'd, sunk, or swell'd,
As Accident is pleased to domineer.

31

Our hopes and fears are much to blame:
Shall monarchs awe, or crowns inflame?
From gross mistake our idle tumult springs.
Those men the silly world disarm,
Elude the dart, dissolve the charm,
Who know the slender worth of men and things.

32

The present object, present day,
Are idle phantoms, and away;
What's lasting only does exist. Know this,—
Life, fame, friends, freedom, empire, all,
Peace, commerce, freedom, nobly fall
To launch us on the flood of endless bliss.

33

How foreign these, though most in view!
Go, look you whole existence through;
Thence form your rule; thence fix your estimate;
For so the gods. But, as the gains,
How great the toil! 'Twill cost more pains
To vanquish folly than reduce a state.

34

Hence, Reason, the first palm is thine:
Old Britain learnt from thee to shine.
By thee Trade's swarming throng, gay Freedom's smile,
Armies,—in war, of fatal frown;
Of Peace the pride,—Arts, flowing down,
Enrich, exalt, defend, instruct our isle.

STRAIN THE SECOND.

THE ARGUMENT.

Arts from commerce. Why Britons should pursue it.—What wealth includes.—An historical digression, which kind is most frequent in Pindar.—The wealth and wonderful glory of Tyre. The approach of her ruin. The cause of it. Her crimes through all ranks and orders. Her miserable fall. The neighbouring kings' just reflection on it. An awful image of the Divine power and vengeance. From what Tyre fell, and how deep her calamity.

1

Commerce gives Arts, as well as gain:
By Commerce wafted o'er the main,
They barbarous climes enlighten as they run.
Arts, the rich traffic of the soul,
May travel thus from pole to pole,
And gild the world with Learning's brighter sun.

2

Commerce gives learning, virtue, gold:
Ply Commerce, then, ye Britons bold,
Inured to winds and seas; lest gods repent,
The gods that throned you in the wave,
And, as the trident's emblem, gave
A triple realm, that awes the continent;

3

And awes with wealth; for wealth is power:
When Jove descends a golden shower,
'Tis navies, armies, empire, all in one.—
View, emulate, outshine old Tyre,
In scarlet robed, with gems on fire,
Her merchants princes, every deck a throne.

4

She sate an empress, awed the flood,
Her stable column, ocean, trod;
She call'd the nations, and she call'd the seas,
By both obey'd: the Syrian sings;
The Cyprian's art her viol strings;
Togarmah's steed along her valley neighs.

5

The fir of Senir makes her floor,
And Bashan's oak, transform'd, her oar;
High Lebanon, her mast; far Dedan warms
Her mantled host; Arabia feeds;
Her sail of purple Egypt spreads;
Arvad sends mariners; the Persian, arms.

6

The world's last limit bounds her fame;
“The Golden City” was her name!
Those stars on earth, the topaz, onyx, blaze
Beneath her foot. Extent of coast,
And rich as Nile's, let others boast;
Hers the far nobler harvest of the seas.

7

O merchant-land, as Eden fair!
Ancient of empires! Nature's care!
The strength of ocean! head of Plenty's springs!
The pride of isles! in wars revered!
Mother of crafts! loved, courted, fear'd!
Pilot of kingdoms, and support of kings!

8

Great mart of nations!—But she fell:
Her pamper'd sons revolt, rebel;
Against his favourite isle loud roars the main;
The tempest howls: her sculptured dome,
Soon the wolf's refuge, dragon's home;
The land one altar,—a whole people slain!

9

The destined Day puts-on her frown;
The sable Hour is coming down;
She's on her march from yon almighty throne:
The sword and storm are in her hand;
She trumpets shrill her dread command:
“Dark be the light of earth, the boast unknown!”

10

For, O! her sins, as red as blood,
As crimson deep, outcry the flood;
The Queen of Trade is bought! Once wise and just,
Now venal is her council's tongue:
How riot, violence, and wrong
Turn gold to dross, her blossom into dust!

11

To things inglorious, far beneath
Those high-born souls they proudly breathe,
Her sordid noble sinks, her mighty bow!
Is it for this the groves around
Return the tabret's sprightly sound?
Is it for this her great ones toss the brow?

12

What burning feuds 'twixt brothers reign!
To nuptials cold, how glows the vein,
Confounding kindred, and misleading right!
The spurious lord it o'er the land:
Bold Blasphemy dares make a stand,
Assault the sky, and brandish all her might.

13

Tyre's artisan, sweet orator,
Her merchant, sage, big man of war,
Her judge, her prophet, nay, her hoary heads,
Whose brows with wisdom should be crown'd,
Her very priests, in guilt abound:
Hence the world's cedar all her honours sheds.

14

What dearth of truth! what thirst of gold!
Chiefs warm in peace, in battle cold!
What youth unletter'd! base ones lifted high!
What public boasts! what private views!
What desert temples, crowded stews!
What women!—practised but to roll an eye!

15

O foul of heart! her fairest dames
Decline the sun's intruding beams,
To mad the midnight in their gloomy haunts.
Alas! there is who sees them there;
There is who flatters not the fair,
When cymbals tinkle, and the virgin chants.

16

He sees, and thunders!—Now in vain
The courser paws, and foams the rein;
And chariots stream along the printed soil:
In vain her high presumptuous air,
In gorgeous vestments rich and rare,
O'er her proud shoulder throws the poor man's toil.

17

In robes or gems, her costly stain,
Green, scarlet, azure, shine in vain;
In vain their golden heads her turrets rear:
In vain high-flavour'd foreign fruits,
Sidonian oils, and Lydian lutes,
Glide o'er her tongue, and melt upon her ear.

18

In vain wines flow in various streams,
With helm and spear each pillar gleams;
Damascus vain unfolds the glossy store;
The golden wedge from Ophir's coasts,
From Arab incense, vain she boasts;
Vain are her gods, and vainly men adore.

19

Bel falls, the mighty Nebo bends!
The nations hiss; her glory ends!
To ships, her confidence, she flies from foes.
Foes meet her there: the wind, the wave,
That once aid, strength, and grandeur gave,
Plunge her in seas, from which her glory rose.

20

Her ivory deck, embroider'd sail,
And mast of cedar nought avail,
Or pilot learn'd. She sinks; nor sinks alone;
Her gods sink with her! To the sky,
Which never more shall meet her eye,
She sends her soul out in one dreadful groan.

21

What, though so vast her naval might,
In her first dawn'd the British right,—
All flags abased her sea-dominion greet?
What, though she longer warr'd than Troy?
At length her foes that isle destroy,
Whose conquest sail'd as far as sail'd her fleet.

22

The kings she clothed in purple shake
Their awful brows: “O foul mistake!
O fatal pride!” they cry: “This, this is she
Who said, ‘With my own art and arm
In the world's wealth I wrap me warm;’
And swell'd at heart, vain empress of the sea!

23

“This, this is she who meanly soar'd,
Alas, how low! to be adored,
And style herself a god!—Through stormy wars
This eagle-isle her thunder bore,
High fed her young with human gore,
And would have built her nest among the stars.

24

“But ah, frail man how impotent
To stand Heaven's vengeance or prevent,
To turn aside the great Creator's aim!
Shall island-kings with Him contend,
Who makes the poles beneath Him bend,
And shall drink up the sea herself with flame?

25

“Earth, ether, empyræum bow,
When from the brasen mountain's brow
The God of Battles takes His mighty bow,
Of wrath prepares to pour the flood.
Puts-on His vesture dipp'd in blood,
And marches out to scourge the world below.

26

“Ah wretched isle, once call'd the great!
Ah wretched isle, and wise too late!
The vengeance of Jehovah is gone out:
Thy luxury, corruption, pride,
And freedom lost, the realms deride;
Adored thee standing, o'er thy ruins shout:

27

“To scourge with war, or peace bestow,
Was thine, O fallen, fallen low!
'Twas thine, of jarring thrones to still debates.
How art thou fallen, down, down, down!
Wide Waste, and Night, and Horror frown,
Where Empire flamed in gold, and balanced states.”

STRAIN THE THIRD

THE ARGUMENT.

An inference from this history. Advice to Britain. More proper to her than other nations.—How far the stroke of tyranny reaches. What supports our endeavours. The unconsidered benefits of liberty. Britain's obligation to pursue trade.—Why above half the globe is sea.— Britain's grandeur from her situation.—The winds, the seas, the constellations, described.—Sir Isaac Newton's praise.—Britain compared with other states. The leviathan described. Britain's site, and ancient title to the seas. Who rivals her. Of Venice. Holland. —Some despise trade as mean. Censured for it. Trade's glory.— The late czar. Solomon.—A surprising instance of magnificence. The merchant's dignity. Compared with men of letters.

1

Hence learn, as hearts are foul or pure,
Our fortunes wither or endure:
Nations may thrive, or perish, by the wave.
What storms from Jove's unwilling frown
A people's crimes solicit down!
Ocean's the womb of riches, and the grave.

2

This truth, O Britain! ponder well:
Virtues should rise, as fortunes swell.
What is large property? The sign of good,
Of worth superior: if 'tis less,
Another's treasure we possess,
And charge the gods with favours misbestow'd.

3

This counsel suits Britannia's isle,
High-flush'd with wealth, and Freedom's smile:
To vassals prison'd in the continent,
Who starve at home on meagre toil,
And suck to death their mother-soil,
'Twere useless caution and a truth mis-spent.

4

Fell tyrants strike beyond the bone,
And wound the soul; bow Genius down,
Lay Virtue waste. For worth or arts who strain,
To throw them at a monster's foot?
'Tis property supports pursuit:
Freedom gives eloquence, and Freedom gain.

5

She pours the thought, and forms the style;
She makes the blood and spirits boil;
I feel her now, and rouse, and rise, and rave
In Theban song:—O Muse! not thine,
Verse is gay Freedom's gift divine:
The man that can think greatly is no slave.

6

Others may traffic if they please;
Britain, fair daughter of the seas,
Is born for trade, to plough her field, the wave,
And reap the growth of every coast:
A speck of land; but let her boast,
“Gods gave the world, when they the waters gave.”

7

Britain! behold the world's wide face;
Nor cover'd half with solid space;
Three parts are fluid, empire of the sea!
And why? For commerce. Ocean streams
For that, through all his various names:
And if for commerce, Ocean flows for thee.

8

Britain, like some great potentate
Of eastern clime, retires in state,
Shuts out the nations. Would a prince draw nigh?
He passes her strong guards, the waves,
Of servant winds admission craves:
Her empire has no neighbour but the sky.

9

There are her friends; soft Zephyr there,
Keen Eurus, Notus never fair,
Rough Boreas, bursting from the pole: all urge,
And urge for her, their various toil,
The Caspian, the broad Baltic boil,
And into life the dead Pacific scourge.

10

There are her friends; a marshall'd train,
A golden host and azure plain,
By turns do duty, and by turns retreat:
They may retreat, but not from her;
The star that quits this hemisphere
Must quit the skies, to want a British fleet.

11

Hyad, for her, leans o'er her urn;
For her, Orion's glories burn,
The Pleiads gleam. For Britons set and rise
The fair-faced sons of Mazzaroth,
Near the deep chambers of the south,
The raging Dog that fires the midnight skies.

12

These nations Newton made his own,
All intimate with him alone:
His mighty soul did, like a giant, run
To the vast volume's closing star,
Decipher'd every character:
His reason pour'd new light upon the sun.

13

Let the proud brothers of the land
Smile at our rock and barren strand;
Not such the sea: let Fohé's ancient line
Vast tracts and ample beings vaunt;
The camel low, small elephant—
O Britain! the leviathan is thine.

14

Leviathan! whom Nature's strife
Brought forth, her largest piece of life;
He sleeps an isle; his sports the billows warm!
Dreadful leviathan! thy spout
Invades the skies; the stars are out:
He drinks a river, and ejects a storm.

15

The' Atlantic surge around our shore,
German, and Caledonian, roar;
Their mighty genii hold us in their lap.
Hear Egbert, Edgar, Ethelred:
“The seas are ours:”—the monarch said,—
The floods their hands, their hands the nations, clap.

16

Whence is a rival, then, to rise?
Can he be found beneath the skies?
No; there they dwell that can give Britain fear:

The powers of earth by rival aim
Her grandeur but the more proclaim,
And prove their distance most as they draw near.

17

Proud Venice sits amid the waves,
Her foot ambitious Ocean laves,
Art's noblest boast: but, O what wondrous odds
'Twixt Venice and Britannia's isle,
'Twixt mortal and immortal toil!
Britannia is a Venice built by gods.

18

Let Holland triumph o'er her foes,
But not o'er friends by whom she rose,
The child of Britain! And shall she contend?
It were no less than parricide.—
What wonders rise from out the tide!
Her “High and Mighty” to the rudder bend.

19

And are there, then, of lofty brow,
Who think trade mean, and scorn to bow
So far beneath the state of noble birth?
Alas! these chiefs but little know
Commerce how high, themselves how low:
The sons of nobles are the sons of earth.

20

And what have earth's mean sons to do,
But reap her fruits, and warm pursue
The world's chief good, not glut on others' toil?
High Commerce from the gods came down,
With compass, chart, and starry crown,
Their delegate, to make the nations smile.

21

Blush, and behold the Russian bow,
From forty crowns, his mighty brow
To trade! To toil he turns his glorious hand:
That arm which swept the bloody field,
See the huge axe or hammer wield;
While sceptres wait, and thrones impatient stand.

22

O shame to subjects! first renown,
Matchless example to the crown!
Old Time is poor: what age boasts such a sight?
Ye drones, adore the man divine—
No; Virtue still as “mean” decline,
Call Russians barbarous, and yourselves polite.

23

He, too, of Judah, great as wise,
With Hiram strove in merchandise;
Monarchs with monarchs struggle for an oar!
That merchant sinking to his grave,
A flood of treasure swells the cave:
The king left much, the merchant buried more.

24

Is “merchant” an inglorious name?
No; fit for Pindar such a theme;
Too great for me; I pant beneath the weight.
If loud as Ocean's were my voice,
If words and thoughts to court my choice
Out-number'd sands, I could not reach its height.

25

Merchants o'er proudest heroes reign;
Those trade in blessing, these in pain,
At slaughter swell, and shout while nations groan.
With purple monarchs merchants vie;
If great to spend, what to supply?
Priests pray for blessings; merchants pour them down.

26

Kings merchants are in league and love;
Earth's odours pay soft airs above,
That o'er the teeming field prolific range.
Planets are merchants; take, return,
Lustre and heat; by traffic burn:
The whole creation is one vast Exchange.

27

Is “merchant” an inglorious name?
What say the sons of letter'd fame,
Proud of their volumes, swelling in their cells?
In open life, in change of scene,
Mid various manners, throngs of men,
Experience, Arts, and solid Wisdom dwells.

28

Trade, Art's mechanic, Nature's stores
Well weighs; to starry Science soars;
Reads warm in life (dead colour'd by the pen)
The sites, tongues, interests of the ball:
Who studies trade, he studies all;
Accomplish'd merchants are accomplished men.

Vast treasure taken from Solomon's tomb thirteen hundred years after his death.

STRAIN THE FOURTH.

THE ARGUMENT.

Pindar invoked. His praise.—Britain should decline war, but boldly assert her trade. Encouraged from the throne. Britain's condition without trade.—Trade's character and surprising deeds.—Carthage.— Solomon's temple.—St. Paul's Church.—The miser's character.—The wonderful effects of trade.—Why religion recommended to the merchant. —What false joy. What true.—What religion is to the merchant. —Why trade more glorious in Britons than others. How warmly, and how long, to be pursued by us. The Briton's legacy.— Columbus. His praise.—America described.—Worlds still unknown.— Queen Elizabeth.—King George II. His glory navally represented.

1

How shall I farther rouse the soul?
How Sloth's lascivious reign control
By verse, with unextinguish'd ardour wrought?
How every breast inflame with mine?
How bid my theme still brighter shine
With wealth of words and unexhausted thought?

2

O thou Dircæan swan, on high,
Round whom familiar thunders fly,
While Jove attends a language like his own!
Thy spirit pour, like vernal showers;
My verse shall burst out with the flowers,
While Britain's trade advances with her sun.

3

Though Britain was not born to fear,
Grasp not at bloody fame from war;
Nor war decline, if thrones your right invade.
Jove gathers tempest black as night;
Jove pours the golden flood of light;
Let Britain thunder, or let Britain trade.

4

Britain a comet, or a star,
In commerce this, or that in war:
Let Britons shout, earth, seas, and skies resound.
Commerce to kindle, raise, preserve,
And spirit dart through every nerve,
Hear from the throne a voice through time renown'd.

5

So fall from heaven the vernal showers,
To cheer the glebe, and wake the flowers;
The bloom call'd forth sees azure skies display'd;
The bird of voice is proud to sing;
Industrious bees ply every wing,
Distend their cells, and urge their golden trade.

6

Trade once extinguish'd, Britain's sun
Is gone out too; his race is run;
He shines in vain; her isle's an isle indeed,
A spot too small to be o'ercome.
Ah dreadful safety, wretched doom!
No foe will conquer what no foe can feed.

7

Trade's the source, sinew, soul of all;
Trade's all herself; hers, hers, the ball;
Where most unseen, the goddess still is there:
Trade leads the dance, Trade lights the blaze;
The courtier's pomp, the student's ease!
'Twas Trade at Blenheim fought, and closed the war.

8

What Rome and all her gods defies?
The Punic oar. Behold it rise
And battle for the world! Trade gave the call:
Rich cordials from his naval art
Sent the strong spirits to his heart,
That bid an Afric merchant grasp the ball.

9

Where is, on earth, Jehovah's home?
Trade mark'd the soil, and built the dome,
In which His Majesty first deign'd to dwell;
The walls with silver sheets o'erlaid,
Rich, as the sun, through gold unweigh'd;
Bent the moon'd arch, and bid the column swell.

10

Grandeur unknown to Solomon!
Methinks the labouring earth should groan
Beneath yon load; created, sure, not made!
Servant and rival of the skies!
Heaven's arch alone can higher rise:
What hand immortal raised thee? “Humble Trade.”

11

Where hadst thou been if, left at large,
Those sinewy arms that tugg'd the barge,
Had caught at pleasure on the flowery green?
If they that watch'd the midnight star
Had swung behind the rolling car,
Or fill'd it with disgrace, where hadst thou been?

12

As by repletion men consume,
Abundance is the miser's doom;
Expend it nobly: he that lets it rust,
Which, passing numerous hands, would shine,
Is not a man, but living mine,
Foe to the gods, and rival to the dust.

13

Trade barbarous lands can polish fair,
Make earth well worth the wise man's care;
Call forth her forests, charm them into fleets;
Can make one house of human race;
Can bid the distant poles embrace;
Hers every sun, and India India meets.

14

Trade monarchs crowns, and arts imports,
With bounty feeds, with laurel courts:
Trade gives fair Virtue fairer still to shine;
Enacts those guards of gain, the Laws;
Exalts e'en Freedom's glorious cause.—
Trade! warn'd by Tyre, O make Religion thine!

15

You lend each other mutual aid:
Why is Heaven's smile in wealth convey'd?
Not to place vice, but virtues, in our power.
Pleasure declined is luxury,
Boundless in time and in degree;
Pleasure enjoy'd, the tumult of an hour.

16

False joy's a discomposing thing,
That jars on Nature's trembling string,
Tempests the spirits, and untunes the frame:
True joy, the sunshine of the soul,
A bright serene that calms the whole;
Which they ne'er knew, whom other joys inflame.

17

Merchant! religion is the care
To grow as rich—as angels are;
To know false coin from true; to sweep the main;
The mighty stake secure, beyond
The strongest tie of field or fund:
Commerce gives gold, religion makes it gain.

18

Join, then, religion to thy store,
Or India's mines will make thee poor.
Greater than Tyre, O bear a nobler mind,
Sea-sovereign isle! Proud War decline,
Trade patronize: what glory thine,
Ardent to bless, who couldst subdue, mankind!

19

Rich commerce ply with warmth Divine
By day, by night: the stars are thine;
Wear out the stars in trade! Eternal run,
From age to age, the noble glow,
A rage to gain, and to bestow,
While ages last: in trade burn out the sun!

20

Trade, Britain's all, our sires sent down
With toil, blood, treasure, ages won:
This Edgar great bequeath'd; this, Edward bold.
Let Frobishers, let Raleighs fire!
O let Columbus' shade inspire!
New worlds disclose, with Drake surround an old.

21

Columbus! scarce inferior fame
For thee to find, than Heaven to frame,
That womb of gold and gem: her wide domain
An universe, her rivers seas;
Her fruits, both men and gods to please;
Heaven's fairest birth, and, but for thee, in vain!

22

Worlds still unknown deep shadows wrap:
Call wonders forth from Nature's lap;
New glory pour on her Eternal Sire.
O noble search! O glorious care!
Are ye not Britons? Why despair?
New worlds are due to such a godlike fire.

23

Swear by the great Eliza's soul,
That Trade, as long as waters roll—
Ah! no; the gods chastise my rash decree:

By great Eliza do not swear;
For thee, O George, the gods declare,
And thou for them! Late time shall swear by thee.

24

Truth, bright as stars, with thee prevails;
Full be thy fame, as swelling sails;
Constant as tides thy mind, as masts elate;
Thy justice, an unerring helm
To steer Britannia's fickle realm;
Thy numerous race, sure anchor of her state!

The king's speech, January 13th, 1729–30.

St. Paul's, built by the produce of the coal-tax; as were forty-nine other churches and the Monument. St. Paul's alone was raised at the expense of £736,752. 2s. 3½d.

Sir Walter Raleigh.

STRAIN THE FIFTH.

THE ARGUMENT.

What is the bound of Britain's power. Beyond that of the most famed in history.—The sign Lyra.—What the constellations are. Argo. The Whale. The Dolphin. Eridanus. The Lion. Libra. Virgo. Berenice.—The British ladies censured.—The moon.—What the sea is.—Apostrophe to the emperor. The Spanish Armada.—How Britain should speak her resentment.—What gives power. What navies do in war.—The Tartar.—Mogul.—Africa.—China.—Who master of the world.—What the history of the world is.—The genealogy of glory. Mistakes about it.—Peace the merchant's harvest.—Ships of Divine origin.—Merchants ambassadors.—The Briton's voyage.—Praise the food of glory.—Britain's record.

1

Britannia's state what bounds confine?
(Of rising thought O golden mine!)
Mountains, Alps, streams, gulfs, oceans, set no bound:
She sallies till she strikes the star;
Expanding wide, and launching far
As wind can fly, or rolling wave resound.

2

Small isle—for Cæsars; for the son
Of Jove, who burst from Macedon;
For gorgeous easterns blazing o'er mankind!
Then, when they call'd the world their own,
Not equal fame from fable shone:
They rose to gods, in half thy sphere confined.

3

Here no demand for Fancy's wing;
Plain Truth's illustrious: as I sing,
O hear yon spangled harp repeat my lay!
Yon starry lyre has caught the sound,
And spreads it to the planets round,
Who best can tell where ends Britannia's sway.

4

The skies (fair-printed page!) unfold
The naval fame of heroes old;
As in a mirror, show the' adventurous throng:
The deeds of Grecian mariners
Are read by gods, are writ in stars,
And noble verse that shall endure as long.

5

The skies are records of the main:
Thence Argo listens to my strain;
Chiron, for song renown'd, his noble rage
For naval fame and song renews,
As Britain's fame he hears and views;
Chiron, the Shovel of a former age.

6

The Whale (for late I sung his praise)
Pours grateful lustre on my lays:
How smiles Arion's friend with partial beams!
Eridanus would flatter, too,
But jealousies his smile subdue;
He fears a British rival in the Thames.

7

In pride the Lion lifts his mane,
To see his British brothers reign
As stars below: the Balance, George! from thine,
Which weighs the nations, learns to weigh
More accurate the night and day;
From thy fair daughters Virgo learns to shine.

8

Of Britain's court ye lesser lights!
How could the wise-man gaze whole nights
On Richmond's eye, on Berenice's Hair!
But, O! you practise shameful arts;
Your own retain, seize others' hearts:
Pirates, not merchants, are the British fair.

9

This truth I swear by Cynthia's beam.
Pale queen! be flush'd at Britain's fame;
And, rolling, tell the nations—o'er the main
To share her empire is thy pride.
He, mighty Power! who curbs the tide,
Uncurbs, extends, throws wide Britannia's reign.

10

What is the main, ye kings renown'd?
Britannia's centre, and your bound:
Austrian! where'er leviathan can roll,
Is Britain's home; and Britain's mine,
Where'er the ripening sun can shine:
Parts are for emperors; for her, the whole.

11

Why, Austrian, wilt thou hover still
On doubtful wing, and want the skill
To see thy welfare in the world's? Too late
Another Churchill thou mayst find,
Another Churchill, not so kind,
And other Blenheims, big with other fate.

12

Ill thou remember'st, ill dost own,
Who rescued an ungrateful throne;
Ill thou consider'st that the kind are brave;
Ill dost thou weigh that in Time's womb
A day may sleep, a day of doom,
As great to ruin as was that to save.

13

How wouldst thou smile to hear my strain,
Whose boasted inspiration's vain!
Yet what, if my prediction should prove true?
Know'st thou the fatal pair who shine
O'er Britain's trading empire? Thine,
As one rejected, what, if one subdue?

14

What naval scene adorns the seat
Of awful Britain's high debate,
Inspires her counsels, and records her power?
The nations know, in glowing balls
On sinking thrones the tempest falls,
When her august assembled senates lour.

15

O language fit for thoughts so bold!
Would Britain have her anger told,
Ah! never let a meaner language sound
Than that which prostrates human souls,
Through heaven's dark vault impetuous rolls,
And Nature rocks, when angry Jove has frown'd.

16

Not realms unbounded, not a flood
Of natives, not expense of blood,
Or reach of counsel, gives the world a lord:

Trade calls him forth, and sets him high
As mortal man o'er men can fly:
Trade leaves poor gleanings to the keenest sword.

17

Nay, hers the sword! For fleets have wings;
Like lightning fly to distant kings;
Like gods descend at once on trembling states.
Is war proclaim'd? Our wars are hurl'd
To farthest confines of the world,
Surprise your ports, and thunder at your gates.

18

The king of tempests, Æolus,
Sends forth his pinion'd people thus
On rapid errands: as they fly, they roar,
And carry sable clouds, and sweep
The land, the desert, and the deep:
Earth shakes, proud cities fall, and thrones adore!

19

The fools of nature ever strike
On bare outsides; and loathe, or like,
As glitter bids; in endless error vie;
Admire the purple and the crown.
Of human Welfare and Renown,
Trade's the big heart; bright empire, but their eye.

20

Whence Tartar Grand, or Mogul Great?
Trade gilt their titles, power'd their state;
While Afric's black, lascivious, slothful breed,
To clasp their ruin, fly from toil;
That meanest product of their soil,
Their people, sell; one half on t'other feed.

21

Of Nature's wealth from Commerce rent,
Afric's a glaring monument:
Mid citron forests and pomegranate groves
(Cursed in a Paradise!) she pines;
O'er generous glebe, o'er golden mines,
Her beggar'd, famish'd, tradeless native roves.

22

Not so thine, China, blooming wide!
Thy numerous fleets might bridge the tide;
Thy products would exhaust both Indias' mines:
Shut be thy gate of trade, or (woe
To Britain's!) Europe 'twill o'erflow.—
Ungrateful song! her growth inspires thy lines.

23

Britain! to these, and such as these,
The river broad, and foaming seas,
Which sever lands to mortals less renown'd,
Devoid of naval skill or might,
Those sever'd parts of earth unite:
Trade's the full pulse that sends their vigour round.

24

Could, O, could one engrossing hand
The various streams of Trade command,
That, like the sun, would gazing nations awe:
That awful power the world would brave,
Bold War and Empire proud his slave;
Mankind his subjects; and his will, their law.

25

Hast thou look'd round the spacious earth?
From Commerce Grandeur's humble birth:
To George from Noah, empires living, dead,
Their pride, their shame, their rise, their fall,—
Time's whole plain chronicle is all
One bright encomium, undesign'd, on Trade.

26

Trade springs from Peace, and Wealth from Trade,
And Power from Wealth; of Power is made
The god on earth: hail, then, the dove of Peace,
Whose olive speaks the raging flood
Of war repress'd! What's loss of blood?
War is the death of Commerce and Increase.

27

Then perish War!—Detested War!
Shalt thou make gods, like Cæsar's star?
What calls man fool so loud as this has done,
From Nimrod's down to Bourbon's line?
Why not adore too, as Divine,
Wide-wasting storms, before the genial sun?

28

Peace is the merchant's summer clear;
His harvest,—harvest round the year:
For Peace with laurel every mast be bound,
Each deck carouse, each flag stream out,
Each cannon sound, each sailor shout!
For Peace let every sacred ship be crown'd.

29

Sacred are ships, of birth Divine:
An angel drew the first design;
With which the patriarch nature's ruins braved:
Two worlds aboard, an old and new,
He safe o'er foaming billows flew:
The gods made human race; a pilot saved.

30

How sacred, too, the merchant's name!
When Britain blazed meridian fame,
Bright shone the sword, but brighter Trade gave law;
Merchants in distant courts revered,
Where prouder statesmen ne'er appear'd;
Merchants ambassadors, and thrones in awe!

31

'Tis theirs to know the tides, the times,
The march of stars, the births of climes;
Summer and Winter theirs; theirs land and sea;
Theirs are the seasons, months, and years;
And each a different garland wears:—
O that my song could add eternity!

32

Praise is the sacred oil that feeds
The burning lamp of god-like deeds;
Immortal glory pays illustrious cares.
Whither, ye Britons, are ye bound?
O noble voyage, glorious round!
Launch from the Thames, and end among the stars.

33

If to my subject rose my soul,
Your fame should last while oceans roll:
When other worlds in depths of time shall rise,
As we the Greeks of mighty name,
May they Britannia's fleet proclaim,
Look up, and read her story in the skies.

34

Ye Sirens, sing; ye Tritons, blow;
Ye Nereids, dance; ye billows, flow;
Roll to my measures, O ye starry throng!
Ye winds, in concert breathe around;
Ye navies, to the concert bound
From pole to pole! To Britain all belong.

The Dolphin.

The Spanish Armada in the House of Lords; since engraved and published by Mr. Pine.

Coffee.

In Queen Elizabeth's reign.

THE MORAL.

The most happy should be the most virtuous.—Of eternity.—What Britain's arts should be.—Whence slavery.

1

Britain! thus bless'd, thy blessing know;
Or bliss in vain the gods bestow;
Its end fulfil, means cherish, source adore:

Vain swellings of thy soul repress;
They most may lose who most possess:
Then let bliss awe, and tremble at thy store.

2

Nor be too fond of life at best;
Her cheerful, not enamour'd, guest:
Let thought fly forward; 'twill gay prospects give;
Prospects immortal, that deride
A Tyrian wealth, a Persian pride,
And make it perfect fortitude to live.

3

O for eternity! a scene
To fair adventurers serene!
O, on that sea to deal in pure renown,—
Traffic with gods! What transports roll!
What boundless import to the soul!
The poor man's empire, and the subject's crown!

4

Adore the gods, and plough the seas:
These be thy arts, O Britain, these!
Let others pant for an immense command;
Let others breathe war's fiery god;
The proudest victor fears thy nod,
Long as the trident fills thy glorious hand.

5

Glorious, while heaven-born Freedom lasts,
Which Trade's soft spurious daughter blasts;
For what is Tyranny? A monstrous birth
From Luxury, by bribes caress'd,
By glowing Power in shades compress'd;
Which stalks around, and chains the groaning earth.

THE CLOSE.

This subject now first sung. How sung.—Preferable to Pindar's subjects.—How Britain should be sung by all.

1

Thee, Trade! I first—who boast no store,
Who owe thee nought—thus snatch from shore,
The shore of Prose, where thou hast slumber'd long;
And send thy flag triumphant down
The tide of time to sure renown.
O bless my country! and thou pay'st my song.

2

Thou art the Briton's noblest theme;
Why, then, unsung? My simple aim
To dress plain sense, and fire the generous blood;
Not sport imaginations vain,
But list, with yon ethereal train,
The shining Muse to serve the public good.

3

Of ancient art and ancient praise
The springs are open'd in my lays:
Olympic heroes' ghosts around me throng,
And think their glory sung anew,
Till chiefs of equal fame they view,
Nor grudge to Britons bold their Theban song.

4

Not Pindar's theme with mine compares,
As far surpass'd as useful cares
Transcend diversion light and glory vain:
The wreath fantastic, shouting throng
And panting steed to him belong,—
The charioteer's, not Empire's golden, reign.

5

Nor, Chandos, thou the Muse despise
That would to glowing Ætna rise,
(Such Pindar's boast,) thou Theron of our time!
Seldom to man the gods impart
A Pindar's head or Theron's heart;
In life or song how rare the true sublime!

6

None British-born will, sure, disdain
This new, bold, moral, patriot strain,
Though not with genius, with some virtue, crown'd:
(How vain the Muse!) the lay may last,
Thus twined around the British mast,
The British mast with nobler laurels bound.

7

Weak ivy curls round naval oak,
And smiles at wind and storm unbroke,
By strength not hers sublime: thus, proud to soar,
To Britain's grandeur cleaves my strain;
And lives, and echoes through the plain,
While o'er the billow Britain's thunders roar.

8

Be dumb, ye grovelling sons of verse,
Who sing not actions, but rehearse,
And fool the Muse with impotent desire!
Ye sacrilegious, who presume
To tarnish Britain's naval bloom!
Sing Britain's fame with all her hero's fire.

THE CHORUS.

------ Tibi res antiquæ laudis et artis
Ingredior, sanctos ausus recludere fontes:
Ascræumque cano Romana per oppida carmen.
Virgilii Georg. lib. ii. 174.

Commonly called “The Treaty of Seville,” concluded December 9th, 1729, between the crowns of Great Britain, France, Spain, and the United Provinces.

EPISTLES TO MR. POPE CONCERNING THE AUTHORS OF THE AGE.

MDCCXXX.

EPISTLE I. TO MR. POPE.

Whilst you at Twickenham plan the future wood,
Or turn the volumes of the wise and good,
Our senate meets; at parties parties bawl,
And pamphlets stun the streets, and load the stall.
So rushing tides bring things obscene to light,
Foul wrecks emerge, and dead dogs swim in sight:
The civil torrent foams, the tumult reigns,
And Codrus' prose works up, and Lico's strains.

Lo! what from cellars rise, what rush from high,
Where Speculation roosted near the sky;
Letters, essays, sock, buskin, satire, song;
And all the garret thunders on the throng!

O Pope! I burst; nor can, nor will, refrain:
I'll write; let others, in their turn, complain.
Truce, truce, ye Vandals! my tormented ear
Less dreads a pillory than a pamphleteer;
I've heard myself to death; and, plagued each hour,
Sha'n't I return the vengeance in my power?
For who can write the true absurd like me?—
Thy pardon, Codrus! who, I mean, but thee?

Pope! if like mine, or Codrus', were thy style,
The blood of vipers had not stain'd thy file;
Merit less solid less despite had bred;
They had not bit, and then they had not bled.
Fame is a public mistress none enjoys
But, more or less, his rival's peace destroys.
With Fame, in just proportion, Envy grows:
The man that makes a character, makes foes.
Slight, peevish insects round a genius rise,
As a bright day awakes the world of flies;
With hearty malice, but with feeble wing,
(To show they live,) they flutter, and they sting:
But as by depredations wasps proclaim
The fairest fruit, so these the fairest fame.

Shall we not censure all the motley train?—
Whether with ale irriguous, or champagne;
Whether they tread the vale of prose, or climb,
And whet their appetites on cliffs of rhyme;
The college sloven, or embroider'd spark;
The purple prelate, or the parish clerk;
The quiet quidnunc, or demanding prig;
The plaintiff Tory, or defendant Whig;
Rich, poor, male, female, young, old, gay or sad;
Whether extremely witty, or quite mad;
Profoundly dull, or shallowly polite;
Men that read well, or men that only write;
Whether peers, porters, tailors, tune the reeds,
And measuring words to measuring shapes succeeds:
For bankrupts write, when ruin'd shops are shut,
As maggots crawl from out a perish'd nut.
His hammer this, and that his trowel, quits,
And, wanting sense for tradesmen, serve for wits.

By thriving men subsists each other trade;
Of every broken craft a writer's made:
Thus his material, paper, takes its birth
From tatter'd rags of all the stuff on earth.

Hail, fruitful isle! To thee alone belong
Millions of wits and brokers in old song.
Thee well “a land of liberty” we name,
Where all are free to scandal and to shame.
Thy sons, by print, may set their hearts at ease,
And be mankind's contempt, whene'er they please:
Like trodden filth, their vile and abject sense
Is unperceived but when it gives offence.
Their heavy prose our injured reason tires;
Their verse immoral kindles loose desires:
Our age they puzzle, and corrupt our prime;
Our sport and pity, punishment and crime.

What glorious motives urge our authors on,
Thus to undo, and thus to be undone?
One loses his estate, and down he sits,
To show (in vain!) he still retains his wits:
Another marries, and his dear proves keen;
He writes, as an hypnotic for the spleen:
Some write, confined by physic; some, by debt;
Some, for 'tis Sunday; some, because 'tis wet:
Through private pique some do the public right,
And love their king and country out of spite:
Another writes because his father writ,
And proves himself a bastard by his wit.

“Has Lico learning, humour, thought profound?”—
Neither:—“Why write, then?”—He wants twenty pound:
His belly, not his brains, this impulse give:
He'll grow immortal; for he cannot live.
He rubs his awful front, and takes his ream,
With no provision made but of his theme;
Perhaps a title has his fancy smit,
Or a quaint motto, which he thinks has wit.
He writes, in inspiration puts his trust;
Though wrong his thoughts, the gods will make them just;
Genius directly from the gods descends;
And who by labour would distrust his friends?
Thus having reason'd with consummate skill,
In immortality he dips his quill:
And, since blank paper is denied the press,
He mingles the whole alphabet by guess,

In various sets, which various words compose,
Of which, he hopes, mankind the meaning knows.
So sounds spontaneous from the Sibyl broke;
Dark to herself the wonders which she spoke:
The priests found out the meaning, if they could;
And nations stared at what none understood.

Clodio dress'd, danced, drank, visited,—the whole
And great concern of an immortal soul!
Oft have I said, “Awake! exist! and strive
For birth! nor think to loiter is to live!”
As oft I overheard the demon say,
Who daily met the loiterer in his way,
“I'll meet thee, youth, at White's:” the youth replies,
“I'll meet thee there,” and falls his sacrifice.
His fortune squander'd leaves his Virtue bare
To every bribe, and blind to every snare:
Clodio for bread his indolence must quit,
Or turn a soldier, or commence a wit.
Such heroes have we! all, but life, they stake:
How must Spain tremble, and the German shake!
Such writers have we! all, but sense, they print;
E'en George's praise is dated from the Mint.
In arms contemptible, in arts profane,
Such swords, such pens, disgrace a monarch's reign.
Reform your lives before you thus aspire,
And steal (for you can steal) celestial fire.

O the just contrast, O the beauteous strife,
'Twixt their cool writings and Pindaric life!
They write with phlegm, but then they live with fire:
They cheat the lender, and their works the buyer.

I reverence Misfortune, not deride;
I pity Poverty, but laugh at Pride:
For who so sad but must some mirth confess
At gay Castruchio's miscellaneous dress?
Though there's but one of the dull works he wrote,
There's ten editions of his old laced coat.

These, Nature's commoners, who want a home,
Claim the wide world for their majestic dome:
They make a private study of the street,
And, looking full on every man they meet,
Run souse against his chaps; who stands amazed
To find they did not see, but only gazed.
How must these bards be rapt into the skies!
You need not read, you feel their ecstasies.

Will they persist? 'Tis madness:—Lintot, run,
See them confined!—“O, that's already done.
Most, as by leases, by the works they print,
Have took for life possession of the Mint.”
If you mistake, and pity these poor men,
Est Ulubris, they cry, and write again.

Such wits their nuisance manfully expose,
And then pronounce just judges “Learning's foes.”
O frail conclusion! the reverse is true:
If foes to Learning, they'd be friends to you.
Treat them, ye judges, with an honest scorn,
And weed the cockle from the generous corn:
There's true good-nature in your disrespect;
In justice to the good, the bad neglect:
For immortality if hardships plead,
It is not theirs who write, but ours who read.

But, O, what wisdom can convince a fool
But that 'tis dulness to conceive him dull?
'Tis sad Experience takes the censor's part,
Conviction, not from reason, but from smart.

A virgin-author, recent from the press,
The sheets yet wet, applauds his great success;
Surveys them, reads them, takes their charms to bed,
Those in his hand, and glory in his head.
'Tis joy too great, a fever of delight!
His heart beats thick, nor close his eyes all night.
But, rising the next morn to clasp his fame,
He finds that without sleeping he could dream.
So sparks, they say, take goddesses to bed,
And find next day the devil in their stead.

In vain advertisements the town o'erspread:
They're epitaphs, and say the work is dead.
Who press for fame, but small recruits will raise:
'Tis volunteers alone can give the bays.

A famous author visits a great man,
Of his immortal work displays the plan,
And says, “Sir, I'm your friend; all fears dismiss;
Your glory and my own shall live by this;
Your power is fix'd, your fame through time convey'd,
And Britain Europe's queen—if I am paid.”
A statesman has his answer in a trice:
“Sir, such a genius is beyond all price:

What man can pay for this?”—Away he turns;
His work is folded, and his bosom burns:
His patron he will patronize no more,
But rushes like a tempest out of door.
Lost is the patriot, and extinct his name!
Out comes the piece, another and the same;
For A his magic pen evokes an O,
And turns the tide of Europe on the foe:
He rams his quill with scandal, and with scoff;
But 'tis so very foul, it won't go off.
Dreadful his thunders, while unprinted, roar;
But, when once publish'd, they are heard no more.
Thus distant bugbears fright; but, nearer draw,
The block's a block, and turns to mirth your awe.

Can those oblige, whose heads and hearts are such?
No; every party's tainted by their touch.
Infected persons fly each public place,
And none, or enemies alone, embrace:
To the foul fiend their every passion's sold;
They love, and hate, extempore, for gold.
“What image of their fury can we form?”
Dulness and rage,—a puddle in a storm.
“Rest they in peace?” If you are pleased to buy,
To swell your sails, like Lapland winds, they fly.
“Write they with rage?” The tempest quickly flags;
A state-Ulysses tames 'em with his bags,
Let him be what he will, Turk, Pagan, Jew:
For Christian ministers of state are few.

Behind the curtain lurks the fountain-head
That pours his politics through pipes of lead,
Which far and near ejaculate, and spout,
O'er tea and coffee, poison to the rout:
But when they have bespatter'd all they may,
The statesman throws his filthy squirts away!

With golden forceps these another takes,
And state-elixirs of the vipers makes.

The richest statesman wants wherewith to pay
A servile sycophant, if well they weigh
How much it costs the wretch to be so base;
Nor can the greatest powers enough disgrace,
Enough chastise, such prostitute applause,
If well they weigh how much it stains their cause.

“But are our writers ever in the wrong?
Does Virtue ne'er seduce the venal tongue?”

Yes; if well-bribed, for Virtue's self they fight;
Still in the wrong, though champions for the right.
Whoe'er their crimes, for interest only, quit,
Sin on in virtue, and good deeds commit.

Nought but inconstancy Britannia meets,
And broken faith, in their abandoned sheets.
From the same hand how various is the page!
What civil war their brother pamphlets wage!
Tracts battle tracts, self-contradictions glare:
Say, is this lunacy?—I wish it were.
If such our writers, startled at the sight,
Felons may bless their stars they cannot write!

How justly Proteus' transmigrations fit
The monstrous changes of a modern wit!
Now, such a gentle stream of eloquence
As seldom rises to the verge of sense;
Now, by mad rage, transform'd into a flame,
Which yet fit engines, well applied, can tame;
Now, on immodest trash, the swine obscene
Invites the town to sup at Drury-Lane;
A dreadful lion, now he roars at power,
Which sends him to his brothers at the Tower;
He's now a serpent, and his double tongue
Salutes, nay, licks, the feet of those he stung.
What knot can bind him, his evasion such?
One knot he well deserves, which might do much.

The flood, flame, swine, the lion, and the snake,
Those fivefold monsters, modern authors make.
The snake reigns most: snakes, Pliny says, are bred,
When the brain's perish'd, in a human head.
Ye grovelling, trodden, whipp'd, stripp'd, turncoat things,
Made up of venom, volumes, stains, and stings!
Thrown from the tree of knowledge, like you, cursed
To scribble in the dust, was Snake the First.

What, if the figure should in fact prove true?
It did in Elkanah; why not in you?
Poor Elkanah, all other changes past,
For bread in Smithfield-dragons hiss'd at last,
Spit streams of fire to make the butchers gape,
And found his manners suited to his shape.
Such is the fate of talents misapplied;
So lived your prototype, and so he died.

The' abandon'd manners of our writing train
May tempt mankind to think religion vain;
But in their fate, their habit, and their mien,
That gods there are, is eminently seen:
Heaven stands absolved, by vengeance on their pen,
And marks the murderers of fame from men.
Through meagre jaws they draw their venal breath,
As ghastly as their brothers in Macbeth:
Their feet through faithless leather meet the dirt,
And oftener changed their principles than shirt.
The transient vestments of these frugal men
Hasten to paper for our mirth again:
Too soon (O merry-melancholy fate!)
They beg in rhyme, and warble through a grate:
The man lampoon'd forgets it at the sight;
The friend through pity gives, the foe through spite;
And though full conscious of his injured purse,
Lintot relents, nor Curll can wish them worse.
So fare the men who writers dare commence
Without their patent,—probity and sense.

From these their politics our quidnuncs seek,
And Saturday's the learning of the week.
These labouring wits, like paviours, mend our ways
With heavy, huge, repeated, flat essays;
Ram their coarse nonsense down, though ne'er so dull
And hem at every thump upon your skull.
These staunch-bred writing-hounds begin the cry,
And honest Folly echoes to the lie.
O how I laugh, when I a blockhead see
Thanking a villain for his probity!
Who stretches out a most respectful ear,
With snares for woodcocks in his holy leer.
It tickles through my soul to hear the cock's
Sincere encomium on his friend the fox,
“Sole patron of his liberties and rights!”
While graceless reynard listens—till he bites.

As, when the trumpet sounds, the' o'erloaded state
Discharges all her poor and profligate;
Crimes of all kinds dishonour'd weapons wield,
And prisons pour their filth into the field;
Thus Nature's refuse, and the dregs of men,
Compose the black militia of the pen.

Horatii Epist. lib. i. ep. xi. 30.

EPISTLE II. FROM OXFORD.

All write at London: shall the rage abate
Here, where it most should shine,—the Muses' seat;
Where, mortal or immortal, as they please,
The learn'd may choose eternity or ease?
Has not a royal patron wisely strove
To woo the Muse in her Athenian grove;
Added new strings to her harmonious shell,
And given new tongues to those who spoke so well?
Let these instruct, with Truth's illustrious ray,
Awake the world, and scare our owls away.

Meanwhile, O friend! indulge me, if I give
Some needful precepts how to write and live.
Serious should be an author's final views:
Who write for pure amusement, ne'er amuse.

An author! 'Tis a venerable name:
How few deserve it, and what numbers claim!
Unbless'd with sense above their peers refined,
Who shall stand up, dictators to mankind?
Nay, who dare shine, if not in Virtue's cause,
The sole proprietor of just applause?

Ye restless men, who pant for letter'd praise,
With whom would you consult to gain the bays?
With those great authors whose famed works you read?
'Tis well: go, then, consult the laurell'd shade.
What answer will the laurell'd shade return?
Hear it, and tremble!—He commands you burn
The noblest works his envied genius writ,
That boast of nought more excellent than wit.
If this be true, as 'tis a truth most dread,
Woe to the page which has not that to plead!
Fontaine and Chaucer, dying, wish'd unwrote
The sprightliest efforts of their wanton thought:
Sidney and Waller, brightest sons of Fame,
Condemn the charm of ages to the flame:
And in one point is all true wisdom cast,—
To think that early we must think at last.

Immortal wits, even dead, break Nature's laws,
Injurious still to Virtue's sacred cause;
And, their guilt growing, as their bodies rot,
(Reversed ambition!) pant to be forgot.

Thus ends your courted Fame: does lucre, then,
“The sacred thirst of gold,” betray your pen?
In prose 'tis blamable, in verse 'tis worse,
Provokes the muse, extorts Apollo's curse:
His sacred influence never should be sold;
'Tis arrant simony to sing for gold.
'Tis immortality should fire your mind:
Scorn a less paymaster than all mankind.

If bribes you seek, know this, ye writing tribe!
Who writes for Virtue has the largest bribe:
All's on the party of the virtuous man;
The good will surely serve him, if they can;
The bad, when interest or ambition guide,
And 'tis at once their interest and their pride:
But should both fail to take him to their care,
He boasts a greater Friend, and both may spare.

Letters to man uncommon light dispense;
And what is virtue but superior sense?
In parts and learning you who place your pride,
Your faults are crimes, your crimes are double-dyed.
What is a scandal of the first renown,
But letter'd knaves, and atheists in a gown?

'Tis harder far to please than give offence;
The least misconduct damns the brightest sense:
Each shallow pate, that cannot read your name,
Can read your life, and will be proud to blame.
Flagitious manners make impressions deep
On those that o'er a page of Milton sleep:
Nor in their dulness think to save your shame:
True, these are fools; but wise men say the same.

Wits are a despicable race of men,
If they confine their talents to the pen;
When the man shocks us, while the writer shines,
Our scorn in life, our envy in his lines.
Yet, proud of parts, with prudence some dispense,
And play the fool, because they're men of sense.
What instances breed recent in each thought,
Of men to ruin by their genius brought!
Against their wills what numbers ruin shun,
Purely through want of wit to be undone!

Nature has shown, by making it so rare,
That wit's a jewel which we need not wear.
Of plain sound sense life's current coin is made;
With that we drive the most substantial trade.

Prudence protects and guides us; Wit betrays;
A splendid source of ill ten thousand ways;
A certain snare to miseries immense;
A gay prerogative from common-sense;
Unless strong judgment that wild thing can tame,
And break to paths of virtue and of fame.

But grant your judgment equal to the best,
Sense fills your head, and genius fires your breast;
Yet still forbear: your wit (consider well)
'Tis great to show, but greater to conceal;
As it is great to seize the golden prize
Of place or power, but greater to despise.

If still you languish for an author's name,
Think private merit less than public fame,
And fancy not to write is not to live;
Deserve, and take, the great prerogative.
But ponder what it is; how dear 'twill cost,
To write one page which you may justly boast.

Sense may be good, and yet not deserve the press:
Who write, an awful character profess;
The world as pupil of their wisdom claim,
And for their stipend an immortal fame.
Nothing but what is solid or refined
Should dare ask public audience of mankind.

Severely weigh your learning and your wit:
Keep down your pride by what is nobly writ:
No writer, famed in your own way, pass o'er;
Much trust example, but reflection more:
More had the ancients writ, they more had taught;
Which shows, some work is left for modern thought.

This weigh'd, perfection know; and, known, adore:
Toil, burn for that; but do not aim at more:
Above, beneath it, the just limits fix;
And zealously prefer four lines to six.

Write, and re-write, blot out, and write again,
And for its swiftness ne'er applaud your pen.
Leave to the jockeys that Newmarket praise;
Slow runs the Pegasus that wins the bays.
Much time for immortality to pay,
Is just and wise; for less is thrown away.

Time only can mature the labouring brain:
Time is the father, and the midwife Pain.
The same good-sense that makes a man excel,
Still makes him doubt he ne'er has written well.
Downright impossibilities they seek;
What man can be immortal in a week?

Excuse no fault; though beautiful, 'twill harm;
One fault shocks more than twenty beauties charm.
Our age demands correctness: Addison
And you this commendable hurt have done.
Now writers find, as once Achilles found,
The whole is mortal if a part's unsound.

He that strikes out, and strikes not out the best,
Pours lustre in, and dignifies the rest.
Give e'er so little, if what's right be there,
We praise for what you burn, and what you spare:
The part you burn, smells sweet before the shrine,
And is as incense to the part divine.

Nor frequent write, though you can do it well:
Men may too oft, though not too much, excel.
A few good works gain fame; more sink their price:
Mankind are fickle, and hate paying twice:
They granted you writ well; what can they more,—
Unless you let them praise for giving o'er?

Do boldly what you do, and let your page
Smile, if it smiles, and, if it rages, rage.
So faintly Lucius censures and commends,
That Lucius has no foes—except his friends.

Let satire less engage you than applause;
It shows a generous mind to wink at flaws.
Is genius yours? be yours a glorious end;
Be your king's, country's, truth's, religion's friend;
The public glory by your own beget;
Run nations, run posterity, in debt.
And since the famed alone make others live,
First have that glory you presume to give.

If satire charms, strike faults, but spare the man;
'Tis dull to be as witty as you can.
Satire recoils whenever charged too high;
Round your own fame the fatal splinters fly.
As the soft plume gives swiftness to the dart,
Good-breeding sends the satire to the heart.

Painters and surgeons may the structure scan;
Genius and morals be with you the man:

Defaults in those alone should give offence:
Who strikes the person, pleads his innocence.
My narrow-minded satire can't extend
To Codrus' form; I'm not so much his friend:
Himself should publish that (the world agree)
Before his works, or in the pillory.
Let him be black, fair, tall, short, thin or fat,
Dirty or clean, I find no theme in that.
Is that call'd humour? It has this pretence,—
'Tis neither virtue, breeding, wit, nor sense.
Unless you boast the genius of a Swift,
Beware of humour,—the dull rogue's last shift.

Can others write like you? Your task give o'er;
'Tis printing what was publish'd long before.
If nought peculiar through your labours run,
They're duplicates, and twenty are but one.
Think frequently, think close, read Nature, turn
Men's manners o'er, and half your volumes burn.
To nurse with quick reflection, be your strife,
Thoughts born from present objects, warm from life:
When most unsought, such inspirations rise,
Slighted by fools, and cherish'd by the wise.
Expect peculiar fame from these alone;
These make an author, these are all your own.

Life, like their Bibles, coolly men turn o'er;
Hence unexperienced children of threescore.
True, all men think of course, as all men dream;
And if they slightly think, 'tis much the same.

Letters admit not of a half-renown;
They give you nothing, or they give a crown.
No work e'er gain'd true fame, or ever can,
But what did honour to the name of man.

Weighty the subject, cogent the discourse,
Clear be the style, the very sound of force;
Easy the conduct, simple the design,
Striking the moral, and the soul divine.
Let nature art, and judgment wit, exceed;
O'er learning reason reign; o'er that, your Creed:
Thus virtue's seeds, at once, and laurel's, grow;
Do thus, and rise a Pope, or a Despreaux.
And when your genius exquisitely shines,
Live up to the full lustre of your lines:
Parts but expose those men who virtue quit:
A fallen angel is a fallen wit;

And they plead Lucifer's detested cause,
Who for bare talents challenge our applause.
Would you restore just honours to the pen?
From able writers rise to worthy men.

“Who's this with nonsense nonsense would restrain?
Who's this,” they cry, “so vainly schools the vain?
Who damns our trash, with so much trash replete?
As, three ells round, huge Cheyne rails at meat.”

Shall I with Bavius, then, my voice exalt,
And challenge all mankind to find one fault?
With huge examens overwhelm my page,
And darken reason with dogmatic rage?
As if, one tedious volume writ in rhyme,
In prose a duller could excuse the crime!
Sure, next to writing, the most idle thing
Is gravely to harangue on what we sing.

At that tribunal stands the writing tribe
Which nothing can intimidate or bribe:
Time is the judge; Time has nor friend nor foe;
False fame must wither, and the true will grow.
Arm'd with this truth, all critics I defy;
For if I fall, by my own pen I die:
While snarlers strive, with proud but fruitless pain,
To wound immortals, or to slay the slain.

Sore press'd with danger, and in awful dread
Of twenty pamphlets levell'd at my head,
Thus have I forged a buckler in my brain,
Of recent form, to serve me this campaign;
And safely hope to quit the dreadful field,
Deluged with ink, and sleep behind my shield;
Unless dire Codrus rouses to the fray
In all his might, and damns me—for a day.

As turns a flock of geese, and, on the green,
Poke out their foolish necks in awkward spleen,
(Ridiculous in rage!) to hiss, not bite;
So war their quills, when sons of Dulness write.

His late Majesty's benefaction for modern languages.

SEA-PIECE:
MDCCXXXIII.

CONTAINING I.—THE BRITISH SAILOR'S EXULTATION. II.—HIS PRAYER BEFORE ENGAGEMENT.

THE DEDICATION. TO MR. VOLTAIRE.

1

My Muse, a bird of passage, flies
From frozen climes to milder skies;
From chilling blasts she seeks thy cheering beam,
A beam of favour here denied:
Conscious of faults, her blushing pride
Hopes an asylum in so great a name.

2

To dive full deep in ancient days,
The warrior's ardent deeds to raise,
And monarchs aggrandize,—the glory thine;
Thine is the drama, how renown'd!
Thine, epic's loftier trump to sound;—
But let Arion's sea-strung harp be mine:

3

But where's his dolphin? Know'st thou where?—
May that be found in thee, Voltaire!
Save thou from harm my plunge into the wave.
How will thy name illustrious raise
My sinking song! Mere mortal lays,
So patronized, are rescued from the grave.

4

“Tell me,” say'st thou, “who courts my smile?
What stranger stray'd from yonder isle?”—
No stranger, sir! though born in foreign climes.

On Dorset downs, when Milton's page,
With Sin and Death, provoked thy rage,
Thy rage provoked who soothed with gentle rhymes?

5

Who kindly couch'd thy Censure's eye,
And gave thee clearly to descry
Sound Judgment giving law to Fancy strong?
Who half inclined thee to confess,—
Nor could thy modesty do less,—
That Milton's blindness lay not in his song?

6

But such debates long since are flown;
For ever set the suns that shone
On airy pastimes, ere our brows were grey.
How shortly shall we both forget,
To thee, my patron, I my debt,
And thou to thine, for Prussia's golden key!

7

The present, in oblivion cast,
Full soon shall sleep, as sleeps the past;
Full soon the wide distinction die between
The frowns and favours of the great,
High-flush'd Success and pale Defeat,
The Gallic gaiety and British spleen.

8

Ye wing'd, ye rapid moments, stay!—
O friend! as deaf as rapid they;
Life's little drama done, the curtain falls!
Dost thou not hear it? I can hear,
Though nothing strikes the listening ear:
Time groans his last! ETERNAL loudly calls!

9

Nor calls in vain: the call inspires
Far other counsels and desires
Than once prevail'd; we stand on higher ground:
What scenes we see!—Exalted aim!
With ardours new our spirits flame;
Ambition bless'd, with more than laurels crown'd!

History of the Emperor Peter the Great, of Charles XII., and of Louis XIV.

ODE THE FIRST. THE BRITISH SAILOR'S EXULTATION.

1

In lofty sounds let those delight,
Who brave the foe, but fear the fight,
And, bold in word, of arms decline the stroke:
'Tis mean to boast, but great to lend
To foes the counsel of a friend,
And warn them of the vengeance they provoke.

2

From whence arise these loud alarms?
Why gleams the south with brandish'd arms?
War, bathed in blood, from cursed Ambition springs:
Ambition mean! ignoble Pride!
Perhaps their ardours may subside,
When weigh'd the wonders Britain's sailor sings.

3

Hear, and revere.—At Britain's nod,
From each enchanted grove and wood
Hastes the huge oak, or shadeless forest leaves;
The mountain pines assume new forms,
Spread canvass-wings, and fly through storms,
And ride o'er rocks, and dance on foaming waves.

4

She nods again: the labouring Earth
Discloses a tremendous birth;
In smoking rivers runs her molten ore;
Thence monsters, of enormous size
And hideous aspect, threatening rise,
Flame from the deck, from trembling bastions roar.

5

These ministers of Fate fulfil,
On empires wide, an island's will,
When thrones unjust wake vengeance.—Know, ye powers!
In sudden night, and ponderous balls,
And floods of flame, the tempest falls,
When braved Britannia's awful senate lours.

6

In her grand council she surveys,
In patriot picture, what may raise
Of insolent attempts a warm disdain;

From hope's triumphant summit thrown,
Like darted lightning, swiftly down,
The wealth of Ind, and confidence of Spain.

7

Britannia sheaths her courage keen,
And spares her nitrous magazine;
Her cannon slumber, till the proud aspire,
And leave all law below them; then they blaze!
They thunder from resounding seas,
Touch'd by their injured master's soul of fire.

8

Then Furies rise; the battle raves,
And rends the skies, and warms the waves,
And calls a tempest from the peaceful deep,
In spite of Nature, spite of Jove;
While, all serene and hush'd, above,
Tumultuous winds in azure chambers sleep.

9

A thousand deaths the bursting bomb
Hurls from her disembowell'd womb;
Chain'd glowing globes, in dread alliance join'd,
Red-wing'd by strong, sulphureous blasts,
Sweep, in black whirlwinds, men and masts,
And leave singed, naked, blood-drown'd decks behind.

10

Dwarf laurels rise in tented fields;
The wreath immortal Ocean yields:
There War's whole sting is shot, whole fire is spent,
Whole glory blooms. How pale, how tame,
How lambent is Bellona's flame—
How her storms languish—on the continent!

11

From the dread front of ancient War
Less terror frown'd; her scythed car,
Her castled elephant, and battering beam,
Stoop to those engines which deny
Superior terrors to the sky,
And boast their clouds, their thunder, and their flame.

12

The flame, the thunder, and the cloud,
The night by day, the sea of blood,
Hosts whirl'd in air, the yell of sinking throngs,
The graveless dead, an ocean warm'd,
A firmament by mortals storm'd,
To patient Britain's angry brow belongs.

13

Or do I dream? or do I rave?
Or see I Vulcan's sooty cave,
Where Jove's red bolts the giant brothers frame?

Those swarthy gods of toil and heat,
Loud peals on mountain anvils beat,
And panting tempests rouse the roaring flame.

14

Ye sons of Ætna! hear my call;
Unfinish'd let those baubles fall,
Yon shield of Mars, Minerva's helmet blue:
Your strokes suspend, ye brawny throng!
Charm'd by the magic of my song,
Drop the feign'd thunder, and attempt the true.

15

Begin: and, first, take rapid flight,
Fierce flame, and clouds of thickest night,
And ghastly terror, paler than the dead;
Then, borrow from the North his roar;
Mix groans and deaths; one phial pour
Of wrong'd Britannia's wrath;—and it is made:
Gaul starts, and trembles, at your dreadful trade.

Picture of the Defeat of the Spanish Armada in the House of Lords.

Alluding to Virgil's description of thunder.

ODE THE SECOND: IN WHICH IS THE SAILOR'S PRAYER BEFORE ENGAGEMENT.

1

So form'd the bolt, ordain'd to break
Gaul's haughty plan, and Bourbon shake;
If Britain's crimes support not Britain's foes,
And edge their swords; O Power Divine!
If bless'd by Thee the bold design;
Embattled hosts a single arm o'erthrows.

2

Ye warlike dead, who fell of old
In Britain's cause, by Fame enroll'd
In deathless annal! deathless deeds inspire;
From oozy beds, for Britain's sake,
Awake, illustrious chiefs! awake
And kindle in your sons paternal fire.

3

The day commission'd from above,
Our worth to weigh, our hearts to prove,
If war's full shock too feeble to sustain;

Or firm to stand its final blow,
When vital streams of blood shall flow,
And turn to crimson the discolour'd main;

4

That day's arrived, that fatal hour!—
“Hear us, O hear, Almighty Power!
Our Guide in counsel, and our strength in fight!
Now war's important die is thrown,
If left the day to man alone,
How blind is Wisdom, and how weak is Might?

5

“Let prostrate hearts, and awful fear,
And deep remorse, and sighs sincere
For Britain's guilt, the wrath Divine appease;
A wrath more formidable far
Than angry Nature's wasteful war,
The whirl of tempests, and the roar of seas.

6

“From out the deep, to Thee we cry,
To Thee, at nature's helm on high!
Steer Thou our conduct, dread Omnipotence!
To Thee for succour we resort;
Thy favour is our only port;
Our only rock of safety, Thy defence.

7

“O Thou, to whom the lions roar,
And, not unheard. Thy boon implore!
Thy throne our bursts of cannon loud invoke:
Thou canst arrest the flying ball;
Or send it back, and bid it fall
On those from whose proud deck the thunder broke.

8

“Britain in vain extends her care
To climes remote for aids in war;
Still farther must it stretch, to crush the foe:
There's one alliance, one alone,
Can crown her arms, or fix her throne;
And that alliance is not found below.

9

“Ally Supreme! we turn to Thee:
We learn obedience from the sea;
With seas and winds, henceforth, Thy laws fulfil.
'Tis Thine our blood to freeze or warm,
To rouse or hush the martial storm,
And turn the tide of conquest at Thy will.

10

“'Tis Thine to beam sublime renown,
Or quench the glories of a crown;
'Tis Thine to doom, 'tis Thine from Death to free,
To turn aside his levell'd dart,
Or pluck it from the bleeding heart:—
There we cast anchor, we confide in Thee.

11

“Thou, who hast taught the North to roar,
And streaming lights nocturnal pour,
Of frightful aspect! when proud foes invade,
Their blasted pride with dread to seize,
Bid Britain's flags as meteors blaze;
And George depute to thunder in Thy stead.

12

“The Right alone is bold and strong;
Black hovering clouds appal the Wrong
With dread of vengeance. Nature's awful Sire!
Less than one moment shouldst Thou frown,
Where is puissance and renown?
Thrones tremble, empires sink, or worlds expire.

13

“Let George the Just chastise the vain.
Thou, who dost curb the rebel Main,
To mount the shore when boiling billows rave!
Bid George repel a bolder tide,
The boundless swell of Gallic pride,
And check Ambition's overwhelming wave.

14

“And when (all milder means withstood)
Ambition, tamed by loss of blood,
Regains her reason; then, on angels' wings,
Let Peace descend, and, shouting, greet
With peals of joy Britannia's fleet,
How richly freighted! It, triumphant, brings
The poise of kingdoms, and the fate of kings.”

Russia

Aurora Borealis.

THE FOREIGN ADDRESS:

OR, THE BEST ARGUMENT FOR PEACE.

OCCASIONED BY THE BRITISH FLEET, AND THE POSTURE OF AFFAIRS, WHEN THE PARLIAMENT MET, 1734.

Musa dedit fidibus divos, puerosque deorum.
Horatius De Arte Poeticá, 83.

MDCCXXXIV.

1

Ye guardian gods, who wait on kings,
And gently touch the secret springs
Of rising thought! solicit, I beseech,
For a poor stranger, come from far;
Procure a suppliant traveller
“Ease of access and the soft hour of speech.”

2

'Tis gain'd:—Hail, monarchs great and wise!
From distant climes and dusky skies,
O'er seas and lands I flew, your ear to claim:
Yours is the sun, and purple vine;
Deep in the frozen north I pine;
Nor vine nor sun could warm me like my theme.

3

A theme how great! On yonder tide,
A leafless forest spreading wide,
The labour of the deep, my Muse surveys;
A fleet, whose empire o'er the wave,
You grant, Time strengthens, Nature gave;
Now big with death, the terror of the seas!

4

Ye great by sea! ye shades adored,
Who fired the bomb, and bathed the sword!
Arise, arise, arise! 'tis Britain charms:
Arise, ye boast of former wars,
And, pointing to your glorious scars,
Rouse me to verse, your martial sons to arms!

5

'Tis done: and see, sweet Clio brings
From heaven her deep-resounding strings.
Clio! the god which gave thy charming shell,
Demands its most exalted strain,
To sing the sovereign of the main:
Of ocean's queen what wonders wilt thou tell?

6

Such wonders as may pass for sport
Or vision in a southern court:
But, mighty thrones! those truths which make me glow,
Your fathers saw, your sons shall see:
Then quit your infidelity;
Some truths 'tis better to believe than know.

7

Believe me, kings: at Britain's nod,
From each enchanted grove and wood,
Huge oaks stalk down the' unshaded mountain's side;
The lofty pines assume new forms,
Fly round the globe, and live in storms,
And tread and triumph on the wandering tide.

8

She nods again: the labouring earth
Discloses a stupendous birth;
In smoking rivers runs her molten ore;
Thence monsters of enormous size
And hideous nature, frowning, rise,
Flame from the deck, from trembling bastions roar.

9

These ministers of wrath fulfil,
On empires wide, an island's will;
If friends insulted, or sworn treaties broke,
Or sacred Reason's injured cause,
Or nations' violated laws,
Britannia's vengeance and the gods' provoke.

10

As yet, Peace sheaths her courage keen,
And spares her nitrous magazine;
Her cannon slumber, at the world's desire:
But, give just cause, at once they blaze,
At once they thunder from the seas,
Touch'd by their injured master's soul of fire.

11

Then Furies rise; the battle raves,
And rends the skies, and warms the waves,
And calls a tempest from the peaceful deep,
In spite of Nature, spite of Jove;
While, all-serene and hush'd, above,
The boisterous winds in azure chambers sleep.

12

This, this, my monarchs, is the scene
For hearts of proof, for gods of men;
Here War's whole sting is shot, whole heart is spent.
You sport in arms: how pale, how tame,
How lambent is Bellona's flame,
How her storms languish, on the continent!

13

A swarm of deaths the mighty bomb
Now scatters from her glowing womb;
Now the chain'd bolts, in dread alliance join'd,
Red-wing'd with an expanding blast,
Sweep, in black whirlwinds, man and mast,
And leave a singed and naked hull behind.

14

Now—but I'm struck with pale despair:
My patrons! what a burst was there!
The strong-ribb'd barks at once disploding fly.
Insatiate Death! compendious Fate!
Deep wound to some brave bleeding state!
One moment's guilt, a thousand heroes die.

15

The great, gay, graceful, young, and brave,
(Short obsequies!) the sable wave
Involves in endless night. Ye graveless dead,
Where are your conquests? Now you rove,
Pale, pensive, through the coral grove,
Or shrink from Britain in your oozy bed.

16

While virgins fair, with tender toil,
Of fragrant blooms their gardens spoil,
Low lie the brows for which the wreath's design'd,
In sea-weed wrapp'd. Alas! how vain
The hope, the joy, the care, the pain,
The love, and godlike valour of mankind!

17

Of brass his heart who durst explore,—
Lock'd up in triple brass, and more,
Who, when explored, the secret durst explain,—
How, in one instant, at one blow,
The maiden's sigh, the mother's throe,
Of half a widow'd land, to render vain.

18

See yon cowl'd friar in his cell,
With sulphur, flame, and crucible;
And can the charms of gold that saint inspire?
O cursed cause! O curs'd event!
O wondrous power of accident!
He rivals gods, and sets the globe on fire.

19

But the rank growth of modern ill
Too well deserved that fatal skill,
The skill by which Destruction swiftly runs,
And seas and lands and worlds lays waste,
With far more terror, far more haste,
Than ancient Nimrod and his haughty sons.

20

In frown and force old War must yield:
The chariot scythed, which mow'd the field,
The ram, the castled elephant, were tame;
Tame to ranged ordnance, which denies
Superior terror to the skies,
And claims the cloud, the thunder, and the flame.

21

The flame, the thunder, and the cloud,
The night by day, the sea of blood,
Hosts whirl'd in air, the yell, the sinking throng,
The graveless dead, an ocean warm'd,
A firmament by mortals storm'd,—
To wrong'd Britannia's angry brow belong.

22

Or do I dream, or do I rave?
Or do I see the gloomy cave,
Where Jove's red bolts the giant brothers frame?
The swarthy gods of toil and heat
Loud peals on mountain-anvils beat,
While panting tempests rouse the roaring flame.

23

Ye sons of Ætna, hear my call!
Let your unfinish'd labours fall,
That shield of Mars, Minerva's helmet blue.
Suspend your toils, ye brawny throng!
Charm'd by the magic of my song,
Drop the feign'd thunder, and attempt the true.

24

Begin, and, first, take winged flight,
Fierce flames, and clouds of thickest night,
And trembling terror, paler than the dead;
Then borrow from the North his roar;
Mix groans and death; one vial pour
Of dread Britannia's wrath, and it is made.

25

Yet, Peace celestial, may thy charms
Still fire our breasts, though clad in arms:
If scenes of blood avenging Fates decree,
For thee the sword brave Britons wield;
For thee charge o'er the' embattled field;
Or plunge through seas, through crimson seas, for thee.

26

E'en now for peace the gods are press'd;
We woo the nations to be bless'd;
For peace, victorious kings, we call to you.
For peace, on pinions of the dove,
Soft emblem of eternal love,
Through wintry, black, tempestuous skies I flew.

27

My former lays of rough contents,
Of waves, and wars, and armaments,
Were but as peals of ordnance to confess
Your height of dignity; to clear
Your deaf, your late obstructed ear;
And wake attention to more mild address.

28

Have I not heard you both declare,
Your souls detest the purple war,
And melt in anguish for the world's repose?
Hail, then, all hail! your wish is crown'd,
Your god-like zeal through time renown'd,
Through Europe bless'd; with joy her heart o'erflows.

29

Your friend, your brother of the north,
To meet your arms, comes smiling forth,
And leads soft-handed Peace: how powerful he!
His numerous race, the blossoms bright
Of golden empire,—radiant sight!—
Endless beam on into eternity.

30

What long allies!—The virgin train
Your most obdurate foes may gain:
See, how their charms in lineal lustre shine!
Through every genuine branch the sire
Has darted rays of temper'd fire,
The mother breathed soft air and bloom divine.

31

How fair the field! ye Aonian bees!
The flowers ambrosial fondly seize,
Luxurious draw the sweet Hyblæan strain;

That gods may lean from heaven to hear,
And my throned patrons' ravish'd ear
The soul's rich nectar drink, and thirst again.

32

E'en mine they taste, and with success:
Ambition's fumes my strains repress;
The fever flies; no noxious thoughts ferment;
No frenzy, taking friends for foes:
The pulse subsides; they seek repose:
Nor I my winged embassy repent.

33

No; by the blood of Blenheim's plain,
I swear, the rumour'd war is vain:
Shall Gallic faith and friendship ever cease?
I swear by Europe's lovely dread,
I swear by great Eliza's shade,
The wise Iberian is the friend of Peace.

34

Yet, lest I fail, (for, prophets old
Not all infallibly foretold,)
We set our naval terrors in array.
Know, Britons! an Augustus reigns:
If foes compel, send forth your chains,
While haughty thrones, uncensured, might obey.

35

O could I sing as you have fought,
I'd raise a monument of thought,
Bright as the sun!—How you burn at my heart!
How the drums all around
Soul-rousing resound!
Swift drawn from the thigh,
How the swords flame on high!
How the cannon, deep knell,
Fates of kingdoms foretell!
How to battle, to battle, sick of feminine art,
How to battle, to conquest, to glory, we dart!

36

But who gives conquest? He whose ray
To darkness sinks the blaze of day;
Whose boundless favour far out-flows the main;
Whose power the raging waves can still:—
O curb more rebel human will!
With peace O bless us, or in war sustain!

37

Dost Thou sustain?—Ye twinkling fry!
That swim the seas, glide gently by;
Though your scales glitter, though your numbers swarm,

Ah! gently glide, for life's dear sake:
Nor dare leviathan awake,
Who spouts a river, and who breathes a storm.

38

Would you a nation's genius know?
Alike her bards and warriors glow.
High sounds my song? Immortal breathes the lyre?
Along the chords that ardour runs
Which stings Britannia's rushing sons
To flaming deeds might nobler lays inspire.

39

If still vain hopes of conquest swell,
How vain e'en conquest, ponder well:
It stains, it brands, but when the cause is good.
Are you not men? Think, what are they
Your wanton wars reduce to clay;
Nor lay the summer's dust with kindred blood.

40

Is there a charm in dying groans?
See yonder vale of human bones!
The generous heart would melt, that won the day;
Would melt, and with the prophet cry,
“To breathe new souls, ye Zephyrs, fly;
Ye winged brothers all, haste, haste away!”

41

Frown you? Frown on; your hour is past!
The signal wafted in that blast
Speaks Britain's awful senate met: beware
Lest in her scale, (the womb of right!)
With all your arms, you're found too light,
Till smiles increase that weight your frowns impair.

42

For, mark the scene of deep debate,
Where Britons sit on Europe's fate;
What loom'd exploit adorns it and inspires?
The walls, the very walls advise,
Each mean, degenerate thought chastise,
And rouse the sons with all their fathers' fires;

43

Teach them the style they used of old.
Would Britain have her anger told?
O, never let a meaner language sound
Than that which through black ether rolls,
Than that which prostrates human souls,
And rocks pale realms, when angry gods have frown'd.

44

Gods, and their noblest offspring here,
Soft terms refused, impose severe:
Ye nations, know! know, all ye sceptred powers!
In sulphurous night, and massy balls,
And floods of flame, the tempest falls,
When Pride presumes, and Britain's senate lours.

45

A brighter era is begun;
Our fame advances with the sun;
A virgin senate blooms: her bosom heaves
With something great, with something new;
Something our god-like sires may view,
And not abash'd shrink back into their graves.

46

No; Britain's slumbering genius wakes:
What other Churchills, other Drakes?—
What Castle nods? what Lilies cease to smile?
What Lion roars? what Fleets in flight?
What Towns in flames? (prophetic sight!)
What Eagle mounting from the burning pile?

47

And now, who censures this Address?
Thus crowns, states, common men, make peace:
They swell, soothe, double, dive, swear, pray, defy;
And when rank Interest has prevail'd,
And Artifice the treaty seal'd,
Stark Love and Conscience own the bastard tie.

48

Ambassadors, ye mouths of kings!
Ye missive monarchs, empire's wings!
What, though the Muse your province proudly chose?
'Tis a reprisal fairly made;
Her province you long since invade,
Ye perfect poets, in the vale of prose!

49

More safe, O Muse! that humble vale
Than the proud surge and stormy gale:
Thy dangerous seas with wrecks are cover'd o'er;
Dulness and Frenzy curse thy streams,
Rocks infamous for murder'd names:
O strike thy swelling sails, and make to shore!

50

While warmer climes, in cooler strains,
On tented fields or dusty plains,
The bleeding horse and horseman hurl to ground,

'Tis mine to sing, and sing the first,
That mighty shock, that dreadful burst
Of war, which bellows through the seas profound.

51

Nor mean the song, or great my blame:
When such the patrons, such the theme,
Who might not glow, soar, paint, with rage divine?
Truth, simple Truth, I proudly dress'd
In Fancy's robe; her flowery vest
Dipp'd in the curious colours of the Nine.

52

But, ah! 'tis past: I sink, I faint;
Nor more can glow, or soar, or paint;
The refluent raptures from my bosom roll:
To heaven returns the sacred maid,
And all her golden visions fade,
Ne'er to revisit my tumultuous soul.

53

My vocal shell, which Thetis form'd
Beneath the waves, which Venus warm'd
With all her charms, (if ancient tales be true,)
And in thy pearly bosom glow'd,
Ere Pæan silver chords bestow'd!
My shell, which Clio gave, which kings applaud,
Which Europe's bleeding Genius call'd abroad!
Adieu, pacific lyre! My laurell'd thrones, adieu!
Hear, Atticus! your sailor's song; I sing, I live for you.

Neptune.

The foregoing stanzas.

“Ye poets.”

Ezek. xxxvii.

The Spanish Armada, in the House of Lords.

EPITAPH ON LORD AUBREY BEAUCLERK,

IN WESTMINSTER-ABBEY, 1740.

Whilst Britain boasts her empire o'er the deep,
This marble shall compel the brave to weep:
As men, as Britons, and as soldiers, mourn!
'Tis dauntless, loyal, virtuous Beauclerk's urn.
Sweet were his manners, as his soul was great,
And ripe his worth, though immature his fate.
Each tender grace that joy and love inspires,
Living, he mingled with his martial fires:
Dying, he bid Britannia's thunders roar;
And Spain still felt him, when he breathed no more.

REFLECTIONS ON THE PUBLIC SITUATION OF THE KINGDOM,

HUMBLY INSCRIBED TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE, ONE OF HIS MAJESTY'S PRINCIPAL SECRETARIES OF STATE.

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR MDCCXLV.

Holles, immortal in far more than fame!
Be thou illustrious in far more than power.
Great things are small when greater rise to view.
Though station'd high, and press'd with public cares,
Disdain not to peruse my serious song,
Which peradventure may push-by the world,
Of a few moments rob Britannia's weal,
And leave Europa's counsels less mature;
For thou art noble, and the theme is great.
Nor shall or Europe or Britannia blame
Thine absent ear, but gain by the delay.
Long versed in senates and in cabinets,
States' intricate demands and high debates,
As thou of use to those, so this to thee;
And in a point that empire far outweighs,
That far outweighs all Europe's thrones in one.
Let Greatness prove its title to be great:
'Tis Power's supreme prerogative to stamp
On others' minds an image of its own.
Bend the strong influence of high place, to stem
The stream that sweeps away thy country's weal;
The Stygian stream, the torrent of our guilt.
Far as thou mayst, give life to Virtue's cause.

Let not the ties of personal regard
Betray the nation's trusts to feeble hands:
Let not fomented flames of private pique
Prey on the vitals of the public good:
Let not our streets with blasphemies resound,
Nor Lewdness whisper where the laws can reach:
Let not best laws, the wisdom of our sires,
Turn satires on their sunk, degenerate sons,
The bastards of their blood, and serve no point
But with more emphasis to call them fools:
Let not our rank enormities unhinge
Britannia's welfare from Divine support.
Such deeds the minister, the prince, adorn.
No power is shown but in such deeds as these:
All, all is impotence but acting right:
And where's the statesman but would show his power?
To prince and people thou of equal zeal!
Be it henceforward but thy second care
To grace thy country, and support the throne;
Though this supported, that adorn'd, so well.
A Throne Superior our first homage claims;
To Cæsar's Cæsar our first tribute due;
A tribute which unpaid makes specious wrong
And splendid sacrilege of all beside.
Illustrious follows; we must first be just:
And what so just as awe for the Supreme?
Less fear we rugged ruffians of the north,
Than Virtue's well-clad rebels nearer home;
Less Loyola's disguised, all-aping sons,
Than traitors lurking in our appetites;
Less all the legions Seine and Tagus send,
Than unrein'd passions rushing on our peace:
Yon savage mountaineers are tame to these.
Against those rioters send forth the laws,
And break to Reason's yoke their wild careers.
Prudence for all things points the proper hour,
Though some seem more importunate and great.
Though Britain's generous views and interests spread
Beyond the narrow circle of her shores,
And their grand entries make on distant lands;
Though Britain's Genius the wide waves bestrides,
And, like a vast Colossus, towering stands
With one foot planted on the Continent;
Yet be not wholly wrapp'd in public cares,

Though such high cares should call as call'd of late;
The cause of kings and emperors adjourn,
And Europe's little balance drop a while;
For greater drop it: ponder and adjust
The rival interests and contending claims
Of life and death, of now and of for-ever;
Sublimest theme, and needful as sublime!
Thus great Eliza's oracles renown'd,
Thus Walsingham and Raleigh, (Britain's boasts,)
Thus every statesman thought that ever—died.
There's inspiration in a sable hour,
And Death's approach makes politicians wise.
When, thunder-struck, that eagle, Wolsey, fell;
When royal favour, as an ebbing sea,
Like a leviathan, his grandeur left,
His gasping grandeur, naked on the strand,
Naked of human, doubtful of Divine,
Assistance; no more wallowing in his wealth,
Spouting proud foams of insolence no more;
On what then smote his heart, uncardinall'd,
And sunk beneath the level of a man?
On the grand article, the sum of things,
The point of the first magnitude! that point
Tubes mounted in a court but rarely reach;
Some painted cloud still intercepts their sight.
First right to judge; then choose; then persevere,
Steadfast, as if a crown or mistress call'd:—
These, these are politics will stand the test,
When finer politics their masters sting,
And statesmen fain would shrink to common men.
These, these are politics will answer now,
(When common men would fain to statesmen swell,)
Beyond a Machiavel's or Tencin's scheme.
All safety rests on honest counsels: these
Immortalize the statesman, bless the state,
Make the prince triumph, and the people smile;
In peace revered, or terrible in arms,
Close-leagued with an Invincible Ally,
Whom honest counsels never fail to fix
In favour of an unabandon'd land;
A land that—starts at such a land as this.
A parliament, so principled, will sink
All ancient schools of empire in disgrace;
And Britain's Glory, rising from the dead,

Will fill the world, loud Fame's superior song.
Britain!—that word pronounced is an alarm;
It warms the blood, though frozen in our veins;
Awakes the soul, and sends her to the field,
Enamour'd of the glorious face of Death.
Britain!—there's noble magic in the sound.
O what illustrious images arise!
Embattled round me blaze the pomps of war.
By sea, by land, at home, in foreign climes,
What full-blown laurels on our fathers' brows!
Ye radiant trophies and imperial spoils!
Ye scenes, astonishing to modern sight!
Let me at least enjoy you in a dream.
Why vanish? Stay, ye godlike strangers, stay!
Strangers!—I wrong my countrymen: they wake;
High beats the pulse; the noble pulse of War
Beats to that ancient measure, that grand march,
Which then prevail'd when Britain highest soar'd,
And every battle paid for heroes slain.
No more our great forefathers stain our cheeks
With blushes; their renown our shame no more.
In military garb and sudden arms,
Up starts Old Britain; crosiers are laid by;
Trade wields the sword, and Agriculture leaves
Her half-turn'd furrow: other harvests fire
A nobler avarice,—avarice of renown;
And laurels are the growth of every field.
In distant courts is our commotion felt,
And less like gods sit monarchs on their thrones.
What arm can want or sinews or success,
Which, lifted from an honest heart, descends,
With all the weight of British wrath, to cleave
The Papal mitre or the Gallic chain
At every stroke, and save a sinking land?
Or death or victory must be resolved:
To dream of mercy, O how tame, how mad,
Where, o'er black deeds the crucifix display'd,
Fools think heaven purchased by the blood they shed;
By giving, not supporting, pains and death!
Nor simple death,—where they the greatest saints
Who most subdue all tenderness of heart,
Students in torture; where, in zeal to Him
Whose darling title is “the Prince of Peace,”
The best turn ruthless butchers for our sakes,

To save us in a world they recommend,
And yet forbear, themselves with earth content:
What modesty!—Such virtues Rome adorn,
And chiefly those who Rome's first honours wear,
Whose name from Jesus, and whose arts from hell!
And shall a Pope-bred princeling crawl ashore,
Replete with venom, guiltless of a sting,
And whistle cut-throats, with those swords that scraped
Their barren rocks for wretched sustenance,
To cut his passage to the British throne?
One that has suck'd-in malice with his milk,
Malice to Britain, Liberty, and Truth?
Less savage was his brother-robber's nurse,
The howling nurse of plundering Romulus,
Ere yet far worse than Pagan harbour'd there.
Hail to the brave! Be Britain Britain still:
Britain, high-favour'd of indulgent Heaven!
Nature's anointed empress of the deep!
The nurse of merchants, who can purchase crowns!
Supreme in commerce, that exuberant source
Of wealth, the nerve of war; of wealth, the blood,
The circling current in a nation's veins,
To set high bloom on the fair face of Peace!
This once so celebrated seat of power,
From which escaped, the mighty Cæsar triumph'd!
Of Gallic lilies this eternal blast!
This terror of Armadas! this true bolt,
Ethereal-temper'd, to repress the vain
Salmonean thunders from the papal chair!
This small isle wide-realm'd monarchs eye with awe;
Which says to their ambition's foaming waves,
“Thus far, nor farther!”—Let her hold, in life,
Nought dear disjoin'd from freedom and renown;
Renown, our ancestors' great legacy,
To be transmitted to their latest sons.
By thoughts inglorious, and un-British deeds,
Their cancell'd will is impiously profaned,
Inhumanly disturb'd their sacred dust.
Their sacred dust with recent laurels crown,
By your own valour won. This sacred isle,
Cut from the Continent, that world of slaves;
This temple built by Heaven's peculiar care,
In a recess from the contagious world,
With ocean pour'd around it for its guard;

And dedicated long to Liberty,
That health, that strength, that bloom of civil life;
This temple of still more Divine,—of faith,
Sifted from errors, purified by flames,
Like gold, to take anew Truth's heavenly stamp,
And, rising both in lustre and in weight,
With her bless'd Master's unmaim'd image shine;
Why should she longer droop? why longer act
As an accomplice with the plots of Rome?
Why longer lend an edge to Bourbon's sword,
And give him leave, among his dastard troops,
To muster that strong succour, Albion's crimes,
Send his self-impotent ambition aid,
And crown the conquests of her fiercest foes?
Where are her foes most fatal? Blushing Truth,
“In her friends' vices,” with a sigh replies.
Empire on virtue's rock unshaken stands;
Flux as the billows, when in vice dissolved.
If Heaven reclaims us by the scourge of war,
What thanks are due to Paris and Madrid!
Would they a revolution? Aid their aim;
But be the revolution—in our hearts!
Wouldst thou (whose hand is at the helm) the bark,
The shaken bark of Britain, should out-ride
The present blast and every future storm?
Give it that ballast which alone has weight
With Him whom wind, and waves, and war, obey.
Persist. Are others subtle? thou be wise:
Above the Florentine's, court-science raise:
Stand forth a patriot of the moral world,
The pattern, and the patron, of the just.
Thus strengthen Britain's military strength;
Give its own terror to the sword she draws.
Ask you, what mean I? The most obvious truth:—
Armies and fleets alone ne'er won the day.
When our proud arms are once disarm'd, disarm'd
Of aid from Him by whom the mighty fall;
Of aid from Him by whom the feeble stand;
Who takes away the keenest edge of battle,
Or gives the sword commission to destroy;
Who blasts, or bids the martial laurel bloom;—
Emasculated, then, most manly might;
Or, though the might remains, it nought avails:
Then wither'd Weakness foils the sinewy arm

Of man's meridian and high-hearted power.
Our naval thunders, and our tented fields
With travell'd banners fanning southern climes,
What do they? This; and more what can they do?—
When heap'd the measure of a kingdom's crimes,
The prince most dauntless, the first plume of war,
By such bold inroads into foreign lands,
Such elongation of our armaments,
But stretches out the guilty nation's neck,
While Heaven commands her executioner,
Some less abandon'd nation, to discharge
Her full-ripe vengeance in a final blow,
And tell the world, “Not strong is human strength;”
And that “the proudest empire holds of Heaven.”
O Britain! often rescued, often crown'd,
Beyond thy merit or most sanguine hopes,
With all that's great in war, or sweet in peace!
Know from what source thy signal blessings flow.
Though bless'd with spirits ardent in the field,
Though cover'd various oceans with thy fleets,
Though fenced with rocks, and moated by the main,
Thy trust repose in a far stronger Guard;
In Him who thee, though naked, could defend;
Though weak, could strengthen; ruin'd, could restore.
How oft, to tell what arm defends thine isle,
To guard her welfare, and yet check her pride,
Have the winds snatch'd the victory from War,
Or, rather, won the day when War despair'd!
How oft has providential succour awed;
Awed while it bless'd us, conscious of our guilt;
Struck dead all confidence in human aid,
And, while we triumph'd, made us tremble too!
Well may we tremble now: what manners reign?
But wherefore ask we, when a true reply
Would shock too much? Kind Heaven, avert events
Whose fatal nature might reply too plain!
Heaven's half-bared arm of vengeance has been waved
In northern skies, and pointed to the south.
Vengeance, delay'd, but gathers and ferments,
More formidably blackens in the wind,
Brews deeper draughts of unrelenting wrath,
And higher charges the suspended storm.
“That public vice portends a public fall”—
Is this conjecture of adventurous Thought,

Or pious cowards' pulpit-cushion'd dream?
Far from it. This is certain; this is fate.
What says Experience, in her awful chair
Of ages, her authentic annals spread
Around her? What says Reason, eagle-eyed?
Nay, what says Common-Sense, with common care
Weighing events and causes in her scale?
All give one verdict, one decision sign;
And this the sentence Delphi could not mend:—
“Whatever secondary props may rise
From politics, to build the public peace,
The basis is the manners of the land.
When rotten these, the politician's wiles
But struggle with destruction, as a child
With giants huge, or giants with a Jove.
The statesman's arts to conjure up a peace,
Or military phantoms, void of force,
But scare away the vultures for an hour;
The scent cadaverous (for, O how rank
The stench of profligates!) soon lures them back;
On the proud flutter of a Gallic wing
Soon they return; soon make their full descent;
Soon glut their rage, and riot in our ruin;
Their idols graced and gorgeous with our spoils,
Of universal empire sure presage;
Till now, repell'd by seas of British blood!”
And whence the manners of the multitude?
The colour of their manners, black or fair,
Falls from above; from the complexion falls
Of state Othellos, or white men in power:
And from the greater height example falls,
Greater the weight, and deeper its impress
In ranks inferior, passive to the stroke.
From the court-mint, of hearts the current coin
The pulpit presses, but the pattern drives.
What bonds, then, bonds how manifold and strong,
To duty, double duty, tie the great!
And are there Samsons that can burst them all?
Yes; and great minds that stand in need of none,

Whose pulse beats virtue, and whose generous blood
Aids mental motives, to push-on renown,
In emulation of their glorious sires,
From whom rolls down the consecrated stream.
Some sow good seeds in the glad people's hearts
Some, cursed tares, like Satan in the text:
This makes a foe most fatal to the state;
A foe who, (like a wizard in his cell,)
In his dark cabinet of crooked schemes,
Resembling Cuma's gloomy grot, the forge
Of boasted oracles and real lies,—
Aided, perhaps, by second-sighted Scots,
French Magi, relics riding post from Rome,
A Gothic hero rising from the dead,
And changing for spruce plaid his dirty shroud,
With succour suitable from lower still,—
A foe who, these concurring to the charm,
Excites those storms that shall o'erturn the state,
Rend up her ancient honours by the root,
And lay the boast of ages, the revered
Of nations, the dear-bought with sumless wealth
And blood illustrious, (spite of her La Hogues,
Her Cressys, and her Blenheims,) in the dust.

The invader affects the character of Charles XII. of Sweden.

How must this strike a horror through the breast,
Through every generous breast where Honour reigns,
Through every breast where Honour claims a share;
Yes, and through every breast of Honour void!
This thought might animate the dregs of men;
Ferment them into spirit; give them fire
To fight the cause, the black opprobrious cause,
Foul core of all,—corruption at our hearts.
What wreck of empire has the stream of Time
Swept, with their vices, from the mountain height
Of grandeur, deified by half mankind,

To dark Oblivion's melancholy lake,
Or flagrant Infamy's eternal brand!
Those names at which surrounding nations shook,
Those names adored, a nuisance, or forgot!
Nor this the caprice of a doubtful die,
But nature's course; no single chance against it.
For, know, my Lord, 'tis writ in adamant,
'Tis fix'd, as is the basis of the world,
Whose kingdoms stand or fall by the decree.
What saw these eyes, surprised?—Yet why surprised?
For aid Divine the crisis seem'd to call;
And how Divine was the monition given!
As late I walk'd the night in troubled thought,
My peace disturb'd by rumours from the north,
While thunder o'er my head, portentous, roll'd,
As giving signal of some strange event,
And Ocean groan'd beneath for her he loved,
Albion the Fair, so long his empire's queen,
Whose reign is now contested by her foes;
On her white cliffs (a tablet broad and bright,
Strongly reflecting the pale lunar ray)
By Fate's own iron pen I saw it writ,
And thus the title ran:—

“THE STATESMAN'S CREED.

“Ye states and empires! nor of empires least,
Though least in size, hear, Britain! thou whose lot,
Whose final lot, is in the balance laid!
Irresolutely play the doubtful scales,
Nor know'st thou which will win.—Know, then, from me,
As govern'd well or ill, states sink or rise:
State-ministers, as upright or corrupt,
Are balm or poison in a nation's veins,
Health or distemper; hasten or retard
The period of her pride, her day of doom:
And though, for reasons obvious to the wise,
Just Providence deals otherwise with men,
Yet believe, Britons, nor too late believe,—
'Tis fix'd, by Fate irrevocably fix'd,—
Virtue and vice are Empire's life and death.”

Thus it is written.—Heard you not a groan?
Is Britain on her death-bed?—No, that groan
Was utter'd by her foes.—But soon the scale,

If this Divine monition is despised,
May turn against us. Read it, ye who rule!
With reverence read; with steadfastness believe;
With courage act as such belief inspires:
Then shall your glory stand like Fate's decree;
Then shall your names in adamant be writ,
In records that defy the tooth of Time,
By nations saved, resounding your applause;
While deep beneath your monument's proud base,
In black Oblivion's kennel, shall be trod
Their execrable names who, high in power
And deep in guilt, most ominously shine,
(The meteors of the state,) give Vice her head,
To Licence lewd let loose the public rein,
Quench every spark of conscience in the land,
And triumph in the profligate's applause;—
Or who to the first bidder sell their souls,
Their country sell, sell all their fathers bought
With funds exhausted and exhausted veins,
To demons, by His Holiness ordain'd
To propagate the gospel—penn'd at Rome,
Hawk'd through the world by consecrated bulls,
And how illustrated? By Smithfield flames;—
Who plunge (but not like Curtius) down the gulf,
Down narrow-minded Self's voracious gulf,
Which gapes and swallows all they swore to save;
Hate all that lifted heroes into gods,
And hug the horrors of a victor's chain,
Of bodies politic that destined hell,
Inflicted here, since here their beings end;
That vengeance, soon or late, ordain'd to fall;
And fall from foes detested and despised,
On disbelievers—of “the Statesman's Creed.”

Note, here, my lord, (unnoted yet it lies
By most, or all,)—these truths political
Serve more than public ends: this Creed of States
Seconds, and irresistibly supports,
The Christian Creed. Are you surprised? Attend,
And on the statesman's build a nobler name.

This punctual justice exercised on states,
With which authentic chronicle abounds,
As all men know, and therefore must believe;
This vengeance pour'd on nations ripe in guilt,
Pour'd on them here, where only they exist;

What is it but an argument of sense,
Or rather demonstration, to support
Our feeble faith “that they who states compose,
That men who stand not bounded by the grave,
Shall meet like measure at their proper hour?”
For God is equal, similarly deals
With states and persons, or He were not God;
Which means a Rectitude immutable,
A Patron sure of universal right.
What, then, shall rescue an abandon'd man?
“Nothing,” it is replied:—replied by whom?
Replied by politicians well as priests:
Writ sacred set aside, mankind's own writ,
The whole world's annals,—these pronounce his doom.

Thus (what might seem a daring paradox)
E'en politics advance divinity:
True masters there are better scholars here.
Who travel history in quest of schemes
To govern nations, or perhaps oppress,
May there start truths that other aims inspire,
And, like Candace's eunuch, as they read,
By Providence turn Christians on their road:
Digging for silver, they may strike on gold;
May be surprised with better than they sought,
And entertain an angel unawares.

Nor is divinity ungrateful found.
As politics advance divinity,
Thus, in return, divinity promotes
True politics, and crowns the statesman's praise.
All wisdoms are but branches of the chief,
And statesmen sound but shoots of honest men.
Are this world's witchcrafts pleaded in excuse
For deviations from our moral line?
This and the next world, view'd with such an eye
As suits a statesman, such as keeps in view
His own exalted science, both conspire
To recommend and fix us in the right.
If we regard the politics of Heaven,
The grand administration of the whole,
What's the next world? A supplement of this:
Without it, justice is defective here;
Just as to states, defective as to men.
If so, what is this world? (As sure as Right
Sits in Heaven's throne,) a prophet of the next.

Prize you the prophet? Then believe him too;
His prophecy more precious than his smile.
How comes it, then, to pass, with most on earth,
That this should charm us, that should discompose?
Long as the statesman finds this case his own,
So long his politics are uncomplete;
In danger he; nor is the nation safe,
But soon must rue his inauspicious power.

What hence results? A truth that should resound
For ever awful in Britannia's ear:—
“Religion crowns the statesman and the man,
Sole source of public and of private peace.”
This truth all men must own, and therefore will,
And praise and preach it too: and when that's done,
Their compliment is paid, and 'tis forgot.
What Highland pole-axe half so deep can wound?

But how dare I, so mean, presume so far?
Assume my seat in the dictator's chair?
Pronounce, predict, (as if indeed inspired,)
Promulge my censures, lay out all my throat,
Till hoarse in clamour on enormous crimes?
Two mighty columns rise in my support;
In their more awful and authentic voice,
Record profane and sacred drown the Muse,
Though loud, and far out-threat her threatening song.
Still farther, Holles, suffer me to plead,
That I speak freely, as I speak to thee!
Guilt only startles at the name of guilt;
And truth, plain truth, is welcome to the wise.
Thus what seem'd my presumption is thy praise.

Praise, and immortal praise, is Virtue's claim;
And Virtue's sphere is action: yet we grant
Some merit to the trumpet's loud alarm,
Whose clangour kindles cowards into men.
Nor shall the verse, perhaps, be quite forgot,
Which talks of immortality, and bids
In every British breast true glory rise,
As now the warbling lark awakes the morn.

To close, my Lord, with that which all should close
And all begin, and strike us every hour,
Though no war waked us, no black tempest frown'd.—
The morning rises gay; yet gayest morn
Less glorious after night's incumbent shades,
Less glorious far bright Nature, rich array'd

With golden robes, in all the pomp of noon,
Than the first feeble dawn of moral day;
Sole day,—let those whom statesmen serve attend;
Though the sun ripens diamonds for their crowns,—
Sole day worth his regard whom Heaven ordains,
Undarken'd, to behold noon dark, and date,
From the sun's death, and every planet's fall,
His all-illustrious and eternal year;
Where statesmen and their monarchs (names of awe
And distance here) shall rank with common men,
Yet own their glory never dawn'd before.

October, 1745.

AN EPISTLE TO THE RIGHT HON. SIR ROBERT WALPOLE.

------ Quæ censet amiculus, ut si
Cæcus iter monstrare velit.
—Horatii Epist. lib. i. ep. xvii. 3.

Though strength of genius, by experience taught,
Gives thee to sound the depths of human thought,
To trace the various workings of the mind,
And rule the secret springs that rule mankind;
(Rare gift!) yet, Walpole, wilt thou condescend
To listen, if thy unexperienced friend
Can aught of use impart, though void of skill,
And win attention by sincere good-will?
For friendship sometimes want of parts supplies;
The heart may furnish what the head denies.

As when the rapid Rhone, o'er swelling tides,
To grace old Ocean's court, in triumph rides;
Though rich his source, he drains a thousand springs,
Nor scorns the tribute each small rivulet brings.

So thou shalt hence absorb each feeble ray,
Each dawn of meaning, in thy brighter day;
Shalt like, or, where thou canst not like, excuse,
Since no mean interest shall profane the muse,
No malice, wrapp'd in truth's disguise, offend,
Nor flattery taint the freedom of the friend.

When first a generous mind surveys the great,
And views the crowds that on their fortune wait;
Pleased with the show, (though little understood,)
He only seeks the power to do the good;
Thinks, till he tries, 'tis godlike to dispose,
And gratitude still springs where bounty sows;
That every grant sincere affection wins,
And, where our wants have end, our love begins.
But those who long the paths of state have trod,
Learn from the clamours of the murmuring crowd,
Which, cramm'd, yet craving still, their gates besiege,
'Tis easier far to give than to oblige.

This of thy conduct seems the nicest part,
The chief perfection of the statesman's art,—
To give to fair assent a fairer face,
Or soften a refusal into grace.
But few there are that can be truly kind,
Or know to fix their favours on the mind.
Hence some, whene'er they would oblige, offend,
And, while they make the fortune, lose the friend;
Still give, unthank'd; still squander, not bestow;
For great men want not what to give, but how.

The race of men that follow courts, 'tis true,
Think all they get, and more than all, their due;
Still ask, but ne'er consult their own deserts;
And measure by their interest, not their parts.
From this mistake so many men we see
But ill become the thing they wish'd to be:
Hence discontent and fresh demands arise,
More power, more favour in the great man's eyes:
All feel a want, though none the cause suspects,
But hate their patron for their own defects.
Such none can please, but who reforms their hearts,
And, when he gives them places, gives them parts.

As these o'erprize their worth, so sure the great
May sell their favour at too dear a rate.
When merit pines, while clamour is preferr'd,
And long attachment waits among the herd;

When no distinction, where distinction's due,
Marks from the many the superior few;
When strong cabal constrains them to be just,
And makes them give at last—because they must;
What hopes that men of real worth should prize
What neither friendship gives, nor merit buys?

The man who justly o'er the whole presides,
His well-weigh'd choice with wise affection guides;
Knows when to stop with grace, and when advance;
Nor gives through importunity or chance;
But thinks how little gratitude is owed,
When favours are extorted, not bestow'd.

When, safe on shore ourselves, we see the crowd
Surround the great, importunate and loud,
Through such a tumult 'tis no easy task
To drive the man of real worth to ask.
Surrounded thus, and giddy with the show,
'Tis hard for great men rightly to bestow.
From hence so few are skill'd, in either case,
To ask with dignity, or give with grace.

Sometimes the great, seduced by love of parts,
Consult our genius, and neglect our hearts;
Pleased with the glittering sparks that genius flings,
They lift us, towering on their eagles' wings;
Mark out the flights by which themselves begun,
And teach our dazzled eyes to bear the sun;
Till we forget the hand that made us great,
And grow to envy, not to emulate.
To emulate, a generous warmth implies,
To reach the virtues that make great men rise;
But envy wears a mean, malignant face,
And aims not at their virtues, but—their place.

Such to oblige, how vain is the pretence,
When every favour is a fresh offence,
By which superior power is still implied,
And, while it helps their fortune, hurts their pride!
Slight is the hate neglect or hardships breed;
But those who hate from envy, hate indeed.

“Since so perplex'd the choice, whom shall we trust?”
Methinks I hear thee cry:—The brave and just,
The man by no mean fears or hopes controll'd,
Who serves thee from affection, not for gold.

We love the honest, and esteem the brave;
Despise the coxcomb, but detest the knave:

No show of parts the truly wise seduce
To think that knaves can be of real use.

The man who contradicts the public voice,
And strives to dignify a worthless choice,
Attempts a task that on that choice reflects,
And lends us light to point out new defects.
One worthless man, that gains what he pretends,
Disgusts a thousand unpretending friends:
And since no art can make a counter pass,
Or add the weight of gold to mimic brass,
When princes to bad ore their image join,
They more debase the stamp than raise the coin.

Be thine the care true merit to reward,
And gain the good: nor will that task be hard;
Souls form'd alike so quick by nature blend,
An honest man is more than half thy friend.

Him no mean views, or haste to rise, shall sway,
Thy choice to sully, or thy trust betray:
Ambition here shall at due distance stand;
Nor is wit dangerous in an honest hand.
Besides, if failings at the bottom lie,
We view those failings with a lover's eye:
Though small his genius, let him do his best,
Our wishes and belief supply the rest.

Let others barter servile faith for gold,
His friendship is not to be bought or sold:
Fierce opposition he, unmoved, shall face,
Modest in favour, daring in disgrace;
To share thy adverse fate alone pretend;
In power, a servant; out of power, a friend.
Here pour thy favours in an ample flood,
Indulge thy boundless thirst of doing good:
Nor think that good to him alone confined;
Such to oblige is to oblige mankind.

If thus thy mighty master's steps thou trace,
The brave to cherish, and the good to grace;
Long shalt thou stand from rage and faction free,
And teach us long to love the king through thee;
Or fall a victim dangerous to the foe,
And make him tremble when he strikes the blow;
While honour, gratitude, affection join
To deck thy close, and brighten thy decline:—
Illustrious doom! The great, when thus displaced,
With friendship guarded, and with virtue graced.

In awful ruin, like Rome's senate, fall,
The prey and worship of the wondering Gaul.

No doubt, to genius some reward is due;
(Excluding that were satirizing you;)
But yet, believe thy undesigning friend,
When truth and genius for thy choice contend,
Though both have weight when in the balance cast,
Let probity be first, and parts the last.

On these foundations if thou darest be great,
And check the growth of folly and deceit;
When party rage shall droop through length of days,
And calumny be ripen'd into praise,
Then future times shall to thy worth allow
That fame which envy would call flattery now.

Thus far my zeal, though for the task unfit,
Has pointed out the rocks where others split:
By that inspired, though stranger to the Nine,
And negligent of any fame—but thine,
I take the friendly, but superfluous, part;
You act from nature what I teach from art.

This piece was written by Mr. Dodington, afterwards Lord Melcombe, and published in folio, A.D. 1726.

THE OLD MAN'S RELAPSE.

VERSES OCCASIONED BY THE FOREGOING EPISTLE.

------ Sopitos suscitat ignes.
—Virgilii Æneid. lib. v. 743.

I

From man's too curious and impatient sight
The future Heaven involves in thickest night.
Credit grey hairs: Though freedom much we boast,
Some least perform what they determine most.
What sudden changes our resolves betray!
To-morrow is a satire on to-day,
And shows its weakness. Whom shall men believe,
When constantly themselves themselves deceive?

II

Long had I bid my once-loved Muse adieu:
You warm old age; my passion burns anew.
How sweet your verse! How great your force of mind!
What power of words! What skill in dark mankind!
Polite the conduct; generous the design;
And beauty files, and strength sustains, each line.
Thus Mars and Venus are once more beset;
Your wit has caught them in its golden net.

III

But what strikes home with most exalted grace
Is, haughty Genius taught to know its place;
And, where Worth shines, its humbled crest to bend,
With zeal devoted to that godlike end.
When we discern so rich a vein of sense
Through the smooth flow of purest eloquence,
'Tis like the limpid streams of Tagus roll'd
O'er boundless wealth, o'er shining beds of gold.

IV

But whence so finish'd, so refined a piece?
The tongue denies it to old Rome and Greece:
The genius bids the moderns doubt their claim,
And slowly take possession of the fame.
But I nor know nor care by whom 'twas writ;
Enough for me that 'tis from human wit.
That soothes my pride: all glory in the pen
Which has done honour to the race of men.

V

But this have others done; a like applause
An ancient and a modern Horace draws.
But they to glory by degrees arose;
Meridian lustre you at once disclose.
'Tis continence of mind unknown before,
To write so well, and yet to write no more.
More bright renown can human nature claim,
Than to deserve, and fly, immortal fame?

VI

Next to the godlike praise of writing well,
Is on that praise with just delight to dwell.
O for some god my drooping soul to raise,
That I might imitate, as well as praise!
For all commend: e'en foes your fame confess;
Nor would Augustus' age have prized it less;
An age which had not held its pride so long,
But for the want of so complete a song.

VII

A golden period shall from you commence;
Peace shall be sign'd twixt wit and manly sense.
Whether your genius or your rank they view,
The Muses find their Halifax in you.
Like him succeed! nor think my zeal is shown
For you; 'tis Britain's interest, not your own:
For lofty stations are but golden snares,
Which tempt the great to fall in love with cares.

VIII

I would proceed, but age has chill'd my vein;
'Twas a short fever, and I'm cool again.
Though life I hate, methinks I could renew
Its tasteless, painful course to sing of you.
When such the subject, who shall curb his flight?
When such your genius, who shall dare to write?
In pure respect I give my rhyming o'er,
And, to commend you most, commend no more.

IX

Adieu, whoe'er thou art! On death's pale coast
Ere long I'll talk thee o'er with Dryden's ghost:
The bard will smile. A last, a long farewell!
Henceforth I hide me in my dusky cell;
There wait the friendly stroke that sets me free,
And think of immortality and thee.—
My strains are number'd by the tuneful Nine:
Each maid presents her thanks, and all present thee mine.

Boileau

VERSES SENT BY LORD MELCOMBE TO DR. YOUNG, NOT LONG BEFORE HIS DEATH.

Kind companion of my youth,
Loved for genius, worth, and truth!
Take what friendship can impart,
Tribute of a feeling heart;
Take the Muse's latest spark,
Ere we drop into the dark.
He who parts and virtue gave,
Bade thee look beyond the grave:
Genius soars, and Virtue guides,
Where the love of God presides.
There's a gulf 'twixt us and God;
Let the gloomy path be trod:
Why stand shivering on the shore?
Why not boldly venture o'er?
Where unerring Virtue guides,
Let us brave the winds and tides:
Safe, through seas of doubts and fears,
Rides the bark which Virtue steers.

I

Love thy country, wish it well,
Not with too intense a care;
'Tis enough that, when it fell,
Thou its ruin didst not share.

II

Envy's censure, Flattery's praise,
With unmoved indifference view;
Learn to tread life's dangerous maze
With unerring Virtue's clue.

III

Void of strong desire and fear,
Life's wide ocean trust no more;

Strive thy little bark to steer
With the tide, but near the shore.

IV

Thus prepared, thy shorten'd sail
Shall, whene'er the winds increase,
Seizing each propitious gale,
Waft thee to the Port of Peace.

V

Keep thy conscience from offence
And tempestuous passions free:
So, when thou art call'd from hence,
Easy shall thy passage be;

VI

Easy shall thy passage be,
Cheerful thy allotted stay,
Short the' account 'twixt God and thee:
Hope shall meet thee on the way:

VII

Truth shall lead thee to the gate,
Mercy's self shall let thee in,
Where its never-changing state
Full perfection shall begin.

RESIGNATION.

IN TWO PARTS.

“My soul shall be satisfied, even as it were with marrow and fatness: when my mouth praiseth Thee with joyful lips.” (Psalm lxiii. 6.)

ADVERTISEMENT.

This was not intended for the public: there were many and strong reasons against it, and are so still; but some extracts of it, from the few copies which were given away, being got into the printed papers, it was thought necessary to publish something, lest a copy still more imperfect than this should fall into the press; and it is hoped that this unwelcome occasion of publication may be some excuse for it.

As for the following stanzas, God Almighty's infinite power, and marvellous goodness to man, is dwelt on, as the most just and cogent reason for our cheerful and absolute resignation to His will; nor are any of those topics declined which have a just tendency to promote that supreme virtue; such as the vanity of this life, the value of the next, the approach of death, &c.

PART I.

The days how few, how short the years,
Of man's too rapid race,
Each leaving, as it swiftly flies,
A shorter in its place!

They who the longest lease enjoy,
Have told us, with a sigh,
That to be born seems little more
Than to begin to die.

Numbers there are who feel this truth
With fears alarm'd; and yet,
In life's delusions lull'd asleep,
This weighty truth forget.

And am not I to these akin?
Age slumbers o'er the quill;
Its honour blots, whate'er it writes:
And am I writing still?

Conscious of nature in decline,
And languor in my thoughts;
To soften censure, and abate
Its rigour on my faults;

Permit me, madam! ere to you
The promised verse I pay,
To touch on felt infirmity,
Sad sister of decay.

One world deceased, another born,
Like Noah, they behold,
O'er whose white hairs and furrow'd brows
Too many suns have roll'd:

Happy the patriarch! He rejoiced
His second world to see:
My second world, though gay the scene,
Can boast no charms for me.

To me this brilliant age appears
With desolation spread:
Near all with whom I lived and smiled,
Whilst life was life, are dead;

And with them died my joys: the grave
Has broken nature's laws;
And closed, against this feeble frame,
Its partial, cruel jaws;

Cruel, to spare! Condemn'd to life,
A cloud impairs my sight;
My weak hand disobeys my will,
And trembles as I write.

What shall I write? Thalia, tell;
Say, long-abandon'd Muse!
What field of fancy shall I range?
What subject shall I choose?

A choice of moment high inspire,
And rescue me from shame
For doting on thy charms so late,
By grandeur in my theme.

Beyond the themes which most admire,
Which dazzle or amaze,
Beyond renown'd exploits of war,
Bright charms, or empire's blaze,

Are themes which, in a world of woe,
Can best appease our pain;
And, in an age of gaudy guilt,
Gay folly's flood restrain;

Amidst the storms of life support
A calm, unshaken mind;
And with unfading laurels crown
The brow of the resign'd.

O Resignation! yet unsung,
Untouch'd by former strains;
Though claiming every Muse's smile,
And every poet's pains;

Beneath life's evening, solemn shade,
I dedicate my page
To thee, thou safest guard of youth!
Thou sole support of age!

All other duties crescents are
Of virtue faintly bright;
The glorious consummation thou,
Which fills her orb with light,—

How rarely fill'd! The love Divine
In evils to discern,—
This the first lesson which we want,
The latest which we learn:

A melancholy truth! for, know,
Could our proud hearts resign,
The distance greatly would decrease
'Twixt human and Divine.

But though full noble is my theme,
Full urgent is my call
To soften sorrow, and forbid
The bursting tear to fall,—

The task I dread:—Dare I to leave
Of humble prose the shore,
And put to sea, a dangerous sea?
What throngs have sunk before!

How proud the poet's billow swells!
“The god! the god!” his boast:
A boast how vain! What wrecks abound!
Dead bards stench every coast.

What, then, am I? Shall I presume,
On such a moulten wing,
Above the general wreck to rise,
And in my winter sing;

When nightingales, when sweetest bards,
Confine their charming song
To summer's animating heats,
Content to warble young?

Yet write I must; a lady sues:
How shameful her request!
My brain in labour for dull rhyme;
Hers teeming with the best!

But you a stranger will excuse,
Nor scorn his feeble strain;
To you a stranger, but, through fate,
No stranger to your pain.

The ghost of grief deceased ascends;
His old wound bleeds anew;
His sorrows are recall'd to life
By those he sees in you.

Too well he knows the twisting strings
Of ardent hearts combined,
When rent asunder, how they bleed,
How hard to be resign'd.

Those tears you pour, his eyes have shed;
The pang you feel, he felt.
Thus Nature, loud as Virtue, bids
His heart at yours to melt.

But what can heart, or head, suggest?
What sad experience say?
Through truths austere, to peace we work
Our rugged, gloomy way.

What are we? whence? for what? and whither?
Who know not, needs must mourn:
But Thought, bright daughter of the skies,
Can tears to triumph turn.

Thought is our armour, 'tis the mind's
Impenetrable shield,
When, sent by fate, we meet our foes
In sore affliction's field.

It plucks the frightful mask from ills;
Forbids pale fear to hide,
Beneath that dark disguise, a friend,
Which turns affection's tide.

Affection frail, train'd up by sense,
From reason's channel strays;
And, whilst it blindly points at peace,
Our peace to pain betrays.

Thought winds its fond, erroneous stream
From daily-dying flowers,
To nourish rich immortal blooms,
In amaranthine bowers;

Whence throngs in ecstasy look down
On what once shock'd their sight,
And thank the terrors of the past
For ages of delight.

All withers here: who most possess
Are losers by their gain;
Stung by full proof that, bad at best,
Life's idle All is vain:

Vain, in its course, life's murmuring stream:
Did not its course offend,
But murmur cease, life then would seem
Still vainer, from its end.

How wretched who, through cruel fate,
Have nothing to lament!
With the poor alms this world affords
Deplorably content!

Had not the Greek his world mistook,
His wish had been most wise;
To be content with but one world,
Like him, we should despise.

Of earth's revenue would you state
A full account and fair?
We hope, and hope, and hope; then cast
The total up—
Despair.

Since vain all here, all future vast,
Embrace the lot assign'd:
Heaven wounds to heal; its frowns are friends;
Its strokes severe, most kind.

But in lapsed nature, rooted deep,
Blind error domineers;
And on fools' errands, in the dark,
Sends out our hopes and fears;

Bids us for ever pains deplore,
Our pleasures overprize:
These oft persuade us to be weak;
Those urge us to be wise.

From virtue's rugged path to right,
By pleasure are we brought
To flowery fields of wrong, and there
Pain chides us for our fault:

Yet, whilst it chides, it speaks of peace,
If folly is withstood;
And says, time pays an easy price
For our eternal good.

In earth's dark cot, and in an hour,
And in delusion great,
What an economist is man,—
To spend his whole estate,

And beggar an eternity!
For which as he was born,
More worlds than one, against it weigh'd,
As feathers he should scorn.

Say not, your loss in triumph leads
Religion's feeble strife;
Joys future amply reimburse
Joys bankrupts of this life.

But not deferr'd your joy so long.
It bears an early date;
Affliction's ready pay in hand
Befriends our present state.

What are the tears which trickle down
Her melancholy face,
Like liquid pearl? Like pearls of price,
They purchase lasting peace.

Grief softens hearts, and curbs the will,
Impetuous passion tames,
And keeps insatiate, keen desire
From launching in extremes.

Through time's dark womb, our judgment right,
If our dim eye was thrown,
Clear should we see, the Will Divine
Has but forestall'd our own.

At variance with our future wish,
Self-sever'd, we complain:
If so, the wounded, not the wound,
Must answer for the pain.

The day shall come, and swift of wing,
Though you may think it slow,
When, in the list of fortune's smiles,
You'll enter frowns of woe.

For, mark the path of Providence;
This course it has pursued:
“Pain is the parent, woe the womb,
Of sound, important good.”

Our hearts are fasten'd to this world
By strong and endless ties;
And every sorrow cuts a string,
And urges us to rise.

'Twill sound severe—Yet, rest assured,
I'm studious of your peace,
Though I should dare to give you joy—
Yes, joy of his decease.

An hour shall come, (you question this,)
An hour when you shall bless,
Beyond the brightest beams of life,
Dark days of your distress.

Hear, then, without surprise a truth,
A daughter-truth to this:—
Swift turns of fortune often tie
A bleeding heart to bliss.

Esteem you this a paradox?
My sacred motto read;
A glorious truth, divinely sung
By one whose heart had bled.

To Resignation swift he flew;
In her a friend he found,
A friend which bless'd him with a smile,
When gasping with his wound.

On earth nought precious is obtain'd
But what is painful too:
By travail and to travail born,
Our sabbaths are but few:

To real joy we work our way,
Encountering many a shock,
Ere found what truly charms; as found
A Venus in the block.

In some disaster, some severe
Appointment for our sins,
That mother-blessing, (not so call'd,)
True happiness, begins.

No martyr e'er defied the flames,
By stings of life unvex'd:
First rose some quarrel with this world,
Then passion for the next.

You see, then, pangs are parent-pangs,
The pangs of happy birth;
Pangs by which only can be born
True happiness on earth.

The peopled earth look all around,
Or through time's records run;
And say, what is a man unstruck?
It is a man undone.

This moment am I deeply stung,—
My bold pretence is tried:
When vain man boasts, Heaven puts to proof
The vauntings of his pride.

Now need I, Madam, your support.—
How exquisite the smart!
How critically timed the news
Which strikes me to the heart!

The pangs of which I spoke, I feel:
If worth like thine is born,
O long-beloved! I bless the blow,
And triumph, whilst I mourn.

Nor mourn I long; my grief subdued
By reason's empire shown:
Deep anguish comes by Heaven's decree,
Continues by our own;

And when continued past its point,
Indulged in length of time,
Grief is disgrace, and what was fate
Corrupts into a crime.

And shall I, criminally mean,
Myself and subject wrong?
No; my example shall support
The subject of my song.

Madam! I grant your loss is great;
Nor little is your gain:
Let that be weigh'd; when weigh'd aright,
It richly pays your pain.

When Heaven would kindly set us free,
And earth's enchantment end;
It takes the most effectual means,
And robs us of a friend.

But such a friend! and sigh no more?
'Tis prudent, but severe:
Heaven aid my weakness, and I drop
All sorrow—with this tear!

Perhaps, your settled grief to soothe,
I should not vainly strive,
But with soft balm your pain assuage,
Had he been still alive,

Whose frequent aid brought kind relief
In my distress of thought,
Tinged with his beams my cloudy page,
And beautified a fault.

To touch our passions' secret springs
Was his peculiar care;
And deep his happy genius dived
In bosoms of the fair.

Nature, which favours to the few,
All art beyond, imparts,
To him presented at his birth
The key of human hearts.

But not to me by him bequeath'd
His gentle, smooth address;
His tender hand to touch the wound
In throbbing of distress.

Howe'er, proceed I must, unbless'd
With Æsculapian art.
Know, love sometimes, mistaken love!
Plays disaffection's part.

Nor lands, nor seas, nor suns, nor stars,
Can soul from soul divide;
They correspond from distant worlds,
Though transports are denied.

Are you not, then, unkindly kind?
Is not your love severe?
O, stop that crystal source of woe,
Nor wound him with a tear.

As those above from human bliss
Receive increase of joy,
May not a stroke from human woe,
In part, their peace destroy?

He lives in those he left—to what?
Your now paternal care:
Clear from its cloud your brighten'd eye;
It will discern him there,

In features, not of form alone,
But those, I trust, of mind;
Auspicious to the public weal,
And to their fate resign'd.

Think on the tempests he sustain'd:
Revolve his battles won;
And let those prophesy your joy
From such a father's son.

Is consolation what you seek?
Fan, then, his martial fire;
And animate to flame the sparks
Bequeath'd him by his sire.

As nothing great is born in haste,
Wise Nature's time allow:
His father's laurels may descend,
And flourish on his brow.

Nor, madam, be surprised to hear
That laurels may be due
Not more to heroes of the field
(Proud boasters!) than to you.

Tender as is the female frame,
Like that brave man you mourn,
You are a soldier, and to fight
Superior battles born,

Beneath a banner nobler far
Than ever was unfurl'd
In fields of blood; a banner bright,
High waved o'er all the world.

It, like a streaming meteor, casts
An universal light;
Sheds day, sheds more,—eternal day,
On nations whelm'd in night.

Beneath that banner, what exploit
Can mount our glory higher,
Than to sustain the dreadful blow,
When those we love expire?

Go forth a moral Amazon,
Arm'd with undaunted thought:
The battle won, though costing dear,
You'll think it cheaply bought.

The passive hero who sits down
Unactive, and can smile
Beneath affliction's galling load,
Out-acts a Cæsar's toil.

The billows stain'd by slaughter'd foes
Inferior praise afford;
Reason's a bloodless conqueror,
More glorious than the sword.

Nor can the thunder of huzzas
From shouting nations cause
Such sweet delight, as from your heart
Soft whispers of applause.

The dear deceased, so famed in arms,
With what delight he'll view
His triumphs on the main outdone,
Thus conquer'd twice by you!

Share his delight; take heed to shun
Of bosoms most diseased
That odd distemper,—an absurd
Reluctance to be pleased.

Some seem in love with sorrow's charms,
And that foul fiend embrace:
This temper let me justly brand;
And stamp it with disgrace.

Sorrow! of horrid parentage!
Thou second-born of hell!
Against Heaven's endless mercies pour'd
How darest thou to rebel?

From black and noxious vapours bred,
And nursed by want of thought,
And to the door of Frenzy's self
By perseverance brought,

Thy most inglorious, coward tears
From brutal eyes have ran:
Smiles, incommunicable smiles,
Are radiant marks of man;

They cast a sudden glory round
The' illumined human face,
And light in sons of honest joy
Some beams of Moses' face.

Is Resignation's lesson hard?
Examine,—we shall find
That duty gives up little more
Than anguish of the mind.

Resign; and all the load of life
That moment you remove;
Its heavy tax, ten thousand cares
Devolve on One above;

Who bids us lay our burden down
On His almighty hands,
Softens our duty to relief,
To blessing a command.

For joy what cause! how every sense
Is courted from above,
The year around, with presents rich,
The growth of endless Love!

But most o'erlook the blessings pour'd,
Forget the wonders done,
And terminate, wrapp'd up in sense,
Their prospect at the sun.

From that their final point of view,
From that their radiant goal,
On travel infinite of thought,
Sets out the nobler soul,

Broke loose from time's tenacious ties,
And earth's involving gloom,
To range at large its vast domain,
And talk with worlds to come.

They let, unmark'd and unemploy'd,
Life's idle moments run;
And, doing nothing for themselves,
Imagine nothing done.

Fatal mistake! Their fate goes on,
Their dread account proceeds,
And their not-doing is set down
Amongst their darkest deeds.

Though man sits still, and takes his ease,
God is at work on man;
No means, no moment unemploy'd,
To bless him, if He can.

But man consents not, boldly bent
To fashion his own fate:
Man, a mere bungler in the trade,
Repents his crime too late;

Hence loud laments. Let me Thy cause,
Indulgent Father! plead:
Of all the wretches we deplore,
Not one by Thee was made.

What is Thy whole creation fair?
Of Love Divine the child;
Love brought it forth, and, from its birth,
Has o'er it fondly smiled.

Now, and through periods distant far,
Long ere the world began,
Heaven is and has in travail been,
Its birth the good of man.

Man holds in constant service bound
The blustering winds and seas;
Nor suns disdain to travel hard,
Their master, man, to please.

To final good the worst events
Through secret channels run;
Finish for man their destined course,
As 'twas for man begun.

One point (observed, perhaps, by few)
Has often smote, and smites,
My mind, as demonstration strong
That Heaven in man delights:—

What's known to man of things unseen,
Of future worlds or fates?
So much, nor more, than what to man's
Sublime affairs relates.

What's Revelation, then? A list,
An inventory just,
Of that poor insect's goods, so late
Call'd out of night and dust.

What various motives to rejoice!
To render joy sincere,
Has this no weight?—Our joy is felt
Beyond this narrow sphere.

Would we in heaven new heaven create,
And double its delight?
A smiling world, when heaven looks down,
How pleasing in its sight!

Angels stoop forward from their thrones
To hear its joyful lays,
As incense sweet enjoy, and join
Its aromatic praise.

Have we no cause to fear the stroke
Of Heaven's avenging rod,
When we presume to counteract
A sympathetic God?

If we resign, our patience makes
His rod a harmless wand:
If not, it darts a serpent's sting,
Like that in Moses' hand;

Like that, it swallows up whate'er
Earth's vain magicians bring,
Whose baffled arts would boast below
Of joys a rival spring.

Consummate Love! the list how large
Of blessings from Thy hand!
To banish sorrow, and be bless'd,
Is Thy supreme command.

Are such commands but ill obey'd?
Of bliss shall we complain?
The man who dares to be a wretch,
Deserves still greater pain.

Joy is our duty, glory, health;
The sunshine of the soul;
Our best encomium on the Power
Who sweetly plans the whole.

Joy is our Eden still possess'd:
Be gone, ignoble grief!
'Tis joy makes gods, and men exalts,—
Their nature, our relief;

Relief,—for man to that must stoop,
And his due distance know:
Transport's the language of the skies,
Content the style below.

Content is joy, and joy in pain
Is joy and virtue too;
Thus, whilst good present we possess,
More precious we pursue.

Of joy the more we have in hand,
The more have we to come:
Joy, like our money, interest bears,
Which daily swells the sum.

“But how to smile? to stem the tide
Of nature in our veins?
Is it not hard to weep in joy?
What, then, to smile in pains?”

Victorious joy, which breaks the clouds,
And struggles through a storm,
Proclaims the mind as great as good,
And bids it doubly charm.

If doubly charming in our sex,
A sex by nature bold;
What, then, in yours? 'Tis diamond there,
Triumphant o'er our gold.

And should not this complaint repress,
And check the rising sigh?
Yet farther opiate to your pain
I labour to supply.

Since spirits greatly damp'd distort
Ideas of delight,
Look through the medium of a friend,
To set your notions right.

As tears the sight, grief dims the soul;
Its object dark appears:
True friendship, like a rising sun,
The soul's horizon clears.

A friend's an optic to the mind
With sorrow clouded o'er;
And gives it strength of sight to see
Redress unseen before.

Reason is somewhat rough in man;
Extremely smooth and fair,
When she, to grace her manly strength,
Assumes a female air.

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A friend you have, and I the same,
Whose prudent, soft address
Will bring to life those healing thoughts
Which died in your distress;

That friend, the spirit of my theme
Extracting for your ease,
Will leave to me the dreg, in thoughts
Too common,—such as these:

Let those lament, to whom full bowls
Of sparkling joys are given:
That triple bane inebriates life,
Embitters death, and hazards heaven;

Woe to the soul at perfect ease!
'Tis brewing perfect pains:
Lull'd Reason sleeps; the Pulse is king;
Despotic body reigns.

Have you ne'er pitied joy's gay scenes,
And deem'd their glory dark?
Alas, poor Envy! she's stone-blind,
And quite mistakes her mark.

Her mark lies hid in sorrow's shades,
But sorrow well subdued;
And in proud Fortune's frown defied
By meek, unborrow'd good;

By Resignation: all in that
A double friend may find,—
A wing to heaven, and, while on earth,
The pillow of mankind.

On pillows void of down, for rest,
Our restless hopes we place.
When hopes of heaven lie warm at heart,
Our hearts repose in peace.

The peace which Resignation yields,
Who feel alone can guess:
'Tis disbelieved by murmuring minds;
They must conclude it less.

The loss or gain of that alone
Have we to hope or fear:

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That fate controls, and can invert
The seasons of the year.

O the dark days, the year around,
Of an impatient mind!
Through clouds and storms a summer breaks,
To shine on the resign'd.

While man, by that, of every grace
And virtue is possess'd,
Foul Vice her pandemonium builds
In the rebellious breast.

By Resignation we defeat
The worst that can annoy,
And suffer with far more repose
Than worldlings can enjoy.

From small experience this I speak:
O, grant to those I love
Experience fuller far, ye Powers
Who form our fates above!

My love where due, if not to those
Who, leaving grandeur, came
To shine on age in mean recess,
And light me to my theme?

A theme themselves! a theme how rare!
The charms which they display,
To triumph over captive heads,
Are set in bright array:

With his own arms proud man's o'ercome,
His boasted laurels die;
Learning and Genius, wiser grown,
To female bosoms fly.

This revolution, fix'd by fate,
In fable was foretold;
The dark prediction puzzled wits,
Nor could the learn'd unfold:

But as those ladies' works I read,
They darted such a ray,
The latent sense burst out at once,
And shone in open day.

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So burst, full ripe, distended fruits,
When strongly strikes the sun;
And from the purple grape unpress'd
Spontaneous nectars run.

Pallas, 'tis said, when Jove grew dull,
Forsook his drowsy brain;
And sprightly leap'd into the throne
Of Wisdom's brighter reign;

Her helmet took,—that is, shot rays
Of formidable wit,—
And lance,—or genius most acute,
Which lines immortal writ;

And Gorgon shield—or power to fright
Man's folly—dreadful shone,
And many a blockhead (easy change!)
Turn'd instantly to stone.

Our authors male, as then did Jove,
Now scratch a damaged head,
And call for what once quarter'd there,
But find the goddess fled.

The fruit of knowledge, golden fruit!
That once-forbidden tree,
Hedged in by surly man, is now
To Britain's daughters free.

In Eve, we know, of fruit so fair
The noble thirst began;
And they, like her, have caused a fall,—
A fall of fame in man.

And since of genius in our sex,
O Addison! with thee
The sun is set, how I rejoice
This sister-lamp to see!

It sheds, like Cynthia, silver beams
On man's nocturnal state:
His lessen'd light and languid powers
I show, whilst I relate.

103

PART II.

But what in either sex, beyond
All parts, our glory crowns?
“In ruffling seasons to be calm,
And smile when fortune frowns.”

Heaven's choice is safer than our own:
Of ages past inquire,
What the most formidable fate?
“To have our own desire.”

If, in your wrath, the worst of foes
You wish extremely ill,
Expose him to the thunder's stroke,
Or that of his own will.

What numbers, rushing down the steep
Of inclination strong,
Have perish'd in their ardent wish!
Wish ardent, ever wrong!

'Tis Resignation's full reverse,
Most wrong, as it implies
Error most fatal in our choice,
Detachment from the Skies.

By closing with the Skies, we make
Omnipotence our own:
That done, how formidable ill's
Whole army is o'erthrown!

No longer impotent and frail,
Ourselves above we rise:
We scarce believe ourselves below,
We trespass on the skies!

The Lord, the Soul and Source of all,
Whilst man enjoys his ease,
Is executing human will
In earth, and air, and seas.

Beyond us, what can angels boast?
Archangels what require?
Whate'er below, above, is done,
Is done as—we desire.

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What glory this for man so mean,
Whose life is but a span!
This is meridian majesty;
This, the sublime of man!

Beyond the boast of pagan song
My sacred subject shines,
And for a foil the lustre takes
Of Rome's exalted lines:—

“All that the sun surveys, subdued,
But Cato's mighty mind:”—
How grand! Most true; yet far beneath
The soul of the resign'd.

To more than kingdoms, more than worlds,
To passion that gives law:
Its matchless empire could have kept
Great Cato's pride in awe;

That fatal pride, whose cruel point
Transfix'd his noble breast;
Far nobler, if his fate sustain'd
Had left to Heaven the rest.

Then he the palm had borne away,
At distance Cæsar thrown;
Put him off cheaply with the world,
And made the skies his own.

What cannot Resignation do?
It wonders can perform:
That powerful charm, “Thy will be done!”
Can lay the loudest storm.

Come, Resignation, then, from fields
Where, mounted on the wing,
A wing of flame, blest martyrs' souls
Ascended to their King.

Who is it calls thee? One whose need
Transcends the common size;
Who stands in front against a foe
To which none equal rise:

In front he stands, the brink he treads
Of an eternal state:
How dreadful his appointed post!
How strongly arm'd by fate!

105

His threatening foe—what shadows deep
O'erwhelm his gloomy brow!
His dart tremendous!—At fourscore
My sole asylum thou!

Haste, then, O Resignation! haste:
'Tis thine to reconcile
My foe and me; at thy approach
My foe begins to smile.

O for that summit of my wish,
Whilst here I draw my breath,
That promise of eternal life,—
A glorious smile in death!

What sight, heaven's azure arch beneath,
Has most of heaven to boast?
The man resign'd; at once serene,
And giving up the ghost.

At Death's arrival they shall smile
Who, not in life o'er-gay,
Serious and frequent thought send out
To meet him on his way.

My gay coævals! (such there are,)
If happiness is dear,
Approaching Death's alarming day
Discreetly let us fear.

The fear of death is truly wise,
Till wisdom can rise higher;
And, arm'd with pious fortitude,
Death, dreaded once, desire.

Grand climacteric vanities
The vainest will despise;
Shock'd when, beneath the snow of age,
Man immaturely dies.

But am not I myself the man?
No need abroad to roam
In quest of faults to be chastised;
What cause to blush at home!

In life's decline, when men relapse
Into the sports of youth,
The second child out-fools the first,
And tempts the lash of truth.

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Shall a mere truant from the grave
With rival boys engage?
His trembling voice attempt to sing,
And ape the poet's rage?

Here, Madam, let me visit one,
My fault who partly shares,
And tell myself, by telling him,
What more becomes our years:

And if your breast with prudent zeal
For Resignation glows,
You will not disapprove a just
Resentment at its foes.

In youth, Voltaire! our foibles plead
For some indulgence due;
When heads are white, their thoughts and aims
Should change their colour too.

How are you cheated by your wit!
Old age is bound to pay
By nature's law a mind discreet,
For joys it takes away.

A mighty change is wrought by years,
Reversing human lot:
In age 'tis honour to lie hid,
Its praise to be forgot.

The wise, as flowers, which spread at noon,
And all their charms expose,
When evening damps and shades descend,
Their evolutions close.

What, though your Muse has nobly soar'd,
Is that our true sublime?
Ours, hoary friend, is to prefer
Eternity to time.

Why close a life so justly famed
With such bold trash as this?
This for renown? Yes, such as makes
Obscurity a bliss.

Your trash, with mine at open war,
Is obstinately bent,

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Like wits below, to sow your tares
Of gloom and discontent.

With so much sunshine at command,
Why light with darkness mix?
Why dash with pain our pleasure? why
Your Helicon with Styx?

Your works in our divided minds
Repugnant passions raise,
Confound us with a double stroke,—
We shudder whilst we praise.

A curious web, as finely wrought
As genius can inspire,
From a black bag of poison spun,
With horror we admire.

Mean as it is, if this is read
With a disdainful air,
I can't forgive so great a foe
To my dear friend Voltaire.

Early I knew him, early praised,
And long to praise him late:
His genius greatly I admire,
Nor would deplore his fate;

A fate how much to be deplored,
At which our nature starts:—
Forbear to fall on your own sword,
To perish by your parts.

“But great your name:”—To feed on air,
Were, then, immortals born?
Nothing is great, of which more great,
More glorious, is the scorn.

Can fame your carcass from the worm
Which gnaws us in the grave,
Or soul, from that which never dies,
Applauding Europe save?

But fame you lose; good sense alone
Your idol, praise, can claim:
When wild wit murders happiness,
It puts to death our fame.

Nor boast your genius: talents bright
E'en dunces will despise,

108

If in your western beams is miss'd
A genius for the skies.

Your taste, too, fails: what most excels
True taste must relish most;
And what, to rival palms above,
Can proudest laurels boast?

Sound heads salvation's helmet seek;
Resplendent are its rays:
Let that suffice; it needs no plume
Of sublunary praise.

May this enable couch'd Voltaire
To see that—all is right;
His eye, by flash of wit struck blind,
Restoring to its sight.

If so, all's well: who much have err'd,
That much have been forgiven:
I speak with joy, with joy he'll hear,
“Voltaires are now in heaven.”

Nay, such Philanthropy Divine,
So boundless in degree,
Its marvellous of love extends
(Stoop most profound!) to me.

Let others cruel stars arraign,
Or dwell on their distress;
But let my page, for mercies pour'd,
A grateful heart express.

Walking, the present God was seen,
Of old, in Eden fair:
The God as present, by plain steps
Of providential care,

I behold passing through my life:
His awful voice I hear;
And, conscious of my nakedness,
Would hide myself for fear:

But where the trees, or where the clouds
Can cover from His sight?
Naked the centre to that eye
To which the sun is night.

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As yonder glittering lamps on high
Through night illumined roll,
May thoughts of Him by whom they shine
Chase darkness from my soul;

My soul, which reads His hand as clear
In my minute affairs,
As in His ample manuscript
Of sun, and moon, and stars;

And knows Him not more bent aright
To wield that vast machine,
Than to correct one erring thought
In my small world within;

A world that shall survive the fall
Of all His wonders here;
Survive when suns ten thousand drop,
And leave a darken'd sphere.

Yon matter gross, how bright it shines!
For time how great His care!
Sure spirit and eternity
Far richer glories share.

Let those our hearts impress, on those
Our contemplation dwell:
On those my thoughts how justly thrown,
By what I now shall tell!

When backward, with attentive mind,
Life's labyrinth I trace,
I find Him, far myself beyond,
Propitious to my peace:

Through all the crooked paths I trod,
My folly He pursued;
My heart astray to quick return
Importunately woo'd.

Due Resignation home to press
On my capricious will,
How many rescues did I meet,
Beneath the mask of ill!

How many foes in ambush laid
Beneath my soul's desire!
The deepest penitents are made
By what we most admire.

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Have I not sometimes, (real good
So little mortals know!)
Mounting the summit of my wish,
Profoundly plunged in woe?

I rarely plann'd, but cause I found
My plan's defeat to bless:
Oft I lamented an event;
It turn'd to my success.

By sharpen'd appetite to give
To good intense delight,
Through dark and deep perplexities
He led me to the right.

And is not this the gloomy path
Which you are treading now?
The path most gloomy leads to light,
When our proud passions bow.

When labouring under fancied ill,
My spirits to sustain,
He kindly cured with sovereign draughts
Of unimagined pain.

Pain'd sense from fancy's tyranny
Alone can set us free:
A thousand miseries we feel,
Till sunk in misery.

Cloy'd with a glut of all we wish,
Our wish we relish less;
Success—a sort of suicide—
Is ruin'd by success.

Sometimes He led me near to death,
And, pointing to the grave,
Bid Terror whisper kind advice,
And taught the tomb to save.

To raise my thoughts beyond where worlds
As spangles o'er us shine,
One day He gave, and bid the next
My soul's delight resign.

We to ourselves but through the means
Of mirrors are unknown:
In this my fate can you descry
No features of your own?

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And if you can, let that excuse
These self-recording lines;
A record modesty forbids,
Or to small bound confines:

In grief why deep engulf'd? You see,
You suffer nothing rare.
Uncommon grief for common fate?
That wisdom cannot bear.

When streams flow backward to their source,
And humbled flames descend,
And mountains wing'd shall fly aloft,
Then human sorrows end:

But human prudence, too, must cease,
When sorrows domineer,
When fortitude has lost its fire,
And freezes into fear.

The pang most poignant of my life
Now heightens my delight:
I see a fair creation rise
From chaos and old night;

From what seem'd horror and despair
The richest harvest rose;
And gave me in the nod Divine
An absolute repose.

Of all the blunders of mankind,
More gross or frequent none
Than in their grief and joy misplaced
Eternally are shown.

But whither points all this parade?
It says that near you lies
A book, perhaps, yet unperused,
Which you should greatly prize.

Of self-perusal—science rare!—
Few know the mighty gain;
Learn'd prelates, self-unread, may read
Their Bibles o'er in vain.

Self-knowledge, which from heaven itself
(So sages tell us) came,
What is it but a daughter fair
Of my maternal theme?

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Unletter'd and untravell'd men
An oracle might find,
Would they consult their own contents,
The Delphos of the mind.

Enter your bosom; there you'll meet
A revelation new,
A revelation personal,
Which none can read but you.

There will you clearly read reveal'd
In your enlighten'd thought,
By mercies manifold, through life,
To fresh remembrance brought,

A mighty Being! and in Him
A complicated Friend,—
A Father, Brother, Spouse; no dread
Of death, divorce, or end!

Who such a matchless Friend embrace,
And lodge Him in their heart,
Full well, from agonies exempt,
With other friends may part;

As, when o'erloaded branches bear
Large clusters big with wine,
We scarce regret one falling leaf
From the luxuriant vine.

My short advice to you may sound
Obscure or somewhat odd,
Though 'tis the best that man can give,—
“E'en be content with God.”

Through love He gave you the deceased,
Through greater took him hence:
This Reason fully could evince,
Though murmur'd at by Sense.

This Friend, far past the kindest kind,
Is past the greatest great:
His greatness let me touch in points
Not foreign to your state:

His eye this instant reads your heart;—
A truth less obvious hear:
This instant its most secret thoughts
Are sounding in His ear.

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Dispute you this? O stand in awe,
And cease your sorrow! Know,
That tear, now trickling down, He saw
Ten thousand years ago;

And twice ten thousand hence, if you
Your temper reconcile
To reason's bound, will He behold
Your prudence with a smile;

A smile which through eternity
Diffuses so bright rays,
The dimmest deifies e'en guilt,
If guilt at last obeys.

Your guilt (for guilt it is to mourn,
When such a Sovereign reigns)—
Your guilt diminish; peace pursue:
How glorious peace in pains!

Here, then, your sorrows cease: if not,
Think how unhappy they
Who guilt increase by streaming tears,
Which guilt should wash away!

Of tears that gush profuse restrain:
Whence burst those dismal sighs?
They from the throbbing breast of one
(Strange truth!) most happy rise.

Not angels (hear it, and exult!)
Enjoy a larger share,
Than is indulged to you and yours,
Of God's impartial care;

Anxious for each, as if on each
His care for all was thrown;
For all His care as absolute
As all had been but one.

And is He then so near, so kind?
How little, then, and great
That riddle, man! O, let me gaze
At wonders in his fate!

His fate, who yesterday did crawl
A worm from darkness deep,
And shall, with brother-worms, beneath
A turf to-morrow sleep;

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How mean! And yet, if well obey'd
His mighty Master's call,
The whole creation for mean man
Is deem'd a boon too small;

Too small the whole creation deem'd
For emmets in the dust!
Account amazing, yet most true;
My song is bold, yet just.

Man born for infinite, in whom
No period can destroy
The power, in exquisite extremes,
To suffer or enjoy.

Give him earth's empire,—if no more,—
He's beggar'd and undone;
Imprison'd in unbounded space;
Benighted by the sun!

For, what the sun's meridian blaze
To the most feeble ray,
Which glimmers from the distant dawn
Of uncreated day?

'Tis not the poet's rapture feign'd
Swells here, the vain to please;
The mind most sober kindles most
At truths sublime as these:

They warm e'en me.—I dare not say,
Divine ambition strove,
Not to bless only, but confound,
Nay, fright us with its love.

And yet so frightful what, or kind,
As that the rending rock,
The darken'd sun, and rising dead,
So formidably spoke?

And are we darker than that sun,
Than rocks more hard and blind?
We are, if not to such a God
In agonies resign'd.

Yes, e'en in agonies forbear
To doubt Almighty Love:
Whate'er endears eternity,
Is mercy from above;

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What most embitters time, that most
Eternity endears,
And thus, by plunging in distress,
Exalts us to the spheres,

Joy's fountain-head! where bliss o'er bliss,
O'er wonders wonders rise,
And an Omnipotence prepares
Its banquet for the wise.

Ambrosial banquet, rich in wines
Nectareous to the soul!
What transports sparkle from the stream,
As angels fill the bowl!

Fountain profuse of every bliss!
Good-will immense prevails:
Man's line can't fathom its profound;
An angel's plummet fails.

Thy love and might by what they know
Who judge, nor dream of more,
They ask a drop, “How deep the sea?”
One sand, “How wide the shore?”

Of Thy exuberant good-will,
Offended Deity,
The thousandth part who comprehends,
A deity is he.

How yonder ample azure field
With radiant worlds is sown!
How tubes astonish us with those
More deep in ether thrown!

And, those beyond, of brighter worlds
Why not a million more?—
In lieu of answer, let us all
Fall prostrate and adore.

Since Thou art infinite in power,
Nor Thy indulgence less;
Since man, quite impotent and blind,
Oft drops into distress;

Say, what is Resignation? 'Tis
Man's weakness understood;
And Wisdom grasping, with a hand
Far stronger, every good.

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Let rash repiners stand appall'd,
In Thee who dare not trust;
Whose abject souls, like demons dark,
Are murmuring in the dust.

For man to murmur or repine
At what by Thee is done,
No less absurd than to complain
Of darkness in the sun.

Who would not, with a heart at ease,
Bright eye, unclouded brow,
Wisdom and Goodness at the helm,
The roughest ocean plough?

What, though I'm swallow'd in the deep,
Though mountains o'er me roar?
Jehovah reigns! as Jonah safe,
I'm landed, and adore.

Thy will is welcome, let it wear
Its most tremendous form:
Roar, waves; rage, winds! I know that Thou
Canst save me by a storm.

From Thee immortal spirits born
To Thee, their fountain, flow,
If wise; as curl'd around to theirs
Meandering streams below.

Not less, compell'd by reason's call,
To Thee our souls aspire,
Than to Thy skies, by nature's law,
High mounts material fire.

To Thee aspiring they exult:
I feel my spirits rise;
I feel myself Thy son, and pant
For patrimonial skies.

Since ardent thirst of future good,
And generous sense of past,
To Thee man's prudence strongly ties,
And binds affection fast;

Since great Thy love, and great our want,
And men the wisest blind,
And bliss our aim; pronounce us all
Distracted, or resign'd;

117

Resign'd through duty, interest, shame;
Deep shame! dare I complain,
When (wondrous truth!) in heaven itself
Joy owed its birth to pain?

And pain for me! For me was drain'd
Gall's overflowing bowl;
And shall one drop to murmur bold
Provoke my guilty soul?

If pardon'd this, what cause, what crime,
Can indignation raise?
The sun was lighted up to shine,
And man was born to praise;

And when to praise the man shall cease,
Or sun to strike the view,
A cloud dishonours both; but man's
The blacker of the two.

For, O, ingratitude how black!
With most profound amaze
At love, which man beloved o'erlooks,
Astonish'd angels gaze.

Praise cheers and warms, like generous wine;
Praise, more divine than prayer:
Prayer points our ready path to heaven;
Praise is already there.

Let plausive Resignation rise,
And banish all complaint:
All virtues thronging into one,
It finishes the saint;

Makes the man bless'd as man can be;
Life's labours renders light;
Darts beams through fate's incumbent gloom,
And lights our sun by night.

'Tis nature's brightest ornament,
The richest gift of grace,
Rival of angels, and supreme
Proprietor of peace:

Nay, peace beyond, no small degree
Of rapture 'twill impart.
Know, Madam, when your heart's in heaven,
“All heaven is in your heart.”

118

But who to heaven their hearts can raise?
Denied Divine support,
All virtue dies: support Divine
The wise with ardour court.

When prayer partakes the seraph's fire,
'Tis mounted on his wing,
Bursts through heaven's crystal gates, and gains
Sure audience of its King.

The labouring soul from sore distress
That bless'd expedient frees:
I see you far advanced in peace;
I see you on your knees.

How on that posture has the beam
Divine for ever shone!
An humble heart, God's other seat,
The rival of His throne!

And stoops Omnipotence so low?
And condescends to dwell
Eternity's Inhabitant,
Well pleased, in such a cell?

Such honour how shall we repay?
How treat our Guest Divine?
The sacrifice supreme be slain!
Let self-will die: resign.

Thus far, at large, on our disease:
Now let the cause be shown,
Whence rises, and will ever rise,
The dismal human groan.

What our sole fountain of distress?
Strong passion for this scene;
That trifles make important, things
Of mighty moment mean.

When earth's dark maxims poison shed
On our polluted souls,
Our hearts and interests fly as far
Asunder as the poles.

Like princes in a cottage nursed,
Unknown their royal race,

119

With abject aims and sordid joys
Our grandeur we disgrace.

O for an Archimedes new,
Of moral powers possess'd,
The world to move, and quite expel
That traitor from the breast!

No small advantage may be reap'd
From thought whence we descend;
From weighing well, and prizing, weigh'd,
Our origin and end.

From far above the glorious sun
To this dim scene we came;
And may, if wise, for ever bask
In great Jehovah's beam.

Let that bright beam on reason roused
In awful lustre rise,
Earth's giant-ills are dwarf'd at once,
And all disquiet dies.

Earth's glories, too, their splendour lose;
Those phantoms charm no more;
Empire's a feather for a fool,
And Indian mines are poor.

Then levell'd quite, whilst yet alive,
The monarch and his slave;
Nor wait enlighten'd minds to learn
That lesson from the grave.

A George the Third would then be low
As Lewis in renown,
Could he not boast of glory more
Than sparkles from a crown.

When human glory rises high
As human glory can;
When, though the king is truly great,
Still greater is the man;

The man is dead, where virtue fails;
And though the monarch proud
In grandeur shines, his gorgeous robe
Is but a gaudy shroud.

Wisdom! where art thou? None on earth,
Though grasping wealth, fame, power,

120

But what, O death! through thy approach,
Is wiser every hour;

Approach how swift, how unconfined!
Worms feast on viands rare;
Those little epicures have kings
To grace their bill of fare.

From kings what Resignation due
To that Almighty Will
Which thrones bestows, and, when they fail,
Can throne them higher still?

Who truly great? The good and brave,
The masters of a mind
The will Divine to do resolved,
To suffer it resign'd.

Madam! if that may give it weight,
The trifle you receive
Is dated from a solemn scene,—
The border of the grave;

Where strongly strikes the trembling soul
Eternity's dread power,
As bursting on it through the thin
Partition of an hour.

Hear this, Voltaire! But this from me
Runs hazard of your frown:
However, spare it; ere you die,
Such thoughts will be your own.

In mercy to yourself forbear
My notions to chastise,
Lest unawares the gay Voltaire
Should blame Voltaire the wise.

Fame's trumpet, rattling in your ear,
Now makes us disagree;
When a far louder trumpet sounds,
Voltaire will close with me.

How shocking is that modesty
Which keeps some honest men
From urging what their hearts suggest,
When braved by folly's pen,

Assaulting truths, of which in all
Is sown the sacred seed!

121

Our constitution's orthodox,
And closes with our Creed.

What, then, are they whose proud conceits
Superior wisdom boast?
Wretches who fight their own belief,
And labour to be lost!

Though vice by no superior joys
Her heroes keeps in pay;
Through pure disinterested love
Of ruin they obey;

Strict their devotion to the wrong,
Though tempted by no prize;
Hard their commandments, and their creed
A magazine of lies

From Fancy's forge: gay Fancy smiles
At reason plain and cool;
Fancy, whose curious trade it is
To make the finest fool.

Voltaire! long life's the greatest curse
That mortals can receive,
When they imagine the chief end
Of living is to live;

Quite thoughtless of their day of death,
That birth-day of their sorrow;
Knowing, it may be distant far,
Nor crush them till—to-morrow.

These are cold, northern thoughts, conceived
Beneath an humble cot:
Not mine your genius or your state;
No castle is my lot:

But soon quite level shall we lie;
And, what Pride most bemoans,
Our parts, in rank so distant now,
As level as our bones.

Hear you that sound? Alarming sound!
Prepare to meet your fate!
One who writes Finis to our works
Is knocking at the gate.

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Far other works will soon be weigh'd;
Far other judges sit;
Far other crowns be lost or won,
Than fire ambitious wit.

Their wit far brightest will be proved,
Who sank it in good sense,
And veneration most profound
Of dread Omnipotence.

'Tis that alone unlocks the gate
Of bless'd eternity:
O may'st thou never, never lose
That more than Golden Key!

Whate'er may seem too rough, excuse;
Your good I have at heart:
Since from my soul I wish you well,
As yet we must not part.

Shall you and I, in love with life,
Life's future schemes contrive,
The world in wonder, not unjust,
That we are still alive?

What have we left? How mean in man
A shadow's shade to crave!
When life so vain is vainer still,
'Tis time to take your leave.

Happier than happiest life his death
Who, falling in the field
Of conflict with his rebel will,
Writes Vici on his shield.

So falling, man, immortal heir
Of an eternal prize,
Undaunted at the gloomy grave,
Descends into the skies.

O how disorder'd our machine,
When contradictions mix!
When nature strikes no less than twelve,
And folly points at six!

To mend the movements of your heart,
How great is my delight,

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Gently to wind your morals up,
And set your hand aright!—

That hand which spread your wisdom wide
To poison distant lands.
Repent, recant; the tainted age
Your antidote demands.

To Satan dreadfully resign'd,
Whole herds rush down the steep
Of folly, by lewd wits possess'd,
And perish in the deep.

Men's praise your vanity pursues:
'Tis well, pursue it still;
But let it be of men deceased,
And you'll resign the will.

And how superior they to those
At whose applause you aim!
How very far superior they
In number and in name!

POSTSCRIPT.

Thus have I written, when to write
No mortal should presume;
Or only write, what none can blame,
Hic jacet—for his tomb.

The public frowns, and censures loud
My puerile employ:
Though just the censure, if you smile,
The scandal I enjoy;

But sing no more:—no more I sing,
Or reassume the lyre,
Unless vouchsafed an humble part
Where Raphael leads the choir.

What myriads swell the concert loud!
Their golden harps resound
High as the footstool of the throne,
And deep as hell profound.

Hell (horrid contrast!) chord and song
Of raptured angels drowns
In self-will's peal of blasphemies,
And hideous burst of groans;

124

But drowns them not to me: I hear
Harmonious thunders roll
(In language low of men to speak)
From echoing pole to pole;

Whilst this grand chorus shakes the skies:
“Above, beneath the sun,
Through boundless age, by men, by gods,
Jehovah's will be done!”

'Tis done in heaven; whence, headlong hurl'd,
Self-will with Satan fell;
And must from earth be banish'd too,
Or earth's another hell.

Madam! self-will inflicts your pains:
Self-will's the deadly foe
Which deepens all the dismal shades,
And points the shafts of woe.

Your debt to nature fully paid,
Now virtue claims her due:
But virtue's cause I need not plead;
'Tis safe; I write to you.

You know that virtue's basis lies
In ever judging right,
And wiping error's clouds away,
Which dim the mental sight.

Why mourn the dead? You wrong the grave,—
From storm that safe resort:
We are still tossing out at sea,
Our admiral in port.

Was death denied, this world a scene
How dismal and forlorn!
To death we owe that 'tis to man
A blessing to be born.

When every other blessing fails,
Or sapp'd by slow decay,
Or, storm'd by sudden blasts of fate,
Is swiftly whirl'd away;

How happy that no storm or time
Of death can rob the just!
None pluck from their unaching heads
Soft pillows in the dust!

125

Well-pleased to bear Heaven's darkest frown,
Your utmost power employ;
'Tis noble chymistry to turn
Necessity to joy.

Whate'er the colour of my fate,
My fate shall be my choice:
Determined am I, whilst I breathe,
To praise and to rejoice.

What ample cause! Triumphant hope!
O rich Eternity!
I start not at a world in flames,
Charm'd with one glimpse of thee.

And Thou, its great Inhabitant!
How glorious dost Thou shine,
And dart through sorrow, danger, death,
A beam of joy Divine!

The void of joy (with some concern
The truth severe I tell)
Is an impenitent in guilt,
A fool or infidel.

Weigh this, ye pupils of Voltaire,
From joyless murmur free;
Or let us know, which character
Shall crown you of the three.

Resign, resign! This lesson none
Too deeply can instil:
A crown has been resign'd by more
Than have resign'd the will;

Though will resign'd the meanest makes
Superior in renown,
And richer in celestial eyes,
Than he who wears a crown.

Hence in the bosom cold of age
It kindled a strange aim
To shine in song, and bid me boast
The grandeur of my theme.

But, O, how far presumption falls
Its lofty theme below!

126

Our thoughts in life's December freeze,
And numbers cease to flow.

First! Greatest! Best! grant what I wrote
For others, ne'er may rise
To brand the writer! Thou alone
Canst make our wisdom wise.

And how unwise, how deep in guilt,
How infamous the fault!—
“A teacher throned in pomp of words,
Indeed beneath the taught!”—

Means most infallible to make
The world an infidel;
And, with instructions most Divine,
To pave a path to hell.

O for a clean and ardent heart!
O for a soul on fire,
Thy praise, begun on earth, to sound
Where angels string the lyre!

How cold is man! to him how hard
(Hard what most easy seems)
“To set a just esteem on that
Which yet he—most esteems!”

What shall we say, when boundless bliss
Is offer'd to mankind,
And to that offer when a race
Of rationals is blind?

Of human nature ne'er too high
Are our ideas wrought;
Of human merit ne'er too low
Depress'd the daring thought.

The first impression (from which the printed extracts were taken) was given only to friends: as such, they are requested to destroy it; since keeping that out of sight is the writer's only apology for publishing this.

Mrs. Montagu.

Whilst the author was writing this, he received the news of Mr. Samuel Richardson's death, who was then printing the former part of the poem.

Mrs. Montagu.

Mrs. Montagu and Mrs. Carter.

Candide.

Second part.

Ephesians vi. 17.

Which his romance ridicules.

Isaiah lvii. 15.

Letter to Lord Lyttelton.

Alluding to Prussia.

Page 86.

University of Virginia Library

II. [VOLUME II.]

IMPERIUM PELAGI.

A NAVAL LYRIC. WRITTEN IN IMITATION OF PINDAR'S SPIRIT.

OCCASIONED BY HIS MAJESTY'S RETURN, SEPTEMBER 10TH, 1729, AND THE SUCCEEDING PEACE.

THE MERCHANT.

ODE THE FIRST. ON THE BRITISH TRADE AND NAVIGATION.

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