The poetical works of John Trumbull . :: :: University of Virginia Library

2. VOL. II.

THE PROGRESS OF DULNESS.

PREFACE.

“PRAY, what does the author mean?” is the first question most readers will ask, and the last they are able to answer. Therefore in a few words I will explain the subject and design of the following Poem.

The subject is the state of the times in regard to literature and religion. The author was prompted to write, by a hope that it might be of use to point out, in a clear, concise, and striking manner, those general errors, that hinder the advantages of education and the growth of piety. The subject is inexhaustible; nor is my design yet completed. This first part describes the principal mistakes in one course of life, and exemplifies the following well known truths;—that to the frequent scandal, as well of religion, as learning, a fellow, without any share of genius, or application to study, may pass with credit through life, receive the honours of a liberal education, and be admitted to the right hand of fellowship among ministers of the gospel;—that except in one neighboring province, ignorance wanders unmolested at our colleges, examinations are dwindled to mere form and ceremony, and after four years dozing there, no one is ever refused the honors of a degree, on account of dulness and insufficiency; —that the mere knowledge of ancient languages, of the

abstruser parts of mathematics, and the dark researches of metaphysics, is of little advantage in any business or profession in life;—that it would be more beneficial, in every place of public education, to take pains in teaching the elements of oratory, the grammar of the English tongue, and the elegancies of style and composition;—that in numberless instances, sufficient care hath not been taken to exclude the ignorant and irreligious from the sacred desk;—that this tenderness to the undeserving tends to debase the dignity of the clergy, and to hinder many worthy men from undertaking the office of the ministry;—and that the virulent controversies of the present day concerning religious, or in many cases, merely speculative opinions, savoring so highly of vanity and ostentation, and breathing a spirit so opposite to christian benevolence, have done more hurt to the cause of religion, than all the malice, the ridicule, and the folly of its enemies.

New-Haven, August 1772.

1. PART I.
OR THE ADVENTURES OF TOM BRAINLESS.

“Our Tom has grown a sturdy boy;
His progress fills my heart with joy;
A steady soul, that yields to rule,
And quite ingenious too, at school.
Our master says, (I'm sure he's right,)
There's not a lad in town so bright.
He'll cypher bravely, write and read,
And say his catechism and creed,
And scorns to hesitate or falter
In Primer, Spelling-book or Psalter.
Hard work indeed, he does not love it;
His genius is too much above it.
Give him a good substantial teacher,
I'll lay he'd make a special preacher.

I've loved good learning all my life;
We'll send the lad to college, wife.”

Thus sway'd by fond and sightless passion.
His parents hold a consultation;
If on their couch, or round their fire,
I need not tell, nor you enquire.

The point's agreed; the boy well pleased,
From country cares and labor eased;
No more to rise by break of day
To drive home cows, or deal out hay;
To work no more in snow or hail,
And blow his fingers o'er the flail,
Or mid the toils of harvest sweat
Beneath the summer's sultry heat,
Serene, he bids the farm, good-bye,
And quits the plough without a sigh.
Propitious to their constant friend,
The pow'rs of idleness attend.

So to the priest in form he goes,
Prepared to study and to doze.
The parson, in his youth before,
Had run the same dull progress o'er;
His sole concern to see with care
His church and farm in good repair.

His skill in tongues, that once he knew,
Had bid him long, a last adieu;
Away his Latin rules had fled,
And Greek had vanish'd from his head.

Then view our youth with grammar teazing,
Untaught in meaning, sense or reason;
Of knowledge e'er he gain his fill, he
Must diet long on husks of Lily,
Drudge on for weary months in vain,
By mem'ry's strength, and dint of brain;
From thence to murd'ring Virgil's verse,
And construing Tully into farce,
Or lab'ring with his grave preceptor,
In Greek to blunder o'er a chapter.
The Latin Testament affords
The needed help of ready words;
At hand the Dictionary laid,
Gives up its page in frequent aid;
Hard by, the Lexicon and Grammar,
Those helps of mem'ry when they stammer;

The lesson's short; the priest contented;
His task to hear is sooner ended.
He lets him mind his own concerns,
Then tells his parents how he learns.

Two years thus spent in gathering knowledge,
The lad sets forth t' unlade at college,
While down his sire and priest attend him,
To introduce and recommend him;
Or if detain'd, a letter's sent
Of much apocryphal content,
To set him forth, how dull soever,
As very learn'd and very clever;
A genius of the first emission,
With burning love for erudition;
So studious he'll outwatch the moon
And think the planets set too soon.
He had but little time to fit in;
Examination too must frighten.
Depend upon't he must do well,
He knows much more than he can tell;
Admit him, and in little space
He'll beat his rivals in the race;
His father's incomes are but small,
He comes now, if he come at all.

So said, so done, at college now
He enters well, no matter how;
New scenes awhile his fancy please,
But all must yield to love of ease.
In the same round condemn'd each day,
To study, read, recite and pray;
To make his hours of business double—
He can't endure th' increasing trouble;
And finds at length, as times grow pressing,
All plagues are easier than his lesson.
With sleepy eyes and count'nance heavy,
With much excuse of non paravi,
Much absence, tardes and egresses,
The college-evil on him seizes.
Then ev'ry book, which ought to please,
Stirs up the seeds of dire disease;
Greek spoils his eyes, the print's so fine,
Grown dim with study, or with wine;
Of Tully's latin much afraid,
Each page, he calls the doctor's aid;

While geometry, with lines so crooked,
Sprains all his wits to overlook it.
His sickness puts on every name,
Its cause and uses still the same;
'Tis tooth-ache, cholic, gout or stone,
With phases various as the moon;
But though through all the body spread,
Still makes its cap'tal seat, the head.
In all diseases, 'tis expected,
The weakest parts be most infected.

Kind head-ache hail! thou blest disease,
The friend of idleness and ease;
Who mid the still and dreary bound
Where college walls her sons surround,
In spite of fears, in justice' spite,
Assumest o'er laws dispensing right,
Sett'st from his task the blunderer free,
Excused by dulness and by thee.
Thy vot'ries bid a bold defiance
To all the calls and threats of science,
Slight learning human and divine,
And hear no prayers, and fear no fine.

And yet how oft the studious gain,
The dulness of a letter'd brain;

Despising such low things the while,
As English grammar, phrase and style;
Despising ev'ry nicer art,
That aids the tongue, or mends the heart;
Read ancient authors o'er in vain,
Nor taste one beauty they contain;
Humbly on trust accept the sense,
But deal for words at vast expense;
Search well how every term must vary
From Lexicon to Dictionary;
And plodding on in one dull tone,
Gain ancient tongues and lose their own,
Bid every graceful charm defiance,
And woo the skeleton of science.

Come ye, who finer arts despise,
And scoff at verse as heathen lies;
In all the pride of dulness rage
At Pope, or Milton's deathless page;
Or stung by truth's deep-searching line,
Rave ev'n at rhymes as low as mine;
Say ye, who boast the name of wise,
Wherein substantial learning lies.
Is it, superb in classic lore,
To speak what Homer spoke before,

To write the language Tully wrote,
The style, the cadence and the note?
Is there a charm in sounds of Greek,
No language else can learn to speak;
That cures distemper'd brains at once,
Like Pliny's rhymes for broken bones?
Is there a spirit found in Latin,
That must evap'rate in translating?
And say are sense and genius bound
To any vehicles of sound?
Can knowledge never reach the brains,
Unless convey'd in ancient strains?
While Homer sets before your eyes
Achilles' rage, Ulysses' lies,
Th' amours of Jove in masquerade,
And Mars entrapp'd by Phœbus' aid;
While Virgil sings, in verses grave,
His lovers meeting in a cave,
His ships turn'd nymphs, in pagan fables,
And how the Trojans eat their tables;
While half this learning but displays
The follies of the former days;
And for our linguists, fairly try them,
A tutor'd parrot might defy them.

Go to the vulgar—'tis decreed,
There you must preach and write or plead;
Broach every curious Latin phrase
From Tully down to Lily's days:
All this your hearers have no share in,
Bate but their laughing and their staring.
Interpreters must pass between,
To let them know a word you mean.

Yet could you reach that lofty tongue
Which Plato wrote and Homer sung;
Or ape the Latin verse and scanning,
Like Vida, Cowley or Buchanan;
Or bear ten phrase-books in your head;
Yet know, these languages are dead,
And nothing, e'er, by death, was seen
Improved in beauty, strength or mien,
Whether the sexton use his spade,
Or sorcerer wake the parted shade.
Think how would Tully stare or smile
At these wan spectres of his style,
Or Horace in his jovial way
Ask what these babblers mean to say.

Let modern Logic next arise
With newborn light to glad your eyes,

Enthroned on high in Reason's chair,
Usurp her name, assume her air,
Give laws, to think with quaint precision,
And deal out loads of definition.

Sense, in dull syllogisms confined,
Scorns these weak trammels of the mind,
Nor needs t' enquire by logic's leave
What to reject and what receive;
Throws all her trifling bulwarks down,
Expatiates free; while from her frown
Alike the dunce and pedant smart,
The fool of nature, or of art.

On books of Rhetorick turn your hopes,
Unawed by figures or by tropes.
What silly rules in pomp appear!
What mighty nothings stun the ear!
Athroismos, Mesoteleuton,
Symploce and Paregmenon!
Thus, in such sounds high rumbling, run
The names of jingle and of pun;
Thus shall your pathos melt the heart,
And shame the Greek and Roman art.

Say then, where solid learning lies
And what the toil that makes us wise!

Is it by mathematic's aid
To count the worlds in light array'd,
To know each star, that lifts its eye,
To sparkle in the midnight sky?
Say ye, who draw the curious line
Between the useful and the fine,
How little can this noble art
Its aid in human things impart,
Or give to life a cheerful ray,
And force our pains, and cares away.

Is it to know whate'er was done
Above the circle of the sun?
Is it to lift the active mind
Beyond the bounds by heaven assign'd;
And leave our little world at home,
Through realms of entity to roam;
Attempt the secrets dark to scan,
Eternal wisdom hid from man;
And make religion but the sign
In din of battle when to join?

Vain man, to madness still a prey,
Thy space a point, thy life a day,
A feeble worm, that aim'st to stride
In all the foppery of pride!

The glimmering lamp of reason's ray
Was given to guide thy darksome way.
Why wilt thou spread thy insect wings,
And strive to reach sublimer things?
Thy doubts confess, thy blindness own,
Nor vex thy thoughts with scenes unknown.
Indulgent heaven to man below,
Hath all explain'd we need to know;
Hath clearly taught enough to prove
Content below, and bliss above.
Thy boastful wish how proud and vain,
While heaven forbids the vaunting strain!
For metaphysics rightly shown
But teach how little can be known:
Though quibbles still maintain their station,
Conjecture serves for demonstration,
Armies of pens draw forth to fight,
And **** and **** write.

Oh! might I live to see that day,
When sense shall point to youths their way;
Through every maze of science guide;
O'er education's laws preside;
The good retain, with just discerning
Explode the quackeries of learning;

Give ancient arts their real due,
Explain their faults, and beauties too;
Teach where to imitate, and mend,
And point their uses and their end.
Then bright philosophy would shine,
And ethics teach the laws divine;
Our youths might learn each nobler art,
That shews a passage to the heart;
From ancient languages well known
Transfuse new beauties to our own;
With taste and fancy well refin'd,
Where moral rapture warms the mind,
From schools dismiss'd, with lib'ral hand,
Spread useful learning o'er the land;
And bid the eastern world admire
Our rising worth, and bright'ning fire.

But while through fancy's realms we roam,
The main concern is left at home;
Return'd, our hero still we find
The same, as blundering and as blind.

Four years at college dozed away
In sleep, and slothfulness and play,
Too dull for vice, with clearest conscience,
Charged with no fault but that of nonsense,

And nonsense long, with serious air,
Has wander'd unmolested there,
He passes trial, fair and free,
And takes in form his first degree.

A scholar see him now commence
Without the aid of books or sense;
For passing college cures the brain,
Like mills to grind men young again.
The scholar-dress, that once array'd him,
The charm, Admitto te ad gradum,
With touch of parchment can refine,
And make the veriest coxcomb shine,
Confer the gift of tongues at once,
And fill with sense the vacant dunce.
So kingly crowns contain quintessence
Of worship, dignity and presence;
Give learning, genius, virtue, worth,
Wit, valor, wisdom, and so forth;
Hide the bald pate, and cover o'er
The cap of folly worn before.

Our hero's wit and learning now may
Be proved by token of diploma,

Of that diploma, which with speed
He learns to construe and to read;
And stalks abroad with conscious stride,
In all the airs of pedant pride,
With passport sign'd for wit and knowledge,
And current under seal of college.

Few months now past, he sees with pain
His purse as empty as his brain;
His father leaves him then to fate,
And throws him off, as useless weight;
But gives him good advice, to teach
A school at first and then to preach.

Thou reason'st well; it must be so;
For nothing else thy son can do.
As thieves of old, t' avoid the halter,
Took refuge in the holy altar;
Oft dulness flying from disgrace
Finds safety in that sacred place;
There boldly rears his head, or rests
Secure from ridicule or jests;
Where dreaded satire may not dare
Offend his wig's extremest hair;

Where scripture sanctifies his strains,
And reverence hides the want of brains.

Next see our youth at school appear,
Procured for forty pounds a year;
His ragged regiment round assemble,
Taught, not to read, but fear and tremble.
Before him, rods prepare his way,
Those dreaded antidotes to play.
Then throned aloft in elbow chair,
With solemn face and awful air,
He tries, with ease and unconcern,
To teach what ne'er himself could learn;
Gives law and punishment alone,
Judge, jury, bailiff, all in one;
Holds all good learning must depend
Upon his rod's extremest end,
Whose great electric virtue's such,
Each genius brightens at the touch;
With threats and blows, incitements pressing,
Drives on his lads to learn each lesson;
Thinks flogging cures all moral ills,
And breaks their heads to break their wills.

The year is done; he takes his leave;
The children smile; the parents grieve;

And seek again, their school to keep,
One just as good and just as cheap.

Now to some priest, that's famed for teaching,
He goes to learn the art of preaching;
And settles down with earnest zeal
Sermons to study, and to steal.
Six months from all the world retires
To kindle up his cover'd fires;
Learns, with nice art, to make with ease
The scriptures speak whate'er he please;
With judgment, unperceived to quote
What Pool explain'd, or Henry wrote;
To give the gospel new editions,
Split doctrines into propositions,
Draw motives, uses, inferences,
And torture words in thousand senses;
Learn the grave style and goodly phrase,
Safe handed down from Cromwell's days,
And shun, with anxious care, the while,
The infection of a modern style;
Or on the wings of folly fly
Aloft in metaphysic sky;
The system of the world explain,
Till night and chaos come again;

Deride what old divines can say,
Point out to heaven a nearer way;
Explode all known establish'd rules,
Affirm our fathers all were fools;
The present age is growing wise,
But wisdom in her cradle lies;
Late, like Minerva, born and bred,
Not from a Jove's, but scribbler's head,
While thousand youths their homage lend her,
And nursing fathers rock and tend her.

Round him much manuscript is spread,
Extracts from living works, and dead,
Themes, sermons, plans of controversy,
That hack and mangle without mercy,
And whence to glad the reader's eyes,
The future dialogue shall rise.

At length, matured the grand design,
He stalks abroad, a grave divine.

Mean while, from every distant seat,
At stated time the clergy meet.

Our hero comes, his sermon reads,
Explains the doctrine of his creeds,
A licence gains to preach and pray,
And makes his bow and goes his way.

What though his wits could ne'er dispense
One page of grammar, or of sense;
What though his learning be so slight,
He scarcely knows to spell or write;
What though his skull be cudgel-proof!
He's orthodox, and that's enough.

Perhaps with genius we'd dispense;
But sure we look at least for sense.

Ye fathers of our church attend
The serious counsels of a friend,
Whose utmost wish, in nobler ways,
Your sacred dignity to raise.
Though blunt the style, the truths set down
Ye can't deny—though some may frown.

Yes, there are men, nor these a few,
The foes of virtue and of you;
Who, nurtured in the scorner's school,
Make vice their trade, and sin by rule;
Who deem it courage heav'n to brave,
And wit, to scoff at all that's grave;

Vent stolen jests, with strange grimaces,
From folly's book of common-places;
While mid the simple throng around
Each kindred blockhead greets the sound,
And, like electric fire, at once,
The laugh is caught from dunce to dunce.

The deist's scoffs ye may despise;
Within yourselves your danger lies;
For who would wish, neglecting rule,
To aid the triumphs of a fool?
From heaven at first your order came,
From heaven received its sacred name,
Indulged to man, to point the way,
That leads from darkness up to day.
Your highborn dignity attend,
And view your origin and end.

While human souls are all your care,
By warnings, counsels, preaching, prayer,
In bands of christian friendship join'd,
Where pure affection warms the mind,
While each performs the pious race,
Nor dulness e'er usurps a place;
No vice shall brave your awful test,
Nor folly dare to broach the jest,

Each waiting eye shall humbly bend,
And reverence on your steps attend.

But when each point of serious weight
Is torn with wrangling and debate,
When truth, mid rage of dire divisions,
Is left, to fight for definitions,
And fools assume your sacred place,
It threats your order with disgrace;
Bids genius from your seats withdraw,
And seek the pert, loquacious law;
Or deign in physic's paths to rank,
With every quack and mountebank;
Or in the ways of trade content,
Plod ledgers o'er of cent. per cent.

While in your seats so sacred, whence
We look for piety and sense,
Pert dulness raves in school-boy style,
Your friends must blush, your foes will smile;
While men, who teach the glorious way,
Where heaven unfolds celestial day,
Assume the task sublime, to bring
The message of th' Eternal King,
Disgrace those honours they receive,
And want that sense, they aim to give.

Now in the desk, with solemn air,
Our hero makes his audience stare;
Asserts with all dogmatic boldness,
Where impudence is yoked to dulness;
Reads o'er his notes with halting pace,
Mask'd in the stiffness of his face;
With gestures such as might become
Those statues once that spoke at Rome,
Or Livy's ox, that to the state
Declared the oracles of fate,
In awkward tones, nor said, nor sung,
Slow rumbling o'er the falt'ring tongue,
Two hours his drawling speech holds on,
And names it preaching, when he's done.

With roving tired, he fixes down
For life, in some unsettled town.
People and priest full well agree,
For why—they know no more than he.
Vast tracts of unknown land he gains,
Better than those the moon contains;
There deals in preaching and in prayer,
And starves on sixty pounds a year,

And culls his texts, and tills his farm,
Does little good, and little harm;
On Sunday, in his best array,
Deals forth the dulness of the day,
And while above he spends his breath,
The yawning audience nod beneath.

Thus glib-tongued Merc'ry in his hand
Stretch'd forth the sleep-compelling wand,
Each eye in endless doze to keep—
The God of speaking, and of sleep.

END OF PART FIRST.

Lily's was the only Latin Grammar then in use.

Non paravi, I have not prepared for recitation—an excuse commonly given; tardes and egresses, were terms used at college, for coming in late and going out before the conclusion of service.

Admitto te ad gradum, I admit you to a degree; part of the words used in conferring the honours of college.

A wig was then an essential part of the clerical dress. None appeared in the pulpit without it.

Writing in dialogue was then a fashionable mode among the controversial divines.

Bos locutus est.
Liv. Histor.

2. PART II.
OR THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF DICK HAIRBRAIN.

'Twas in a town remote, the place
We leave the reader wise to guess,
(For readers wise can guess full well
What authors never meant to tell,)
There dwelt secure a country clown,
The wealthiest farmer of the town.
Though rich by villany and cheats,
He bought respect by frequent treats;
Gain'd offices by constant seeking,
'Squire, captain, deputy and deacon;
Great was his power, his pride as arrant;
One only son his heir apparent.

He thought the stripling's parts were quick,
And vow'd to make a man of Dick;
Bless'd the pert dunce, and praised his looks,
And put him early to his books.

More oaths than words Dick learn'd to speak
And studied knavery more than Greek;
Three years at school, as usual, spent,
Then all equipp'd to college went,
And pleased in prospect, thus bestow'd
His meditations, as he rode.

“All hail, unvex'd with care and strife,
The bliss of academic life;
Where kind repose protracts the span,
While childhood ripens into man;
Where no hard parent's dreaded rage
Curbs the gay sports of youthful age:
Where no vile fear the genius awes
With grim severity of laws;
Where annual troops of bucks come down,
The flower of every neighb'ring town;
Where wealth and pride and riot wait,
And each choice spirit finds his mate.

“Far from those walls, from pleasure's eye,
Let care and grief and labour fly,

The toil to gain the laurel prize,
That dims the anxious student's eyes,
The pedant air of learned looks,
And long fatigue of turning books.
Let poor dull rogues, with weary pains,
To college come to mend their brains,
And drudge four years, with grave concern
How they may wiser grow, and learn.
Is wealth of indolence afraid,
Or does wit need pedantic aid?
The man of wealth the world descries,
Without the help of learning wise;
The magic powers of gold, with ease,
Transform us to what shape we please,
Give knowledge bright and courage brave,
And sense, that nature never gave.
But nought avails the hoarded treasure;
In spending only lies the pleasure.

“There vice shall lavish all her charms,
And rapture fold us in her arms,
Riot shall court the frolic soul,
And swearing crown the sparkling bowl;
While wit shall sport with vast applause,
And scorn the feeble tie of laws:

Our midnight joys no rule shall bound,
While games and dalliance revel round.
Such pleasures youthful years can know,
And schools there are, that such bestow.

“Those seats how blest, for ease and sport,
Where wealth and idleness resort,
Where free from censure and from shame,
They seek of learning, but the name,
Their crimes of all degrees and sizes
Atoned by golden sacrifices;
Where kind instructors fix their price,
In just degrees, on every vice,
And fierce in zeal 'gainst wicked courses,
Demand repentance, of their purses;
Till sin, thus tax'd, produces clear
A copious income every year,
And the fair schools, thus free from scruples,
Thrive by the knavery of their pupils.

“Ev'n thus the Pope long since has made
Of human crimes a gainful trade;
Keeps ev'ry pleasing vice for sale,
For cash, by wholesale, or retail.
There, pay the prices and the fees,
Buy rapes, or lies, or what you please,
Then sin secure, with firm reliance,
And bid the ten commands defiance.

“And yet, alas, these happiest schools
Preserve a set of musty rules,
And in their wisest progress show
Perfection is not found below.
Even there, indulged, in humble station,
Learning resides by toleration;
No law forbids the youth to read;
For sense no tortures are decreed;
There study injures but the name,
And meets no punishment but shame.”

Thus reas'ning, Dick goes forth to find
A college suited to his mind;
But bred in distant woods, the clown
Brings all his country airs to town;
The odd address with awkward grace,
That bows with all-averted face;

The half-heard compliments, whose note
Is swallow'd in the trembling throat;
The stiffen'd gait, the drawling tone,
By which his native place is known;
The blush, that looks, by vast degrees,
Too much like modesty to please;
The proud displays of awkward dress,
That all the country fop express,
The suit right gay, though much belated,
Whose fashion's superannuated;
The watch, depending far in state,
Whose iron chain might form a grate;
The silver buckle, dread to view,
O'ershad'wing all the clumsy shoe;
The white-gloved hand, that tries to peep
From ruffle, full five inches deep;
With fifty odd affairs beside,
The foppishness of country pride.

Poor Dick! though first thy airs provoke
Th' obstreperous laugh and scornful joke,
Doom'd all the ridicule to stand,
While each gay dunce shall lend a hand;
Yet let not scorn dismay thy hope
To shine a witling and a fop.

Blest impudence the prize shall gain,
And bid thee sigh no more in vain.
Thy varied dress shall quickly show
At once the spendthrift and the beau.
With pert address and noisy tongue,
That scorns the fear of prating wrong,
'Mongst list'ning coxcombs shalt thou shine,
And every voice shall echo thine.

How blest the brainless fop, whose praise
Is doom'd to grace these happy days,
When well-bred vice can genius teach,
And fame is placed in folly's reach,
Impertinence all tastes can hit,
And every rascal is a wit.
The lowest dunce, without despairing,
May learn the true sublime of swearing;
Learn the nice art of jests obscene,
While ladies wonder what they mean;
The heroism of brazen lungs,
The rhetoric of eternal tongues;
While whim usurps the name of spirit,
And impudence takes place of merit,
And every money'd clown and dunce
Commences gentleman at once.

For now, by easy rules of trade,
Mechanic gentlemen are made!
From handicrafts of fashion born;
Those very arts so much their scorn.
To taylors half themselves they owe,
Who make the clothes, that make the beau.

Lo! from the seats, where, fops to bless,
Learn'd artists fix the forms of dress,
And sit in consultation grave,
On folded skirt, or strait'ned sleeve,
The coxcomb trips with sprightly haste,
In all the flush of modern taste;
Oft turning, if the day be fair,
To view his shadow's graceful air;
Well pleased with eager eye runs o'er
The laced suit glitt'ring gay before;
The ruffle, where from open'd vest
The rubied brooch adorns the breast;
The coat with length'ning waist behind,
Whose short skirts dangle in the wind;
The modish hat, whose breadth contains
The measure of its owner's brains;

The stockings gay with various hues;
The little toe-encircling shoes;
The cane, on whose carv'd top is shown
An head, just emblem of his own;
While wrapp'd in self, with lofty stride,
His little heart elate with pride,
He struts in all the joys of show,
That taylors give, or beaux can know.

And who for beauty need repine,
That's sold at every barber's sign;
Nor lies in features or complexion,
But curls disposed in meet direction,
With strong pomatum's grateful odour,
And quantum sufficit of powder?
These charms can shed a sprightly grace,
O'er the dull eye and clumsy face;
While the trim dancing-master's art
Shall gestures, trips and bows impart,
Give the gay piece its final touches,
And lend those airs, would lure a dutchess.

Thus shines the form, nor aught behind,
The gifts that deck the coxcomb's mind;
Then hear the daring muse disclose
The sense and piety of beaux.

To grace his speech, let France bestow
A set of compliments for show.
Land of politeness! that affords
The treasure of new-fangled words,
And endless quantities disburses
Of bows and compliments and curses;
The soft address, with airs so sweet,
That cringes at the ladies' feet;
The pert, vivacious, play-house style,
That wakes the gay assembly's smile;
Jests that his brother beaux may hit,
And pass with young coquettes for wit,
And prized by fops of true discerning,
Outface the pedantry of learning.
Yet learning too shall lend its aid,
To fill the coxcomb's spongy head,
And studious oft he shall peruse
The labours of the modern muse.
From endless loads of novels gain
Soft, simp'ring tales of amorous pain,
With double meanings, neat and handy,
From Rochester and Tristram Shandy.

The blund'ring aid of weak reviews,
That forge the fetters of the muse,
Shall give him airs of criticising
On faults of books, he ne'er set eyes on.
The magazines shall teach the fashion,
And common-place of conversation,
And where his knowledge fails, afford
The aid of many a sounding word.

Then least religion he should need,
Of pious Hume he'll learn his creed,
By strongest demonstration shown,
Evince that nothing can be known;
Take arguments, unvex'd by doubt,
On Voltaire's trust, or go without;
'Gainst scripture rail in modern lore,
As thousand fools have rail'd before;
Or pleased a nicer art display
T' expound its doctrines all away,
Suit it to modern tastes and fashions
By various notes and emendations;
The rules the ten commands contain,
With new provisos well explain;
Prove all religion was but fashion,
Beneath the Jewish dispensation.

A ceremonial law, deep hooded
In types and figures long exploded;
Its stubborn fetters all unfit
For these free times of gospel light,
This rake's millenium, since the day
When sabbaths first were done away;
Since pandar-conscience holds the door,
And lewdness is a vice no more;
And shame, the worst of deadly fiends,
On virtue, as its squire attends.

Alike his poignant wit displays
The darkness of the former days,
When men the paths of duty sought,
And own'd what revelation taught;
Ere human reason grew so bright,
Men could see all things by its light,
And summon'd scripture to appear,
And stand before its bar severe,
To clear its page from charge of fiction,
And answer pleas of contradiction;
Ere miracles were held in scorn,
Or Bolingbroke, or Hume were born.

And now the fop, with great energy,
Levels at priestcraft and the clergy,

At holy cant and godly prayers,
And bigot's hypocritic airs;
Musters each vet'ran jest to aid,
Calls piety the parson's trade;
Cries out 'tis shame, past all abiding,
The world should still be so priest-ridden;
Applauds free thought that scorns controul,
And gen'rous nobleness of soul,
That acts its pleasure good or evil,
And fears nor deity, nor devil.
These standing topics never fail
To prompt our little wits to rail,
With mimic droll'ry of grimace,
And pleased impertinence of face,
'Gainst virtue arm their feeble forces,
And sound the charge in peals of curses.

Blest be his ashes! under ground
If any particles be found,
Who friendly to the coxcomb race,
First taught those arts of common-place,
Those topics fine, on which the beau
May all his little wits bestow,
Secure the simple laugh to raise,
And gain the dunce's palm of praise.

For where's the theme that beaux could hit
With least similitude of wit,
Did not religion and the priest
Supply materials for the jest?
The poor in purse, with metals vile
For current coins, the world beguile;
The poor in brain, for genuine wit
Pass off a viler counterfeit;
While various thus their doom appears,
These lose their souls, and those their ears;
The want of fancy, whim supplies,
And native humour, mad caprice;
Loud noise for argument goes off,
For mirth polite, the ribald's scoff;
For sense, lewd droll'ries entertain us,
And wit is mimick'd by profaneness.

Thus 'twixt the taylor and the player,
And Hume, and Tristram, and Voltaire,
Complete in modern trim array'd,
The clockwork gentleman is made;
As thousand fops ere Dick have shone,
In airs, which Dick ere long shall own.

But not immediate from the clown,
He gains this zenith of renown;

Slow dawns the coxcomb's op'ning ray;
Rome was not finish'd in a day.
Perfection is the work of time;
Gradual he mounts the height sublime;
First shines abroad with bolder grace,
In suits of second-handed lace,
And learns by rote, like studious players,
The fop's infinity of airs;
Till merit, to full ripeness grown,
By constancy attains the crown.

Now should our tale at large proceed,
Here might I tell, and you might read
At college next how Dick went on,
And prated much and studied none;
Yet shone with fair, unborrow'd ray,
And steer'd where nature led the way.
What though each academic science
Bade all his efforts bold defiance!
What though in algebra his station
Was negative in each equation;
Though in astronomy survey'd,
His constant course was retrograde;
O'er Newton's system though he sleeps
And finds his wits in dark eclipse!

His talents proved of highest price
At all the arts of cards and dice;
His genius turn'd, with greatest skill,
To whist, loo, cribbage and quadrille,
And taught, to every rival's shame,
Each nice distinction of the game.

As noon-day sun, the case is plain,
Nature has nothing made in vain.
The blind mole cannot fly; 'tis found
His genius leads him under ground.
The man that was not made to think,
Was born to game, and swear, and drink.
Let fops defiance bid to satire,
Mind Tully's rule, and follow nature.

Yet here the muse, of Dick, must tell
He shone in active scenes as well;
The foremost place in riots held,
In all the gifts of noise excell'd,
His tongue, the bell, whose rattling din would
Summon the rake's nocturnal synod;
Swore with a grace that seem'd design'd
To emulate the infernal kind,
Nor only make their realms his due,
But learn, betimes, their language too;

And well expert in arts polite,
Drank wine by quarts to mend his sight,
For he that drinks till all things reel,
Sees double, and that's twice as well;
And ere its force confined his feet,
Led out his mob to scour the street;
Made all authority his may-game,
And strain'd his little wits to plague 'em.
Then, every crime atoned with ease,
Pro meritis, received degrees;
And soon, as fortune chanced to fall,
His father died and left him all.
Then, bent to gain all modern fashions,
He sail'd to visit foreign nations,
Resolved, by toil unaw'd, to import
The follies of the British court;
But in his course o'erlook'd whate'er
Was learn'd or valued, rich or rare.

As fire electric draws together
Each hair and straw and dust and feather,

The travell'd dunce collects betimes
The levities of other climes;
And when long toil has given success,
Returns his native land to bless,
A patriot fop, that struts by rules,
And Knight of all the shire of fools.

The praise of other learning lost,
To know the world is all his boast,
By conduct teach our country widgeons,
How coxcombs shine in other regions,
Display his travell'd airs and fashions,
And scoff at college educations.

Whoe'er at college points his sneer,
Proves that himself learn'd nothing there,
And wisely makes his honest aim
To pay the mutual debt of shame.

Mean while our hero's anxious care
Was all employ'd to please the fair;
With vows of love and airs polite,
Oft sighing at some lady's feet;
Pleased, while he thus in form address'd her,
With his own gracefulness of gesture,
And gaudy flattery, that displays
A studied elegance of phrase.

So gay at balls the coxcomb shone,
He thought the female world his own.
By beauty's charms he ne'er was fired;
He flatter'd where the world admired.
Himself, so well he prized desert,
Possest his own unrivall'd heart;
Nor charms, nor chance, nor change could move
The firm foundations of his love;
His heart, so constant and so wise,
Pursued what sages old advise,
Bade others seek for fame or pelf;
His only study was himself.

Yet Dick allow'd the fair, desert,
Nor wholly scorn'd them in his heart;
There was an end, as oft he said,
For which alone the sex were made,
Whereto, of nature's rules observant,
He strove to render them subservient;
And held the fair by inclination,
Were form'd exactly for their station,
That real virtue ne'er could find
Her lodging in a female mind;
Quoted from Pope, in phrase so smart,
That all the sex are ‘rakes at heart,’

And praised Mahomet's sense, who holds
That women ne'er were born with souls.

Thus blest, our hero saw his name
Rank'd in the foremost lists of fame.
What though the learn'd, the good, the wise,
His light affected airs despise!
What though the fair of higher mind,
With brighter thought and sense refined,
Whose fancy rose on nobler wing,
Scorn'd the vain, gilt, gay, noisy thing!
Each light coquette spread forth her charms,
And lured the hero to her arms.
For beaux and light coquettes, by fate
Were each design'd the other's mate,
By instinct love, for each may find
Its likeness in the other's mind.

Each gayer fop of modern days
Allow'd to Dick the foremost praise,
Borrow'd his style, his airs, grimace,
And aped his modish form of dress.
Even some, with sense endued, felt hopes
And warm ambition to be fops:
But men of sense, 'tis fix'd by fate,
Are coxcombs but of second rate.

The pert and lively dunce alone
Can steer the course that Dick has shown;
The lively dunce alone can climb
The summit, where he shines sublime.

But ah! how short the fairest name
Stands on the slippery steep of fame!
The noblest heights we're soonest giddy on;
The sun ne'er stays in his meridian;
The brightest stars must quickly set;
And Dick has deeply run in debt.
Not all his oaths can duns dismay,
Or deadly bailiffs fright away,
Not all his compliments can bail,
Or minuets dance him from the jail.
Law not the least respect can give
To the laced coat, or ruffled sleeve;
His splendid ornaments must fall,
And all is lost, for these were all.

What then remains? in health's decline,
By lewdness, luxury and wine,
Worn by disease, with purse too shallow,
To lead in fashions, or to follow,
The meteor's gaudy light is gone;
Lone age with hasty step comes on.

How pale the palsied fop appears,
Low shivering in the vale of years;
The ghost of all his former days,
When folly lent the ear of praise,
And beaux with pleased attention hung
On accents of his chatt'ring tongue.
Now all those days of pleasure o'er,
That chatt'ring tongue must prate no more.
From every place, that bless'd his hopes,
He's elbow'd out by younger fops.
Each pleasing thought unknown, that cheers
The sadness of declining years,
In lonely age he sinks forlorn,
Of all, and even himself, the scorn.

The coxcomb's course were gay and clever,
Would health and money last for ever,
Did conscience never break the charm,
Nor fear of future worlds alarm.
But oh, since youth and years decay,
And life's vain follies fleet away,
Since age has no respect for beaux,
And death the gaudy scene must close,
Happy the man, whose early bloom
Provides for endless years to come;

That learning seeks, whose useful gain
Repays the course of studious pain,
Whose fame the thankful age shall raise,
And future times repeat its praise;
Attains that heart-felt peace of mind,
To all the will of heaven resign'd,
Which calms in youth, the blast of rage,
Adds sweetest hope to sinking age,
With valued use prolongs the breath,
And gives a placid smile to death.

END OF PART SECOND.

First printed at New-Haven, January 1773.

There is a certain region on the western continent, situated within the northern temperate zone, where in some of the most notable and respectable schools, not only indolence and dulness, but almost every crime, may by the rich be atoned for with pecuniary satisfaction.

Geographical Paradoxes.

This passage alludes to the modes of dress then in fashion.

Sterne's Tristram Shandy was then in the highest vogue, and in the zenith of its transitory reputation.

For his merits—the customary phrase in collegiate diplomas.

3. PART III.
OR THE ADVENTURES OF MISS HARRIET SIMPER.

PREFACE TO PART THIRD.

MY design in this poem is to show, that the foibles we discover in the fair sex arise principally from the neglect of their education, and the mistaken notions they imbibe in their early youth. This naturally introduced a description of these foibles, which I have endeavored to laugh at with good humour and to expose without malevolence. Had I only consulted my own taste, I would have preferred sense and spirit with a style more elevated and poetical, to a perpetual drollery, and the affectation of wit; but I have found by experience in the second part of this work, that it is not so agreeable to the bulk of my readers. I have endeavored to avoid unseasonable severity, and hope, in that point, I am pretty clear of censure; especially as some of my good friends in these parts have lately made a discovery, that severity is not my talent, and there is nothing to be feared from the strokes of my satire; a discovery that on this head hath given me no small consolation. In the following poem, my design is so apparent, that I am not much afraid of general misrepresentation; and I hope there are no grave folks, who will think it trifling or unimportant. I expect however, from the treatment I have already received in regard to the former parts of this work, as well as some later and more fugitive productions.

that my designs will by many be ignorantly or wilfully misunderstood. I shall rest satisfied with the consciousness that a desire to promote the interests of learning and morality was the principal motive, that influenced me in these writings; judging as I did, that unless I attempted something in this way, that might conduce to the service of mankind, I had spent much time in the studies of the Muses in vain.

Polite literature hath within a few years made very considerable advances in America. Mankind in general seem sensible of the importance and advantages of learning. Female education hath been most neglected; and I wish this small performance may have some tendency to encourage and promote it.

The sprightliness of female genius, and the excellence of that sex in their proper walks of science, are by no means inferior to the accomplishments of the men. And although the course of their education ought to be different, and writing is not so peculiarly the business of the sex, yet I cannot but hope hereafter to see the accomplishment of my prediction in their favor.

Her daughters too this happy land shall grace
With powers of genius, as with charms of face;
Blest with the softness of the female mind,
With fancy blooming, and with taste refined,
Some Rowe shall rise and wrest with daring pen,
The pride of science from assuming men;
While each bright line a polish'd beauty wears:
For every Muse and every Grace are theirs.

New-Haven, July 1773.

“Come hither, Harriet, pretty Miss,
Come hither; give your aunt a kiss.
What, blushing? fye, hold up your head,
Full six years old and yet afraid!
With such a form, an air, a grace,
You're not ashamed to show your face!
Look like a lady—bold—my child!
Why ma'am, your Harriet will be spoil'd.
What pity 'tis, a girl so sprightly
Should hang her head so unpolitely?
And sure there's nothing worth a rush in
That odd, unnatural trick of blushing;
It marks one ungenteelly bred,
And shows there's mischief in her head.

I've heard Dick Hairbrain prove from Paul,
Eve never blush'd before the fall.
'Tis said indeed, in latter days,
It gain'd our grandmothers some praise;
Perhaps it suited well enough
With hoop and farthingale and ruff;
But this politer generation
Holds ruffs and blushes out of fashion.
“And what can mean that gown so odd?
You ought to dress her in the mode,
To teach her how to make a figure;
Or she'll be awkward when she's bigger,
And look as queer as Joan of Nokes,
And never rig like other folks;
Her clothes will trail, all fashion lost,
As if she hung them on a post,
And sit as awkwardly as Eve's
First pea-green petticoat of leaves.
“And what can mean your simple whim here
To keep her poring on her primer?
'Tis quite enough for girls to know,
If she can read a billet-doux,
Or write a line you'd understand
Without a cypher of the hand.

Why need she learn to write, or spell?
A pothook scrawl is just as well;
Might rank her with the better sort,
For 'tis the reigning mode at court.
And why should girls be learn'd or wise?
Books only serve to spoil their eyes.
The studious eye but faintly twinkles,
And reading paves the way to wrinkles.
In vain may learning fill the head full;
'Tis beauty that's the one thing needful;
Beauty, our sex's sole pretence,
The best receipt for female sense,
The charm that turns all words to witty,
And makes the silliest speeches pretty.
Ev'n folly borrows killing graces
From ruby lips and roseate faces.
Give airs and beauty to your daughter,
And sense and wit will follow after.”
Thus round the infant Miss in state
The council of the ladies meet,
And gay in modern style and fashion
Prescribe their rules of education.
The mother once herself a toast,
Prays for her child the self-same post;

The father hates the toil and pother,
And leaves his daughters to their mother;
From whom her faults, that never vary,
May come by right hereditary,
Follies be multiplied with quickness,
And whims keep up the family likeness.
Ye parents, shall those forms so fair,
The graces might be proud to wear,
The charms those speaking eyes display,
Where passion sits in ev'ry ray,
Th' expressive glance, the air refined,
That sweet vivacity of mind,
Be doom'd for life to folly's sway,
By trifles lur'd, to fops a prey?
Say, can ye think that forms so fine
Were made for nothing but to shine,
With lips of rose and cheeks of cherry,
Outgo the works of statuary,
And gain the prize of show, as victors
O'er busts and effigies and pictures?
Can female sense no trophies raise,
Are dress and beauty all their praise,
And does no lover hope to find
An angel in his charmer's mind?

First from the dust our sex began,
But woman was refined from man;
Received again, with softer air,
The great Creator's forming care.
And shall it no attention claim
Their beauteous infant souls to frame?
Shall half your precepts tend the while
Fair nature's lovely work to spoil,
The native innocence deface,
The glowing blush, the modest grace,
On follies fix their young desire,
To trifles bid their souls aspire,
Fill their gay heads with whims of fashion,
And slight all other cultivation,
Let every useless, barren weed
Of foolish fancy run to seed,
And make their minds the receptacle
Of every thing that's false and fickle;
Where gay caprice with wanton air,
And vanity keep constant fair,
Where ribbons, laces, patches, puffs,
Caps, jewels, ruffles, tippets, muffs,
With gaudy whims of vain parade,
Croud each apartment of the head;

Where stands, display'd with costly pains,
The toyshop of coquettish brains,
And high-crown'd caps hang out the sign,
And beaux as customers throng in;
Whence sense is banish'd in disgrace,
Where wisdom dares not show her face;
Where the light head and vacant brain
Spoil all ideas they contain,
As th' air-pump kills in half a minute
Each living thing you put within it?
It must be so; by ancient rule
The fair are nursed in folly's school,
And all their education done
Is none at all, or worse than none;
Whence still proceed in maid or wife,
The follies and the ills of life.
Learning is call'd our mental diet,
That serves the hungry mind to quiet,
That gives the genius fresh supplies,
Till souls grow up to common size:
But here, despising sense refined,
Gay trifles feed the youthful mind.
Chameleons thus, whose colours airy
As often as coquettes can vary,

Despise all dishes rich and rare,
And diet wholly on the air;
Think fogs blest eating, nothing finer,
And can on whirlwinds make a dinner;
And thronging all to feast together,
Fare daintily in blust'ring weather.
Here to the fair alone remain
Long years of action spent in vain;
Perhaps she learns (what can she less?)
The arts of dancing and of dress.
But dress and dancing are to women,
Their education's mint and cummin;
These lighter graces should be taught,
And weightier matters not forgot.
For there, where only these are shown,
The soul will fix on these alone.
Then most the fineries of dress,
Her thoughts, her wish and time possess;
She values only to be gay,
And works to rig herself for play;
Weaves scores of caps with diff'rent spires,
And all varieties of wires;
Gay ruffles varying just as flow'd
The tides and ebbings of the mode:

Bright flow'rs, and topknots waving high,
That float, like streamers in the sky;
Work'd catgut handkerchiefs, whose flaws
Display the neck, as well as gauze;
Or network aprons somewhat thinnish,
That cost but six weeks time to finish,
And yet so neat, as you must own
You could not buy for half a crown.
Perhaps in youth (for country fashion
Prescribed that mode of education,)
She wastes long months in still more tawdry,
And useless labours of embroid'ry;
With toil weaves up for chairs together,
Six bottoms, quite as good as leather;
A set of curtains tapestry-work,
The figures frowning like the Turk;
A tentstitch picture, work of folly,
With portraits wrought of Dick and Dolly;
A coat of arms, that mark'd her house,
Three owls rampant, the crest a goose;
Or shows in waxwork goodman Adam,
And serpent gay, gallanting madam,
A woful mimickry of Eden,
With fruit, that needs not be forbidden;

All useless works, that fill for beauties
Of time and sense their vast vacuities;
Of sense, which reading might bestow,
And time, whose worth they never know.
Now to some pop'lous city sent,
She comes back prouder than she went;
Few months in vain parade she spares,
Nor learns, but apes, politer airs;
So formal acts, with such a set air,
That country manners far were better.
This springs from want of just discerning,
As pedantry from want of learning;
And proves this maxim true to sight,
The half-genteel are least polite.
Yet still that active spark, the mind
Employment constantly will find,
And when on trifles most 'tis bent,
Is always found most diligent;
For weighty works men show most sloth in,
But labour hard at doing nothing,
A trade, that needs no deep concern,
Or long apprenticeship to learn,
To which mankind at first apply
As naturally as to cry,

Till at the last their latest groan
Proclaims their idleness is done.
Good sense, like fruits, is rais'd by toil;
But follies sprout in ev'ry soil,
Nor culture, pains, nor planting need,
As moss and mushrooms have no seed.
Thus Harriet, rising on the stage,
Learns all the arts, that please the age,
And studies well, as fits her station,
The trade and politics of fashion:
A judge of modes in silks and satins,
From tassels down to clogs and pattens;
A genius, that can calculate
When modes of dress are out of date,
Cast the nativity with ease
Of gowns, and sacks and negligees,
And tell, exact to half a minute,
What's out of fashion and what's in it;
And scanning all with curious eye,
Minutest faults in dresses spy;
(So in nice points of sight, a flea
Sees atoms better far than we;)
A patriot too, she greatly labours,
To spread her arts among her neighbours,

Holds correspondences to learn
What facts the female world concern,
To gain authentic state-reports
Of varied modes in distant courts,
The present state and swift decays
Of tuckers, handkerchiefs and stays,
The colour'd silk that beauty wraps,
And all the rise and fall of caps.
Then shines, a pattern to the fair,
Of mien, address and modish air,
Of every new, affected grace,
That plays the eye, or decks the face,
The artful smile, that beauty warms,
And all th' hypocrisy of charms.
On sunday, see the haughty maid
In all the glare of dress array'd,
Deck'd in her most fantastic gown,
Because a stranger's come to town.
Heedless at church she spends the day,
For homelier folks may serve to pray,
And for devotion those may go,
Who can have nothing else to do.
Beauties at church must spend their care in
Far other work, than pious hearing;

They've beaux to conquer, bells to rival;
To make them serious were uncivil.
For, like the preacher, they each Sunday
Must do their whole week's work in one day.
As though they meant to take by blows
Th' opposing galleries of beaux,
To church the female squadron move,
All arm'd with weapons used in love.
Like colour'd ensigns gay and fair,
High caps rise floating in the air;
Bright silk its varied radiance flings,
And streamers wave in kissing-strings;
Each bears th' artill'ry of her charms,
Like training bands at viewing arms.

Young people of different sexes used then to sit in the opposite galleries.

So once, in fear of Indian beating,
Our grandsires bore their guns to meeting,
Each man equipp'd on Sunday morn,
With psalm-book, shot and powder-horn;
And look'd in form, as all must grant,
Like th' ancient, true church militant;

Or fierce, like modern deep divines,
Who fight with quills, like porcupines.
Or let us turn the style and see
Our belles assembled o'er their tea;
Where folly sweetens ev'ry theme,
And scandal serves for sugar'd cream.
“And did you hear the news? (they cry)
The court wear caps full three feet high,
Built gay with wire, and at the end on't,
Red tassels streaming like a pendant.
Well sure, it must be vastly pretty;
'Tis all the fashion in the city.
And were you at the ball last night?
Well, Chloe look'd like any fright;
Her day is over for a toast;
She'd now do best to act a ghost.
You saw our Fanny; envy must own
She figures, since she came from Boston.
Good company improves one's air—
I think the troops were station'd there.
Poor Cœlia ventured to the place;
The small-pox quite has spoil'd her face,
A sad affair, we all confest:
But providence knows what is best.

Poor Dolly too, that writ the letter
Of love to Dick; but Dick knew better;
A secret that; you'll not disclose it;
There's not a person living knows it.
Sylvia shone out, no peacock finer;
I wonder what the fops see in her.
Perhaps 'tis true what Harry maintains,
She mends on intimate acquaintance.”
Hail British lands! to whom belongs
Unbounded privilege of tongues,
Blest gift of freedom, prized as rare
By all, but dearest to the fair;
From grandmothers of loud renown,
Thro' long succession handed down,
Thence with affection kind and hearty,
Bequeath'd unlessen'd to poster'ty!
And all ye powers of slander, hail,
Who teach to censure and to rail!
By you, kind aids to prying eyes,
Minutest faults the fair one spies,
And specks in rival toasts can mind,
Which no one else could ever find;
By shrewdest hints and doubtful guesses,
Tears reputations all in pieces;

Points out what smiles to sin advance,
Finds assignations in a glance;
And shews how rival toasts (you'll think)
Break all commandments with a wink.
So priests drive poets to the lurch
By fulminations of the church,
Mark in our title-page our crimes,
Find heresies in double rhymes,
Charge tropes with damnable opinion,
And prove a metaphor, Arminian,
Peep for our doctrines, as at windows,
And pick out creeds of inuendoes.

On the appearance of the first part of this poem, some of the clergy, who supposed themselves the objects of the satire, raised a clamor against the author, as the calumniator of the sacred order, and undertook, from certain passages in it, to prove that he was an infidel, or what they viewed as equally heretical, an Arminian.

And now the conversation sporting
From scandal turns to trying fortune.
Their future luck the fair foresee
In dreams, in cards, but most in tea.
Each finds of love some future trophy
In settlings left of tea, or coffee;

There fate displays its book, she believes,
And lovers swim in form of tea-leaves;
Where oblong stalks she takes for beaux,
And squares of leaves for billet-doux;
Gay balls in parboil'd fragments rise,
And specks for kisses greet her eyes.
So Roman augurs wont to pry
In victim's hearts for prophecy,
Sought from the future world advices,
By lights and lungs of sacrifices,
And read with eyes more sharp than wizards'
The book of fate in pigeon's gizzards;
Could tell what chief would be survivor,
From aspects of an ox's liver,
And cast what luck would fall in fights,
By trine and quartile of its lights.
Yet that we fairly may proceed,
We own that ladies sometimes read,
And grieve, that reading is confin'd
To books that poison all the mind;
Novels and plays, (where shines display'd
A world that nature never made,)
Which swell their hopes with airy fancies,
And amorous follies of romances;

Inspire with dreams the witless maiden
On flowery vales and fields Arcadian,
And contsant hearts no chance can sever,
And mortal loves, that last for ever.
For while she reads romance, the fair one
Fails not to think herself the heroine;
For every glance, or smile, or grace,
She finds resemblance in her face,
Expects the world to fall before her,
And every fop she meets adore her.
Thus Harriet reads, and reading really
Believes herself a young Pamela,
The high-wrought whim, the tender strain
Elate her mind and turn her brain:
Before her glass, with smiling grace,
She views the wonders of her face;
There stands in admiration moveless,
And hopes a Grandison, or Lovelace.

Richardson's novels were then in high request. Young misses were enraptured with the love-scenes, and beaux admired the character of Lovelace.

Then shines she forth, and round her hovers
The powder'd swarm of bowing lovers;

By flames of love attracted thither,
Fops, scholars, dunces, cits, together.
No lamp exposed in nightly skies,
E'er gather'd such a swarm of flies;
Or flame in tube electric draws
Such thronging multitudes of straws.
(For I shall still take similes
From fire electric when I please. )

Certain small critics had triumphed on discovering, that the writer had several times drawn his similes from the phænomena of electricity.

With vast confusion swells the sound,
When all the coxcombs flutter round.
What undulation wide of bows!
What gentle oaths and am'rous vows!
What double entendres all so smart!
What sighs hot-piping from the heart!
What jealous leers! what angry brawls
To gain the lady's hand at balls!
What billet-doux, brimful of flame!
Acrostics lined with Harriet's name!
What compliments, o'er-strain'd with telling
Sad lies of Venus and of Helen!

What wits half-crack'd with commonplaces
On angels, goddesses and graces!
On fires of love what witty puns!
What similes of stars and suns!
What cringing, dancing, ogling, sighing,
What languishing for love, and dying!
For lovers of all things that breathe
Are most exposed to sudden death,
And many a swain much famed in rhymes
Hath died some hundred thousand times:
Yet though love oft their breath may stifle,
'Tis sung it hurts them but a trifle;
The swain revives by equal wonder,
As snakes will join when cut asunder,
And often murder'd still survives;
No cat hath half so many lives.
While round the fair, the coxcombs throng
With oaths, cards, billet-doux, and song,
She spread her charms and wish'd to gain
The heart of every simple swain;
To all with gay, alluring air,
She hid in smiles the fatal snare,
For sure that snare must fatal prove,
Where falsehood wears the form of love;

Full oft with pleasing transport hung
On accents of each flattering tongue,
And found a pleasure most sincere
From each erect, attentive ear;
For pride was her's, that oft with ease
Despised the man she wish'd to please.
She loved the chace, but scorn'd the prey,
And fish'd for hearts to throw away;
Joy'd at the tale of piercing darts,
And tort'ring flames and pining hearts,
And pleased perused the billet-doux,
That said, “I die for love of you;”
Found conquest in each gallant's sighs
And blest the murders of her eyes.
So doctors live but by the dead,
And pray for plagues, as daily bread;
Thank providence for colds and fevers,
And hold consumptions special favors;
And think diseases kindly made,
As blest materials of their trade.
'Twould weary all the pow'rs of verse
Their amorous speeches to rehearse,
Their compliments, whose vain parade
Turns Venus to a kitchen-maid;

With high pretence of love and honor,
They vent their folly all upon her,
(Ev'n as the scripture precept saith,
More shall be given to him that hath;)
Tell her how wond'rous fair they deem her,
How handsome all the world esteem her;
And while they flatter and adore,
She contradicts to call for more.
“And did they say I was so handsome?
My looks—I'm sure no one can fancy 'em.
'Tis true we're all as we were framed,
And none have right to be ashamed;
But as for beauty—all can tell
I never fancied I look'd well;
I were a fright, had I a grain less.
You're only joking, Mr. Brainless.”
Yet beauty still maintain'd her sway,
And bade the proudest hearts obey;
Ev'n sense her glances could beguile,
And vanquish'd wisdom with a smile;
While merit bow'd and found no arms,
To oppose the conquests of her charms,
Caught all those bashful fears, that place
The mask of folly on the face,

That awe, that robs our airs of ease,
And blunders, when it hopes to please;
For men of sense will always prove
The most forlorn of fools in love.
The fair esteem'd, admired, 'tis true,
And praised—'tis all coquettes can do.
And when deserving lovers came,
Believed her smiles and own'd their flame,
Her bosom thrill'd, with joy affected
T' increase the list, she had rejected;
While pleased to see her arts prevail,
To each she told the self-same tale.
She wish'd in truth they ne'er had seen her,
And feign'd what grief it oft had giv'n her,
And sad, of tender-hearted make,
Grieved they were ruin'd for her sake.
'Twas true, she own'd on recollection,
She'd shown them proofs of kind affection:
But they mistook her whole intent,
For friendship was the thing she meant.
She wonder'd how their hearts could move 'em
So strangely as to think she'd love 'em;
She thought her purity above
The low and sensual flames of love;

And yet they made such sad ado,
She wish'd she could have loved them too.
She pitied them, and as a friend
She prized them more than all mankind,
And begg'd them not their hearts to vex,
Or hang themselves, or break their necks,
Told them 'twould make her life uneasy,
If they should run forlorn, or crazy;
Objects of love she could not deem 'em;
But did most marv'lously esteem 'em.
For 'tis esteem, coquettes dispense
Tow'rd learning, genius, worth and sense,
Sincere affection, truth refined,
And all the merit of the mind.
But love's the passion they experience
For gold, and dress, and gay appearance.
For ah! what magic charms and graces
Are found in golden suits of laces!
What going forth of hearts and souls
Tow'rd glare of gilded button-holes!
What lady's heart can stand its ground
'Gainst hats with glittering edging bound?
While vests and shoes and hose conspire,
And gloves and ruffles fan the fire,

And broadcloths, cut by tailor's arts,
Spread fatal nets for female hearts.
And oh, what charms more potent shine,
Drawn from the dark Peruvian mine!
What spells and talismans of Venus
Are found in dollars, crowns and guineas!
In purse of gold, a single stiver
Beats all the darts in Cupid's quiver.
What heart so constant, but must veer,
When drawn by thousand pounds a year!
How many fair ones ev'ry day
To houses fine have fall'n a prey,
Been forced on stores of goods to fix,
Or carried off in coach and six!
For Cœlia, merit found no dart;
Five thousand sterling broke her heart,
So witches, hunters say, confound 'em,
For silver bullets only wound 'em.
But now the time was come, our fair
Should all the plagues of passion share,
And after ev'ry heart she'd won,
By sad disaster lose her own.
So true the ancient proverb sayeth,
‘Edge-tools are dang'rous things to play with;’

The fisher, ev'ry gudgeon hooking,
May chance himself to catch a ducking;
The child that plays with fire, in pain
Will burn its fingers now and then;
And from the dutchess to the laundress,
Coquettes are seldom salamanders.
For lo! Dick Hairbrain heaves in sight,
From foreign climes returning bright;
He danced, he sung to admiration,
He swore to gen'ral acceptation,
In airs and dress so great his merit,
He shone—no lady's eyes could bear it.
Poor Harriet saw; her heart was stouter;
She gather'd all her smiles about her;
Hoped by her eyes to gain the laurels,
And charm him down, as snakes do squirrels.
So prized his love and wish'd to win it,
That all her hopes were center'd in it;
And took such pains his heart to move,
Herself fell desp'rately in love;
Though great her skill in am'rous tricks,
She could not hope to equal Dick's;
Her fate she ventured on his trial,
And lost her birthright of denial.

And here her brightest hopes miscarry;
For Dick was too gallant to marry.
He own'd she'd charms for those who need 'em,
But he, be sure, was all for freedom;
So, left in hopeless flames to burn,
Gay Dick esteem'd her in her turn.
In love, a lady once given over
Is never fated to recover,
Doom'd to indulge her troubled fancies,
And feed her passion by romances;
And always amorous, always changing,
From coxcomb still to coxcomb ranging,
Finds in her heart a void, which still
Succeeding beaux can never fill:
As shadows vary o'er a glass,
Each holds in turn the vacant place;
She doats upon her earliest pain,
And following thousands loves in vain.
Poor Harriet now hath had her day;
No more the beaux confess her sway;
New beauties push her from the stage;
She trembles at th' approach of age,
And starts to view the alter'd face,
That wrinkles at her in her glass:

So Satan, in the monk's tradition,
Fear'd, when he met his apparition.
At length her name each coxcomb cancels
From standing lists of toasts and angels;
And slighted where she shone before,
A grace and goddess now no more,
Despised by all, and doom'd to meet
Her lovers at her rival's feet,
She flies assemblies, shuns the ball,
And cries out, vanity, on all;
Affects to scorn the tinsel-shows
Of glittering belles and gaudy beaux;
Nor longer hopes to hide by dress
The tracks of age upon her face.
Now careless grown of airs polite,
Her noonday nightcap meets the sight;
Her hair uncomb'd collects together,
With ornaments of many a feather;
Her stays for easiness thrown by,
Her rumpled handkerchief awry,
A careless figure half undress'd,
(The reader's wits may guess the rest;)
All points of dress and neatness carried,
As though she'd been a twelvemonth married;

She spends her breath, as years prevail,
At this sad wicked world to rail,
To slander all her sex impromptu,
And wonder what the times will come to.
Tom Brainless, at the close of last year,
Had been six years a rev'rend Pastor,
And now resolved, to smooth his life,
To seek the blessing of a wife.
His brethren saw his amorous temper,
And recommended fair Miss Simper,
Who fond, they heard, of sacred truth,
Had left her levities of youth,
Grown fit for ministerial union,
And grave, as Christian's wife in Bunyan.
On this he rigg'd him in his best,
And got his old grey wig new dress'd,
Fix'd on his suit of sable stuffs,
And brush'd the powder from the cuffs,
With black silk stockings, yet in being,
The same he took his first degree in;
Procured a horse of breed from Europe,
And learn'd to mount him by the stirrup,
And set forth fierce to court the maid;
His white-hair'd Deacon went for aid;

And on the right, in solemn mode,
The Reverend Mr. Brainless rode.
Thus grave, the courtly pair advance,
Like knight and squire in famed romance.
The priest then bow'd in sober gesture,
And all in scripture terms address'd her;
He'd found, for reasons amply known,
It was not good to be alone,
And thought his duty led to trying
The great command of multiplying;
So with submission, by her leave,
He'd come to look him out an Eve,
And hoped, in pilgrimage of life,
To find an helpmate in a wife,
A wife discreet and fair withal,
To make amends for Adam's fall.
In short, the bargain finish'd soon,
A reverend Doctor made them one.
And now the joyful people rouze all
To celebrate their priest's espousal;
And first, by kind agreement set,
In case their priest a wife could get,
The parish vote him five pounds clear,
T' increase his salary every year.

Then swift the tag-rag gentry come
To welcome Madam Brainless home;
Wish their good Parson joy; with pride
In order round salute the bride;
At home, at visits and at meetings,
To Madam all allow precedence;
Greet her at church with rev'rence due,
And next the pulpit fix her pew.

END OF PART THIRD.

THE GENIUS OF AMERICA;

AN ODE.

I.

When Discord high her sable flag unveil'd,
And British fury drew the fatal sword,
Wide o'er the plains, from Concord's deadly field,
The conflict raged with many an inroad gored:
Till now the Sun, declining to the main,
Forsook the circuit of the ethereal way,
And slow evolving o'er the carnaged plain,
Sulphureous vapors dimm'd the falling day;
Th' encrimson'd rays in mournful splendor rise,
And tinged with blood ascend the curtains of the skies.

II.

The savage tumult of the battle o'er,
On that fair hill, near Boston's fated strand,
That rears her beacon in th' aerial tower,
Rose the sad Genius of the Western land.
Torn were the sacred laurels on his head;
His purple robes waved careless to the wind;
Aloft his arm the glittering sword display'd,
For slaughter'd fields in just revenge design'd;
His breast in anguish heaved the heart-felt sigh,
And tears of vengeance burst, and lighten'd in his eye.

III.

“'Tis done, he cried—in vain for human weal,
With suppliant hand the palm of peace to rear!
Hear then, oh Britain, hear my last appeal
To heaven's dread justice and the flames of war.
Then come in all the terrors of thy power,
Stretch the long line and darken o'er the main,
Bid the hoarse tempest of the combat roar,
And hosts infuriate shake the shuddering plain;
League in thy savage cause the foes of life,
The Hessian's barb'rous blade, the Indian's murdering knife.

IV.

I see my hills with banded warriors spread;
On every brow the lines of battle rise;
Terrific lightnings strew the fields with dead,
And adverse thunders echo through the skies.
The vales of Charlestown, sooth'd in bliss no more,
Sad wars affright and groans of parting breath;
Their grass shall wither in the streams of gore,
And flow'rs bloom sicklied with the dews of death;
O'er all her domes the bursting flames aspire,
Wrap the wide walls in smoke and streak the heavens with fire.

V.

And thou, while Glory on thy youthful bier
Lights her pale lamp, in robes funereal dress'd,
And cold sods, wet with many a falling tear,
Enclose the tomb, where patriot honors rest;
Thou too, my Warren, from thy ghastly wound,
With life's last stream thy native soil shalt lave;
Enough, thy years that every virtue crown'd,
That every muse's laurel decks thy grave;

Enough that Liberty resounds thy name,
First martyr in her cause, and heir of deathless fame!

VI.

Nor fall my sons in vain! with awful sound
Fraternal blood invokes th' attentive skies.
Their shades shall wake, and from the gory ground,
Avenging guardians of my rights, arise;
Shall guide the gallant hero to the field,
With pale affright the haughty foe appal,
Stretch o'er my banner'd hosts the viewless shield,
Edge the keen sword and wing th' unerring ball.
What piles of hostile chiefs, in slaughter drown'd,
Fill the wide scenes of death and purple all the ground.

VII.

In vain rude nature spread th' impervious wood,
And rear'd th' eternal barriers of the hills,

Wove the wild thicket, pour'd the pathless flood
Through marshes, deep with congregated rills!
My ardent warriors pierce the desperate lair,
Where prowls the savage panther for his prey;
Now o'er the mounds, and lessening into air,
The daring wand'rers scale th' adventurous way;
Toil, famine, danger, bar their course in vain
To proud Quebec's high walls, and Abraham's hapless plain.

VIII.

Ye plains, renown'd by many a hero's tomb,
Whence Wolf's immortal spirit took its flight,
A soul as brave, with like relentless doom,
Speeds to the attack and tempts the embattled height!
Ah, stay, Montgomery! In the frowning wall
Grim Death lies ambush'd! Stay thy course and spare
That sacred life, too valued yet to fall;
Enough thy sword has lighten'd in the war,
When famed St. John's beheld thy banners rise,
Wave o'er his subject vales and wanton in the skies.

IX.

Boast not, proud Albion! awed by no dismay,
My warriors crowd the fierce conflicting scene.
What dreadless chieftains lead their long array,
Death-daring Putnam and unconquer'd Greene.
And is my Washington unknown to thee,
Whose early footsteps traced the paths of fame,
Shielded, from fate, thy routed bands to flee,
And screen'd thy Gage, to future deeds of shame!
Heav'n calls his sword t' assert my injured cause,
Avenger of my wrongs and guardian of my laws.

X.

Oh, born thy country and her rights to save,
Arise! the thunders of the war to wield;
And through the night and ocean's awful wave,
Guide the frail bark and teach the storm to yield.
When terror through each coward breast shall roll,
And half my boasting champions woo despair,

Thy daring genius and unvanquish'd soul
Sustain my triumphs and inspire the war;
Thy single sword, like Moses' lifted hand,
Sheds conquest on my cause and guards the sinking land.

XI.

And lo, where Victory spreads her eagle wings,
O'er Trenton's stream and Princeton's classic plain;
With warlike shouts th' aerial concave rings,
O'er legions captived and the piles of slain!
Through varying dangers, with unequal force,
The godlike hero guides the dubious day,
Foils the proud Howe, and checks his haughty course,
With Fabian art, victorious by delay.
O'er loss, o'er fortune and th' insulting foes,
His innate virtue shines, his conq'ring courage glows.

XII.

Lo, from the north, what countless myriads roll,
Nations of war and legions of the brave,

100

With all the sable tribes of savage soul,
From frozen climes and Huron's wintry wave!
The fierce Burgoyne drives on th' infuriate train,
Sounds the dire death-song through the frowning wood.
Vain threat! my gath'ring sons thy pomp disdain,
Thy tongue of thunder and thy hands of blood;
Of small avail, when doom'd in arms t' engage
My Gates's caution calm, my Lincoln's noble rage .

XIII.

Dig deep in earth (nor fated yet to fall)
Stretch thy huge ramparts in opposing line:
My daring bands with heav'n-born ardor join,
Dive the low trench and climb the baffled wall.
Thy troops in wild confusion through the field,
Sustain no more the victor's angry face;
Nor force nor art avail. They fall, they yield,
Or wing with coward flight the hasty race.
On every side my hardy yeomen rise,
And lead thy captive host, vain Albion's pride, their prize.

101

XIV.

Hark, from th' embattled South what new alarms!
What streaming ensigns paint the troubled air!
On Monmouth plains the boasting Clinton arms,
And leads to fate the whole collected war.
Hast thou forgot how once thy warriors fled,
Thine early shame on Charleston's fatal wave,
When terror bade thy shatter'd ships recede,
And call the winds to waft thee from the grave?
Beat not thy pulses with accustom'd fear,
And dread'st thou not thy foe? for Washington is there.

XV.

The deep artillery, with tremendous roar,
The sky's blue vault in deathful prelude rend.
What clouds of smoke involve the darken'd shore!
Through the stunn'd air what flaky flames ascend!
Conflicting thousands shake the shuddering ground,
Keen vollies echoing rock the mountains wide,
Afar the startled Del'ware hears the sound,
And Hudson trembles with recoiling tide.

102

Scarce the dire shock my fainting van sustain,
And Lee appall'd retires, and yields the dubious plain.

XVI.

When lo, my favor'd Chief appears to save
From fell destruction's all-devouring sweep;
As the sun rising o'er the turbid wave,
When night with storms hath vex'd the angry deep.
Th' astonish'd foes maintain the fight no more,
Fierce on their rear my rushing host impends,
Their falling legions dye the fields with gore,
Till dusky eve, their better hope, descends;
Through fav'ring darkness fly the broken train,
Steal trembling to their ships, and hide behind the main.

At the battle of Lexington.

------ the battle swerved
With many an inroad gored.—
Milton.

Battle at Bunker-hill.

Major General Joseph Warren of Boston, who fell at the head of the Massachusetts troops. In him were united the gentleman, the scholar, the patriot and the hero. There were few from whose courage and talents more was expected, none whose loss was more universally lamented.

March of the American army through the wilderness to Quebec —Repulse and death of General Montgomery.

------ opposuit Natura Alpemq; nivemq;
Diducit scopulos &c.
Juvenal, satir. 10.

A British fortress in Canada, north of Lake Champlain.

At the battle of Monongahela, where General Braddock was defeated and slain. Washington, then a Colonel, had the principal merit of conducting the retreat and saving the remains of the British army.

Capture of the Hessians at Trenton, and of a detachment of the British at Princeton.

Capture of General Burgoyne and his army.

See Burgoyne's proclamation at the commencement of his northern invasion—a compound of sanguinary threats and ostentatious bombast.

Battle of Monmouth.

Defeat of the British under General Clinton, and repulse of their fleet under Admiral Parker, in their attempt on Charleston in South Carolina, in 1776.

General Charles Lee, a British adventurer, who had joined the Americans, and commanded the front division in this action. For his conduct on that occasion, he was suspended for a year from command, and never afterward employed in the service.

105

LINES ADDRESSED TO MESSRS. DWIGHT AND BARLOW,

On the projected publication of their Poems in London.

December 1775.

Pleased with the vision of a deathless name,
You seek perhaps a flowery road to fame;
Where distant far from ocean's stormy roar,
Wind the pure vales and smiles the tranquil shore,
Where hills sublime in vernal sweetness rise,
And opening prospects charm the wand'ring eyes,
While the gay dawn, propitious on your way,
Crimsons the east and lights the orient day.

Yet vain the hope, that waits the promised bays,
Though conscious merit claim the debt of praise;
Still sneering Folly wars with every art,
Still ambush'd Envy aims the secret dart,

106

Through hosts of foes the course of glory lies,
Toil wins the field and hazard gains the prize.

For dangers wait, and fears of unknown name,
The long, the dreary pilgrimage of fame;
Each bard invades, each judging dunce reviews,
And every critic wars with every Muse.

As horror gloom'd along the dark'ning path,
When famed Ulysses trod the vales of death;
Terrific voices rose, and all around
Dire forms sprang flaming from the rocking ground;
Fierce Cerberus lour'd, and yawning o'er his way,
Hell flash'd the terrors of infernal day;
The scornful fiends opposed his bold career,
And sung in shrieks the prelude of his fear.
Thus at each trembling step, the Poet hears
Dread groans and hisses murmur in his ears;
In every breeze a shaft malignant flies,
Cerberean forms in every rival rise;
There yawning wide before his path extends
Th' infernal gulph, where Critics are the fiends;
From gloomy Styx pale conflagrations gleam,
And dread oblivion rolls in Lethe's stream.

107

And see, where yon proud Isle her shores extends
The cloud of Critics on your Muse descends!
From every side, with deadly force, shall steer
The fierce Review, the censuring Gazetteer,
Light Magazines, that pointless jests supply,
And quick Gazettes, that coin the current lie.
Each coffee-house shall catch the loud alarms,
The Temple swarm, and Grub-street wake to arms.
As vultures, sailing through the darken'd air,
Whet their keen talons, and their beaks prepare,
O'er warring armies wait th' approaching fray,
And sate their wishes on the future prey:
Each cens'rer thus the tempting lure pursues,
And hangs o'er battles of your Epic muse,

108

The pamper'd critic feeds on slaughter'd names,
And each new bard a welcome feast proclaims.

Such men to charm, could Homer's muse avail,
Who read to cavil, and who write to rail;
When ardent genius pours the bold sublime,
Carp at the style, or nibble at the rhyme;
Misstate your thoughts, misconstrue your design,
And cite, as samples, every feebler line?
To praise your muse be your admirer's care;
Her faults alone the critics make their share.
Where you succeed, beyond their sphere you've flown,
But where you fail, the realm is all their own.
By right they claim whatever faults are found,
For nonsense trespasses on critic ground;
By right they claim the blunders of your lays,
As lords of manors seize on waifs and strays.

Yet heed not these, but join the sons of song,
And scorn the censures of the envious throng;
Prove to the world, in these new-dawning skies,
What genius kindles and what arts arise;
What fav'ring Muses lent their willing aid,
As gay through Pindus' flowery paths you stray'd;
While in your strains the purest morals flow'd,
Rules to the great, and lessons to the good.

109

All Virtue's friends are yours. Disclose the lays;
Your country's heroes claim the debt of praise;
Fame shall assent, and future years admire
Barlow's strong flight, and Dwight's Homeric fire.

Dwight's Conquest of Canaan, and Barlow's Vision of Columbus, afterwards enlarged and entitled, The Columbiad. This designed publication was prevented by the revolutionary war.

Homer's Odyssey, Book 11.

Great-Britain.—See the British Reviewers, for the fulfilment of this prediction.

The English scribblers began their abuse, by asserting that all the Americans were cowards. Subsequent events have taught them a reverent silence on that topic. They now labour, with equal wit and eloquence, to prove our universal ignorance and stupidity.— The present writers in the Quarterly Review have made it the vehicle of insult and slander upon our genius and manners. Whether they will be more successful with the pen than with the sword, in prostrating America at their feet, Time, the ancient arbiter, will determine in due season.

113

ODE TO SLEEP.

1773.

I.

Come, gentle Sleep!
Balm of my wounds and softner of my woes,
And lull my weary heart in sweet repose,
And bid my sadden'd soul forget to weep,
And close the tearful eye;
While dewy eve with solemn sweep,
Hath drawn her fleecy mantle o'er the sky,
And chaced afar, adown th' ethereal way,
The din of bustling care and gaudy eye of day.

II.

Come, but thy leaden sceptre leave,
Thy opiate rod, thy poppies pale,
Dipp'd in the torpid fount of Lethe's stream,
That shroud with night each intellectual beam,
And quench th' immortal fire, in deep Oblivion's wave.
Yet draw the thick impervious veil

114

O'er all the scenes of tasted woe;
Command each cypress shade to flee;
Between this toil-worn world and me,
Display thy curtain broad, and hide the realms below.

III.

Descend, and graceful in thy hand,
With thee bring thy magic wand,
And thy pencil, taught to glow
In all the hues of Iris' bow.
And call thy bright, aerial train,
Each fairy form and visionary shade,
That in the Elysian land of dreams,
The flower-enwoven banks along,
Or bowery maze, that shades the purple streams,
Where gales of fragrance breathe th' enamour'd song,
In more than mortal charms array'd,
People the airy vales and revel in thy reign.

IV.

But drive afar the haggard crew,
That haunt the guilt-encrimson'd bed,
Or dim before the frenzied view
Stalk with slow and sullen tread;

115

While furies with infernal glare,
Wave their pale torches through the troubled air;
And deep from Darkness' inmost womb,
Sad groans dispart the icy tomb,
And bid the sheeted spectre rise,
Mid shrieks and fiery shapes and deadly fantasies.

V.

Come and loose the mortal chain,
That binds to clogs of clay th' ethereal wing;
And give th' astonish'd soul to rove,
Where never sunbeam stretch'd its wide domain;
And hail her kindred forms above,
In fields of uncreated spring,
Aloft where realms of endless glory rise,
And rapture paints in gold the landscape of the skies.

VI.

Then through the liquid fields we'll climb,
Where Plato treads empyreal air,
Where daring Homer sits sublime,
And Pindar rolls his fiery car;
Above the cloud-encircled hills,
Where high Parnassus lifts his airy head,

116

And Helicon's melodious rills
Flow gently through the warbling glade;
And all the Nine, in deathless choir combined,
Dissolve in harmony th' enraptured mind,
And every bard, that tuned th' immortal lay,
Basks in th' ethereal blaze, and drinks celestial day.

VII.

Or call to my transported eyes
Happier scenes for lovers made,
Bid the twilight grove arise,
Lead the rivulet through the glade.
In some flowering arbor laid,
Where opening roses taste the honied dew,
And plumy songsters carol through the shade,
Recall my long-lost wishes to my view.
Bid Time's inverted glass return
The scenes of bliss with hope elate,
And hail the once expected morn,
And burst the iron bands of fate.
Graced with all her virgin charms,
Attractive smiles and past, responsive flame
Restore my ***** to my arms,
Just to her vows and faithful to her fame.

117

VIII.

Hymen's torch with hallow'd fire
Rising beams th' auspicious ray.
Wake the dance, the festive lyre
Warbling sweet the nuptial lay;
Gay with beauties, once alluring,
Bid the bright Enchantress move,
Eyes that languish, smiles of rapture,
And the rosy blush of love.
On her glowing breast reclining,
Mid that paradise of charms,
Every blooming grace combining,
Yielded to my circling arms,
I clasp the Fair, and kindling at the view,
Press to my heart the dear deceit, and think the transport true.

IX.

Hence, false delusive dreams,
Fantastic hopes and mortal passions vain!
Ascend, my soul to nobler themes
Of happier import and sublimer strain.
Rising from this sphere of night,
Pierce yon blue vault, ingemm'd with golden fires;

118

Beyond where Saturn's languid car retires,
Or Sirius keen outvies the solar ray,
To worlds from every dross terrene refined,
Realms of the pure, ethereal mind,
Warm with the radiance of unchanging day:
Where Cherub-forms and Essences of light,
With holy song and heavenly rite,,
From rainbow clouds their strains immortal pour;
An earthly guest, in converse high,
Explore the wonders of the sky,
From orb to orb with guides celestial soar,
And take, through heaven's wide round, the Universal tour.

X.

And find that mansion of the blest,
Where rising ceaseless from this lethal stage,
Heaven's favorite sons, from earthly chains released,
In happier Eden pass th' eternal age.
The newborn soul beholds th' angelic face
Of holy Sires, that throng the blissful plain,
Or meets his consort's loved embrace,
Or clasps the son, so lost, so mourn'd in vain.
There, charm'd with each endearing wile,
Maternal fondness greets her infant's smile;

119

Long-sever'd friends, in transport doubly dear,
Unite and join th' interminable train—
And hark! a well-known voice I hear,
I spy my sainted friend! I meet my Howe again!

XI.

Hail, sacred shade! for not to dust consign'd,
Lost in the grave, thine ardent spirit lies,
Nor fail'd that warm benevolence of mind
To claim the birthright of its native skies.
What radiant glory and celestial grace,
Immortal meed of piety and praise!
Come to my visions, friendly shade,
'Gainst all assaults my wayward weakness arm,
Raise my low thoughts, my nobler wishes aid,
When passions rage, or vain allurements charm;
The pomp of learning and the boast of art,
The glow, that fires in genius' boundless range,
The pride, that wings the keen, satiric dart,
And hails the triumph of revenge.

120

Teach me, like thee, to feel and know
Our humble station in this vale of woe,
Twilight of life, illumed with feeble ray,
The infant dawning of eternal day;
With heart expansive, through this scene improve
The social soul of harmony and love;
To heavenly hopes alone aspire and prize
The virtue, knowledge, bliss and glory of the skies.

Rev. Joseph Howe, pastor of a church in Boston, sometime a fellow-tutor with the author at Yale-College. He died in 1775. The conclusion of the Ode was varied, by inserting this tribute of affection.

123

TO A YOUNG LADY, Who requested the Writer to draw her Character.

A FABLE.

Sept. 1774.

In vain, fair Maid, you ask in vain,
My pen should try th' advent'rous strain,
And following truth's unalter'd law,
Attempt your character to draw.
I own indeed, that generous mind
That weeps the woes of human kind,
That heart by friendship's charms inspired,
That soul with sprightly fancy fired,
The air of life, the vivid eye,
The flowing wit, the keen reply—
To paint these beauties as they shine,
Might ask a nobler pen than mine.

Yet what sure strokes can draw the Fair,
Who vary, like the fleeting air,
Like willows bending to the force,
Where'er the gales direct their course,

124

Opposed to no misfortune's power,
And changing with the changing hour.
Now gaily sporting on the plain,
They charm the grove with pleasing strain;
Anon disturb'd, they know not why,
The sad tear trembles in their eye:
Led through vain life's uncertain dance,
The dupes of whim, the slaves of chance.

From me, not famed for much goodnature,
Expect not compliment, but satire;
To draw your picture quite unable,
Instead of fact accept a Fable.

One morn, in Æsop's noisy time,
When all things talk'd, and talk'd in rhyme,
A cloud exhaled by vernal beams
Rose curling o'er the glassy streams.
The dawn her orient blushes spread,
And tinged its lucid skirts with red,
Wide waved its folds with glitt'ring dies,
And gaily streak'd the eastern skies;
Beneath, illumed with rising day,
The sea's broad mirror floating lay.
Pleased, o'er the wave it hung in air,
Survey'd its glittering glories there,
And fancied, dress'd in gorgeous show,
Itself the brightest thing below:

125

For clouds could raise the vaunting strain,
And not the fair alone were vain.

Yet well it knew, howe'er array'd,
That beauty, e'en in clouds, might fade,
That nothing sure its charms could boast
Above the loveliest earthly toast;
And so, like them, in early dawn
Resolved its picture should be drawn,
That when old age with length'ning day
Should brush the vivid rose away,
The world should from the portrait own
Beyond all clouds how bright it shone.

Hard by, a painter raised his stage,
Far famed, the Copley of his age.
So just a form his colours drew,
Each eye the perfect semblance knew;
Yet still on every blooming face
He pour'd the pencil's flowing grace;
Each critic praised the artist rare,
Who drew so like, and yet so fair.

To him, high floating in the sky
Th' elated Cloud advanced t' apply.

126

The painter soon his colours brought,
The Cloud then sat, the artist wrought;
Survey'd her form, with flatt'ring strictures,
Just as when ladies sit for pictures,
Declared “whatever art can do,
My utmost skill shall try for you:
But sure those strong and golden dies
Dipp'd in the radiance of the skies,
Those folds of gay celestial dress,
No mortal colours can express.
Not spread triumphal o'er the plain,
The rainbow boasts so fair a train,
Nor e'en the morning sun so bright,
Who robes his face in heav'nly light.
To view that form of angel make,
Again Ixion would mistake,
And justly deem so fair a prize,
The sovereign Mistress of the skies,”

He said, and drew a mazy line,
With crimson touch his pencils shine,

127

The mingling colours sweetly fade,
And justly temper light and shade.

He look'd; the swelling Cloud on high
With wider circuit spread the sky,
Stretch'd to the sun an ampler train,
And pour'd new glories on the main.
As quick, effacing every ground,
His pencil swept the canvas round,
And o'er its field, with magic art,
Call'd forth new forms in every part.

But now the sun, with rising ray,
Advanced with speed his early way;
Each colour takes a differing die,
The orange glows, the purples fly.
The artist views the alter'd sight,
And varies with the varying light;
In vain! a sudden gust arose,
New folds ascend, new shades disclose,
And sailing on with swifter pace,
The Cloud displays another face.
In vain the painter, vex'd at heart,
Tried all the wonders of his art;
In vain he begg'd, her form to grace,
One moment she would keep her place:
For, “changing thus with every gale,
Now gay with light, with gloom now pale,

128

Now high in air with gorgeous train,
Now settling on the darken'd main,
With looks more various than the moon;
A French coquette were drawn as soon.”

He spoke; again the air was mild,
The Cloud with opening radiance smiled;
With canvas new his art he tries,
Anew he joins the glitt'ring dies;
Th' admiring Cloud with pride beheld
Her image deck the pictured field,
And colours half-complete adorn
The splendor of the painted morn.

When lo, the stormy winds arise,
Deep gloom invests the changing skies;
The sounding tempest shakes the plain,
And lifts in billowy surge the main.
The Cloud's gay dies in darkness fade,
Its folds condense in thicker shade,
And borne by rushing blasts, its form
With lowering vapour joins the storm.

A celebrated American painter, who excelled in portraits. He afterwards visited London, where he gained a very high reputation by his picture of the death of Lord Chatham.

The Grecian poets tell us, that Ixion having made an assignation with Juno, the goddess formed a cloud in her own shape and substituted it in her stead; on which, unconscious of the deception, he begat the Centaurs.

131

THE SPEECH OF PROTEUS TO ARISTÆUS, CONTAINING THE STORY OF ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE;

Translated from the 4th book of Virgil's Georgics. A collegiate exercise.

June 1770.

A GOD pursues thee with immortal hate,
By crimes provoked, that wake the wrath of fate;
In guiltless woe the hapless Orpheus died,
And calls the powers t' avenge his injured bride.

Along the stream, with flying steps she strove
To shun the fury of thy lawless love,
Unhappy Fair! nor on the fated way
Saw the dire snake, that ambush'd for his prey.

132

Her sister Dryades wail'd the deadly wound,
The lofty hills their melting cries resound;
Then wept the rocks of Rhodope, the towers
Of high Pangæus, and the Rhesian shores;
The mournful sounds the Attic lands convey,
And Hebrus rolls in sadden'd waves away.

He, on his lyre, essay'd with tuneful art
To sooth the ceaseless anguish of his heart;
Thee, his fair bride, to lone distress a prey,
Thee sung at rising, thee at falling day.
Then sought the realms of death and Stygian Jove,
Through blackening horrors of th' infernal grove,
Mid direful ghosts and powers of deep despair,
Unknown to pity and unmoved by prayer.

133

From Hell's dark shores, to Orpheus' melting song,
On every side the gloomy nations throng;
Thin, airy shades, pale spectres lost to light,
Like fancied forms, that glide athwart the night.
As flitting birds, in summer's checquer'd shade,
Dance on the boughs and flutter through the glade,
Or seek the woods, when night descends amain,
And pours in storms along the wintry plain:
Men, matrons, round the sweet musician press'd,
The spouseless maidens and the youths unblest,
Snatch'd from their parents' eyes, or doom'd to yield
In war's dire combats on the crimson field;
Whom the deep fens, that drain the moory ground,
And black Cocytus' reedy lake surround,

134

Where baleful Styx her mournful margin laves,
And deadly Lethe rolls th' oblivious waves.

Hell heard the song; and fix'd in deep amaze,
On the sweet bard the snaky Furies gaze;
Grim Cerb'rus hung entranced; and ceased to reel
The giddy circle of Ixion's wheel.

These dangers 'scaped, he seeks the upper air;
Elate with joy, and follow'd by the Fair;
Such law the fates imposed: but doom'd to prove
The sudden madness of ill-omen'd love;
Could Fate relent, or melt at human woe,
A venial crime, were venial aught below!
Light gleam'd at hand, the shades of death retire;
With wishes wild and vanquish'd with desire,

135

His fears forgot, he turn'd; his lovely bride,
Given to his hope, with trembling glance espied.
There end thy joys, and vanish'd into air
Thy fancied raptures and thy fruitless care;
Broke is the league, and thrice tremendous roars
The warning thunder on th' infernal shores.

What rage, she cried, thus blasts our joys again,
Pair'd in sad fates and doom'd to endless pain!
Hark! the dread summons calls me back to woes;
My swimming eyes eternal slumbers close;
A last farewell! the stygian horrors rise,
And roll'd in night my parting spirit flies;
Vain my weak arms, extended to restore
The bridal hand, that must be thine no more.

136

She said, and vanish'd instant from his eye,
Like melting smoke, that mingles with the sky.
No kind embrace his deepening grief t' allay,
No farewell word, though much he wish'd to say,
Nor hope remain'd. Stern Charon now no more
Consents to waft him to the adverse shore.
Again divorced from all his soul must love,
No tears could melt, nor songs the fates could move.
Her, breathless, pale, to mansions of the grave,
The bark bore floating on the stygian wave.

In gelid caves with horrid glooms array'd,
Where cloud-topt hills project an awful shade,
Along the margin of the desert shore,
Where lonely Strymon's rushing waters roar,

137

Seven hapless months he wept his fatal love,
His ravish'd bride, and blamed relentless Jove.
Stern tigers soften'd at the tuneful sound,
The thickets move, the forests dance around:
So in some poplar's shade, with soothing song
Sad Philomela mourns her captive young,
When some rude swain hath found th' unfeather'd
Her nest despoil'd and borne the prize away;
Through the long night she breathes her tuneful strain, prey,
The slow, deep moan resounds, and echoes o'er the plain.

Pleasure no more his soul estranged could move,
The charms of beauty, or the joys of love.
Alone he stray'd where freezing Tanais flows
Through drear wastes, wedded to perennial snows,

138

Mourn'd his lost bride, th' infernal power's deceit,
And cursed the vain, illusive gifts of fate.

When Bacchus' orgies stain'd the midnight skies,
Their proffers scorn'd, the Thracian matrons rise.
Their hopeless rage the bleeding victim tore,
His sever'd limbs are scatter'd on the shore,
Rent from his breathless corse, swift Hebrus sweeps
His gory visage to the opening deeps.
Yet when cold death sate trembling on his tongue,
With fainting soul, Eurydice, he sung;
Ah dearest, lost Eurydice! he cries;
Eurydice, the plaintive shore replies.

141

THE PROPHECY OF BALAAM.

Numbers, Chapters 23d and 24th.

December 1773.

I.

On lofty Peor's brow,
That rears its forehead to the sky,
And sees the airy vapors fly,
And clouds in bright expansion sail below,
Sublime the Prophet stood.
Beneath its pine-clad side,
The distant world her varied landscape yields;
Winding vales and length'ning fields,
Streams in sunny maze that flow'd,
Stretch'd immense in prospect wide,
Forests green in summer's pride.
Waving glory gilds the main,
The dazzling sun ascending high,
While earth's blue verge, at distance dimly seen,
Spreads from the aching sight, and fades into the sky.

142

II.

Beneath his feet, along the level plain,
The host of Israel stretch'd in deep array;
Their tents rose frequent on the enamell'd green,
Bright to the wind the color'd streamers play.
Red from the slaughter of their foes,
In awful steel th' embattled heroes stood;
High o'er the shaded ark in terror rose
The cloud, the dark pavilion of their God.
Before the Seer's unwilling eyes,
The years unborn ascend to sight;
He saw their opening morn arise,
Bright in the sunshine of the fav'ring skies;
While from th'insufferable light,
Fled the dire dæmons of opposing night.
No more, elate with stygian aid,
He waves the wand's enchanted power,
And baleful through the hallow'd glade,
His magic footsteps rove no more.
Fill'd with prophetic fire, he lifts his hand
O'er the deep host in dim array;
And awed by heaven's supreme command,
Pours forth the rapture of the living lay.

143

III.

Fair, oh Israel, are thy tents,
Blest the banners of thy fame;
Blest the dwellings of his saints,
Where their God displays his name.
Fair as these vales, that stretch their lawns so wide,
As gardens smile in flow'ry meadows fair,
As rising cedars, on the streamlet's side,
Unfold their arms and court the fragrant air.
Vain is magic's deadly force,
Vain the dire enchanter's spell,
Waving wand or charmed curse,
Vain the pride, the rage of hell.
From Peor's high, illumined brow,
I see th' Eternal Power reveal'd,
And all the lengthen'd plain below
O'ershrouded by th' Almighty Shield.

144

God, their guardian God, descends,
And Israel's fav'rite host Omnipotence defends.

IV.

And see, bright Judah's Star ascending
Fires the east with crimson day,
Awful o'er his foes impending,
Pours wide the lightning of his ray,
And flames destruction on th' opposing world.
Death's broad banners dark, unfurl'd,
Wave o'er his blood-encircled way.
Sceptred king of Moab, hear,
Deeds that future times await,
Deadly triumph, war severe,
Israel's pride and Moab's fate.
What echoing terrors burst upon mine ear!
What awful forms in flaming horror rise!
Empurpled Rage, pale Ruin, heart-struck Fear,
In scenes of blood ascend, and skim before my eyes.

145

V.

Dimly on the skirt of night,
O'er thy sons the cloud impends;
Echoing storm with wild affright,
Loud the astonish'd ether rends.
Long hosts, emblazed with sunbright shields, appear,
And Death, in fierce career,
Glides on their light'ning swords: along thy shores,
Arm'd with the bolts of fate,
What hostile navies wait!
Above, around, the shout of ruin roars.
For nought avails, that clad in spiry pride,
Thy rising cities glitter'd on the day;
The vengeful arms wave devastation wide,
And give thy pompous domes to smouldering flames a prey.

VI.

Edom bows her lofty head,
Seir submits her vanquish'd lands,
Amalek, of hosts the dread,
Sinks beneath their wasting hands.

146

See, whelm'd in smoky heaps, the ruin'd walls
Rise o'er thy children's hapless grave!
Low thy blasted glory falls;
Vain the pride that could not save!
Israel's swords arrest the prey,
Back to swift fate thy trembling standards turn;
Black desolation rolls along their way,
War sweeps in front, and flames behind them burn;
And Death and dire Dismay
Unfold their universal grave, and ope the mighty urn.

Numbers, xxiv, 1. And when Balaam saw that it pleased God to bless Israel, he went not, as at other times, to seek enchantments.

Verse 5. How beautiful are thy tents, O Jacob! and thy tabernacles, O Israel!

As the valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by the river's side, as cedars beside the waters.

V. 6.

Chapter xxiii, verse 23. Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither any divination against Israel.

From the top of the rocks I see him, and from the hills I behold him.

Chapter xxiii, 9.

There shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall arise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth.

Chap. xxiv, 17, &c.

Edom shall be a possession, Seir also shall be a possession for his enemies, and Israel shall de valiantly.

See chapter xxiv. from verse 18 to the end.

149

THE OWL AND THE SPARROW.

A FABLE.

1772.

In elder days, in Saturn's prime,
Ere baldness seized the head of Time,
While truant Jove, in infant pride,
Play'd barefoot on Olympus' side,
Each thing on earth had power to chatter,
And spoke the mother tongue of nature.
Each stock or stone could prate and gabble,
Worse than ten labourers of Babel.
Along the street, perhaps you'd see
A Post disputing with a Tree,
And mid their arguments of weight,
A Goose sit umpire of debate.
Each Dog you met, though speechless now,
Would make his compliments and bow,

150

And every Swine with congees come,
To know how did all friends at home.
Each Block sublime could make a speech,
In style and eloquence as rich,
And could pronounce it and could pen it,
As well as Chatham in the senate.

Nor prose alone.—In these young times,
Each field was fruitful too in rhymes;
Each feather'd minstrel felt the passion,
And every wind breathed inspiration.
Each Bullfrog croak'd in loud bombastic,
Each Monkey chatter'd Hudibrastic;
Each Cur, endued with yelping nature,
Could outbark Churchill's self in satire;
Each Crow in prophecy delighted,
Each Owl, you saw, was second-sighted,
Each Goose a skilful politician,
Each Ass a gifted met'physician,
Could preach in wrath 'gainst laughing rogues,
Write Halfway-covenant Dialogues,

151

And wisely judge of all disputes
In commonwealths of men or brutes.

'Twas then, in spring a youthful Sparrow
Felt the keen force of Cupid's arrow:
For Birds, as Æsop's tales avow,
Made love then, just as men do now,
And talk'd of deaths and flames and darts,
And breaking necks and losing hearts;
And chose from all th' aerial kind,
Not then to tribes, like Jews, confined
The story tells, a lovely Thrush
Had smit him from a neigh'bring bush,
Where oft the young coquette would play,
And carol sweet her siren lay:
She thrill'd each feather'd heart with love,
And reign'd the Toast of all the grove.

He felt the pain, but did not dare
Disclose his passion to the fair;
For much he fear'd her conscious pride
Of race, to noble blood allied.
Her grandsire's nest conspicuous stood,
Mid loftiest branches of the wood,
In airy height, that scorn'd to know
Each flitting wing that waved below.
So doubting, on a point so nice
He deem'd it best to take advice.

152

Hard by there dwelt an aged Owl,
Of all his friends the gravest fowl;
Who from the cares of business free,
Lived, hermit, in a hollow tree;
To solid learning bent his mind,
In trope and syllogism he shined,
'Gainst reigning follies spent his railing;
Too much a Stoic—'twas his failing.

Hither for aid our Sparrow came,
And told his errand and his name,
With panting breath explain'd his case,
Much trembling at the sage's face;
And begg'd his Owlship would declare
If love were worth a wise one's care.

The grave Owl heard the weighty cause,
And humm'd and hah'd at every pause;
Then fix'd his looks in sapient plan,
Stretch'd forth one foot, and thus began.

“My son, my son, of love beware,
And shun the cheat of beauty's snare;
That snare more dreadful to be in,
Than huntsman's net, or horse-hair gin.
“By others' harms learn to be wise,”
As ancient proverbs well advise.
Each villany, that nature breeds,
From females and from love proceeds.

153

'Tis love disturbs with fell debate
Of man and beast the peaceful state:
Men fill the world with war's alarms,
When female trumpets sound to arms;
The commonwealth of dogs delight
For beauties, as for bones, to fight.
Love hath his tens of thousands slain,
And heap'd with copious death the plain:
Samson, with ass's jaw to aid,
Ne'er peopled thus th'infernal shade.

“Nor this the worst; for he that's dead,
With love no more will vex his head.
'Tis in the rolls of fate above,
That death's a certain cure for love;
A noose can end the cruel smart;
The lover's leap is from a cart.
But oft a living death they bear,
Scorn'd by the proud, capricious fair.
The fair to sense pay no regard,
And beauty is the fop's reward;
They slight the generous hearts' esteem,
And sigh for those, who fly from them.

Just when your wishes would prevail,
Some rival bird with gayer tail,
Who sings his strain with sprightlier note,
And chatters praise with livelier throat,

154

Shall charm your flutt'ring fair one down,
And leave your choice, to hang or drown.

Ev'n I, my son, have felt the smart;
A Pheasant won my youthful heart.
For her I tuned the doleful lay,
For her I watch'd the night away;
In vain I told my piteous case,
And smooth'd my dignity of face;
In vain I cull'd the studied phrase,
And sought hard words in beauty's praise.
Her, not my charms nor sense could move,
For folly is the food of love.
Each female scorns our serious make,
“Each woman is at heart a rake.”
Thus Owls in every age have said,
Since our first parent-owl was made;
Thus Pope and Swift, to prove their sense,
Shall sing, some twenty ages hence;
Then shall a man of little fame,
One ***** ********* sing the same.

In the course of a poetical correspondence with a friend, having received a very humorous letter in ridicule of Love, &c. I sent him this fable in return.

Churchill, the English satirist.

Alluding to the titles of several violent controversial productions of that day, concerning the terms of admission to church-fellowship.

My correspondent, about that time, had also been himself a little dipped in Amatory Verse, as Little, [T. Moore] calls it.

Men, some to business, some to pleasure take,
But every woman is at heart a rake.
Pope's Essay on the characters of Women.

157

PROSPECT OF THE FUTURE GLORY OF AMERICA:

Being the conclusion of an Oration, delivered at the public commencement at Yale-College, September 12, 1770.

—And see th' expected hour is on the wing,
With every joy the flight of years can bring;
The splendid scenes the Muse shall dare display,
And unborn ages view the ripen'd day.

Beneath a sacred grove's inspiring shade,
When Night the world in pleasing glooms array'd,
While the fair moon, that leads the heav'nly train,
With varying brightness dyed the dusky plain,
Entranced I sate; to solemn thought resign'd,
Long visions rising in the raptured mind,
Celestial music charm'd the listening dale,
While these blest sounds my ravish'd ear assail.

“To views far distant and to scenes more bright,
Along the vale of Time extend thy sight,
Where hours and days and years from yon dim pole,
Wave following wave in long succession roll,

158

There see, in pomp for ages without end,
The glories of the Western World ascend.

“See, this blest land in orient morn appears,
Waked from the slumber of six thousand years,
While clouds of darkness veil'd each cheering ray;
To savage beasts and savage men, a prey.
Fair Freedom now her ensigns bright displays,
And peace and plenty bless the golden days.
In radiant state th'imperial realm shall rise,
Her splendor circling to the boundless skies;
Of every Fair she boasts the assembled charms,
The Queen of empires and the nurse of arms.

“See her bold heroes mark their glorious way,
Arm'd for the fight and blazing on the day!
Blood stains their steps, and o'er th' ensanguined plain,
Mid warring thousands and mid thousands slain,
Their eager swords unsated carnage blend,
And ghastly deaths their raging course attend.
Her dreaded power the subject world shall see,
And laurel'd conquest wait her high decree.

“And see her navies, rushing to the main,
Catch the swift gales and sweep the wat'ry plain;
Or led by commerce, at the merchant's door
Unlade the treasures of the Asian shore;
Or arm'd with thunder, on the guilty foe
Rush big with death and aim th' unerring blow;

159

Bid every realm, that hears the trump of fame,
Quake at the distant terror of her name.

“For pleasing Arts behold her matchless charms,
The first in letters, as the first in arms.
See bolder genius quit the narrow shore,
And realms of science, yet untraced, explore,
Hiding in brightness of superior day,
The fainting gleam of Europe's setting ray.

“Sublime the Muse shall lift her eagle wing;
Of heavenly themes the sacred bards shall sing,
Tell how the blest Redeemer, man to save,
Thro' the deep mansions of the gloomy grave,
Sought the low shades of night, then rising high
Vanquish'd the powers of hell, and soar'd above the sky;
Or paint the scenes of that funereal day,
When earth's last fires shall mark their dreadful way,
In solemn pomp th' eternal Judge descend,
Doom the wide world and give to nature, end;
Or ope heaven's glories to th' astonish'd eye,
And bid their lays with lofty Milton vie;
Or wake from nature's themes the moral song,
And shine with Pope, with Thompson and with Young.

“This land her Swift and Addison shall view,
The former honours equall'd by the new;
Here shall some Shakespeare charm the rising age,
And hold in magic chains the listening stage;

160

A second Watts shall string the heavenly lyre,
And other muses other bards inspire.

“Her Daughters too the happy land shall grace
With powers of genius, as with charms of face;
Blest with the softness of the female mind,
With fancy blooming and with taste refined,
Some Rowe shall rise, and wrest with daring pen
The pride of science from assuming men;
While each bright line a polish'd beauty wears,
For every muse and every grace are theirs.

“Nor shall these bounds her rising fame confine,
With equal praise the sister arts shall shine.

“Behold some new Apelles, skill'd to trace
The varied features of the virgin's face,
Bid the gay landscape rise in rural charms,
Or wake from dust the slumb'ring chief in arms,
Bid art with nature hold a pleasing strife,
And warm the pictured canvas into life.

“See heaven-born Music strike the trembling string,
Devotion rising on the raptured wing.

“See the proud dome with lofty walls ascend,
Wide gates unfold, stupendous arches bend,
The spiry turrets, piercing to the skies,
And all the grandeur of the palace rise.

“The patriot's voice shall Eloquence inspire
With Roman splendor and Athenian fire,

161

At freedom's call, teach manly breasts to glow,
And prompt the tender tear o'er guiltless woe.”

O, born to glory when these times prevail,
Great nurse of learning, fair Yalensia, hail!
Within thy walls, beneath thy pleasing shade,
We woo'd each Art, and won the Muse to aid.
These scenes of bliss now closing on our view,
Borne from thy seats, we breathe a last adieu.
Long may'st thou reign, of every joy possess'd,
Blest in thy teachers, in thy pupils blest;
To distant years thy fame immortal grow,
Thy spreading light to rising ages flow;
Till Nature hear the great Archangel's call,
Till the last flames involve the sinking ball;
Then may thy sons ascend th' ethereal plains,
And join seraphic songs, where bliss eternal reigns.

The author at this time received the degree of Master of Arts in this University, where he had resided for the seven preceeding years.

165

ON THE VANITY OF YOUTHFUL EXPECTATIONS.

AN ELEGY.

December 1771.

Hence, gaudy Flattery, with thy siren song,
Thy fading laurels and thy trump of praise,
Thy magic glass, that cheats the wond'ring throng,
And bids vain men grow vainer, as they gaze!

For what the gain, though nature have supplied
Her keenest nerves, to taste the stings of pain?
That fame how poor, that swells our baseless pride,
And shews the heights, our steps must ne'er attain?

How vain those thoughts, that through creation rove,
Returning fraught with images of woe;
Those gifts how vain, that please not those we love,
With grief oppress'd, how small the gain—to know!

And oh, that fate, in life's sequester'd shade
Had fix'd the limits of my silent way,
Far from the scenes in gilded pomp array'd,
Where hope and fame, but flatter, to betray.

166

The lark had call'd me at the birth of dawn,
My cheerful toils and rural sports to share;
Nor when mild evening glimmer'd on the lawn,
Had sleep been frighted by the voice of care.

So the soft flocks in harmless pastime stray,
Or sport in rapture on the flow'ry mead,
Enjoy the beauties of the vernal day,
And no sad prescience tells them they must bleed.

Then wild ambition ne'er had swell'd my heart,
Nor had my steps pursued the road to fame;
Then ne'er had Slander raised th' envenomed dart,
Nor hung in vengeance o'er my hated name;

Nor dreams of bliss, that never must be mine,
Urged the fond tear or raised the bursting sigh;
Nor tend'rest pangs had bid my soul repine,
Nor torture warn'd me, that my hopes must die.

Farewell, ye visions of the youthful breast,
The boast of genius and the pride of praise,
Gay pleasure's charms by fairy fancy dress'd,
The patriot's honours and the poet's bays.

Vain Hope adieu! thou dear deluding cheat,
Whose magic charm can burst the bands of pain;
By thee decoy'd, we clasp the gay deceit,
And hail the dawn of future bliss, in vain.

167

Come, Sadness, come, mild sister of Despair,
The helpless suff'rer's last support and friend,
Lead to those scenes, that sooth the wretch's care,
Where life's false joys, and life itself must end.

Well pleased I wander o'er the hallow'd ground,
Where Death in horror holds his dread domain,
When night sits gloomy in th' ethereal round,
And swimming vapors cloud the dreary plain.

Ye Ghosts, the tenants of the evening skies,
That glide obscure along the dusky vale,
Enrobed in mists I see your forms arise;
I hear your voices sounding in the gale!

Of life ye speak, and life's fantastic toys,
How vain the wish, that grasps at things below,
How disappointment lours on all our joys,
And hope bequeaths the legacy of woe.

Ye too, perhaps, while youth supplied its beam,
On fancy's pinions soaring to the sky,
Fed your deluded thoughts, with many a dream
Of love and fame and future scenes of joy.

Like yours, how soon our empty years shall fade,
Past, like the vapors, that in clouds decay,
Past, like the forms that fleet along the shade—
Ourselves as worthless and as vain as they!

168

Here the kind haven greets our weary sail,
When the rude voyage of troubled life is o'er,
Safe from the stormy blast, the faithless gale,
The gulphs that threaten and the waves that roar.

The heart no more the pains of love shall share,
Nor tort'ring grief the wayward mind enslave;
Through toilworn years fatigued with restless care,
Peace sought in vain, awaits us in the grave:

Nor peace alone. Death breaks the sullen gloom,
That dims the portals of celestial day,
Bids the free soul her nobler powers assume,
And wing from woes her heaven directed way.

Scire tuum nihil est.
Persius.

171

ADVICE TO LADIES OF A CERTAIN AGE.

July 1771.

Ye ancient Maids, who ne'er must prove
The early joys of youth and love,
Whose names grim Fate (to whom 'twas given,
When marriages were made in heaven)
Survey'd with unrelenting scowl,
And struck them from the muster-roll;
Or set you by, in dismal sort,
For wintry bachelors to court;
Or doom'd to lead your faded lives,
Heirs to the joys of former wives;
Attend! nor fear in state forlorn,
To shun the pointing hand of scorn,
Attend, if lonely age you dread,
And wish to please, or wish to wed.

172

When beauties lose their gay appearance,
And lovers fall from perseverance,
When eyes grow dim and charms decay,
And all your roses fade away,
First know yourselves; lay by those airs,
Which well might suit your former years,
Nor ape in vain the childish mien,
And airy follies of sixteen.

We pardon faults in youth's gay flow,
While beauty prompts the cheek to glow,
While every glance has power to warm,
And every turn displays a charm,
Nor view a spot in that fair face,
Which smiles inimitable grace.

But who, unmoved with scorn, can see
The grey coquette's affected glee,
Her ambuscading tricks of art
To catch the beau's unthinking heart,
To check th' assuming fopling's vows,
The bridling frown of wrinkled brows;
Those haughty airs of face and mind,
Departed beauty leaves behind.

Nor let your sullen temper show
Spleen louring on the envious brow,
The jealous glance of rival rage,
The sourness and the rust of age.

173

With graceful ease, avoid to wear
The gloom of disappointed care:
And oh, avoid the sland'rous tongue,
By malice tuned, with venom hung,
That blast of virtue and of fame,
That herald to the court of shame;
Less dire the croaking raven's throat,
Though death's dire omens swell the note.

Contented tread the vale of years,
Devoid of malice, guilt and fears;
Let soft good humour, mildly gay,
Gild the calm evening of your day,
And virtue, cheerful and serene,
In every word and act be seen.
Virtue alone with lasting grace,
Embalms the beauties of the face,
Instructs the speaking eye to glow,
Illumes the cheek and smooths the brow,
Bids every look the heart engage,
Nor fears the wane of wasting age.

Nor think these charms of face and air,
The eye so bright, the form so fair,
This light that on the surface plays,
Each coxcomb fluttering round its blaze,
Whose spell enchants the wits of beaux,
The only charms, that heaven bestows.

174

Within the mind a glory lies,
O'erlook'd and dim to vulgar eyes;
Immortal charms, the source of love,
Which time and lengthen'd years improve,
Which beam, with still increasing power,
Serene to life's declining hour;
Then rise, released from earthly cares,
To heaven, and shine above the stars.

Thus might I still these thoughts pursue,
The counsel wise, and good, and true,
In rhymes well meant and serious lay,
While through the verse in sad array,
Grave truths in moral garb succeed:
Yet who would mend, for who would read?

But when the force of precept fails,
A sad example oft prevails.
Beyond the rules a sage exhibits,
Thieves heed the arguments of gibbets,
And for a villain's quick conversion,
A pillory can outpreach a parson.

To thee, Eliza, first of all,
But with no friendly voice I call.
Advance with all thine airs sublime,
Thou remnant left of ancient time!
Poor mimic of thy former days,
Vain shade of beauty, once in blaze!

175

We view thee, must'ring forth to arms
The veteran relics of thy charms;
The artful leer, the rolling eye,
The trip genteel, the heaving sigh,
The labour'd smile, of force too weak,
Low dimpling in th' autumnal cheek,
The sad, funereal frown, that still
Survives its power to wound or kill;
Or from thy looks, with desperate rage,
Chafing the sallow hue of age,
And cursing dire with rueful faces,
The repartees of looking-glasses.

Now at tea-table take thy station,
Those shambles vile of reputation,
Where butcher'd characters and stale
Are day by day exposed for sale:
Then raise the floodgates of thy tongue,
And be the peal of scandal rung;
While malice tunes thy voice to rail,
And whispering demons prompt the tale—
Yet hold thy hand, restrain thy passion,
Thou cankerworm of reputation;
Bid slander, rage and envy cease,
For one short interval of peace;
Let other's faults and crimes alone,
Survey thyself and view thine own;

176

Search the dark caverns of thy mind,
Or turn thine eyes and look behind:
For there to meet thy trembling view,
With ghastly form and grisly hue,
And shrivel'd hand, that lifts sublime
The wasting glass and scythe of Time,
A phantom stands: his name is Age;
Ill-nature following as his page.
While bitter taunts and scoffs and jeers,
And vexing cares and torturing fears,
Contempt that lifts the haughty eye,
And unblest solitude are nigh;
While conscious pride no more sustains,
Nor art conceals thine inward pains,
And haggard vengeance haunts thy name,
And guilt consigns thee o'er to shame,
Avenging furies round thee wait,
And e'en thy foes bewail thy fate.

But see, with gentler looks and air,
Sophia comes. Ye youths beware!
Her fancy paints her still in prime,
Nor sees the moving hand of time;
To all her imperfections blind,
Hears lovers sigh in every wind,
And thinks her fully ripen'd charms,
Like Helen's, set the world in arms.

177

Oh, save it but from ridicule,
How blest the state, to be a fool!
The bedlam-king in triumph shares
The bliss of crowns, without the cares;
He views with pride-elated mind,
His robe of tatters trail behind;
With strutting mien and lofty eye,
He lifts his crabtree sceptre high;
Of king's prerogative he raves,
And rules in realms of fancied slaves.

In her soft brain, with madness warm,
Thus airy throngs of lovers swarm.
She takes her glass; before her eyes
Imaginary beauties rise;
Stranger till now, a vivid ray
Illumes each glance and beams like day;
Till furbish'd every charm anew,
An angel steps abroad to view;
She swells her pride, assumes her power,
And bids the vassal world adore.

Indulge thy dream. The pictured joy
No ruder breath should dare destroy;
No tongue should hint, the lover's mind
Was ne'er of virtuoso-kind,
Through all antiquity to roam
For what much fairer springs at home.

178

No wish should blast thy proud design;
The bliss of vanity be thine.
But while the subject world obey,
Obsequious to thy sovereign sway,
Thy foes so feeble and so few,
With slander what hadst thou to do?
What demon bade thine anger rise?
What demon glibb'd thy tongue with lies?
What demon urged thee to provoke
Avenging satire's deadly stroke?

Go, sink unnoticed and unseen,
Forgot, as though thou ne'er hadst been.
Oblivion's long projected shade
In clouds hangs dismal o'er thy head.
Fill the short circle of thy day,
Then fade from all the world away;
Nor leave one fainting trace behind,
Of all that flutter'd once and shined;
The vapoury meteor's dancing light
Deep sunk and quench'd in endless night.

The author had interposed in vindication of some young ladies, who were injured, as he believed, by malicious slanders. He became in consequence implicated in the quarrel. The poem was written, (to use a mercantile phrase) to close the concern.

181

CHARACTERS.

“O wealth, Wealth, Wealth! our being's end and aim!
Gold, houses, chattels, lands! whate'er thy name;
Thou, for whose sake advent'rous arts we try,
Defraud, extort, rob, plunder, toil and die;
Tempt instant fate in war's tremendous form,
Ride the salt wave and brave the bellowing storm:
Cheerful I follow where thy steps incline,
Explore the waste, or dive the dang'rous mine,
Lose my scorn'd life, or gain an envied store,
And either cease to be, or to be poor.”

So reason'd Harpax. Was this reasoning well?
Can wealth give merit? Curio, thou canst tell.

182

Why rears thy tower its trophied arch so high,
And lifts its Attic pillars to the sky,
Where gilded spires the painted roofs emblaze,
And streams of light revert the solar rays?
Why stretch thy lawns their flowery banks around,
Thy groves aspire with vernal honors crown'd,
Where the pure Naiads, sporting as they lave,
In smooth meanders lead the lucent wave?
Why swells thy breast with conscious joy supplied,
And pleased surveys the grand retreats of pride?
These point the glory round thy head that plays,
Forms all thy merit and secures thy praise.
What though no strains of raptured genius hung
In tuneful periods on thy flowing tongue,
Blest with no charms of figure or of face,
Commanding air, or soul-attracting grace;
Though cautious Nature, (niggard to dispense)
Dealt with spare hand the common boon of sense;
Each low defect thy splendid train conceal,
Thy pride can varnish and thine art can heal;
The form ungraceful, and the leaden eye,
Gay silks adorn and robes of pomp supply.
These are thy charms—and while these charms remain,
Penurious Nature spared her gifts in vain.
In every contest, bless'd with every prize,
Fear'd by the brave, and flatter'd by the wise,

183

These are the charms, whose uncontroul'd command
Gain'd the fair heart and won the virgin hand;
These charms obtain'd, in one successful hour,
Th' aspiring title and the robes of power,
Swell'd the full vote and o'er the throng prevail'd,
When sense and art and worth and wisdom fail'd.

Yet, Crito, you can fortune's sports deride,
And smile at fools, array'd in courtly pride,
Despise a D*** by wealth and power elate,
L***'s glitt'ring coach and K***'s chair of state;
To every ray of tinsel glory blind,
You mark for worth the merit of the mind.

Search then what worth in tow'ring genius lies,
What merits claim the witty and the wise.
In opening youth how bright Lothario shone;
Wit, learning, wisdom, every worth in one!
His blooming laurels graced the Muse's seat,
Where Science nursed him in her calm retreat;
Then starting brilliant on the patriot stage,
He beam'd, the day-star of the rising age.
Th' applauding croud in pleased attention hung,
While playful humour wanton'd on his tongue,
Or nobly rising in sublimer thought,
The weak were raptured and the wise were taught.
Yet led through life, he joins the lawless train,
Though reason checks, though Virtue calls in vain;

184

Whim, fancy, pleasure, pride, obstruct her sway,
And bear him devious, from her paths astray;
He hears her voice, but borne by passion strong,
Approves the right, yet wanders in the wrong;
Pursues the blaze of prostituted fame,
While vanity precludes the sense of shame;
In daring vice, in impious faction sways,
The slave of lust, the pamper'd dupe of praise;
By learning, taught to doubt and disbelieve,
By reasoning, others and himself deceive;
Tastes the foul streams, where sensual pleasures flow,
Till age untimely stains his locks with snow;
Too late repentant, sinks at last to rest,
Of arts the scandal, and of fools the jest.

This poem is a fragment of a Moral Essay in the manner of Pope. Sundry other characters were inserted, chiefly of persons then in public life, and drawn with such traits and allusions, as would have at once directed the application. Some of them, as Pope expresses it,

“Have walk'd the world in credit to the grave,” and all are now off the stage. No part of the Essay was ever before published.

—Video meliora, proboque,
Deteriora sequor.
Ovid. Metam. lib. 7, v. 20.

187

AN ELEGY, ON THE DEATH OF MR. BUCKINGHAM ST. JOHN.

May 1771.

The world now yields to night's returning sway,
The deeper gloom leads on the solemn hour,
And calls my steps, beneath the moon's pale ray,
To roam in sadness on the sea-beat shore.

Now glide th' inconstant shadows o'er the plain,
The broad moon swimming through the broken clouds;
The gleam of waters brightens on the main,
And anchor'd navies lift their wavering shrouds.

188

Deep silence reigns, save on the moory ground
The long reed rustling to the passing gales,
The noise of dashing waves and hollow sound
Of rushing winds, that murmur through the sails.

Far hence, ye pleasures of a mind at ease,
The smiling charm that rural scenes can yield,
When spring, led jocund by the soft'ning breeze,
Wakes the glad morn and robes the dewy field!

Far be the giddy raptures of the gay,
The midnight joys licentious youth can share,
While Ruin, smiling o'er her destined prey,
In sweet allurements hides the deadly snare.

Mine be the music of the rolling wave,
These moon-light shadows and surrounding gloom;
Mine the lone haunts of contemplation grave,
That lift the soul to scenes beyond the tomb.

For here, while midnight holds her silent reign,
Creative fancy calls her airy throng,
Soft melancholy wakes the soothing strain,
And friendship prompts and grief inspires the song.

As through these mournful glooms I stretch my sight,
Mid sounds of death, that bid the soul attend,
Mid empty forms and fleeting shapes of night,
Slowly I view a white-robed shade ascend,

189

That says, “I once was St. John! from the bounds
Of deeps unknown beneath the dreary wave,
Where ever-restless floods, in nightly rounds,
Roll their dark surges o'er my wat'ry grave;

“From realms which, ne'er to mortal sight display'd,
The gates of dread eternity surround,
In night conceal'd and death's impervious shade,
My voice returns—attend the warning sound.

“O thou attend, who flush'd with early bloom,
In life's new spring and vernal sweetness gay,
Mindless of fate, that must thy branch entomb,
Spread'st thy green blossoms to the morning ray!

“With thee how late, how like, alas! to thee,
To mortal joys, by opening youth beguiled,
I stretch'd my airy wish, and follow'd free,
Where pleasure triumph'd and where fancy smiled.

190

“Then while fond hope her glitt'ring pinions spread,
Pointing to climes beyond th' Atlantic wave,
E'en then unnoticed o'er my destined head,
Hung death's dire form and seal'd me for the grave.

“How vain the thought, for many a joyous morn
To taste of rapture, unallay'd by woe;
At once from life and every pleasure torn,
From all I wish'd and all I loved below!

“The faithless morning on our opening sails
Smiled out serene and smooth'd our gliding way,
While the gay vessel, fann'd by breathing gales,
Play'd on the placid bosom of the sea.

“When lo, descending on the darkening wind,
Burst the dire storm—and feeble to sustain
“The rushing blasts in warring fury join'd,
The frail skiff sinks beneath the surging main.

“And see, afar the oarless boat conveys
The rescued sailors to the distant shore;
Alone, of aid bereft, with one last gaze,
I sunk in deeps, and sunk to rise no more.

“In that sad hour what fearful scenes arise,
What pangs distress, what unknown fears dismay,
When future worlds disclosing on our eyes,
The trembling soul forsakes her kindred clay!

191

“Before the awful bar, th' almighty throne,
In dread I've stood th' Eternal Judge to see;
And fix'd in bliss, or doom'd to ceaseless moan,
Have heard the long, the unreversed decree:

“Nor earth must know the rest.”—Where art thou now,
In youthful joys my partner and my friend?
Of those blest hours thy fortune gave below,
Of all our hopes, is this the fatal end?

Ah, what avail'd that energy of mind,
The heights of science and of arts t' explore,
That early led, where genius unconfined
Spreads her glad feast and opes her classic store!

Ah what avail'd, in earthly bliss so frail,
The fame gay-dawning on thy rising years!
Ah what avail'd,—for what could then avail?
Thy friend's deep sorrows or thy country's tears!

In pleasure's paths by vivid fancy led,
Mid every hope, that blooming worth could raise,
The wings of death, with fatal horror spread,
Blank'd the bright promise of thy future days.

So from the louring west the sable clouds
Rush on the sun and dim his orient ray,
And hateful night, in glooms untimely, shrouds
Th' ascending glories of the vernal day.

192

Adieu, my friend, so dear in vain, adieu,
Till some short days their fleeting courses roll;
Soon shall our steps thine earlier fate pursue,
Moved in the race and crowding to the goal.

Th' approaching hour shall see the sun no more
Wheel his long course or spread his golden ray;
Soon the vain dream of mortal life be o'er;
The brightness dawning of celestial day.

Then join'd in bliss, as once in friendship join'd,
May pitying heaven our purer spirits raise,
Each crime atoned, each virtue well refined,
To pass a blest eternity of praise.

Mr. St. John was one of the author's earliest and most intimate friends. For two years they had lodgings in the same chambers, during their residence, as graduates, at Yale-College. He was drowned in his passage from New-Haven to Norwalk, May 5th 1771. At the time of his death, he was one of the Tutors in that University.

The surname, St. John, was always pronounced by that family, both here and in England, not as two words, but as one, with the accent on the first syllable. The name of Lord Bolingbroke was Henry St. John. Pope thus addresses him,

“Awake my St. John! leave all meaner things”—
Essay on Man. —“If but a wreath of mine,
Oh all-accomplished St. John! deck thy shrine.”
Epilogue to the Satires.

195

THE DESTRUCTION OF BABYLON:

AN IMITATION

Of sundry passages in the 13th and 14th chapters of Isaiah, and the 18th of the Revelations of St. John.

January 1774.

'Twas now the sacred day of blest repose,
From realms of darkness when the Saviour rose.
In Patmos' isle, with light divine inspired,
The loved Apostle from the world retired;
Before his eyes eternal wonders roll,
Celestial visions open on his soul,
Unfolding skies the scenes of fate display,
And heaven descending in the beams of day.

He saw with joy the promised Church arise,
Famed through the earth and favor'd from the skies.
A starry crown invests her radiant head,
Around her form the solar glories spread;

196

Her power, her grace, by circling worlds approved,
By angels guarded and by heaven beloved;
Till mystic Babel, with blaspheming pride,
For idol forms th' Almighty arm defied.
Then martyr'd blood the holy offering seal'd,
And persecution dyed the carnaged field,
Religion sunk in superstitious lore,
And hallowed temples swam with sainted gore.

But not in rest, till virtue's sons expire,
Stern justice slumber'd, and avenging ire.
The seer beheld till God's chastising hand
Smote the proud foe and crush'd the guilty land:
Then pious rapture triumph'd on his tongue,
And inspiration breathed th' exulting song.

“What sudden fall hath dimm'd thy boasted ray;
Son of the morn! bright Phosphor of the day!
How sunk, lost victim of th' unpitying grave,
Thy pride so vaunting and thine arm so brave!
Where now thy haughty boast? “Above the skies,
O'er the starr'd arch, my deathless fame shall rise,

197

To heaven's high walls my tow'ring steps ascend,
My throne be 'stablish'd and my power extend,
O'er the wide world to stretch my arm abroad,
A God in splendor and in might a God.”

Broke is the rod of guilt, th' oppressor ceased,
The glory wan, the golden city waste;
Eternal wrath, awaken'd o'er thy land,
Rends the weak sceptre from th' imperious hand;
Heav'n gives its captive sons a kind release,
And earth smiles joyous at the songs of peace.

Lo, at thy fall, in realms of night below,
Death hails thy entrance in the world of woe!

198

See from their thrones along th' infernal shade,
Rise the dark spectres of the mighty dead;
Friends to thy sway and partners in thy crimes,
Kings once on earth and tyrants in their times!
“And art thou fall'n, (their looks of wonder crave)
Swept undistinguish'd to the vaulted grave?
O'er thy pale cheek funereal damps are spread,
And shrouds of sable wrap thee with the dead;
What awed the world oblivion's shadows hide,
And glad worms revel on the wrecks of pride.

“Is this the power, whose once tremendous eye
Shook the wide earth, and dared th' avenging sky?
Is this the power, that rose in boasted state,
Proud judge of thrones and arbiter of fate;

199

Opposing kingdoms from their sceptres hurl'd,
And spread sad ruin o'er the vanquish'd world?

“Lo, closed thine eyes, that wont the heavens to brave,
Exposed in death, and outcast from the grave!
No splendid urn thine honor'd dust contains,
No friendly turf conceals thy sad remains;
For thee no marble lifts its tablet high,
Where kings deceased in mournful glory lie;
Stern fate avenging spurns thee from the blest,
Nor decks the sods, where thy lone relics rest.”

And see, Destruction from th' almighty hand,
Sweeps her broad besom o'er thy guilty land;
Careering flames attend her wasting way,
And rising darkness intercepts the day;
The dim sun sinks in fearful glooms of night,
The moon encrimson'd veils her trembling light:
While through the o'erarching canopy of shade,
An angel-form, in robes of blood array'd,

200

Lifts his red arm, that bids the tempest rise,
Wing'd with th' ethereal vengeance of the skies,
And calls the cloudy winds, that all around
Roll on the storm and rend the deluged ground,
And, deep in vaults where central earthquakes sleep,
Bursts the dark chambers of th' affrighted deep.
Lo, heaven avenging pours the fiery tide,
Thy whelm'd walls sink, thy tottering turrets slide;
Thy glitt'ring domes sulphureous torrents lave,
And doom thy seat, a desert and a grave.

For there no more shall gay assemblies meet,
Croud the rich mart or throng the spacious street;
No more the bridegroom's cheerful voice shall call
The viol, sprightly in the sounding hall;
No more the lamp shall yield her friendly light,
Gild thy lone roofs and sparkle through the night;

201

Each morn shall view thy desolated ground,
With falling domes and shatter'd spires around,
And clad in weeds, in wild confusion thrown,
The marble trophy and the sculptured stone.
No future age thy glories shall recall,
Thy turrets lift, or build the ruin'd wall.
Where the gilt palace pierced th' admiring skies,
The owl shall stun thee with funereal cries;
The baleful dragon through thy gardens rove,
And wolves usurp the consecrated grove.
No shepherd there the wand'ring flock shall spread,
Nor seek repose beneath the tented shed;
No stranger there with devious footstep stray,
Where Horror drear defends the fated way,
Eternal Ruin rears her standard wide,
And Vengeance triumphs o'er the realm of pride.

Revelations xii. 1. And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.

Isaiah xiv. 12, 13, &c. How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!—

For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God—I will be like the Most High.

Isaiah xiv. 4, 5. How is the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased! The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked, and the sceptre of the rulers.

Verse 6. The whole earth is at rest and is quiet: they break forth into singing.

Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming, &c.

Isaiah xiv. 9.

Had the author seen Lowth's observations in his lectures on the poetry of the Hebrews, he would probably have written this passage differently; but he had then no other guide than the English version, in which the sepulchral cavern in the original, being translated by the word, hell, confuses the whole description, and renders the subsequent mention of thrones, worms, &c. wholly incongruous. As he knew not how to correct the impropriety, he could only endeavour to avoid it.

The worm is spread under thee and the worms cover thee.

Isaiah, xiv. 11.

Nothing is more difficult than to express the bold images of oriental poetry in the style of modern verse. With the exception of Pope's Messiah, few attempts have been successful. See in what manner an eminent British poet has imitated this passage—

“For lo! Corruption fastens on thy breast,
“And calls her crawling brood, and bids them share the feast.”
Mason, Ode on the fall of Babylon.

Isaiah, xiv. 16, to 20. Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms, &c.?

All the kings of the nations lie in glory, every one in his own house [sepulchre.] But thou art cast out of the grave, like an abominable branch. Thou shall not be joined with them in burial, &c.

Isaiah xiii. 6, 10, and xiv. 23. I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of hosts.

The day of the Lord is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.

For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light; the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.

Isaiah xiii. 19–22, and xiv. 11.—Revelations xviii. 21–23. Thy pomp is brought down to the grave and the noise of thy viols.—Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited.—The light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom shall be heard no more in thee.—Neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there, neither shall the shepherds make their fold there: But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there, and owls shall dwell there and satyrs shall dance there.—And the wild beast of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces.

205

AN ELEGY ON THE TIMES:

Composed at Boston, during the operation of the Port-Bill.

August 1774.

Oh Boston! late with every beauty crown'd,
Where Commerce triumph'd on the fav'ring gales;
And each pleased eye, that roved in prospect round,
Hail'd thy bright spires and bless'd thy opening sails!

Thy splendid mart with rich profusion smiled,
The gay throng crowded in thy spacious streets,
From either Ind, thy cheerful stores were fill'd,
Thy haven joyous with unnumber'd fleets.

For here, more fair than in their native vales,
Tall groves of masts arose in beauteous pride;
Glad ocean shone beneath the swelling sails,
And wafted plenty on the bord'ring tide.

206

Alas how changed! the swelling sails no more
Catch the soft airs and wanton in the sky:
But hostile beaks affright the guarded shore,
And pointed thunders all access deny.

Where the bold cape its warning forehead rears,
Where tyrant vengeance waved her fatal wand,
Far from the sight each friendly vessel veers,
And flies averse the interdicted strand.

Along thy fields, which late in beauty shone,
With lowing herds and grassy vesture fair,
Th' insulting tents of barb'rous troops are strown,
And bloody standards stain the peaceful air.

Are these thy deeds, oh Britain? this the praise,
That gilds the fading lustre of thy name,
These the bold trophies of thy later days,
That close the period of thine early fame?

Shall thy strong fleets, with awful sails unfurl'd,
On freedom's shrine th' unhallow'd vengeance bend,
And leave forlorn the desolated world,
Crush'd every foe and ruin'd every friend?

And quench'd, alas, the soul-inspiring ray,
Where virtue kindled and where genius soar'd;
Or damp'd by darkness and the dismal sway
Of senates venal and liveried lord?

207

There pride sits blazon'd on th' unmeaning brow,
And o'er the scene thy factious nobles wait,
Prompt the mix'd tumult of the noisy show,
Guide the blind vote and rule the mock debate.

To these how vain, in weary woes forlorn,
With abject fear the fond complaint to raise,
Lift fruitless off'rings to the ear of scorn
Of servile vows and well-dissembled praise!

Will the grim savage of the nightly fold
Learn from their cries the blameless flock to spare?
Will the deaf gods, that frown in molten gold,
Heed the duped vot'ry and the prostrate prayer?

With what pleased hope before the throne of pride,
We rear'd our suppliant hands with filial awe,
While loud Disdain with ruffian voice replied,
And falsehood triumph'd in the garb of law?

While Peers enraptured hail th' unmanly wrong,
See Ribaldry, vile prostitute of shame,
Stretch the bribed hand and dart th' envenom'd tongue,
To blast the laurels of a Franklin's fame!

208

But will the Sage, whose philosophic soul
Controll'd the lightning in its fierce career,
O'er heaven's dread vault bade harmless thunders roll,
And taught the bolts etherial where to steer;

Will he, while echoing to his just renown,
The voice of kingdoms swells the loud applause,
Heed the weak malice of a courtier's frown,
Or dread the insolence of wrested laws?

Yet nought avail the virtues of the heart,
The vengeful bolt no muse's laurels ward;
From Britain's rage, like death's relentless dart,
No worth can save us and no fame can guard.

O'er hallow'd bounds see dire oppression roll,
Fair Freedom buried in the whelming flood;
Nor charter'd rights her tyrant course control,
Tho' seal'd by kings and witness'd in our blood.

In vain we hope from ministerial pride
A hand to save us or a heart to bless:
'Tis strength, our own, must stem the rushing tide,
'Tis our own virtue must command success.

209

But oh my friends, the arm of blood restrain,
(No rage intemp'rate aids the public weal;)
Nor basely blend, too daring but in vain,
Th' assassin's madness with the patriot's zeal.

Ours be the manly firmness of the sage,
From shameless foes ungrateful wrongs to bear;
Alike removed from baseness and from rage,
The flames of faction and the chills of fear.

Repel the torrent of commercial gain,
That buys our ruin at a price so rare,
And while we scorn Britannia's servile chain,
Disdain the livery of her marts to wear.

For shall the lust of fashion and of show,
The curst idolatry of silks and lace,
Bid our gay robes insult our country's woe,
And welcome slavery in the glare of dress?

No—the rich produce of our fertile soil
Shall clothe in neat array the cheerful train,
While heaven-born virtues bless the sacred toil,
And gild the humble vestures of the plain.

210

No foreign labor in the Asian field
Shall weave her silks to deck the wanton age:
But as in Rome, the furrow'd vale shall yield
The conq'ring hero and paternal sage.

And ye, whose heaven in golden pomp to shine,
And warmly press the dissipated round,
Grace the ripe banquet with the charms of wine,
And roll the thund'ring chariot o'er the ground;

For this, while guised in sycophantic smile,
With heart regardless of your country's pain,
Your flatt'ring falshoods feed the ears of guile,
And barter freedom for the dreams of gain!

Are these the joys on vassal-realms that wait;
In downs of ease and dalliance to repose,
Quaff streams nectareous in the domes of state,
And blaze in grandeur of imperial shows?

No—the hard hand, the tortured brow of care,
The thatch-roof'd hamlet and defenceless shed,
The tatter'd garb, that meets th' inclement air,
The famish'd table and the matted bed—

These are their fate. In vain the arm of toil
With gifts autumnal crowns the bearded plain,
In vain glad summer warms the genial soil,
And spring dissolves in softening showers in vain;

211

There savage power extends a dreary shade,
And chill oppression, with her frost severe,
Sheds a dire blast, that nips the rising blade,
And robs th' expecting labors of the year.

So must we sink? and at the stern command,
That bears the terror of a tyrant's word,
Bend the weak knee and raise the suppliant hand;
The scorn'd, dependant vassals of a lord?

The wintry ravage of the storm to meet,
Brave the scorch'd vapor of th' autumnal air,
Then pour the hard-earn'd harvest at his feet,
And beg some pittance from our pains to share.

But not for this, by heaven and virtue led,
From the mad rule of hierarchal pride,
O'er pathless seas our injured fathers fled,
And follow'd freedom on th' advent'rous tide;

Dared the wild horrors of the clime unknown,
Th' insidious savage, and the crimson plain,
To us bequeath'd the prize their woes had won,
Nor deem'd they suffer'd, or they bled in vain.

And think'st thou, North, the sons of such a race,
Whose beams of glory bless'd their purpled morn,

212

Will shrink unnerved before a despot's face,
Nor meet thy louring insolence with scorn?

Look through the circuit of th' extended shore,
That checks the surges of th' Atlantic deep;
What weak eye trembles at the frown of power,
What torpid soul invites the bands of sleep?

What kindness warms each heav'n-illumined heart!
What gen'rous gifts the woes of want assuage,
And sympathetic tears of pity start,
To aid the destined victims of thy rage!

No faction, clamorous with unhallow'd zeal,
To wayward madness wakes th' impassion'd throng;
No thoughtless furies sheath our breasts in steel,
Or call the sword t' avenge th' oppressive wrong

Fraternal bands with vows accordant join,
One guardian genius, one pervading soul
Nerves the bold arm, inspires the just design,
Combines, enlivens, and illumes the whole.

Now meet the Fathers of the western clime,
Nor names more noble graced the rolls of fame,

213

When Spartan firmness braved the wrecks of time,
Or Latian virtue fann'd th' heroic flame.

Not deeper thought th' immortal sage inspired,
On Solon's lips when Grecian senates hung;
Nor manlier eloquence the bosom fired,
When genius thunder'd from th' Athenian tongue.

And hopes thy pride to match the patriot strain,
By the bribed slave in pension'd lists enroll'd;
Or awe their councils by the voice prophane,
That wakes to utt'rance at the call of gold?

Can frowns of terror daunt the warrior's deeds,
Where guilt is stranger to th' ingenuous heart,
Or craft illude, where godlike science sheds
The beams of knowledge and the gifts of art?

Go, raise thy hand, and with its magic power
Pencil with night the sun's ascending ray,
Bid the broad veil eclipse the noon-tide hour,
And damps of Stygian darkness shroud the day;

Bid heaven's dread thunder at thy voice expire,
Or chain the angry vengeance of the waves;
Then hope thy breath can quench th' immortal fire,
And free souls pinion with the bonds of slaves.

214

Thou canst not hope! Attend the flight of days,
View the bold deeds, that wait the dawning age,
Where Time's strong arm, that rules the mighty maze,
Shifts the proud actors on this earthly stage.

Then tell us, North: for thou art sure to know,
For have not kings and fortune made thee great;
Or lurks not wisdom in th' ennobled brow,
And dwells no prescience in the robes of state?

Tell how the powers of luxury and pride
Taint thy pure zephyrs with their baleful breath,
How deep corruption spreads th' envenom'd tide,
And whelms thy land in darkness and in death.

And tell how rapt by freedom's sacred flame,
And fost'ring influence of propitious skies,
This western world, the last recess of fame,
Sees in her wilds a new-born empire rise—

A new-born empire, whose ascendant hour
Defies its foes, assembled to destroy,
And like Alcides, with its infant power
Shall crush those serpents, who its rest annoy

215

Then look through time, and with extended eye,
Pierce the dim veil of fate's obscure domain:
The morning dawns, th' effulgent star is nigh,
And crimson glories deck our rising reign.

Behold, emerging from the cloud of days,
Where rest the wonders of ascending fame,
What heroes rise, immortal heirs of praise!
What fields of death with conq'ring standards flame!

See our throng'd cities' warlike gates unfold;
What towering armies stretch their banners wide,
Where cold Ontario's icy waves are roll'd,
Or far Altama's silver waters glide!

Lo, from the groves, th' aspiring cliffs that shade,
Descending pines the surging ocean brave,
Rise in tall masts, the floating canvas spread,
And rule the dread dominions of the wave!

Where the clear rivers pour their mazy tide,
The smiling lawns in full luxuriance bloom;
The harvest wantons in its golden pride,
The flowery garden breathes a glad perfume.

216

Behold that coast, which seats of wealth surround,
That haven, rich with many a flowing sail,
Where friendly ships, from earth's remotest bound,
Float on the cheerly pinions of the gale;

There Boston smiles, no more the sport of scorn,
And meanly prison'd by thy fleets no more,
And far as ocean's billowy tides are borne,
Lifts her dread ensigns of imperial power.

So smile the shores, where lordly Hudson strays,
Whose floods fair York and deep Albania lave,
Or Philadelphia's happier clime surveys
Her splendid seats in Delaware's lucid wave:

Or southward far extend thy wond'ring eyes,
Where fertile streams the garden'd vales divide,
And mid the peopled fields, distinguish'd rise
Virginian towers and Charleston's spiry pride.

Genius of arts, of manners and of arms,
See dress'd in glory and the bloom of grace,
This virgin clime unfolds her brightest charms,
And gives her beauties to thy fond embrace.

Hark, from the glades and every list'ning spray,
What heaven-born muses wake the raptured song!
The vocal groves attune the warbling lay,
And echoing vales the rising strains prolong.

217

Through the vast series of descending years,
That lose their currents in th' eternal wave,
Till heaven's last trump shall rend th' affrighted spheres,
And ope each empire's everlasting grave;

Propitious skies the joyous field shall crown,
And robe our vallies in perpetual prime,
And ages blest of undisturb'd renown
Arise in radiance o'er th' imperial clime.

And where is Britain? In the skirt of day,
Where stormy Neptune rolls his utmost tide,
Where suns oblique diffuse a feeble ray,
And lonely streams the fated coasts divide,

Seest thou yon Isle, whose desert landscape yields
The mournful traces of the fame she bore,
Where matted thorns oppress th' uncultur'd fields,
And piles of ruin load the dreary shore?

From those loved seats, the Virtues sad withdrew
From fell Corruption's bold and venal hand;
Reluctant Freedom waved her last adieu,
And devastation swept the vassall'd land.

On her white cliffs, the pillars once of fame,
Her melancholy Genius sits to wail,
Drops the fond tear, and o'er her latest shame,
Bids dark Oblivion draw th' eternal veil.

Note 3—On the origin of the words, Yankies, Indians, Whigs and Tories.—When the Portuguese under Vasco de Gama made their first discoveries in the East, they found the country at which they arrived, was called by the natives Hindostan or the land of the Hindoos. These names the Europeans softened to the appellations, India and the Indies. The original design of Columbus was only to find a passage to India by sailing to the West; and when he reached the American Islands, he supposed that he had attained his object. The new-discovered lands were called the West-Indies, and the name of Indians was given to all the native inhabitants, not only of those Islands, but of the whole continent of America.

Yankies.—The first settlers of New-England were mostly

224

emigrants from London and its vicinity, and exclusively styled themselves, The English. The Indians, in attempting to utter the word, English, with their broad guttural accent, gave it a sound, which would be nearly represented in this way, Yaunghees; the letter g being pronounced hard and approaching to the sound of k joined with a strong aspirate, like the Hebrew Cheth, or the Greek Chi, and the l suppressed, as almost impossible to be distinctly heard in that combination. The Dutch settlers on the river Hudson and the adjacent country, during their long contest concerning the right of territory, adopted the name, and applied it in contempt to the inhabitants of New-England. The British of the lower class have since extended it to all the people of the United States.

This seems the most probable origin of the term. The pretended Indian tribe of Yankoos does not appear to have ever had an existence: as little can we believe in an etymological derivation of the word from ancient Scythia or Siberia, or that it was ever the name of a horde of savages in any part of the world.

Tories and Whigs.—The appellation of Tories was first given to the native Irish, who dwelt, or were driven, beyond the English pale, as it was called, and like the moss-troopers and outlaws on the borders of Scotland, for some centuries carried on a desultory and predatory war, against the British settlements in Dublin and the eastern and southern parts of Ireland. In the civil wars in the time of Charles the first, these clans adhered to the royal party and were finally attacked and subdued by Cromwell.

225

In England this name seems to have been first applied to that part of the army of Charles, who were distinguished by the appellation of Cavaliers. A number of young noblemen and gentlemen of the first families, who adhered to the king, formed themselves into volunteer troops of cavalry. They were not more famous for courage in the field, than notorious for their dissolute manners and intemperate riots. Singing catches and ballads was then the fashionable music of society. To every stanza in the old ballads was annexed a chorus, called the burden or wheel of the song, which usually consisted of a roll of unmeaning sounds, in which the whole company joined with the utmost vociferation. They had a favorite ballad suited to the times, and as much in vogue, as the Ca ira was afterwards in the French revolution. Its chorus was

“Sing tory rory, rantum scantum, tory rory row.”

The word, Tories, soon came into use to denote a set of bacchanalian companions. Cotton, in his Virgil Travesty, often calls the Trojans at the court of Dido, Tories, and once, Tory-rories, according to this signification of the terms.

The word Whig originally meant a sour, astringent kind of crab-apple. The ancient proverbial comparison, “as sour as a Whig,” is still in use among the vulgar. In ridicule of the short, clipped hair and penitential scowl of the puritans, who served in the army of Cromwell, the royalists called them Whigs, prick-ears and round-heads.

Whether these facts afford a full explanation of the origin of the terms must be left to the decision of the antiquarians, among whom it has long been a subject of dispute. Certain

226

it is that they were never employed to designate political parties in England, until the period of the civil wars. The royalists who believed in the divine right, unlimited prerogatives and arbitrary power of kings, were then stigmatized by the name of Tories. Those who adhered to the Parliament, asserted the rights of the Commons, and carrying their zeal for liberty to the extreme of licentiousness and anarchy, finally brought their monarch to the scaffold, were in return contemptuously denominated Whigs. But as early as the commencement of the last century the terms had lost their original opprobrious meaning: and although the word, Tory, never became reputable, the name of Whig was assumed, as an honorable title, by the party opposed to arbitrary prerogative in the king, and to high-church principles in the hierarchy. The phrases now serve chiefly to distinguish the two great political parties, into which England has ever since been divided. In this sense they are used by Swift, Bolingbroke and their adversaries, in the time of Walpole, and more recently in the writings of Burke and some of the later English historians.

During the revolutionary war in America, the friends of liberty and Independence assumed the title of Whigs, and stigmatized, as Tories, all those who adhered to the king of England and advised submission to the demands of the British parliament. In this sense the terms are used in M'Fingal and by all cotemporary writers on American politics. But since the acknowledgement of our Independence and the adoption of a constitutional form of government in the United States, these names have gradually fallen into disuse, are considered

227

as expressions approaching towards vulgarity and almost banished from polite conversation. Parties have arisen upon new grounds and principles of policy, and are distinguished by new appellations.

223

This vindictive Act of the British Parliament placed the town of Boston in a state of naval blockade, and by suppressing all commercial intercourse by sea, was designed to ruin its trade and prosperity.

See the proceedings in 1774, of the Lords in Council, on the Petition of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts to the King, praying for the removal of their Governors; and the virulent and abusive attack on the character of Dr. Franklin, who presented the Petition, by Alexander Wedderburn, (afterwards Lord Loughborough,) in his speech before their Lordships on the trial.

Alluding to the resolves for the non-importation, and non-consumption of British goods: first proposed by the Committee of correspondence in Boston, in the year 1774, and adopted in Congress at their session in the succeeding winter.

Lord North, prime minister of Great-Britain.

Liberal contributions, from all the United Colonies, were made for supplying the necessities, and alleviating the distresses of the inhabitants of Boston, during the total suppression of the trade of that town.

The first Congress assembled at Philadelphia, in Sept. 1774.

Demosthenes.

Hercules, who as the ancient poets tell us, when an infant, strangled two serpents that attacked him in his cradle.

“Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe.”
Goldsmith, Deserted Village.

A river in the State of Georgia, commonly written Altamaha, from the name given it by the natives.

University of Virginia Library

2. VOL. II.

THE PROGRESS OF DULNESS.

PREFACE.

1. PART I. OR THE ADVENTURES OF TOM BRAINLESS.

2. PART II. OR THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF DICK HAIRBRAIN.

3. PART III. OR THE ADVENTURES OF MISS HARRIET SIMPER.

PREFACE TO PART THIRD.

THE GENIUS OF AMERICA;

AN ODE.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

X.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.

XV.

XVI.

LINES ADDRESSED TO MESSRS. DWIGHT AND BARLOW,

On the projected publication of their Poems in London.

December 1775.

ODE TO SLEEP.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

X.

XI.

TO A YOUNG LADY, Who requested the Writer to draw her Character.

A FABLE.

THE SPEECH OF PROTEUS TO ARISTÆUS, CONTAINING THE STORY OF ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE;

Translated from the 4th book of Virgil's Georgics. A collegiate exercise.

THE PROPHECY OF BALAAM.

Numbers, Chapters 23d and 24th.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

THE OWL AND THE SPARROW.

A FABLE.

PROSPECT OF THE FUTURE GLORY OF AMERICA:

Being the conclusion of an Oration, delivered at the public commencement at Yale-College, September 12, 1770.

ON THE VANITY OF YOUTHFUL EXPECTATIONS.

AN ELEGY.

ADVICE TO LADIES OF A CERTAIN AGE.

CHARACTERS.

AN ELEGY, ON THE DEATH OF MR. BUCKINGHAM ST. JOHN.

THE DESTRUCTION OF BABYLON:

AN IMITATION

Of sundry passages in the 13th and 14th chapters of Isaiah, and the 18th of the Revelations of St. John.

AN ELEGY ON THE TIMES:

Composed at Boston, during the operation of the Port-Bill.

1. PART I.
OR THE ADVENTURES OF TOM BRAINLESS.

2. PART II.
OR THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF DICK HAIRBRAIN.

3. PART III.
OR THE ADVENTURES OF MISS HARRIET SIMPER.