PRISON ECLOGUE, First re-published in the London Porcupine, on the 1st of November, 1800. One of our files of papers, lately received from America, has brought us the following poem, entitled, "A PRISON ECLOGUE," to which we think it necessary to prefix a short explanatory preface. Most of our readers will remember, that Thomas Cooper, of Manchester, was, while in England, a most malicious enemy of his King and country; and that, after having made a sort of reconnoitring trip to America, he wrote a book on Emigration, in which he highly extolled the Government of the New Land of Promise. He returned to America again in the year 1795, and settled in the neighbourhood of Doctor Priestley, at Northumberland, a small town in the state of Pennsylvania. These two disinterested patriots made divers efforts to get into place. At first they proceeded by hints, which became broader and broader, till at last, impatient for a participation in the republican loaves and fishes, Cooper made a direct application to President Adams, backed by the recommendation of his friend Priestley. The request was refused, and from that moment the Doctor and his brother emigrant availed themselves of every convenient opportunity of indulging their enmity against Mr. Adams. The season, for open opposition to the Federal Government was for a long time inauspicious. The summer of 1799 warned the dormant faction into life. In Pennsylvania, M'Kean, the avowed friend of Jef ferson ferson, and the devoted tool of France, became a candidate for the important office of Governor. To him, therefore, who had in his state ten times as many offices in his gift as the President, the emigrated philosophers looked with confidence for that profit and importance which they had in vain solicited from the Federal Government; and that they might not be destitute of a ground for their pretensions, they zealously, ably, and efficaciously supported his cause in the canvass which preceded the election. During this canvass, this six months of disputation, of intrigues, of reciprocal calumny, of anxiety, of hope, of fear, and of hatred, Cooper, who is possessed of talents that would do honour to a better cause, voluntarily became the editor of a newspaper in his neighbourhood; during which editorship he published, in his own name, a number of essays, which did infinite injury to the federal party. One of those essays was made the ground of a criminal prosecution on the part of the President, under the Sedition Law of that republican country; and poor Cooper was, for a writing much less libellous than almost every number of each of our opposition prints, sentenced to pay a fine of four hundred dollars, and to be imprisoned six months among the felons in the philanthropic prison of Philadelphia, in which enviable situation the poet brings his friend Priestley to visit him. With this previous information, the reader will enter with more advantage on the perusal of the poem, which comes from the classical pen of Mr. Dennie, a native of New England, and a writer, whose various productions are very deservedly the boast of the new world. VOL. XII. I PRISON PRISON ECLOGUE. PRIESTLEY and COOPER. Priestley. AT ease reclining on thy truckle bed, I, wretched wight! have left my native plains, May'st give thy pent-up spleen its utmost scope; Cooper. (e) O gentle Doctor, were my sceptic mind. (a) Tityre, tu patula recubans sub tegmine fagi. (b) Musam meditáris avená. (c) Nos dulcia linquimus arva; -Ille meas errare boves, ut cernis, et ipsum *Alluding to a paper called The Daily Repast, published in the Philadelphia prison. That, My god he shall be, oft to him shall flow Priestley. (g) I envy not thy happiness, I own: A prison's shelter (for the wretch must eat) Cooper. (7) I thought (ah! simpleton for thinking so) (g) Non tamen invideo: miror magis. (b) Spem gregis, ab! silice in nuca connixa reliquit. (i) Sæpe malum boc nobis, si meas non læva fuisset De cælo tactas memini predicere quercus (Sape sinistra cava prædixit ab ilice cornix) (k) Sed tamen, iste Deus qui sit, da, Tityre, nobis. (1) Urbem, quam dicunt Romam-putavi Stultus, ego buic nostra similem Sic canibus catulos similes Noram Alluding to Dr. Priestley's attack on the federal constitue tion, in his Letters to the inhabitants of Northumberland, which fell almost still born. + Porcupine. I 2 Was Was like the city* where our artful song Priestley. But what to Philadelphia turned thy flight? Cooper. (m) Sweet liberty," that goddess heavenly bright;" (9) Tend for six moons the flocks that wait thee there; Priestley. (r) Thrice happy man! then thou at length hast found A resting place-for thee an ample bound. What though the walls are bare, though noisome smells (m) Libertas, quæ sera tamen respexit inertem.. (n) Nec tam presentes alibi cognoscère divos. (0) Hic illum vidi (P) Hic mibi responsum primus dedit ille petenti; (9) Pascite, ut ante, boves (r) Fortunate senex ! Non insueta graves tentabunt pabula fætas. * Manchester. † Cooper, while at Manchester, invented a mode of BLEACHING COTTON by the help of INFLAMMABLE AIR. He burnt the cottons, became a bankrupt, turned patriot, and emigrated to America.-A very natural progress towards perfectability, No |