The lively-shining leopard, speckled o'er
With many a spot, the beauty of the waste:
And, scorning all the taming arts of man,
The keen hyena, fellest of the fell.
These, rushing from th' inhospitable woods
Of Mauritania, or the tufted isles,
That verdant rise amid the Libyan wild,
Innumerous glare around their shaggy king,
Majestic, stalking o'er the printed sand;
And, with imperious and repeated roars,
Demand their fated food. The fearful flocks
Crowd near the guardian swajn; the nobler
herds,

Where round their lordly bull, in rural ease,
They ruminating lie, with horrour hear
The coming rage. Th' awaken'd village starts;
And to her fluttering breast the mother strains
Her thoughtless infant. From the pirate's den,
Or stern Morocco's tyrant fang escap'd,
The wretch half-wishes for his bonds again:
While, uproar all, the wilderness resounds,
From Atlas eastward to the frighted Nile,
Unhappy he who frou the first of joys,
Society, cut off, is left alone
Amid this world of death.

Day after day,
Sad on the jutting eminence he sits,
And views the main that ever toils below;
Still fondly forming in the farthest verge,
Where the round ether mixes with the wave,
Ships, dim discover'd, dropping from the

: clouds ;

At evening, to the setting Sun he turns
A mournful eye, and down his dying heart
'Sinks helpless; while the wonted roar is up,
And hiss continual through the tedious night.
Yet here, ev'n here, into these black ahodes
Of monsters unappall'd, from scooping Rome,
And guilty Cæsar, Liberty retir'd,
Her Cato following through Numidian wilds:
Disdainful of Campania's gentle plains,
And all the green delights Ausonia pours;
When for them she must bend the servile knee,
And fawning take the splendid robber's boon.

Nor stop the terrours of these regions here.
Commission'd demons oft, angels of wrath,
Let loose the raging eleinents. Breath'd hot,
From all the boundless furnace of the sky,
And the wide glittering waste of burning sand,
A suffocating wind the pilgrim suites

With instant death. Patient of thirst and toil,
Son of the desert! ev'n the camel feels,
Shot through his wither'd heart, the fiery
blast.

Or from the black-red ether, bursting broad,
Sallies the sudden whirlwind. Straight the sands,
Commov'd around, in gathering eddies play:
Nearer and nearer still they darkening come;
Till, with the general all-involving storm
Swept up, the whole continuous wilds. arise;
And by their noon-day fount dejected thrown,
Or sunk at night in sad disastrous sleep,
Beneath descending hills, the caravan
Is buried deep. In Cairo's crowded streets
Th' impatient merchant, wondering, waits, in

The circling Typhon', whirl'd from point to point
Exhausting all the rage of all the sky,

And dire Ecnephia' reign, Amid the heavens,
Falsely serene, deep in a cloudy speck2
Compress'd, the mighty tempest brooding dwells:
Of no regard, save to the skilful eye,
Fiery and foul, the small prognostic hangs
Aloft, or on the promontory's brow
Musters its force. A faint deceitful calm,
A fluttering gale the deaton sends before,

To tempt the spreading sail. Then down at once,
Precipitant, descends a mingled mass

Of roaring winds, and flame, and rushing fluoda.
In wild amazement fix'd the sailor stands,
Art is too slow: by rapid Fate oppress'd,
His broad-wing'd vessel drinks the whelming tide,
Hid in the bosom of the black abyss.
With such mad seas the daring Gama' fought,
For many a day, and many a dreadful night,
Incessant, labouring round the stormy Cape;
By bold ambition led, and bolder thirst
Of gold. For then from ancient gloom emerg'd
The rising world of trade: the genius, then,
Of navigation, that, in hopeless sloth,
Had slumber'd on the vast Atlantic deep,
For idle ages, starting, heard at last
The Lusitanian prince; who Heave-inspir'd,
To love of useful glory rous'd mankind,
And in unbounded cominerce mix'd the world.
Increasing still the terrours of these storms,
His jaws horrific arm'd with threefold, fate,
Here dwells the direful shark. Lur'd by the scent›
Of steaming crowds, of rank disease, and death,
Behold! he rushing cuts the briny flood,
Swift as the gale can bear the ship along;
And, from the partners of that crnel trade,
Which spoils unhappy Guinca of her sons,
Demands his share of prey; demands themselves.
The stormy Fates descend: one death involves
Tyrants and slaves; when straight, their mangled
Crashing at once, he dyes the purple seas limbs
With gore, and riots in the vengeful meal.

When o'er this world, by equinoctial rains
Flooded immense, looks out the joyless Sun,
And draws the copious steam: from swampy fens,
Where putrefaction into life ferments,
And breathes destructive myriads: or from woods,
Impenetrable shades, recesses foul,

In vapours rank and blue corruption wrapt,
Whose gloomy horrours. yet no.desperate foot
Has ever dar'd to pierce; then, wasteful, forth
Walks the dire power of pestilent Discase.
A thousand hideous fiends her course attend,
Sick Nature blasting, and to heartless woe,
And feeble desolation, casting down
The towering hopes and all the pride of man,
Such as, of late, at Carthagena quench'd

The British fire. You, gallant Vernon, saw
The miserable scene; you, pitying, saw
To infant weakness sunk the warrior's arm;
Saw the deep-racking pang, the ghastly form,
The lip pale-quivering, and the beamless eye
No more with ardour bright: you heard the groans
Of agonizing ships from shore to shore;
Heard, nightly plung'd amid the sullen waves,
The frequent corse; while, on each other fix'd,
In sad presage, the blank assistants seemn❜d,
Silent, to ask, whom Fate would next demand.

What need I mention those inclement skies,
Where, frequent o'er the sickening city, Plague,
The fiercest child of Nemesis divine,
Descends? From Ethiopia's poison'd woods,
From stifled Cairo's filth, and fetid fields
With locust-armies putrefying heap'd,
This great destroyer sprung. Her aweful rage
The brutes escape: man is her destin'd prey,
Intemperate man! and, o'er his guilty domes,
She draws a close incumbent cloud of death;
Uninterrupted by the living winds,

Forbid to blow a wholesome breeze; and stain'd
With many a mixture by the Sun, suffus'd,
Of angry aspect. Princely wisdom, then,
Dejects his watchful eye; and from the hand
Of feeble justice, ineffectual, drop
The sword and balance: mute the voice of joy,
And hush'd the clamour of the busy world.
Empty the streets, with uncouth verdure clad;
Into the worst of deserts sudden turn'd
The cheerful haunt of men, unless escap'd
From the doom'd house, where matchless borrour
reigns,

Shut up by barbarous fear, the smitten wretch,
With frenzy wild, breaks loose; and, loud to Heaven
Screaming, the dreadful policy arraigns,
Inhuman, and unwise. The sullen door,
Yet uninfected, on its cautious hinge
Fearing to turn, abhors society:
Dependants, friends, relations, Love himself,
Savag'd by woe, forget the tender tie,
The sweet engagement of the feeling heart.
But vain their selfish care: the circling sky,
The wide enlivening air, is full of fate;
And, struck by turns, in solitary pangs
They fall, unblest, untended, and unmourn'd.
Thus o'er the prostrate city black Despair
Extends her raven wing; while, to complete
The scene of desolation, stretch'd around,
The grim guards stand, denying all retreat,
And give the flying wretch a better death.

Much yet remains unsung: the rage intense
Of brazen-vaulted skies, of iron fields,
Where drought and famine starve the blasted year:
Fir'd by the torch of noon to tenfold rage,
Th' infuriate hill that shoots the pillar'd flame;
And, rous'd within the subterranean world,
Th' expanding earthquake, that resistless shakes
Aspiring cities from their solid base,

And buries mountains in the flaming gulph.
But 'tis enough; return, my vagrant Muse :
A nearer scene of horrour calls thee home.

Behold, slow-settling o'er the lurid grove
Unusual darkness broods; and growing gains
The full possession of the sky, surcharg'd

These are the causes supposed to be the first origin of the plague, in Dr. Mead's elegant book on that subject.

With wrathful vapour, from the secret beds,
Where sleep the mineral generations, drawn.
Thence nitre, sulphur, and the fiery spume
Of fat bituinen, steaming on the day,
With various-tinctur'd trains of latent flame,
Pollute the sky, and in yon baleful cloud,
A reddening gloom, a magazine of fate,
Ferment; till by the touch ethereal rous'd,
The dash of clouds, or irritating war

Of fighting winds, while all is calm below,
They furious spring. A boding silence reigns,
Dread through the dun expanse; save the dull sound
That from the mountain, previous to the storm,
Rolls o'er the muttering earth, disturbs the flood,
And shakes the forest-leaf without a breath.
Prone, to the lowest vale, th' aërial tribes
Descend the tempest-loving raven scarce
Dares wing the dubious dusk. In rueful gaze
The cattle stand, and on the scowling Heavens
Cast a deploring eye, by man forsook,
Who to the crowded cottage hies him fast,
Or seeks the shelter of the downward cave.

'Tis listening fear and dunib amazement all:
When to the startled eye the sudden glance
Appears far south, eruptive through the cloud
And following slower, in explosion vast,
The thunder raises his tremendous voice.
At first, heard solemn o'er the verge of Heaven,
The tempest growls; but as it nearer comes,
And rolls its aweful burden on the wind,
The lightnings flash a larger curve, and more
The noise astounds: till over head a sheet
Of livid flame discloses wide; then shuts,
And opens wider; shuts and opens still
Expansive, wrapping ether in a blaze.
Follows the loosen'd aggravated roar,
Enlarging, deepening, mingling; peal on peal
Crush'd horrible, convulsing Heaven and Earth.

Down comes a deluge of sonorous hail,

Or prone descending rain. Wide-rent, the clouds
Pour a whole flood, and yet, its flame unquench'd,
Th' unconquerable lightning struggles through,
Ragged and fierce, or in red whirling balls,
And fires the mountains with redoubled rage.
Black from the stroke, above, the smouldering

pine

Stands a sad shatter'd trunk; and, stretch'd below,
A lifeless groupe the blasted cattle lie:
Here the soft flocks, with that same harmless look
They wore alive, and ruminating still
In Fancy's eye; and there the frowning bull,
An ox half-rais'd. Struck on the castled cliff,
The venerable tower and spiry fane

Resign their aged pride. The gloomy woods
Start at the flash, and from their deep recess,
Wide-flaming out, their trembling inmates shake
Amid Carnarvon's mountains rages loud
The repercussive roar: with mighty crush,
Into the flashing deep, from the rude rocks
Of Penmanmaur heap'd hideous to the sky,
Tumble the smitten cliffs; and Snowden's peak,
Dissolving, instant yields his wintery load.
Far-seen, the heights of heathy Cheviot blaze,
And Thule bellows through her utmost isles.

Guilt hears appall'd, with deeply troubled
And yet not always on the guilty head [thought.
Descends the fated flash. Young Celadon
And his Amelia were a matchless pair;
With equal virtue form'd, and equal grace,
The same, distinguish'd by their sex alone:

Harmonious swell'd by Nature's finest hand,
In folds loose-floating fell the fainter lawn;
And fair-expos'd she stood, shrunk from herself,
With fancy blushing, at the doubtful breeze
Alarm'd, and starting like the fearful fawn?
Then to the flood she rush'd; the parted flood
Its lovely guest with closing waves receiv'd;
And every beauty softening, every grace
Flushing anew, a mellow lustre shed:
As shines the lily through the crystal mild;
Or as the rose amid the morning dew

Fresh from Aurora's hand, more sweetly glows.
While thus she wanton'd, now beneath the wave
But ill-conceal'd; and now with streaming locks,
That half embrac'd her in a humid veil,
Rising again, the latent Damon drew

Such maddening draughts of beauty to the soul,
As for a while o'erwhelm'd his raptur'd thought
With luxury too-daring. Check'd, at last,
By love's respectful modesty, he deem'd
The theft profane, if aught profane to love
Can e'er be deem'd; and, struggling from the
shade,

With headlong hurry fled: but first these lines,
Trac'd by his ready pencil, on the bank
With trembling hand he threw.

fair,

"Batlic on, my

Yet unbeheld, save by the sacred eye
Of faithful love: I go to guard thy haunt,
To keep from thy recess cach vagrant foot,
And each licentious eye." With wild surprise,
As if to marble struck, devoid of sense,
A stupid monent motionless she stood:
So stands the statue' that enchants the world,
So bending tries to veil the matchless boast,
The mingled beauties of exulting Greece.
Recovering, swift she flew to find those robes
Which blissful Eden knew not; and, array'd
In careless haste, th' alarming paper snatch'd.
But, when her Damon's well-known hand she saw,
Her terrours vanish'd, and a softer train
Of mixt emotions, hard to be describ'd,
Her sudden bosom seiz'd: shame void of guilt,
The charming blush of innocence, esteem
And admiration of her lover's flame,
By modesty exalted: ev'n a sense
Of self-approving beauty stole across
Her busy thought. At length, a tender calm
Hush'd by degrees the tumult of her soul;
And on the spreading beech, that o'er the stream
Incumbent hung, she with the sylvan pen
Of rural lovers this confession carv'd,
Which soon her Damon kiss'd with weeping joy:
"Dear youth! sole judge of what these verses

To seek the distant hills, and there converse
With Nature; there to harmonize his heart,
And in pathetic song to breathe around
The harmony to others. Social friends,
Attun'd to happy unison of soul;

To whose exalting eye a fairer world,

Of which the vulgar never had a glimpse,
Displays its charms; whose minds are richly
With philosophic stores, superior light; [fraught
And in whose breast, enthusiastic, burns
Virtue, the sons of interest deem romance;
Now call'd abroad enjoy the falling day:
Now to the verdant Portico of woods,
To Nature's vast Lyceum, forth they walk;
By that kind school where no proud master reigns,
The full free converse of the friendly heart,
Improving and improv'd. Now from the world,
Sacred to sweet retirement, lovers steal,
And pour their souls in transport which the Sire
Of love approving hears, and calls it good.
Which way, Amanda, shall we bend our course?
The choice perplexes. Wherefore should we

chuse?

All is the same with thee. Say, shall we wind
Along the streams? or walk the smiling mead?
Or court the forest-glades? or wander wild
Among the waving harvests? or ascend,
While radiant Summer opens all its pride,
Thy hill, delightful Shene? Here let us sweep
The boundless landscape: now the raptur'd eye,
Exulting swift, to huge Augusta send,
Now to the sister-hills that skirt her plain,
To lofty Harrow now, and now to where
Majestic Windsor lifts his princely brow.
In lovely contrast to this glorious view
Calmly magnificent, then will we turn
To where the silver Thames first rural grows.
There let the feasted eye unwearied stray;
Luxurious, there, rove through the pendent woods
That nodding hang o'er Harrington's retreat;
And stooping thence to Ham's embowering walks,
Beneath whose shades, in spotless peace retir'd,
With her the pleasing partner of his heart,
The worthy Queensbury yet laments his Gay,
And polish'd Cornbury wooes the willing Muse.
Slow let us trace the matchless vale of Thames:
Fair winding up to where the Muses haunt
In Twit'nam's bowers, and for their Pope implore
The healing god 3; to royal Hampton's pile,
To Clermont's terrass'd height, and Esher's groves,
Where in the sweetest solitude, embrac'd
By the soft windings of the silent Mole,
From courts and senates Pelham finds repose:
Inchanting vale! beyond whate'er the Muse
Has of Achaia or Hesperia sung!

O vale of bliss! O softly-swelling hills!
On which the Power of Cultivation lies,
And joys to see the wonders of his toil.

Heavens ! what a goodly prospect spreads around,

Of hills, and dales, and woods, and lawns, and spires,

And glittering towns, and gilded streams, till all The stretching landsape into smoke decays! Happy Britannia! where the queen of arts,

The old name of Richmond, signifying in Saxon shining or splendour. Highgate and Hamstead.

3 In his last sickness.