And so much injured more his side,
The stronger arg'ments he applied;
As old war-elephants, dismay'd,
Trod down the troops they came to aid,
And hurt their own side more in battle
Than less and ordinary cattle:
Yet at town meetings ev'ry chief
Pinn'd faith on great M'Fingal's sleevė,
And, as he motioned all by rote,
Raised sympathetic hands to vote.
The town, our hero's scene of action,
Had long been torn by feuds of faction;
And as each party's strength prevails,
It turn'd up diff'rent heads or tails;
With constant rattling, in a trice
Show'd various sides, as oft as dice:
As that famed weaver, wife t' Ulysses,
By night each day's work pick'd in pieces;
And though she stoutly did bestir her,
Its finishing was ne'er the nearer :
So did this town with steadfast zeal,
Weave cobwebs for the public weal,
Which, when completed, or before,
A second vote in pieces tore.
They met, made speeches full long-winded,
Resolved, protested, and rescinded;
Addresses sign'd, then chose committees,
To stop all drinking of Bohea-teas;
With winds of doctrine veer'd about,
And turn'd all Whig committees out.
Meanwhile our hero, as their head,
In pomp the Tory faction led,
Still following, as the squire should please,
Successive on. like files of geese.
INEFFICACY OF PUNISHMENTS.
WITH stronger force than fear temptations draw,
And cunning thinks to parry with the law.
"My brother swung, poor novice in his art,
He blindly stumbled on a hangman's cart;
But wiser I, assuming every shape,
As Proteus erst, am certain to escape."
The knave, thus jeering, on his skill relies,
For never villain deemed himself unwise. [wide,
When earth convulsive heaved, and, yawning
Ingulfed in darkness Lisbon's spiry pride,
At that dread hour of ruin and dismay
"Tis famed the harden'd felon prowled for prey;
Nor trembling earth nor thunders could restrain
His daring feet, which trod the sinking fane;
Whence, while the fabric to its centre shook,
By impious stealth the hallowed vase he took.
What time the gaping, vulgar throng to see
The wretch expire on Tyburn's fatal tree,
Fast by the crowd the luckier villain clings,
And pilfers while the hapless culprit swings.
ANCIENT AND MODERN LITERATURE.
WHEN Truth in classic majesty appear'd, And Greece on high the dome of Science rear'd, Patience and Perseverance, Care and Pain, Alone the steep, the rough ascent could gain : None but the great the sun-clad summit found; The weak were baffled, and the strong were crown'd. The tardy transcript's high-wrought page confined To one pursuit the undivided mind.
No venal critic fattened on the trade,
Books for delight, and not for sale were made;
Then shone superior in the realms of thought,
The chief who govern'd, and the sage who taught;
The drama then with deathless bays was wreath'd,
The statue quicken'd, and the canvass breathed.
The poet, then, with unresisted art,
Sway'd every impulse of the captive heart.
Touch'd with a beam of Heaven's creative mind,
His spirit kindled, and his taste refined:
Incessant toil inform'd his rising youth;
Thought grew to thought, and truth attracted truth,
Till, all complete, his perfect soul display'd
Some bloom of genius that could never fade.
So the sage oak, to Nature's mandate true,
Advanced but slow, and strengthen'd as he grew!
But when at length (full many a season o'er)
His head the blossoms of high promise bore;
When steadfast were his roots, and sound his heart,
He bade oblivion and decay depart;
And, storm and time defying, still remains
The never-dying glory of the plains.
Then, if some thoughtless Bavius dared appear,
Short was his date, and limited his sphere;
He could but please the changeling mob a day,
Then, like his noxious labours, pass away:
So, near a forest tall, some worthless flower
Enjoys the triumphs of its gaudy hour,
Scatters its little poison through the skies,
Then droops its empty, hated head, and dies.
Still, as from famed Ilyssus' classic shore,
To Mincius' banks the Muse her laurel bore,
The sacred plant to hands divine was given,
And deathless Maro nursed the boon of Heaven.
Exalted bard! to hear thy gentler voice,
The valleys listen, and their swains rejoice;
But when, on some wild mountain's awful form,
We hear thy spirit chanting to the storm,
Of battling chiefs, and armies laid in gore,
We rage, we sigh, we wonder and adore.
Thus Rome with Greece in rival splendour shone,
But claim'd immortal satire for her own:
While Horace pierced full oft the wanton breast
With sportive censure and resistless jest ;
And that Etrurian, whose indignant lay
Thy kindred genius* can so well display,
With many a well-aimed thought and pointed line,
Drove the bold villain from his black design.
For as those mighty masters of the lyre,
With temper'd dignity or quenchless ire,
Through all the various paths of science trod,
Their school was Nature, and their teacher God.
Nor did the Muse decline, till o'er her head
The savage tempest of the North was spread;
Till arm'd with desolation's bolt it came,
And wrapp'd her temple in funereal flame.
But soon the Arts once more a dawn diffuse,
And Petrarch hail'd it with his morning muse;
Boccace and Dante join'd the choral lay,
And Arno glisten'd with returning day.
Thus Science rose; and, all her troubles pass'd,
She hoped a steady, tranquil reign at last;
But Faustus came: (indulge the painful thought),
Were not his countless volumes dearly bought;
For, while to every clime and class they flew,
Their worth diminish'd as their numbers grew.
Some pressman, rich in Homer's wealthy page,
Could give ten epics to one wondering age;
A single thought supplied the great design,
And clouds of Iliads spread from every line.
Nor Homer's glowing page, nor Virgil's fire,
Could one lone breast with equal flame inspiré ;
These lines were addressed to the English satirist William Gifford,
But, lost in books, irregular and wild,
The poet wonder'd, and the critic smiled:
The friendly smile a bulkier work repays;
For fools will print, while greater fools will praise.
THEN spake the Sylph of Spring serene,
"Tis I thy joyous heart, I ween,
With sympathy shall move:
For I with living melody
Of birds in choral symphony,
First waked thy soul to poesy,
To piety and love.
When thou, at call of vernal breeze,
And beck'ning bough of budding trees,
Hast left thy sullen fire;
And stretch'd thee in some mossy dell,
And heard the browsing wether's bell,
Blythe echoes rousing from their cell
To swell the tinkling quire:
Or heard from branch of flow'ring thorn
The song of friendly cuckoo warn
The tardy-moving swain;
Hast bid the purple swallow hail;
And seen him now through ether sail,
Now sweeping downward o'er the vale,
And skimming now the plain;
Then, catching with a sudden glance
The bright and silver-clear expanse
Of some broad river's stream,
Beheld the boats adown it glide,
And motion wind again the tide,
Where, chain'd in ice by Winter's pride,
Late roll'd the heavy team :
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