LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. I 
 ' t 
 
 UNITED STATES OP AMERICA, i 
 
/ 
 
 THE 
 
 HERMITAGE, 
 
 VIEWS 
 
 LIFE AND MANNERS. 
 
 POEM, %, 
 
 WITH NOTES. 
 
 Quicquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas, 
 Gaudia, discursus: nostri est farrago libelli. 
 
 JUV. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORME, 
 PATERNOSTER-ROW. 
 
 180Q. 
 

CONTENTS. 
 
 SECTION L 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Poet's Hermitage - 
 
 
 1 
 
 Maternal Employments - 
 
 
 6 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 
 
 The History of Narrative Fiction 
 
 - 
 
 8 
 
 Style of Dr. Johnson - 
 
 - 
 
 - 10 
 
 On the Works of Mr. Burke 
 
 - 
 
 - 11 
 
 Character of Dr. Paley's Writings 
 
 - 
 
 - 12 
 
 Family Education 
 
 - 
 
 - 12 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 
 
 The Invocation 
 
 - 
 
 15 
 
 A Walk in the City - 
 
 - 
 
 - 16 
 
 The General Pursuit - 
 
 • 
 
 - 18 
 
 The Benefits of commercial Industry 
 
 - 
 
 - 19 
 
 Its Evils as in America 
 
 ** 
 
 - 22 
 
 The Magic of Wealth 
 
 M 
 
 ~ 23 
 
 Its Uses »-■'_■"'.- 
 
 >•» 
 
 - 24 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 On the Phenicians 
 
 Mr. Pitt's Speech on the Slave Trade 
 
 State of Africa - 
 
 America - - 
 
 On large Families 
 
 PAGE 
 
 26 
 27 
 28 
 32 
 34 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 Some Modes of acquiring Wealth 
 Other fashionable Sources 
 Happiness not confined to Wealth 
 Moderate Pursuit the happiest 
 Philanthropic Employments - 
 
 37 
 S9 
 44 
 
 45 
 47 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Suacks - 
 Lottery Offices - 
 Female Advertisements 
 Indecent Publications - 
 Phantasmagoria 
 Modern Romances 
 Debating Societies 
 Mother Goose - 
 Vestris - 
 Catalani ' - 
 
 49 
 50 
 ib. 
 ib. 
 51 
 ib. 
 52 
 ib. 
 53 
 54 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Espriella on the Theatres 
 
 - 54 
 
 Pseudo-Shakspeare Papers 
 
 - ib. 
 
 Carlo ----- 
 
 - 55 
 
 Nobleman acting Scaramouch - 
 
 - ib. 
 
 Education of the Poor - - - 
 
 - ib. 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 
 The Visions of Youth 
 
 - 57 
 
 Human Happiness 
 
 - 58 
 
 A Sea View, taken from Nature 
 
 - 59 
 
 Variations of Happiness 
 
 - 60 
 
 A Summer Evening Sky 
 
 - 63 
 
 The Purpose of Life - - 
 
 - 64 
 
 On Suicide 
 
 - 66 
 
 The Blessings of Liberty 
 
 ~ 68 
 
 Evils of Anarchy and Licentiousness - 
 
 - 70 
 
 Happiness of Britain - 
 
 - n 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 
 On the Economy of Human Life 
 
 - 74 
 
 Three remarkable Suicides 
 
 - 76 
 
 Scientific Lectures - 
 
 - 76 
 
 SECTION V. 
 
 
 The Charms of Music 
 
 - 78 
 
 Handel's Messiah ~ 
 
 - 80 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 On Devotion - 
 
 - 81 
 
 Exploded Prejudices 
 
 The Phantoms of the Rock 
 
 - 82 
 
 - 84 
 
 Religion not Credulity 
 Reflexions of matured Life 
 
 - 85 
 
 - 86 
 
 Absurdity of Superstition 
 
 <- 88 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 
 On Music - 
 
 - 91 
 
 Haydn's Creation - 
 
 - 92 
 
 Handel's Messiah 
 
 - ib. 
 
 Sacred Music - 
 
 - ib. 
 
 Illustrious Professors of Christianity 
 Phantoms of the Rock - 
 
 - 93 
 
 - 94 
 
 Pleasures of Religion - 
 
 - ib. 
 
 SECTION VI. 
 
 
 Apology for Poetry - 
 
 - 96 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 
 Sufferings of Europe - 
 Petrarch's Retreat - 
 
 - 100 
 
 - 101 
 
 Homer's Account of himself - 
 
 - ib. 
 
THE 
 
 HERMITAGE. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 THE POETS WISH. 
 
 Mow sweet to wander from the restless town, 
 Where gentle hills the distant prospects crown ! 
 To breathe the vital streams which herbage yields, 
 While the warm beam illumes the waving fields; 
 To hear the chorus of the warbling glade, 
 And trace the notes by each sweet rival made ; 
 To mark the varied beauties of the trees, 
 And meet the treasures of the fragrant breeze; 
 Nature's sublimer presence to survey, 
 As thro' the towering wood our footsteps stray ; 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 Or to pursue the wild fantastic views 
 
 Of the green lanes assuming autumn's hues. 
 
 Charm' d by the magic of the rural power, 
 
 Time never brings the busy, fretful hour : 
 
 The peace of health steals gently o'er the mind, 
 
 And new delights unfold where'er our footsteps wind. 
 
 At times gay fancy will in jocund play, 
 Enrapt, but harmless, on her visions stray: 
 Oft the sprite wafts me to romantic scenes; 
 And thus on hope, the dear capricious leans. 
 
 Near some extensive park, whose courteous lord 
 Leave to stroll round will to my wish award'; 
 Whose trees in solemn groves, or wild woods wrought 
 With soothing shade invite the musing thought; 
 Where I can rove at will, and soon be lost 
 From busy man, by no intruders cross'd; 
 Be my neat cot, with flowers and ivy grac'd, 
 Last of a scatter'd village humbly plac'd. 
 
May the brown lichen, or the tufted moss 
 Spread o'er my walls, and my rough pales emboss ! 
 A little plot of green before my door, 
 Bordered with living gems from Flora's store : 
 Sweet jasmine o'er my lattic'd porch should climb, 
 And roses mingle all their fragrant prime. 
 
 Behind, mid sprouting sloe and hawthorn gay, 
 May my secluded garden wind away. 
 There should some spreading elms their foliage lend, 
 And from the sun my hermit seat defend; 
 Or if a tinkling rill flowed gently by, 
 A rustic grotto should its calm supply ; 
 Or near some ancient tree, whose branches few 
 Would wave the shade I need, I'd sit and view. 
 At times the distant hills should swell my thought, 
 And lofty feelings, undenVd, be wrought; 
 Or on the loitering hedger, or the grass 
 Picturing the flying clouds, my mind should pass : 
 Or with my gentle fair I'd smile and chat, 
 Or for her darlings ply the cheerful bat : 
 
4 
 
 Or o'er thy pages, RadclifFe, harrowed, pore, 
 And feel that terror scarce had liv'd before: 
 Or feast, my Burney, on thy classic strain, 
 Impressive painter of the modish train: * 
 Or thro' thy rich majestic periods stray, 
 King of the tuneful prose, and moral lay ! 
 And prune my emulous mind and mend my heart, 
 As thy pure wisdom, Johnson, points the chart *: 
 Or learn, while nations urge war's madd'ning work, 
 Eloquent polity from splendid Burke 3 : 
 Or with thy eagle mind, dear Paley! soar, 
 And by creation taught, my God adore; 
 Or trace my chain of duties in thy page, 
 Resistless reasoner! all persuasive sage! 
 Or animate my faith in sacred truth 4 , 
 From thy emphatic proofs, thou friend of youth ! 
 Or rouse to noblest energies my soul, 
 Demosthenes! as thy dread thunders roll. 
 Nor yet, my Shakspeare, should thy genius vast 
 Pouring its endless wisdom, be o'erpast, 
 1 For Notes, see end of Section. 
 
Monarch of nature and of man ! to thee 
 
 All hearts were bare; all moral knowledge free. 
 
 The flowers of Young and Thomson shall succeed, 
 
 When from Pope's music some relief I need: 
 
 Or if magnificent profusion please, 
 
 The burning thoughts, the living figures seize 
 
 Of thee, sublime Isaiah ! whose blest page 
 
 The sacred sufferer paints to every age 5 . 
 
 When evening skies with coloured radiance blaze, 
 And on high casements dance the parting rays, 
 WVd seek the odorous fields, applaud the breeze, 
 And chase the playful insect to the trees : 
 Our little pratlers urge to emulous speed, 
 And kiss the Atalantas who succeed ; 
 And as they pick the flowers which paint the earth, 
 Describe their classes to their pausing mirth. 
 Ah ! how the mother's smiles will charm the way, 
 W T hile the gay fondlings innocently play: 
 Their brightening eyes, their gentle dovelike smiles, 
 Their limbs all moving and their giddy wiles; 
 
Their earnest chit-chat, and their little jars 
 If one molest the other's dolls and cars: 
 All please, all recreate ; for harmless mirth 
 From all their frolics takes perpetual birth. 
 
 When nature sleeps beneath that solemn sea 
 Of calming light, which spreads from tree to tree ; 
 While in her silent majesty, the moon 
 Looks mildly on the wight who loves her noon; 
 Let me alone pervade the silent grove, 
 And give th' unfettered intellect to rove. • 
 What heavenly feelings glide within my frame ! 
 Visions of other worlds the soul reclaim, 
 'lis then this globe a foreign climate seems : 
 "lis then the future life in glory beams. 
 Oh, messenger of heaven I so formed to nurse 
 The godlike purpose and the moral verse : 
 Still may'st thou sooth our stormy minds to peace; 
 Proclaim th'immortal world, and make wild passion cease. 
 
MATERNAL EMPLOYMENTS. 
 
 Such was my early sigh — and heaven in part 
 
 Has blest me with the wishes of my heart. 
 
 Now oft we seek the long-lov'd rural shade ; 
 
 The grove our concert ; our saloon the glade. 
 
 Forgetting and forgot, we rove the fields, 
 
 And taste the pleasures which retirement yields. 
 
 Enjoyments, ever cheering, ever new ! 
 
 Oft with the birds we breathe th' exhaling dew ; 
 
 And revel in the fragrance of the mora 
 
 Ere yet the sun too radiant fills the lawn. 
 
 But when his burning flood, unclouded, streams, 
 
 We seek the tasks whence growing knowledge beams* 
 
 There the dear parent consecrates her time 
 
 To rear the budding flowrets of her prime: 
 
 Her lovely treasures plac'd around her chair, 
 
 Imbibe the generous lessons of her care. 
 
 One emulates her hand with learning's jet ; 
 
 One calculates the figures she has set : 
 
8 
 
 Another reads the gay Parisian lore ; 
 While her first pledge of love the higher store 
 Of ancient Rome is labouring to explore. 
 These themes fulfhTd, she leads them to prepare 
 The tuneful mazes of th' appointed air. 
 In beauty's morn she thus devotes her youth 
 To guide the offspring of her nuptial truth ; 
 And heaven the generous sacrifice will bless, 
 With sweet obedience, with love's soft caress, 
 With virtue's deathless flowers which her fond cares 
 impress 6. 
 But other miuds by different hopes are led, 
 To various goals life's cultur'd regions spread. 
 Let me, before I quit my lov'd retreat, 
 Survey the paths which men delight to beat : 
 Balance their good and evil, and discern 
 Where happiness most bounteous pours her urn. 
 Thus having view'd the plans of human hope, 
 Reason will choose the wisest for her scope. 
 
9 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 1 The progress of narrative fiction in this country has had 
 several stages. Mr. Ellis, in his " Specimens of Ancient Me- 
 trical Romances," has given us a complete and interesting 
 picture of the first period, and they who are desirous to study 
 the originals, may see some of the earliest and most import- 
 ant in Mr. Ritsou's collection. One of the next advances ap- 
 pears in the long prose romances of chivalry, which delighted 
 our forefathers. Mr. Southey has obliged us with modern 
 translations of two of the most ancient and most interesting 
 of these, Amadis de Gaul, and Palmerin of England. They 
 are entirely works of imagination, and abound with genius, 
 though sometimes heavy, from the monotony of so many 
 battles. Mr. Southey has also given us the Chronicle of the 
 Cid, which, though chiefly true history, is so much in the 
 form of romance that it may be classed with the others. When 
 this kind of fiction lost its novelty, and the human taste began 
 to refine, those immense compositions were produced, the 
 Cassandra, Grand Cyrus, Clelia, and others, which terrify us 
 by their size rather than their contents ; for these, though 
 always heroic, are perfectly soporific. The increasing pro- 
 gress of the human intellect made such books unpopular; 
 and the next change was, fortunately, the habit of deriving the 
 incidents from real life. We must attribute the honour of this 
 
10 
 
 improvement chiefly to Boccacio and Margaret of Valois. 
 Those examples gave birth, in time, to these works of fiction, 
 which we properly call Novels. These were, however, not of 
 the best tendency, though often written by women, as those of 
 Mr?. Behn, Mrs. Haywood, Mrs. Manley, and others. In- 
 trigue was their favourite incident, and evolution of character 
 was little studied, till Fielding published his admirable spe- 
 cimens of the dramatic novel — a happy incorporation of 
 true comedy, with an interesting narrative. Smollet con- 
 tinued this new school, using less dialogue, and selecting 
 different paths of life; and Richardson descending still more 
 minutely into human nature, connected his works of fiction 
 most powerfully with our sympathy, and brought his characters 
 into the most familiar companionship with us. The two most 
 distinguished classes of our own times are those of Madame 
 D'Arblay and Mrs. Radcliffe. The Cecilia and Evelina, 
 though they have had many imitators, stand yet by them- 
 selves. Very cultivated talents and much acquaintance with 
 life are required to preserve that species of novel from placid 
 mediocrity. But " The Romance of the Forest," and " The 
 Italian," being built on incidents which never existed, and 
 approaching nature but rudely in the characters, are more 
 imitable by the young, whose minds are always in a state of 
 more fervid extravagance than they can be in the matured part 
 of life. But as they excite the imagination too strongly, and 
 make us " sup full with horrors," they are perhaps more at- 
 tractive than laudable. They appear to be the offspring of 
 the wild German school, which seems delighted to abandon 
 both nature and common sense. Some fair writers of the pre- 
 
11 
 
 sent day, Mrs. West, Mrs. Hamilton, Mrs. Opie, and Miss 
 Edgeworth, have given us fictitious works, which form an in- 
 teresting mixture of the novel and the romance; and as they 
 are directed to excite moral feelings, they deserve celebrity. 
 The French novels were formerly written with the most insidi- 
 ous immorality ; they were literally serpents concealed among 
 roses. But the Atala of Chateau Briand, and the Elisabeth of 
 Madame Cottin, encourage us to hope that, as " he who thinks 
 rationally must think morally," the French genius may at 
 last discern, that fame is to be acquired by improving as well 
 as by corrupting society. 
 
 2 The works of Dr. Johnson are among the few human 
 compositions which are born not to die. The style of this ad- 
 mirable author has been appreciated with much discrimination 
 by Dr. Drake. " To verbal precision it was the perpetual ef- 
 fort of Johnson to add all that harmony and splendor could 
 confer; to words therefore peculiarly forcible and sonorous, he 
 has given a construction and an arrangement admirably calcu- 
 lated to impart the utmost dignity, melody, and nerve. Paral- 
 lelisms, alliteration, verbal recurrences, and an abundant use 
 of metaphorical expression, are some of the chief instruments 
 to which he has had recourse. In the employment of meta- 
 phor he has been singularly happy. He has seldom, if ever, 
 confounded the literal with the figurative sense. Both his 
 metaphors and similies, therefore, are consistent and complete 
 in themselves, and display a resemblance sufficiently close to 
 form the intended picture and impression on the mind. 
 Pointed phrases, measured pauses, and correspondent lengths 
 of period, are likewise for the purposes of strength and har- 
 
12 
 
 mony, in constant employ through the pages of the Rambler, 
 and are very frequently productive of the most pleasing ef- 
 fects upon the ear, and of that richness and melody so well 
 calculated to excite the emotions of elevation and grandeur. 
 —To him, who possesses a correct taste and a strong discri- 
 minative judgment, the study of the style of Johnson must 
 be attended with the best results. He will have before him 
 specimens of the noblest and richest diction of which our 
 literature can boast; a diction, indeed, from its nature con- 
 siderably limited in its due application ; but when employed 
 on subjects of true dignity and serious moment, to record the 
 labours of the hero or the legislator, or to clothe with fresh 
 energy the maxims of virtue and piety, perhaps unparalleled 
 in the powers of impression." Essays biographical, critical, 
 and historical on the Rambler, &c. 265 and 284. 
 
 3 Political writings are usually ephemeral compositions. 
 Swift and Bolingbroke were among the first writers who made 
 them interesting to posterity. The general principles of po- 
 litical science have since their time been studied with success, 
 and commented upon with much philosophical discussion. 
 The works of Burke are not of this scientific nature. They 
 are the compositions of such au orator as Cicero professes to 
 form. Perhaps he is the only orator that has really acquired 
 that encyclopedia of knowledge which the Roman recom- 
 mended. The writings and speeches of Burke abound with 
 many passages of vitiated taste, and occasionally display a 
 censurable spirit of acrimony and some false eloquence. But 
 they exhibit, on the whole, a richness of genius, an extent of 
 information, and a sagacity of thought which transcend all 
 
73 
 
 competitors. He enjoyed likewise the felicity of having for 
 his subject a revolution which will affect, and therefore must 
 interest, posterity to a very distant period. 
 
 4 The Natural Theology; the Moral Philosophy ; the Evi- 
 dences of Christianity, and the Horae Paulinae of Dr. Paley, 
 display that peculiar talent of just philosophical reasoning, 
 which of all human endowments appears to be the most rare. 
 Disputatio argumentatus, and rhetorical declamation, are 
 very common : but the happy art of reasoning correctly from 
 unquestionable positions, is not only difficult to attain but as 
 difficult to exercise. Hume frequently begins to reason justly 
 in his essays, but seldom can carry on the process of sound 
 deduction. This, which would have often led him to con- 
 clusions exactly opposite to those which he has chosen to 
 express, he suddenly abandons, and substitutes mere decla- 
 mation instead. Paley never has this fault; he states his po- 
 sitions clearly, and pursues them through a guarded and 
 strict series of deductions to their true and legitimate infer- 
 ences. He never pushes his reasoning beyond its fair and 
 just consequences. Paley is, therefore, the best model of the 
 reasoning philosopher that the world has yet seen. It is not 
 the artificial logic of a student of the topica of Aristotle : it 
 is the produce of a mind well disciplined by Euclid, and ap- 
 plying to moral subjects the habits of mathematical inves- 
 tigation. Whoever wishes to attain the power of correct 
 reasoning, should be familiar with the works of Dr. Paley. 
 
 5 The works of Isaiah abound with the richest treasures of 
 a sublime genius. It is said that he was the favourite author 
 of Mr. Wilkes. Dr. Lowth's interesting lectures first awak- 
 
14 
 
 ened the public attention to the poetry of these com- 
 positions, and his intelligent translation perpetuated its 
 impression. 
 
 6 It is an honourable feature of the present age, that a 
 great anxiety pervades the public mind for the careful edu- 
 cation of children. Many treatises have, of late years, ap- 
 peared on the subject, and British mothers seem disposed to 
 rival the Roman matrons in this great duty. 
 
 The Author cannot avoid recommending to parents, 
 whose attainments and opportunities permit, to take upon 
 themselves the pleasing task of conducting the education of 
 their family. 
 
 It requires little else than that regularity which will soon 
 become habit ; that patience which affection will always make 
 pleasant; that perseverance which every day will feel its own 
 reward in the improvements it produces ; and those exertions 
 of common sense which every reflective mind will find easy 
 and obvious. Little tasks steadily continued will neither 
 weary the child nor its parent. 
 
 But the inestimable advantages of forming and directing 
 the temper and habits of the child, are those which school edu- 
 cation cannot produce in any degree equal to the vigilant dis- 
 cretion of the affectionate and prudent parent. The hap- 
 piness of mankind depends much more on the cultivation of 
 the heart than of the mind ; and as this must slowly and gra- 
 dually accrue, and as the little irregularities, which if imme- 
 diately checked, would expire, cannot be watched with suf- 
 ficient care at a public school ; it is at home that the edu- 
 cation of the heart may be most effectually promoted. To 
 
u 
 
 accomplish this delightful object, judicious kindness is as ne- 
 cessary as judicious restraint. 
 
 And as to the education of the mind, if parents would only 
 take the trouble to give up two hours every day, the most de- 
 sirable improvements may be easily obtained. At school, a 
 sprightly boy must remain at his desk during all the school 
 hours, though he should learn his task in one-fourth of the 
 time — of course, the rest he must idle, though he does it 
 gravely and with his books before him. Children will have 
 their minds sooner excited, and will learn every thing useful 
 more quickly at home than elsewhere, if the parents avoid 
 foolish or capricious fondness, and can depend upon them- 
 selves for regularly prosecuting a good plan. But the whole 
 success will depend on the persevering regularity, the steady 
 equanimity, and the affectionate firmness with which the sys- 
 tem is carried on. It is in the diurnal perseverance and re- 
 gularity that the difficulty as well as the utility consists. 
 Much self-government and some personal sacrifices are cer- 
 tainly requisite : but they will have this recommendation, 
 that they will benefit the parents as much as the children. 
 
16 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 THE INVOCATION, 
 
 W hat dulcinea shall my lays invite ? 
 
 Bards-errant need one by prescriptive right. 
 
 Your hill, Pierides ! I dare not climb, 
 
 To beg your blessing on my wayward rhime ! 
 
 Full many a poet's eye to you has turn'd: 
 
 Full oft the bosom for your smile has yearn'd. 
 
 Yet what avails our flattery or our ire ! 
 
 Which heavenly Muse descends to breathe her fire ? 
 
 Ah ! much I fear sweet Hippocrene is dry: 
 
 Or jaded Pegasus too old to fly. 
 
 Too sure, Parnassus, like a highland rock, 
 
 With mists, not laurels, would the traveller shock : 
 
17 
 
 Why then solicit maids so deaf or coy, 
 Who neither blank verse, prose, nor rhime enjoy? 
 Far rather thy less valued hints dispense, 
 Best muse of life, neglected Common Sense . [ 
 In all my paths, oh ! let thy star appear; 
 My guardian genius ! and my progress cheer. 
 Led by thy beam no prejudice confounds; 
 No false ambition in the heart abounds : 
 We learn to hail the venerated walls 
 Where reason prostrate to its author falls. 
 Thy light conducts us to the moral code ; 
 And science triumphs most in thy abode. 
 If thou abandon the presumptuous mind, 
 A thousand meteors rise and judgment blind. 
 From nature's God we turn our clouded sight, 
 And welcome in the grave eternal night. 
 
 A WALK IN THE CITY. 
 
 Behold the ceaseless floods of human kind, 
 Which thro' imperial towns, all-hurrying, wind! 
 
 C 
 
18 
 
 Still moves the thinking torrent, and still seems 
 Exhaustless, till the stars diffuse their beams. 
 There rush the anxious steps of pallid cares; 
 Here vacant loungers rove, or fashion stares : 
 Or conquering beauty trips with graceful play, 
 And the heart's sinless smile endears the way ; 
 Or palsied age its trembling staff extends, 
 While sportive childhood meets a thousand friends. 
 
 What hopes, what schemes, what passions and 
 what fear! 
 How oft events the generous bosom sear ! 
 At first the parent hand directs our course; 
 Then sterner tutors letter'd tasks enforce. 
 But when their salutary reign we lose, 
 Self-confident, we tread what paths we choose. 
 Our reason, varying as our features, yields 
 To passion or to chance. It seldom shields. 
 Hence different idols different minds adore; 
 But keep remote from wisdom's sacred shore. 
 
19 
 
 Too prone to follow passion's glaring lights, 
 We credit every folly that invites. 
 
 THE GENERAL FURSUIT. 
 
 Of all the visions which mankind entrance, 
 The realms of wealth attract our earliest glance. 
 In youth, in age, in sickness, health and grief, 
 From Plutus every eye implores relief. 
 Each heart his temple, he can always claim, 
 From idolizing man, his ancient fame. 
 
 Nor is the golden mean the general prayer, 
 Where life's best comforts, least alloyed, repair. 
 For wealth, while toil can gather, fraud devise, 
 For wealth on wealth, the wish incessant flies. 
 
 Hail, mighty lord of reason and of man ! 
 To whom all nations form one ardent clan ! 
 Now lavish beyond hope; and now demure, 
 Thy partial gifts their steadfast faith secure. 
 
20 
 
 From youth's full ripen'd bloom to withered age, 
 
 We in thy varied services engage. 
 
 No toil, no crime, no danger can deter; 
 
 For thee, tho' millions perish, millions stir. 
 
 THE BENEFITS OF COMMERCIAL INDUSTRY. 
 
 Trade is no foe to virtue or to ease, 
 If probity attend its favouring breeze. 
 Trade is the friend of knowledge and of man, 
 When virtue rules while reason shapes the plan. 
 What needs our species most? consult our towns; 
 Life unemployed with vice or languor frowns. 
 Our honest industry these fiends affrights, 
 Our leisure is the temple of their rites. 
 They hover round us in the vacant hour; 
 That fatal season multiplies their power. 
 What thousands every year become their prey ! 
 When indolent, we feel the tempter's sway. 
 Trade's humbler spheres present that gentle toil, 
 Which cheers with innocence time's daily spoil. 
 
21 
 
 Nations without it are marauding brutes, 
 Ruffians of war! avengers of disputes! 
 Or savage vassals of some bickering chief, 
 Clouding society with constant grief. 
 Trade tries our honesty and gives it birth ; 
 Its petty labours nurture patient, worth : 
 Tis like the rains of heav'n, a general source 
 Of food and comfort thro' our earthly course. 
 
 Its useful tendencies might saints persuade 
 To leave the flinty couch for towns and trade. 
 What wing'd the ships of Tyre to every shore, 
 With arts and letters, but their barter'd store? 
 What wafts our mental wealth to Asia's clime, 
 And charters hope to muse on brooding time ? 
 What tends to make one family of man, 
 Exchanging blessings, like trade's upright plan? 
 See, how our British capitals expand 
 The sails of commerce to earth's farthest land ! 
 See, how like floating bridges, they unite 
 Nootka's dun salvage with the happier white. 
 
22 
 
 By them assisted, knowledge yet may soar 
 To Cooke's wild tomb and Oberea's shore. 
 No more to Europe's favoured coast confin'd; 
 But soon to reign wherever breathes a mind. 
 And yet the pilgrim, in mysterious bands, 
 Might still have slumber'd on th' Egyptian sands ; 
 If commerce her rich flags had not unfurl'd, 
 And scatter'd busy mortals round the world *. 
 
 How can humanity on Afric gaze 
 Tearless, where millions like their cattle graze; 
 Untaught the paths of mind, or use of life, 
 Degrading nature by barbarian strife; 
 Waking each morn to want, or mad excess; 
 To sloth, to ignorance, folly, or distress ; 
 And not desire that knowledge and her train, 
 Of freedom, arts and laws, should there remain? 
 Yet never will these blissful guests adorn 
 This long-abandon'd continent of scorn, 
 Until her rich productions shall persuade 
 Our merchant princes into constant trader 
 
23 
 
 Not trade of blood and death which fiends adore, 
 Bat honest barter of superfluous store: 
 And colonies of liberal, cultur'd mind 2 , 
 Which, where they settle, civilize mankind. 
 
 Then flourish, commerce! give to Britain's coast 
 The proud renown which Tyre and Carthage boast. 
 Teach us like them to settle distant shores; 
 There make new marts and pour out all your stores : 
 Then may some Cecrops to the social town 
 From their fenc'd hills the warring tribes bring down. 
 Their blood-stain' d spears for useful laws exchange, 
 And their fierce youth in peaceful toils arrange. 
 Then other seas may rising Britains boast, 
 And arts and science shine on every coast 3 . 
 
 ITS EVILS, AS IN AMERICA. 
 
 But if in trade, or any other sphere, 
 The lust of wealth becomes our charioteer; 
 
24 
 
 The bounds of healthful probity we spurn, 
 
 And all the mists of selfishness return. 
 
 The baser witcheries of vice destroy 
 
 Our dignity, our merit, and our joy. 
 
 The heart all touch and sympathy before, 
 
 Is chiU'd and hardened like the marble floor. 
 
 The active intellect in sordid chains 
 
 Gloomy, must track one path, the path of gains. 
 
 All knowledge, taste and beauty, will be weighed 
 
 By the base scales of avaricious trade ; 
 
 Gold then becomes the wretched test of life, 
 
 Sole dream of hope, sole object of our strife; 
 
 Such suicidal lethargy of mind 
 
 To mere Yahoos converts unblest mankind. 
 
 Trade then becomes the hemlock of the heart. 
 
 And all the hopes of intellect depart. 
 
 Thy sons, America I these features wear ; 
 
 And Europe's pity must submit to share 4. 
 
25 
 
 THE MAGIC OF WEALTH. 
 
 'Tis true, in this mixed world, want's dismal strife 
 
 Precludes the joys which gem the path of life : 
 
 That riches are the magic keys which ope 
 
 The fairy gardens of enraptur'd hope. 
 
 Possess' d of these, like eastern genii, you 
 
 May boast a talisman, all potent too. 
 
 Speak, son of wealth ! — Lo ! India wings her stores, 
 
 And every realm its varied produce pours. 
 
 He wills, — unnumbered servants night and day 
 
 Toil, their luxurious master to obey ; 
 
 Tor him the arts their sacred offspring nurse ; 
 
 For him the muses chant immortal verse. 
 
 Fame, fashion, science, grace his festive walls; 
 
 And every day new blossom' d pleasure falls. 
 
 ITS USES. 
 
 How sad th' abode which property has fled, 
 Where the sick husband droops his aching head; 
 
26 
 
 While the unconscious babes their mother's knee 
 Crying, surround; for bread their eager plea! 
 They wait awhile — again, they fretful chide, 
 And beat her hand, and wonder they're denied. 
 She clasps th' impatient children to her breast ; 
 She kisses them, she soothes with groans supprest. 
 She looks around— no sustenance is nigh; 
 To heav'n she lifts the dim, imploring eye. 
 No sigh escapes. The partner of her heart 
 At that unnerving sound would, maddening, start. 
 She wears a smile so forc'd, it almost frowns, 
 Till her oppressing toil their wishes crowns. 
 Such scenes of penury and pining woe 
 Give dignity and use to wealth below. 
 
 The varying worth and tempers of mankind, 
 Th' untam'd and ever fluctuating mind, 
 Imperfect morals, and blind hurrying will, 
 Forbid the streams of fortune to be still : 
 E'en when she spreads a gentle, peaceful lake, 
 Some urgent passion will an outlet make. 
 
27 
 
 And while "gainst fickle fortune we exclaim, 
 We cause the instability we blame 5 . 
 
 But heav'n created for the human heart 
 One beauteous flower, to bloom in every part, 
 Sweet pity, with the dew-drop always bright, 
 And ever trembling in misfortune's sight. 
 Where misery sighs, the angel plant wide spreads 
 Her lovely blossoms, and their treasures sheds. 
 Her presence cheers the secret mourner's gloom, 
 And Care's wan cheek resumes its long-lost bloom. 
 She lulls the fiends of pride and wrath to rest, 
 And bids the gentle feelings warm the breast: 
 Her influence awes the fierce and selfish mind, 
 And men see brethren in all human-kind. 
 When wealth obeys her impulse, and delights 
 To soothe the pangs which poverty excites, 
 Wealth then is virtue's handmaid, and its shrine; 
 And lifts the soul to dignity divine. 
 The female bosom where the graces roam 
 Is pity's native and most cherish' d home. 
 
28 
 
 There with the virtues she delights to dwell 6 , 
 And from man's surlier brow a smile compel. 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 1 The history of the Phenieians is the most curious part 
 of antiquity, but is, unfortunately, that portion with which 
 we are the least acquainted. From the few occasional 
 gleams which are scattered through the works of the ancients 
 concerning them, we can collect, that they spread their co- 
 lonies over the sea coasts both of Africa and Europe. They 
 and the Egyptians in some measure peopled and certainly 
 civilized Greece, the adjacent islands, and some parts of the 
 contiguous territory. But their object in these undertakings 
 was always trade. This led them to Greece, to Spain, and 
 to the British isles ; so that commerce has really been the 
 great civilizer of the world. The fullest picture of their com- 
 mercial eminence which antiquity has left us, is that of Eze- 
 kiel, in his 27th chapter. 
 
 2 No circumstance will impress a more lofty character 
 on the present age than its abolition of the slave trade f and 
 it is one of the most interesting recollections of Mr. Pitt's 
 character, that his impressive eloquence was so warmly ex- 
 erted to procure it. Africa is now fully intitled to our phi- 
 lanthropic attention, as we have done so much to injure her. 
 Some passages of Mr. Pitt's speech on this subject deserve to 
 be cited. «* The truth is, that we have stopped the natural 
 
29 
 
 progress of civilization there — we have cut off Africa from 
 the opportunity of improvement — we kept down that con- 
 tinent in a state of darkness, bondage, ignorance, and blood. 
 What do you yet know of its internal state ? You have car- 
 ried on a trade to that quarter of the globe from this civilized 
 and enlightened country ; but such a trade, that, instead of 
 diffusing either knowledge or wealth, it has been the check 
 to every laudable pursuit. Instead of any fair interchange of 
 commodities — instead of conveying to them from this highly- 
 favoured land any means of improvement, you carry with you 
 that noxious plant by which every thing is withered and blast- 
 ed ; under whose shade nothing that is useful or profitable to 
 Africa will ever flourish or take root. Long as that continent 
 has been known to navigators, the extreme line and boun- 
 daries of its coasts is all with which Europe is yet become 
 acquainted; while other countries, in the same parallel of 
 latitude, through a happier system of intercourse, have reap- 
 ed the blessings of a mutually beneficial commerce." — Mr. 
 Pitt's prospective view of the future improvements of Africa 
 was also well drawn. " We may live to behold the natives of 
 Africa engaged in the calm occupations of industry, in the 
 pursuits of a just and legitimate commerce. We may behold 
 the beams of science and philosophy breaking in upon their 
 land, which at some happy period, in still later times, may 
 blaze with full lustre; and joining their influence to that of 
 pure religion, may illuminate and invigorate the most distant 
 extremities of that immense continent. Then may we hope 
 that even Africa, though last of all the quarters of the globe, 
 shall enjoy at length, in the evening of her days, those bless- 
 
so 
 
 ings which have descended so plentifully upon us in a much 
 earlier period of the world. Then also will Europe, par- 
 ticipating in her improvement and prosperity, receive an am- 
 ple recompense for the tardy kindness of no longer hindering 
 that continent from extricating herself out of the darkness, 
 which, in other more fortunate regions, has been so much 
 more speedily dispelled. The great and happy change to be 
 expected in the state of her inhabitants is, of all the various 
 and important benefits of the abolition, in my estimation, in- 
 comparably the most extensive and important." 
 
 Mr. Pitt's Speeches, vol. ii. p. 20, 71, 82. 
 
 We add with pleasure the following proof that an honour- 
 able and useful commerce with Africa is already begun. " The 
 premium of a piece of plate valued at fifty guineas, proposed 
 by the African institution, for the greatest quantity of cotton, 
 the growth of the west coast of Africa, imported into this 
 country, has been adjudged to Messrs. J. and A. Anderson, 
 of Philpot-lane. The quantity imported by them was up- 
 wards of 10,000 pounds weight, and it sold for two shillings 
 and eight-pence a pound. This is not the only benefit we are 
 likely to derive from an increased attention to Africa." 
 
 Observer, 9th April, 1809* 
 
 3 In contemplating the present state of Africa, we can- 
 not avoid wishing that the ancient spirit of colonization was, 
 under judicious guidance, to arise in our own island. The 
 Greeks diffused themselves over Italy, and became the parents 
 of the Roman nations. The Carthaginians frequently sent off 
 a part of their superfluous population to colonize Spain and 
 the west coast of Africa. The Periplus of Hanno still re- 
 
31 
 
 maining, contains the account of one of their voyages for this 
 purpose. Our West India islands have been peopled by the 
 colonizing spirit of a few adventurers; and as a proof how 
 few may begin an important settlement, we may recollect, 
 that our establishment at Barbadoes was commenced by a co- 
 lony of only thirty adventurers. The successful attempt at 
 Sierra Leone will, it is hoped, be followed by others ; and 
 then English caravans may be seen penetrating into the 
 wealthy regions of the interior of Africa. If a caravan can 
 reach Tombuctoo from Morocco, though it had to traverse 
 the dreadful desert of Sahara, we may presume that English- 
 men may, at length, arrive at this celebrated city by the 
 course of the Niger. The hostility of some of the Moorish 
 tribes may interpose a while, an obstacle from which our 
 modest and lamented Park appears to have suffered. But a 
 gradual system of persevering trade will accomplish the de- 
 sired end. If we once accustom the natives in the vicinity of 
 our stations to feel the beneficial consequences of regular 
 traffic, the more distant tribes will become desirous to par- 
 take of its advantage, and thus our welcomed intercourse will 
 progressively extend. A regular habit of commercial inter- 
 course will become established; and then, but not till then, the 
 civilization of Africa will rapidly advance. Our island was 
 once as barbarous as Africa is now, and it will be a source of 
 everlasting fame to us if our exertions will enable Africa to 
 become what we are. Hear Mr. Pitt's admirable sentiments 
 on this subject. " We have long since emerged from bar- 
 barism—we have almost forgotten that we were once bar- 
 barians. We are now raised to a situation which exhibits a 
 
32 
 
 striking contrast to every circumstance by which a Roman 
 might have characterized us, and by which we now charac- 
 terize Africa. We were once as obscure among the nations 
 of the earth, as savage in our manners, as debased in our 
 morals, as degraded in our understanding, as these unhappy 
 Africans are at present. But in the lapse of a long series of 
 years, by a progression slow, and for a time almost imper- 
 ceptible, we have become rich in a variety of acquirements, 
 favoured above measure in the gifts of Providence, unrivalled 
 in commerce, pre-eminent in arts, foremost in the pursuits of 
 philosophy and science, and established in all the blessings of 
 civil society. But had other nations applied to Great Britain 
 the reasoning which some of our senators apply to Africa, ages 
 might have passed without our emerging from barbarism. And 
 we, who are now enjoying the blessings of British civili- 
 zation, of British laws, and British liberty, might at this hour 
 have been little superior, either in morals, knowledge, or re- 
 finement, to the rude inhabitants of the coast of Guinea." 
 
 Mr. Pitt's Speech, p. 81. 
 4 All the authentic accounts of the American society 
 unite to prove, that it is yet at a great distance from that 
 state of intellectual and moral cultivation which Great Britain 
 has attained; and it is not illiberal to notice its imperfec- 
 tions, because, when a rising nation is informed of these by 
 the criticism of its neighbours, it will more sedulously strug- 
 gle to remove them. It may be therefore mentioned, with- 
 out any evil feeling, that America as yet has very few phi- 
 losophers, gentlemen, poets, artists, or statesmen. Their 
 politics seem bitter party feelings toward other nations, as 
 
33 
 
 well as toward each other. Their oratory is chiefly violent 
 and abusive declamation. They have warm and active minds 
 and great capability, but their talents are very ill-educated 
 — they have the big phrases of honour without the sentiment : 
 they can dispute on ethics, but they do not display a correct 
 and steady sense of moral principle. Their religion is also 
 loose and vague, or narrow-minded and superstitious. They 
 are vain, irritable, and haughty, instead of being reasonable, 
 liberal, just, and magnanimous. They have no refinement of 
 taste, and not sufficient temper and steadiness for accurate 
 judgment. They have no real love for the arts or literature, 
 and therefore these delights of civilized society exist in Ame- 
 rica in a very languid and unprotected state. 
 
 This is, however, rather what America is than what she 
 will become. That she may produce the greatest characters 
 she has shewn in her Washington, whose merit appears every 
 day to have been greater the more we compare him with 
 other men. The nature of the American population is the 
 cause of her present imperfections. She has hitherto been 
 the asylum of the least prosperous, the most discontented, 
 and the most uncultivated part of the European population. 
 Promiscuous emigrations from all parts, and of all ages and 
 conditions; of the poor, the speculative, the changeable, and 
 the dissatisfied, having rapidly poured into her vast regions ; 
 the chaotic and discordant mixture has not yet had time to 
 settle into a fixed, a dignified, and an improveable national 
 character. 
 
 Time and reason, with the aid of Christianity, well un- 
 derstood, and liberally and morally practised, will, at last, 
 
34 
 
 produce this desirable blessing. Her best policy will be to 
 cultivate and encourage literature, and the arts and sciences, 
 and to keep her manners steady to the great duties of mo- 
 rality, with an enlightened and enlarged study of the 
 Christian system and its evidences. On this last point of 
 national improvement, the works of Dr. Paley, Dr. Jortin, 
 Dr. Blair, and the present Bishop of London, amid many 
 that might be mentioned, ought to be her favourite authors. 
 The education of her youth must also have a moral and an 
 intellectual as well as a commercial direction. It is fair to 
 add of America, that her progress hitherto has been wonder- 
 ful. May her future advances be as rapid, and may the 
 Ohio, the Missouri, the Mississippi, and the Potowrnack, 
 be soon adorned with a population as cultivated and im- 
 proving as the Thames or the Seine! 
 
 5 Among the evils of life it has been mentioned, that 
 many worthy parents have large families with narrow cir- 
 cumstances, while less deserving persons are flourishing and 
 without incumbrance. But the enlightened mind will always 
 satisfactorily recollect on this subject, that the general im- 
 provement of the human race is the prevailing object of the 
 divine economy of human life. It is therefore wise that 
 those persons should have large families, who, in all pro- 
 bability, will educate them well ; and the experience of ages 
 has shewn, that the intellectual and moral character is most 
 commonly better formed under the pressure of straightened 
 circumstances than in abundant prosperity. The strong arm 
 of necessity often supplies the want of firmness and judgment 
 in the parent, and keeps away those indulgences by which so 
 
35 
 
 many young minds are ruined : and life abounds with daily 
 instances which prove, that every worldly success is attain- 
 able by those who start from the lowest condition, if they 
 have active minds and firm undeviating moral habits. 
 
 There is another important reason why worthy parents 
 should have large families although not rich. The virtues 
 of the parents occasion the children to be on the whole well 
 educated either in mind or temper. Most parents can take 
 care of the formation of the childrens moral temper; and 
 as to their minds, nothing more is required in truth than to 
 teach them to read, and to encourage them to the habit of 
 reading; because, as the English language now contains all li- 
 terature and all science, whoever can read English has the 
 whole circle of knowledge within his reach. The children of 
 the less affluent may be therefore well educated by their 
 parents ; but it is probable that these children will be at first 
 pressed by their want of means into the subordinate depart- 
 ments of life. This occurrence is of inestimable advantage 
 to society, because the inferior situations of life are thereby 
 well filled, and society in its lower degrees becomes exceed- 
 ingly improved. This is of vast consequence, not only be- 
 cause the children of the better circles inevitably are for 
 many years under the influence and management of servants, 
 but also because the lower situations of human society, in 
 their various classes, comprise the immense majority of the 
 human population. Their improvement and welfare, as far as 
 it can be advanced, must, therefore, always be a favourite 
 object of the Supreme Ruler of the world. 
 
 6 This is the uniform experience of mankind in civiliz- 
 
36 
 
 ed life— the adventurous traveller, Ledyard, assured us of the 
 same truth in uncivilized society, when he declared, that 
 although his treatment from men was often harsh and hard- 
 hearted, yet, that in no part of the world did he ever address 
 a female in decent and friendly language without receiving a 
 kind and friendly answer. 
 
SECTION III. 
 
 SOME MODES OF ACQUIRING WEALTH. 
 
 Some tread the world with arrogance, and seize 
 The hard-earn'd harvests of another's ease : 
 Some yield their hearts to cruelty and fraud, 
 And prosper, but as misery spreads abroad. 
 How anxious most the generous blush to lose 
 Their candid feelings, and their modest views! 
 Some in gay, borrowed chariots, proudly flame, 
 And baiting seeming wealth, its substance claim. 
 And quacks, with eyes of Lynx and nerves of brass, 
 Rich, self- cried wonders, through the city pass \ 
 In transient state by credulous sufferers fed, 
 What numbers revel on another's bread ! 
 While men will trust, they live in costly strain, 
 Then break, on rival dupes to thrive again. 
 
38 
 
 Thus, knaves oft triumph with life's gayest prize* 
 While toiling honesty, heart-broken, dies. 
 And do not some assure the plunder'd heir, 
 Their office can " accommodate'* his care? 
 Nay, lest a prudent spouse should cramp his bride, 
 That " ladies are with secrecy supplied/' 
 But can we blame these individual schemes, 
 When ev'n the public has its gaming dreams? 
 When lotteries every month our hopes engage ; 
 Drain the domestic purse, our avarice gauge, 
 And feed the bankrupt's speculative rage. 
 Once to the shop confin'd, from boast half-shamed, 
 The tempter's hand-bills privately proclaim'd, 
 That " all the gold which in the window lies 
 Will, without risk, from a few shillings rise." 
 Now bolder grown, on coaches, waggons, carts, 
 At every hour they rouse our sordid hearts. 
 In every shape which cunning can devise, 
 The licensed mischief glares before our eyes. 
 So that should prudence whisper, " Be discreet," 
 Renewed temptations urge in every street a . 
 
39 
 
 Strange are the ways thro* which inventive man 
 Strives to pursue his gold- acquiring plan. 
 Some thro' the public news undaunted court 
 For wives, with fortune, to the town's disport : 
 Careless how fitted for the sweetest end 
 Of mortal life, if Plutus be the friend. 
 Some dare to ask protection from the rich, 
 If with a face sufficient to bewitch 3 . 
 Some feed corruption by the shameless tale ; 
 Or vice by loathsome poetry regale 4 . 
 Or taint the careless mind, in youth's first scene 
 Just blushing into life, with prints obscene. 
 
 OTHER FASHIONABLE SOURCES. 
 
 See, in the world, in this all-polish'd day, 
 How genius toils, the Proteus, for the gay ! 
 As if the Persian heralds still proclaim'd 
 Wealth to the man who some new pleasure fram'd; 
 
40 
 
 The streams of British gold all minds excite,, 
 In the same catering task to urge their flight. 
 
 Hence, fancy labours with fantastic art, 
 And new creations into being start. 
 Mechanic harlequins our mansions haunt, 
 And all our comforts in new fashions flaunt; 
 Our restless chairs for ever change their shape ; 
 Our sturdier tables from our rooms escape. 
 Our walls, grates, windows, all the spell obey ; 
 And novelty and whim maintain their sway. 
 
 From every moon fresh inspiration flies 5 
 And tractors, banks, balloons, and nostrums rise. 
 Phantasmagorias scare the shrinking eye 5 , 
 And mobs of groaning ghosts thro' novels fly. 
 What scores of ladies blot the love-sick page ! 
 What murderers stab ! what guilt-^ruck madmen rage ! 
 Lo! every school-girl architect can build, 
 Lone, haunted towers, in ghostly science skill'd ! 
 
41 
 
 And such the harvests reap'd from shrieking owls, 
 From hollow moans, from figures wrapt in cowls ; 
 From aisles and ruins where the blue flame roves, 
 From rooms deserted, dungeons, palls, and groves; 
 That ev'n philosophers our reason bless, 
 With these night- flitting phantoms of the press 6 ! 
 
 What plots ! what labours ! what fantastic means ! 
 By which impatient man his treasure gleans! 
 Hence some pursue a trade of dull debate, 
 And prose at wrangling clubs to save the state. 
 Have all forgot how British genius soar'd, 
 When Bull the bill-sticker his thunders roar'd; 
 While his fierce friend affecting candour's tones, 
 With bitterest rage in gentle accents moans 7 ? 
 Hence, chymic fluids to new-face the skin ; 
 Balsamic soap to soothe the angry chin; 
 Hence courteous violets exude their cream, 
 Lest dust should sully or the solar beam. 
 Hence star-taught dames prognosticate on life; 
 Clothes without seams, and operatic strife. 
 
42 
 
 Hence well-guilt pageants march for bankrupt 
 
 wit, 
 And music, shrining nonsense, charms the pit. 
 Hence plays half farce, half pantomime appear, 
 And Mother Goose comes hobbling in the rear ». 
 Nay, such the streams from epicures that roll, 
 Sauce-makers quarrel which th' invention stole. 
 
 The student may consume his midnight oil, 
 Nature's dark fabric to explore, like Boyle; 
 Or teach the epic amaranth to bloom, 
 Or weave the gayer flowers of fancy's loom; 
 Or build, from mouldering monuments, sublime, 
 The mausoleum of historic time ; 
 May till the morning star, half purblind, pore 
 Thro' the long labyrinths of ancient lore : 
 He may dissect the sophisms of the schools, 
 To arm his mind with truth-conducting rules: 
 But fortune's golden mines abound not here, 
 Tho' fame's seductive melodies may cheer. 
 
43 
 
 Far rather let him study fashion's toys, 
 Neat on the pointed toe the body poise 9; 
 The happy voice with roving cadence trill 10 ; 
 Strike with chromatic trick the tuneful quill : 
 Torture his voice and mimic pug's sweet smiles, 
 Squeak, bounce, grin, caper till applause beguiles - 7 
 Or stare, or start, or stalk, or swell, or shriek, 
 Till the rent air a raptur'd audience speak n : 
 Give some old nurse's stuff a Grecian name; 
 Great authors by vile forgeries defame 12 ; 
 Teach dogs across the floated stage to swim 13 ; 
 Rouse idiot wonder by some novel whim; 
 Get lords to act buffoons for public view ^, 
 Do any thing surprising bold and new; 
 Then every day his banker will attest 
 His growing worth in the replenished chest. 
 
 Are these the works of man, whose knowledge tow'rs 
 Thro' time resplendent with its godlike powers ? 
 Who rules his destin'd sphere with conquering might, 
 Monopolist of science, arts and right ? 
 
44 
 
 Who leaps the world of sense, and dares explore 
 Yon suns of night, and to their author soar? 
 Does he this rich, high-cultured mind unfold 
 To catch from luxury its dropping gold? 
 
 HAPPINESS NOT CONFINED TO WEALTH. 
 
 Why should we be the slaves of pining care ? 
 
 Dan'ae's showers reward not every prayer. 
 
 Why to capricious fortune should we bend, 
 
 Whose smiles uncertain, oft unbless'd, descend ? 
 
 Why should we traverse her perplexing roads, 
 
 As if they only led to blest abodes ? 
 
 Know, as an Iliad if by Ammon plac'd, 
 
 Within the Persian casket richly grac'd ; 
 
 Or if but cloth' d in parchments frugal guard, 
 
 Is still the Iliad of the Chian bard: 
 
 So happiness, the fairy of the mind, 
 
 Has never been to pomp or pride connVd; 
 
 She loves to roam, the universal sprite, 
 
 And every spot receives her cheering light, 
 
45 
 
 Within the negroes straw-capp'd hut she laughs; 
 And with 'Taheite's groups the Ava quaffs. 
 She sends the coarse joke round the peasant's cot; 
 She bids the slave to dance, his tasks forgot ; 
 She, musing, walks the academic groves; 
 And e'en with modest Park the Niger roves: 
 She leads the moth-wing'd fancies of the Muse ; 
 Sports in her rhimes, and gilds her radiant views. 
 Wealth may the elf with richer gems surround ; 
 But oft the pomp without the bliss is found. 
 
 MODERATE PURSUIT OF IT THE HAPPIEST, 
 
 The Muse nor counsels indolence, nor chides 
 
 When youth desires to sail on fortune's tides. 
 
 That man should toil ; that gain should be his meed. 
 
 In varying streams, by nature is decreed. 
 
 To few, she gives the privilege of ease: 
 
 To. all, the chance to reach wealth's mystic keys. 
 
46 
 
 If the coin d ore she makes the wond'rous spell, 
 That brings life's comforts to our humble dell ; 
 Let us with moderate hopes, and temper bland, 
 Pursue the toil of health her wants command. 
 That best physician of our earthly globe, 
 Wise Industry, gives health's enchanted robe : 
 It weeds insidious vices from our hearts; 
 The soul acquires new vigour in its marts : 
 Its culture animates the sluggish sense, 
 And pours around the stores of competence. 
 Yet let us shun all low degrading means, 
 By which, too eager Vice its harvest gleans; 
 Let us not kindle with unhallowed fire, 
 As the base fiends of avarice inspire. 
 For labours useful to the social world, 
 Be the gay sail-yards of our bark unfurl'd, 
 But let the golden mean and virtuous toil 
 Bound all our wishes free from wild turmoil ; 
 Then shall we gain life's best, but rarest balm, 
 Content, by temperance nursed and heav'nly calm. 
 
47 
 
 PHILANTHROPIC EMPLOYMENTS. 
 
 Be then industrious in some useful art; 
 If born to wealth, still choose an active part; 
 Let not voluptuous indolence consume 
 The strength of manhood or youth's lovely bloom ; 
 If rich with leisure, let your soaring mind 
 Delight to meliorate your suffering kind; 
 The groans of poverty diseased allay; 
 E'en to the guilty mind some balm convey. 
 Wheree'er you live your neighbourhood improve, 
 And from the untaught mind its night remove ; 
 Teach probity to keep its steadfast way, 
 And spread around religion's blissful ray. 
 What boon can you devise to give the poor, 
 Like her sweet hopes, which aid us to endure? 
 Kindly the little schools around pervade ; 
 Reward desert : the poor instructor aid ; 
 
48 
 
 Nor knowledge only urge ; your bounteous hand 
 
 The buds of infant virtue may expand. 
 
 The truth confess' d, tho' punishment impend, 
 
 Th' exerted kindness to a needy friend : 
 
 The sabbath spent at church, and harmless mirth, 
 
 And every token of mild honest worth. 
 
 These features may your little gifts educe, 
 
 And thus an upright peasantry produce: 
 
 The parents doom'd to labour all the day, 
 
 What education can their skill convey ? 
 
 Their race however nurs'd, however dear, 
 
 They must commit to accident to rear; 
 
 Their children, like the harvest of the fields, 
 
 They leave to be what casual habit yields. 
 
 Here then, each noble, philanthropic mind, 
 
 Become the guardian angel of mankind ! 
 
 Fulfil the wish of Providence, and save 
 
 Your humble brethren from their moral grave l5 . 
 
49 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 4 We do not presume to decide who are quacks and who 
 are not so ; but we may remark, that the composition and 
 sale of medicines appear to be among the most profitable 
 manufactures of British industry. If they were as successful 
 as they are numerous, disease ought to have vanished from 
 mankind, as there is no complaint which has not a new spe- 
 cific remedy that has never failed. Unfortunately, mankind 
 are suffering under their maladies as much as before, though 
 surrounded with all these certain remedies; and the only 
 difference seems to be, that the gentlemen who take so much 
 trouble to provide the means of euring every disease, rise 
 rapidly to affluence. We know the handsome incomes that 
 have been derived from vegetable balsams and vegetable 
 syrups, from antibilious pills, antileptic pills, solar tinctures, 
 nervous cordials, worm lozenges, and such like. 
 
 How abundantly propitious the balm of Gilead has been 
 to Dr. Solomon we may infer, from remarking, that in Mr. 
 Britton's Beauties of England and Wales, among the seats of 
 our nobility and gentry we have " Gilead House, seat of Dr. 
 Solomon." But while some gentlemen are so prosperous in 
 this peculiar path of life, others are less fortunate. The 
 late Dr. Graham having amused all ranks with his celestial 
 bed, attempted to edify them by standing naked up to his 
 
50 
 
 chin in the ground as an earth bath. This not recommending 
 him sufficiently, he gave lectures on the efficacy and economy 
 of wearing a waistcoat made of new cut turf, which we heard 
 him declare would support life and strength without the ex- 
 pence of victuals for a week or two, if occasionally changed. 
 He acquired the notoriety he wished, but not the fortune ; 
 probably if he had vended a new named medicine he would 
 have done better. 
 
 2 The increased activity of lottery offices may be pro- 
 perly objected to: every means which can solicit the semes 
 are put hourly in practice: this is wrong; our tendencies to 
 imprudence need no provocatives. 
 
 3 The peace of many families has, to our knowledge, 
 been ruined by the advertisements of shameless women soli- 
 citing loans of money from gentlemen, to whom it is avowed 
 that the gratitude of the borrower will be unbounded. The 
 virtue of many depends on the fortunate want of opportunity 
 to do wrong. These abominable invitations present the se- 
 cresy which silences the apprehensions of disgrace, and 
 preclude the useful ceremony of decorum? which is so often 
 a banner to vice. We fear the only constitutional remedy 
 rests in the moral sense of the newspaper proprietor, who 
 ought to consider himself as conscientiously responsible for 
 all advertisements which he inserts that have a flagitious 
 tendency, 
 
 4 The habit of writing loose novels and poetry has, in 
 our times, been attempted to be revived. The good sense 
 and virtue of the British public have happily made the base 
 and insidious practice discreditable and unprofitable. On 
 
51 
 
 this subject we consider the British nation to have the highest 
 obligations to Mr. Jeffery. When a volume of indecent 
 poetry was published, for which a bookseller was found to 
 give six or seven hundred pounds, it was beginning to have 
 a sale before its tendency was fully known; the Edinburgh 
 Review, with a spirit of correct taste and admirable moral 
 feelings, indignantly attacked it. The public bowed to the 
 timely admonition. The sale was not only checked, but 
 many of the purchasers returned their copies to the bookseller. 
 5 The optical delusions which constituted the phantas- 
 magoria of M. Philipstahl, were good commentaries on the 
 Armenian of Schiller, and on the alledged machinations of 
 the German illuminati. They explained the means by which 
 the impostors on the continent induced so many to believe 
 that they held converse with the invisible world, and could 
 summon the graves to give up their dead. The late king of 
 Prussia was a believer in these new Eleusinian mysteries. 
 The singular organization which the mysterious societies on 
 the continent were receiving may be seen in the Abb6 
 Barruel's fourth volume, and in the publications of Bryant 
 and others on the Avignon Society, of which a good account 
 is given in Espriella's Letters from England, vol. iii. 
 
 6 Mr. Walker and Mr. Lathom are conspicuous among 
 a crowd of ghost-making gentlemen and ladies, and to Mr. 
 Walker we certainly give the praise of much talent in these 
 compositions. The author of Edgar Huntley has also shewn 
 some ability in the mysterious and extravagant. The late 
 Mr. Hoi croft, in his anatomical room in Hugh Trevor, emu- 
 lated supernatural terrors as far as stern philosophy could do 
 so without blushing. 
 
52 
 
 Mr. Godwin, in his St. Leon, opened to us anew path to 
 the sublime of romance, by giving us a human being who 
 had the power of making himself immortal. Another writer 
 attempted new sublimity in morals, by founding his ro- 
 mance on an incestuous intercourse. What unexplored 
 sources of terror and pity the next generation will dig out 
 for us it is difficult to conceive. The Germans left very 
 little to do in the extravagant, and that little we have 
 already exhausted. 
 
 1 In London there are many people who want to get 
 rid of their time, as well as others who desire money. Among 
 the means provided for the employment of idle hours are 
 debating societies, which seem of late to be multiplying, 
 even under the obstacle of double price. Two of the most 
 distinguished speakers, many years ago, were those noticed 
 in the text. We believe Mr. Bull is lately dead: his friend 
 continues to enlighten the public. By long practice, a power 
 of speaking long and fluently is attained, which passes 
 for talent. These self-created orators are sometimes men 
 who were formed for better pursuits, but whose habits make 
 them float loose on society. The porter-pot is the solace 
 and the ruin of the larger number. 
 
 8 Our stage has borrowed so liberally from this vene- 
 rable companion of our nursery, that she ought, in future, to 
 be placed as near to Shakspeare in our libraries, as she has 
 been in our theatres. We first took her great hero, the ter- 
 rific Bluebeard ; and then as a contrast, her Sleeping Beauty 
 of the Wood ; and, we believe, that Little Red Ridinghood did 
 not long escape. These were found to be so dramatic and so 
 
53 
 
 productive, that violent hands were laid upon the old lady 
 herself, and both she and her goose were dragged upon the 
 stage, to the inexhaustible amusement of the British public of 
 the nineteenth century. Garrick himself could not have 
 been more attractive, for, it is said, that the pantomime of 
 Mother Goose brought the managers ten thousand pounds. 
 The only circumstance which embittered their pleasure was, 
 the mutiny of the goose itself. The animal happened to be 
 of the gigantic breed, and large enough to contain a little boy 
 in its capacious maw. The theatrical Tom Thumb, or his 
 friends, imputed the great success of the piece to the ad- 
 mirable acting of the goose itself, and therefore, after a few 
 nights, had the temerity to claim an increase of salary. The 
 manager took this in dudgeon, and put a new prompter into 
 the goose's belly : but, alas! he could not flap her wings, nor 
 bend her neck, nor open her mouth, nor walk to the side* 
 scene, with half the dexterity of his approved predeces- 
 sor. The refined taste of the audience perceived the differ- 
 ence, and clamoured for the return of their favourite goose. 
 The manager bowed to their judgment. The first goose was 
 re-instated in all his honours, and the piece ran on with in- 
 creasing celebrity. 
 
 9 The Vestris, once so celebrated for his power of spin- 
 ning round upon one leg, became afterwards a warrior, and 
 distinguished himself in the French armies during the tyranny 
 of the Convention. His son has now visited the Pactolus of 
 the opera-house, and is supposed to outdo his father in his 
 important art. 
 
 10 To recount the thousands gained by Catalani for her 
 
54 
 
 singing during the two last seasons, would be to repeat a tale 
 credible only from actual knowledge, if we did not recollect 
 that, from the days of Shakspeare to our own times, all spe- 
 cies of novelty have been liberally rewarded by the English 
 nation. Yet reason cannot but suggest, that the merit of a 
 happy voice ought not to be distinguished by such extra- 
 vagant munificence. 
 
 11 The interesting Letters of Espriella may be quoted on 
 our theatres. " All are agreed, that the drama itself has 
 woefully degenerated, though it is the only species of literary 
 labour which is well paid. They are agreed also as to the 
 cause of this degeneracy, attributing it to the prodigious size 
 of the theatres* The finer tones of passion cannot be dis- 
 criminated, nor the finer movements of the countenance per- 
 ceived from the front, hardly from the middle of the house. 
 Authors, therefore, substitute broad farce for genuine co- 
 medy; their jests are made intelligible by grimace, or by that 
 sort of mechanical wit which can be seen. Comedy is made 
 up of trick, and tragedy of processions, pageants, battles, 
 and explosions. Vol. i. p. 188. 
 
 12 The Pseudo-Shakspeare papers of Mr. Ireland form a 
 curious addition to the history of literary forgeries : almost 
 as singular was the publication of Mr. Chalmers' vindication 
 of them. It was written to prove that they were the genuine 
 productions of Shakspeare, and was nearly printed when the 
 author confessed the fraud. Mr. Chalmers, however, disliked 
 burning a literary child which had cost him some trouble, 
 and, in despite of the confession, published his vindication ! 
 *3 Poor Carlo's docility in snatching the image of the 
 
55- 
 
 child out of the water, and the admiration of the audience at 
 his exploit, will not be soon forgotten. 
 
 The drama in which he appeared was not a pantomime ! 
 
 J 4 The nobleman who acted Scaramouch for the amuse- 
 ment of the public, is now dead ; but if we recollect some late 
 marriages, we cannot but see that there is a remarkable and 
 reciprocal attraction between our modern nobility and the 
 stage. 
 
 *5 It has been much disputed whether the poor should 
 be educated. Yet we think that every one who values the 
 superior civilization and intellect of his country should be- 
 friend the education of all classes. To teach the poor to 
 read, is to give them the power of improving and consoling 
 themselves with the perusal of their Bible, and such books as 
 fall within their reach. It enables them to take advantage 
 of the opportunities which occur of raising their condition, 
 and to fill with more propriety those advanced stations to 
 which the incidents of life may casually lift them. Society 
 is in a perpetual rotation; from the better classes many are 
 always gliding down into the lowest, and from the lowest 
 others are always ascending among their superiors in this 
 country. It is therefore for the welfare of the whole that 
 intellectual cultivation should be diffused as widely as pos- 
 sible. 
 
 Civilized man is always more orderly and more easily 
 governed than the uncivilized : the more the mind is cul- 
 tivated, the more it values the peaceful pursuits of life ; it is less 
 likely to be influenced by the demagogue or the fanatic. The 
 most ignorant are always the most furious, the most ua- 
 
66 
 
 governable, and the most superstitious. The friends to the 
 establishment should, therefore, patronise Sunday schools, 
 and every plan for educating the poor : if they do not, others 
 will do it, and obtain all the honour and the influence which 
 follow, and which ought to follow from such useful conduct. 
 
SECTION IV. 
 
 THE VISIONS OF YOUTH. 
 
 W ho e'er thou art, young candidate for praise I 
 About to enter life's theatric frays; 
 Girded thy loins, thy taper burning bright ; 
 To run with speed, where hope's sweet dreams invite : 
 To join the general chase of wealth and fame, 
 And stand in honour's roll the foremost name ! 
 Ah ! little knowest thou, how thy eager heart 
 Will bleed with numerous wounds thro' life's wide mart. 
 Its walks seem rosy, and its temples blaze ; 
 Power, fortune, pleasure, dart a thousand rays. 
 The flattering idols court with smiling charms, 
 And seem approaching to our outstretch'd arms; 
 
39 
 
 But as we press to grasp, the visions fly, 
 
 And disappointment frowns with withering eye. 
 
 HUMAN HAPPINESS. 
 
 Oh, earthly bliss ! thou Sisyphean dream ! 
 
 How oft we vainly toil to catch thy beam ! 
 
 Thy phantoms beckon, anxious we pursue, 
 
 Till sudden darkness clouds our cheated view. 
 
 Why ever coy, thou cherub of our hope ? 
 
 Why from our panting bosoms thus elope ? 
 
 For thee have poets sang, and sages thought, 
 
 And every age new roads, new schemes has wrought 5 
 
 For thee have monarchs sigh'd, and heroes bled ; 
 
 Yet thou, lov'd Houri ! from their prayers hast fled. 
 
 As all my race, thy charms my soul beguile ; 
 Give me the talisman that wins thy smile ! 
 Oh! be thy radiance o'er my mansion shed! 
 That while the dreams of life, all mingling, wed 
 
59 
 
 The scenes of passion, reason, strife, and pain, 
 Thy angel presence may my peace sustain. 
 
 Vain wish ! the moving world, its fleeting crowds, 
 Mind ever restless, malady's pale shrouds, 
 Forbid perennial peace, or constant joys : 
 Change is the law of life, and bliss destroys. 
 
 A SEA VIEW, TAKEN FROM NATURE. 
 
 How beautiful the placid ocean gleams ! 
 So soft, so brilliant! quiet guides its streams. 
 Its dimpling waves with gentle murmurs glide, 
 And pleasure seems to sail on every tide. 
 See as the scattering clouds new scenes disclose, 
 With varying hues the moving mirror glows. 
 New beauties charm, when in the western verge 
 The throne of light seems pausing on the surge. 
 What endless lines of rippled radiance stream ! 
 What rocks of gold ! what glorious valleys beam ! 
 
60 
 
 With eyes delighted and expanding souls, [roIls r 
 
 We hail the gorgeous scene, and thought sublimely 
 
 But while we court repose, in sudden gusts 
 The rude wind struggling o'er th' horizon bursts. 
 Then peace, delight, and beauty, trembling fly, 
 And warring elements assault the sky. 
 Where pleasure smiled, destruction hoarsely roars; 
 The sea in ever-rolling mountains soars. 
 Tost in the whirlwind, terror rages fierce, 
 While shrieks of victims the wild tempest pierce. 
 
 VARIATIONS OF HUMAN LIFE, AND THEIR USE. 
 
 Such is our life, at times so mild, so gay, 
 We think misfortune but a preacher's lay, 
 So warm, so clear, our sunshine spreads around, 
 We do not hear the rising tempest's sound. 
 That we shall suffer seems a cynic's tale ; 
 What griefs, what evils can our peace assail? 
 
m 
 
 Others may tremble at. impending storms; 
 But what can shake the pile our prudence forms ? 
 Sudden — our edifice of hope and pride 
 Shakes to its centre, and its walls divide. 
 What unseen sorrows round the bosom wind ! 
 No shield of adamant the heart can find. 
 When misery calls her serpents to invade, 
 Wealth showers in vain; ev'n sceptres cannot aid. 
 The poor and great alike are helpless here, 
 Grief and disease, nor pomp, nor want revere. 
 They come uncalled, and fix their dismal sway, 
 And stern, the Lord of all, alone obey. 
 
 Then let us banish all our boyish schemes 
 Of peace unchequer'd, and such baby dreams ; 
 What Scipio, Plato, Socrates, and all 
 Whom we the pride of ancient nature call; 
 What they found life to be, let us expect 
 Great toils, great raptures, hope for ever check'd ; 
 And many darling schemes, unpitied, wreck'd. 
 
62 
 
 This course of fate which every age has wept, 
 Let us with manly constancy accept. 
 Life like our British climate frowns and smiles, 
 Unsettled, not malignant in her wiles. 
 Some wise and gracious order it obeys, 
 Diffusing blessings round from every phase: 
 And sacred is the lore that grief's dire clan 
 Are the kind monitors of erring man l . 
 
 Then never let despair, when woes distress, 
 With his alarms the weakened mind oppress* 
 Listen to hope ! and think her flattering lays 
 The prophet-harbingers of brighter days. 
 In life and nature many a threatening storm 
 Has passed, and ushered in joy's fairest form,, 
 Ev'n as I write, the heavens before my cot 
 Afford a lesson on our varying lot. 
 
63 
 
 A SUMMER EVENING SKY. 
 
 In dark, black masses roll'd, vast clouds o'erspread 
 
 The evening air; storm threatens, beauty's fled. 
 
 Still rise new columns, and divide to fly 
 
 In streams of gloom across the lurid sky. 
 
 How awful nature seems to frown around I 
 
 Shades, like approaching night, obscure the ground. 
 
 Yet as I gaze the gather' d mass breaks wide, 
 
 And loosen'd fleets of light-wing' d vapours glide. 
 
 Small spots of cheerful blue, like a soft vale 
 
 Amid surrounding rocks, the eye regale. 
 
 While in the west a golden range extends 
 
 In gentle ripples, as the sun descends. 
 
 The beauty spreads. New radiance bursts around; 
 
 And little isles, with glory edg'd, abound. 
 
 So oft the saddest scenes of mortal life 
 
 Change into bliss while yet we dread the strife. 
 
64 
 
 Ill-fate's a wild creation of the brain, 
 No cruel destinies our actions chain. 
 We are the children of all-gracious power; 
 His moral lesson is the chequer'd hour : 
 With patience, lovely guest ! oh, wait resign'd > 
 Our blessings vary to improve our mind. 
 But never throw away, tho' cowards shrink, 
 The great prerogative to breathe and think. 
 
 THE PURPOSE OF LIFE, 
 
 Oh, life! celestial blessing! lent mankind! 
 
 Thou beauteous image of th' eternal mind ! 
 
 In thy short interval of fleeting time, 
 
 What aims should we achieve ! what tasks sublime ! 
 
 Weak, puling, helpless, ignorant babes, we first 
 
 Thro* nature's precincts to existence burst. 
 
 Of morals, science, thought, and goodness void ; 
 
 As useless as the reptiles we deride. 
 
65 
 
 In life's short interval we have to rise 
 From nameless flesh to beings just and wise ; 
 Our insignificance of birth to cure ; 
 And virtue, knowledge, sentiment mature. 
 Thus moulding sensual matter into mind, 
 We die, the benefactors of mankind. 
 
 Think not, O man, the annual gifts of earth 
 Wave in our fields to feed voluptuous mirth; 
 But while the stores contribute to repair 
 Our fragile bodies with salubrious care, 
 Let the pure mind spread wide her boldest wing, 
 And eagle-eyed, soar to perfection's spring. 
 What fields appear of knowledge and of truth ! 
 To range them all needs everlasting youth. 
 Can man then want amusement or employ ? 
 Or can existence be a worthless toy? 
 
 To rear the new-born soul, to watch its growth, 
 To rouse the lethargy of moral sloth ; 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 To guide the will by wisdom's sacred plan, 
 
 To train the infant to the cultur'd man; 
 
 To roam thro' nature's ever varying maze, 
 
 And on the source of truth adoring gaze ; 
 
 The stores of knowledge to th' unlearn' d impart, 
 
 To place the gems of virtue in the heart; 
 
 To raise new harvests from the cultur'd mind, 
 
 By study ripen'd and by taste refin'd : 
 
 In these amusive duties life assumes 
 
 A godlike port; a grace that ever blooms 1 . 
 
 ON SUICIDE. 
 
 And yet what numbers seek the awful tomb* 
 Self-hurled, self-blasted, to death's mournful gloom ! 
 Each week what rebel souls blaspheming fly 
 From life's high trust, and its great Lord defy! 
 Since last the sabbath's sacred morn appeared, 
 Thrice has the suicidal hand been rear'd 2 . 
 
67 
 
 And not by ghastly want, or moaning pain, 
 
 No natural evils form'd the galling chain. 
 
 Man never courts his shroud for any woe 
 
 Which his Creator scatters here below. 
 
 Unblest ambition and luxurious pride, 
 
 Or wounded vanity with these allied ; 
 
 Were the false fiends that urg'd the madd'ning mind, 
 
 To be the scorn and horror of mankind. 
 
 Oh, Britain ! whose gay shores the gayest please, 
 Dear land of liberty, health, wealth, and ease ! 
 Whose children fraught with honour's liberal views, 
 Fulfil the noblest wishes of the muse ; 
 Active and happy ! so renown'd in fame 
 For every generous, brave, and manly aim : 
 Where every class to mental wealth aspires, 
 And every bosom feels the patriot's fires ; 
 Where beauty in good nature's dimples gay, 
 With smiling virtue cheers life's weariest day; 
 Why do these impious deaths so oft disgrace 
 The reason and the manhood of thy race? 
 
68 
 
 Sully not thus thy envied, hard-earn' d fame; 
 Nor let thy freedom wear this dastard's shame! 
 
 THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY. 
 
 Dear Liberty! thou first, last wish of man! 
 Since thought existed, or desire began. 
 Earliest idea of the opening mind ! 
 
 Instinctive sentiment of souls refin'd ! 
 Still let the virtues harbour in thy shade, 
 Without them, all thy glorious laurels fade ; 
 Without them, all thy energies but seem 
 A demon's mockery, or a madman's dream. 
 
 No spurious honour, no commercial plan, 
 Propels such ardent courage thro' the man 
 As Liberty excites. Her voice, her smile, 
 To fields of war, can ev'n the wise beguile. 
 When death in thunders bids his weapons fiy, 
 Men bless the wound, and fall without a sigh. 
 
69 
 
 The grave no more its awful gloom retains, 
 If her endanger'd banners shade the plains. 
 Enthusiast man with new-born ardour glows, 
 And hosts run wild with glory to repose. 
 Oh, sacred principle ! whose beams mature 
 Deeds so sublime, and energy so pure. 
 
 Long has her spirit made our favour' d isle 
 With valour, reason, arts, and virtue smile. 
 In ancient days, far richer than the fleece, 
 She charmed the regions of immortal Greece. 
 Alas, how fall'n ! where now the Attic fire ? 
 The Spartan firmness, and Ionia's lyre? 
 Dumb is that eloquence whose wond'rous flow, 
 High-cultur'd Athens! awed thy tyrant foe. 
 Fall'n are thy warriors ! fall'n thy pride of name ! 
 Fall'n is thy freedom, and with that thy fame ! 
 
 No more in marble breathes the sculptur'd life ; 
 No wizard artist paints the patriot strife; 
 
70 
 
 No Homer chants the battle's proud array; 
 No patriot heroes emulate the lay : 
 No sages moralize thy youthful hearts ; 
 No genius from thy tomb, reviving, starts. 
 In slavish ignorance thy myriads trail, 
 Hear of their sires and wonder at the tale: 
 Bask in the sun that warms their blood in vain, 
 Or crouch in fear before the turban'd train. 
 Oh ! till again thy sun of freedom rise, 
 And independence call to high emprize ; 
 No more thy children will awake the lyre, 
 Nor teach the world again to rival and admire. 
 
 EVILS OF ANARCHY AND LICENTIOUSNESS 
 
 But not that liberty my song acclaims, 
 
 Which comes with murd'rous arm and ruthless flames ; 
 
 Not that licentious demon of misrule, 
 
 The anarch's idol, but the tyrant's tool : 
 
71 
 
 Which deluged France with social blood and tears. 
 And o'er the world ambition's despot rears. 
 Call not this heartless spectre by the name, 
 Most dear to man, most sacred to his fame ; 
 To be as free as nature first made man, 
 When wild in woods the noble salvage ran, 
 Is to become the rival of the brute, 
 Who roams the desart, lord without dispute. 
 True freedom loves with virtue to combine, 
 And venerates religion's hallow'd shrine : 
 She plants the generous feelings in the breast; 
 And mercy lives her consecrated guest. 
 Each talent of the soul, with mightier powers, 
 By her inspired to genuine greatness towers. 
 She makes the chart of honour life's bright plan, 
 And all the social virtues grace the man. 
 
 Surely if from this earth she has not flown, 
 Britain may boast her ancient, noblest throne. 
 To social order wedded here she dwells, 
 And every heart with govern'd ardour swells. 
 
72 
 
 Long taught to cherish her imstain'd delights, 
 We hold our duties sacred as our rights. 
 Proud to obey th' impartial laws we boast, 
 Freedom and loyalty protect our coast : 
 Our comforts blighted by no tyrant's frown, 
 A generous zeal supports the patriot crown. 
 Hence tho* war's furious lord the world enchains, 
 And slaughter strides thro' Europe's sadden'd plains : 
 Tho' prostrate nations tremble at his name, 
 And nature moans while flattery wafts his fame : 
 Yet happy Britons dare his vengeful ire, 
 Safe in the dauntless soul which freedom can inspire. 
 
 HAPPINESS OF BRITAIN. 
 
 What feelings agitate the bounding heart 
 As o'er our favoured isle our glances dart ! 
 There Pan and Ceres reign, while Neptune guards ; 
 There comfort smiles around, and care discards. 
 
73 
 
 What waves of gold the sportive breezes bend ! 
 What fragrant piles the cheerful farms attend ! 
 What lordly parks with beauteous villas crown' d ! 
 How jocund labour laughs, while health and peace 
 abound! 
 
 Our towns, as population swells its tide, 
 New mansions spread, new streets and squares divide, 
 Here in delicious trance the arts repose, 
 With beauty, nature, taste, the canvas glows ; 
 Here science smooths her brow to placid smiles 3 , 
 And with great nature's wonders time beguiles; 
 Around the stores of learning feast the eye, 
 Pain lives amus'd, and grief forgets to sigh. 
 Here let me dwell at times and charm my mind. 
 Where courteous knowledge breathe a grace refin'd* 
 Oh, Britain ! nurse thy virtues with thy power, 
 And deathless laurels will thy fame embower. 
 
m 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 1 It is of importance to our happiness to form correct 
 notions of the economy of human life. The more justly we 
 comprehend the plan on which it seems to have been con- 
 stituted, we shall be enabled to pass through it with more 
 wisdom and advantage. 
 
 It appears then to us, to be intended to be a system of 
 education from the cradle to the grave. The mind at our 
 birth is mere capability and energy, void of knowledge, pos- 
 sessing great activity, but no self-government. It may be 
 educated, during life, to acquire every degree of virtue and 
 information, and it is perpetually making acquisitions, and 
 forming itself into habits both good and bad, till death ter- 
 minates its earthly career. Biography shews as well the ex- 
 cellencies to which it can attain, as the degradations to which 
 it can descend. Our parents and our tutors are our first in- 
 structors ; but as we advance into maturity, the events and 
 lessons of life become the instruments of our moral discipline. 
 We are subjected to the guidance of others for a certain pe- 
 riod when we are most docile, that we may gradually fall into 
 useful habits, and be in a great degree accustomed to the ex- 
 ercise of self-restraint, and learn the duties by which we ought 
 to regulate our actions before we are placed under the neces- 
 sity of acting for ourselves. Our life, from the beginning of 
 manhood to the grave, exhibits the history of our powers of 
 
75 
 
 self-government, of the improvements which we have ac- 
 quired, and of the principles of action by which we decide to 
 direct our conduct— in a word, it shews what sort of moral 
 and intelligent beings we have chosen to become, since we 
 possessed the power of acting as we pleased. If this be a 
 correct notion of human life, it becomes of importance, that 
 at every interval of leisure we pause awhile to consider what 
 sort of a being we have up to that period made ourselves. 
 Have we settled ourselves into moral habits; have we attained 
 that power of self-government, of directing our energies in 
 obedience to our duties, that if we were placed in a frameless 
 material and more agile than the one we now possess, we 
 should be sure of not misusing any superior powers ? If the 
 human intellect were invested with a frame more etherial, 
 more congenial with its activity than our encumbering body; 
 if, instead of moving with our present tardy pace, we could 
 dart from region to region with the rapidity of thought, and 
 could in all other respects execute our will with the celerity 
 and strength of our present powers of volition and resolution; 
 what mischievous creatures should we not be, unless we had 
 completely settled ourselves into the habits of using our then 
 tremendous powers, in strict and steady obedience to the rules 
 of justice and benevolence. If we permitted ourselves to be 
 as exciteable and impressible then as we are now; if we had 
 then as little self-government, and as imperfect mdral habits 
 as many of us have here; into what a chaos of disorder and 
 ruin should we not soon convert creation ? 
 
 But we hope that our next state of existence will be far 
 less grossly material than our present, We see, then, it is im- 
 
76 
 
 possible that we can be entrusted with a more immaterial 
 nature, unless we have completely educated and accustomed 
 ourselves in this life to use our enlarged powers exactly as 
 reason and duty shall suggest. 
 
 2 In the same week we had three remarkable suicides. 
 An eminent stockbroker, Mr. Goldsmid and Mr. Paul. The 
 first was the nearest resemblance of the character of Mr. Har- 
 rell, in Cecilia, that we have yet seen. He was distinguished 
 for living in the most fashionable style, exceeding even the 
 neighbouring nobility in the expence of his establishment, and 
 the number and splendour of his entertainments. The cause 
 c-f his self-destruction was the state of bankruptcy in w T hich 
 this profusion had involved his affairs. Mr. Goldsmid had 
 long been remarkable for the wealth he was yearly amassing, 
 and the consequence to which he had arisen. His suicide 
 occurred in the midst of unequalled prosperity. Mr. Paul had 
 long made himself notorious in the paths of political ambition. 
 He had attempted the impeachment of a noble Marquis 
 in the House of Commons ; he contended for the represent- 
 ation of Westminster; he challenged and wounded Sir 
 Francis Burdett; and finding all his ambitious hopes dis- 
 appointed, he rushed madly into the grave. 
 
 3 Nothing can be more interesting, nor in their con- 
 sequences more beneficial, than the Lectures and Institutions 
 with which London abounds. To use the phrase of our great 
 moralist, whatever withdraws us from the dominion of the 
 present, whatever takes us from the grosser enjoyments of our 
 senses, or the more frivolous pursuits of life, advances us in 
 the scale and dignity of rational beings. Scientific lectures 
 
77 
 
 not only amuse our leisure, but they enlarge and enrich our 
 understandings. They facilitate our entrance into study— 
 they accelerate our progress— they direct our attention to the 
 most important objects of inquiry; and their effect will be that 
 general cultivation of intellect, that universal acquisition of 
 knowledge, which will exalt the reputation of Britain in every 
 path of human emulation, far above all Greek and Roman 
 fame. 
 
SECTION V. 
 
 THE CHARMS OF MUSIC. 
 
 Amid the pleasures which mankind employ. 
 The heaven-born arts diffuse the purest joy; 
 And chief, with never-cloying magic bright, 
 Thy strains, enrapturing Music! most delight \ 
 How charming to repose in careless ease, 
 While the delicious lays, like gentle seas, 
 Flow soft and smooth, in gliding current round, 
 Wand'ring in devious harmony profound ! 
 Now the sweet notes, as in luxurious play, 
 Run with each other, dancing light and gay : 
 Now swelling brilliantly in bolder flight; 
 Now melting into softness and delight. 
 
79 
 
 How the soul thrills and trembles, while the strain 
 Mourns, as if sorrow bade the breeze complain ! 
 Mysterious feelings, as though griefs we dread 
 Hover'd around, a soothing sadness spread. 
 The welcome melancholy lulls the mind, 
 While the slow movement breathes a sense refin'd, 
 Till sudden changes bring joy's tripping lay, 
 And the lov'd dream of sorrow rolls away. 
 
 Oh, Music ! charm of intellectual life ! 
 How do thy melting tones assuage its strife ! 
 While thy adagios gently glide away, 
 What soft emotions in the bosom sway! 
 The tenderest sympathies begin to reign, 
 And Melancholy hears her own wild strain. 
 E'en if with words or meaning uncombin'd, 
 Thy melodies enchant all human kind : 
 But as thy grander harmonies arise, 
 The raptur'd soul is lifted to the skies: 
 Thus, when a Haydn thunders " there was light/' 
 Our startled souls confess the master's might a . 
 
so 
 
 HANDEL'S MESSIAH. 
 
 So when the natal chorus hymns the Son, 
 
 And in Isaiah's phrase the voices runj 
 
 As Handel's strains the mighty God proclaim \ 
 
 To my mind's eye the vision almost came. 
 
 Fancy, awe-struck, the wonderful ador'd ; 
 
 The Prince of Peace ; the everlasting Lord. 
 
 But what tremendous harmonies divine, 
 
 The noblest feelings of the heart combine ; 
 
 And lift the soul to heaven's imperial blaze, 
 
 When the full choirs the Hallelujahs raise; 
 
 When the Lord God Omnipotent is sung, 
 
 And Heaven's own voice seems rolling from the tongue : 
 
 What soft cherubic notes endear the tone, 
 
 Which marks " the kingdom of this world" his own ; 
 
 What sudden grandeur fills the lofty strain, 
 
 That he for everlasting time shall reign ! 
 
81 
 
 But as'" the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords," 
 Ascending swells in rich melodious chords; 
 Devotion, love, and feeling, overwhelm, 
 And raptured reason scarce maintains the helm *. 
 
 ON DEVOTION. 
 
 And is devotion frenzy? a wild dream? 
 An old wives whim? gaunt superstition's theme? 
 Speak ye who best can tell: ye noble few! 
 Whose hearts the rapturous feast of reason knew ; 
 When, prone before the world-protecting mind, 
 You blessed the great Redeemer of mankind : 
 Newton, Locke, Boyle ! our teachers and our fame ; 
 Whose deathless labours nations still acclaim : 
 And shall inferior thinkers, who obtain' d 
 From you the keys to all they since have gain'd^ 
 Reward their benefactors with the phrase, 
 That empty folly mark'd their pious ways? 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 Presuming prejudice forbear! Despise, 
 
 If so you list, religion's glorious prize. 
 
 But be not so intolerantly vain 
 
 To taunt as idiots those who court her reign 5 . 
 
 EXPLODED PREJUDICES. 
 
 Why cannot science be content to trace 
 The ignorant follies which confuse our race; 
 Without uprooting all that men revere; 
 All that to virtue and to mind is dear ? 
 Too oft wherever knowledge faintly beams-, 
 Weak-judging man is terrified with dreams. 
 That when the luminaries veil their rays, 
 As spring advances or the year decays; 
 Famine will blast the promise of the field ; 
 Or that dire plague its deadly breath will yield, 
 As other moons eclipse ; or that fierce war 
 The bleeding world will wage and yet abhor, 
 
83 
 
 Our fathers may have feared. And justly proud, 
 Our knowledge may disperse the dismal cloud. 
 To teach that rolling thro* the ambient skies 
 The moon must travel where our shadow flies; 
 And as we stop the beams which bless her globe, 
 That darkness will extend its gloomy robe; 
 Or as her crescent turns it new-born light, 
 If we glide thro' her shade ; lo ! sudden night. 
 The birds flit hasty to their straw- wove beds, 
 And stars appear, and dreary chilness spreads : 
 To spurn the frantic thought, that angry fate,, 
 Or senseless chance compels the varied state; 
 To show that science can correct, descry 
 The path of every orb that moves on high : 
 Thus to direct the philosophic mind 
 Is to improve and dignify mankind. 
 But why our godlike reason e'er misuse, 
 To justify the sceptic's cheerless views I 
 
84 
 
 THE PHANTOMS OF THE ROCK. 
 
 In Iceland's snows, and mid the northern race. 
 The phantoms of the rock once held their place; 
 Like us they pair'd, both want and plenty knew, 
 Laugh'd in enjoyment, wept when pleasure flew : 
 To death were fated, but their power was vast, 
 Their malice and revenge all bounds surpast. 
 Sometimes they mingled with our social fare, 
 And none dared question who the strangers were ; 
 They revelled as they pleased, when, lo ! the place 
 They filled, was vacancy — no sight could trace 
 Their rising or departure ; like a flame 
 They had been but were not; just so they came. 
 The northern sagas vouch the legend true; 
 This demon race their heroes often knew. 
 Turn to Rolf Krake's life. With grief-ful mind, 
 His father left the commerce of mankind. 
 
85 
 
 At night a groaning creature sued for aid, 
 In habit squalid, meagre, pale, dismay'd. 
 The king received her, and on earnest prayer, 
 She shared at large his hospitable care. 
 When morning dawn'd, a perfect beauty lay 
 All radiant by his side, elate and gay; 
 The wond'rous phantom was a rock-born fay n m 
 Such whims as these spring up in every clime : 
 Some we despise — some reverence as sublime. 
 
 RELIGION NOT CREDULITY. 
 
 All nations credulous and rude have been ; 
 In minds untaught thought bears a wildered mien, 
 Pagans or atheists, Christians, Turks, or Jews, 
 Have each their bigotry — their party views. 
 But how with these is pure religion join'd ? 
 With her they war as with the most refin'd. 
 Does she of fairies, fate, or dryads talk ? 
 Does she bid witches spell, or spectres stalk ? 
 
86 
 
 Do quacks or conjurors learn from her their fraud ? 
 Can she not live but ignorance spreads abroad ? 
 Oh, Milton, Johnson, Paley ! teach us now 
 This silliest dream of time to disavow. 
 
 REFLEXIONS OF MATURED LIFE. 
 
 Arriv'd at life's calm eve, I love to pause, 
 
 And meditate on nature's future laws. 
 
 Time's vast mysterious ocean lies before, 
 
 And I must soon its unknown waves explore. 
 
 Ere long my light must cease; 'tis now less bright; 
 
 Ev'n now a dimness marks approaching night. 
 
 Our fathers sleep. The world's successive streams 
 
 Of busy life, scarce live in memory's dreams. 
 
 And we must join them in the murky tomb — 
 
 Alas ! what scenes await us in its gloom ! 
 
 Tho' now with jocund merriment we trip, 
 
 Where reason smiles, or folly loves to skip ; 
 
 Yet the swift hours must pass. Perplexing thought! 
 
 And we must dare the bourn with terror fraught. 
 
1 
 
 87 
 
 Yon brilliant orb retires — but 'tis to rise, 
 And with new glory animate the skies. 
 Earth's verdant tribes decay — but 'tis to blow 
 With freshening beauty in the vernal glow. 
 Man only vanishes — in darkness lost, 
 Till this proud fabric shake — in ruin tost. 
 His only hope is meek religion's tale 5 
 That to new worlds the soul reviv'd may sail: 
 There gain the privilege to flourish, blest 
 In those unfading realms where angels rests. 
 
 The world's delights excite a welcome smile : 
 Sweet, modest beauty will our hearts beguile. 
 We court the magic wand of wealth, and task 
 The powers of art, and laugh in pleasure's mask. 
 But with the hour all these enjoyments cease, 
 Aud reason seeks a more continuing peace : 
 That peace which ev'n survives th* insatiate grave, 
 Religion only from its storms can save. 
 Then let me seek her awful Sire, and raise 
 To him the altar of adoring praise. 
 
88 
 
 Shrin d in her temple let the restless world 
 Roll as it may, by vice or folly whirl'd; 
 Safe in th' approving smiles of nature's Lord, 
 Be mine whatever fate he deigns t' award. 
 To him I'll live, in him prepare to die, 
 When all earth's golden hopes like meteors fly. 
 
 ABSURDITY OF SUPERSTITION, 
 
 Yet not the vain enthusiast has my praise, 
 Who pours such torrents of fanatic phrase; 
 Who loves to wield with wild promiscuous ire 
 The maddening terrors of damnation's fire. 
 Can such vague rashness wound my deaf 'ned ear r 
 Nor indignation glance a scornful sneer ? 
 Perhaps when infant reason first began 
 To rule the passions of the future man; 
 I may have trembled at the frightful tales, 
 And dreamt of cloven feet and fiery gaols. 
 
89 
 
 Perhaps a saucer-eye, or dragon's claw, 
 Subjected struggling will to duty's law. 
 But tho' these fiends and giants have beguird 
 Young fancy's ear, and awed a naughty child; 
 Why should such spectres still be rais'd to scare 
 The man matured, who needs more liberal fare ? 
 
 O'er childhood's sports imagination reigns, 
 Her wild amazement its light faults restrains ; 
 But as the fire of youth exalts the soul, 
 The ever-kindling passions need controul. 
 From these our actions slope their bolder way; 
 Passion prompts fancy, both the conduct sway. 
 
 Then why should teachers misapply the cure,, 
 And toil to frighten those they might allure ? 
 As infancy recedes, the moral strain 
 Should agitate the heartj not scare the brain. 
 In all her beauties let religion shine^ 
 Soften her brow, and smiles with tears combine. 
 
90 
 
 In youth the noble purpose warms the mind, 
 
 Chastened by sympathy, by love refin'd. 
 
 Let these the precept to the soul convey, 
 
 Till emulation kindle from the lay. 
 
 Subdue the rebel mind by pity's tear, 
 
 But rarely terrify with shrieking fear. 
 
 Bring not the terrors of the demon's hell, 
 
 To lash us to the maniac's hopeless cell. 
 
 This horrible conclusion of our doom, 
 
 Our private musings will at times assume : 
 
 But leave the dreadful chance for silent thought, 
 
 Nor thus in deaf 'ning rhapsodies be wrought. 
 
 The venerable fathers of our hope 
 
 Let not such jargon from their lips elope : 
 
 They strove by zealous wisdom to persuade 
 
 Their list'ning flocks to shun the fatal shade. 
 
 Then ne'er be piety from sense disjoin'd, 
 
 But with our purest reason live combin'd. 
 
91 
 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 1 Of the three sister arts of poetry, painting, and music, 
 -the last has this peculiar excellence, that it may be universally 
 acquired and exercised. An artist whom no one can know 
 without esteeming, and who to great powers of painting unites 
 distinguished talents as a poet, has published in a note to his 
 Rhymes on Art an ingenious comparison between the poet 
 and the painter. As his claim to our applause is equal in 
 either character, his opinion is disinterested, but he has not 
 satisfied us that the painter is superior to the poet* and we 
 think that some of his arguments would equally exalt the 
 rank of the great musical composer, who is also one of the 
 rarest productions of civilized society. But whatever be their 
 relative merit, they are the great delights of cultivated 
 life; while sensual pleasures gratify our bodily appetites, 
 the arts improve as well as interest the mind. Music is 
 peculiar^ addressed to the feelings, and even in its rudest 
 form exerts its magic power over them. Hence the extra- 
 vagant accounts of its effects in antiquity, and hence the 
 powerful impression of many national airs. Music attained 
 its utmost majesty under Handel; since his time, Haydn 
 and Mozart have united it with elegance, variety, and pathos. 
 Beethoven, who possesses much of the merit of his pre- 
 decessors, in his efforts after originality frequently makes it 
 
w 
 
 wild, fantastic, confused, and incomprehensible, but he 
 abounds with genius, 
 
 2 The fine effect in this part of Haydn's Creation, of 
 the sudden burst of harmony rising up, swelling out and 
 expanding all around like the new-born light starting into 
 existence, in the view of applauding angels, and diffusing 
 itself every-where, cannot be described. It is one of the 
 finest conceptions of the Creation. Of this oratorio it may 
 be observed, that it excels those of Handel in elegance and 
 taste, but cannot approach the Messiah in sublimity. The 
 chorus, introducing the new created world, is singularly 
 beautiful; and that of " the Heavens are telling the glory of 
 God," is admirable. 
 
 3 At the same time that we express the highest feeling of 
 the sublimity of Handel's Messiah, we think that Mozart's- 
 additions have greatly improved it, except in the two grand 
 chorusses mentioned in the text. It ought, therefore, to be 
 always performed with Mozart's elegant improvements, ex- 
 cept in these two chorusses. It is too uniform and too heavy, 
 as it is in the score of Handel. Mozart has given to many 
 parts great lightness and beauty. 
 
 4 The great use of sacred music is to excite and gratify 
 that devotional feeling which cultivated minds, that are 
 pleased with religion, love to indulge. Handel's oratorios 
 abound with airs and chorusses, which produce this effect in 
 a distinguished degree. " Angels ever bright and fair," " I 
 know that my Redeemer liveth," " He was despised and re- 
 jected of men,'' " What tho' I trace each herb and flower, " 
 " Where is this stupendous stranger?" " He shall feed his 
 
93 
 
 flock." " Holy, holy Lord," and " Farewell ye limpid springs," 
 abound with devotional feeling. Of his chorusses that have 
 the same tendency besides those above mentioned, we may 
 also notice, " Worthy is the Lamb," and " The Glory of the 
 Lord shall be revealed," and the grand opening of " The 
 Dettingen Te Deum." We may also mention with the 
 highest approbation for the same devotional effect, " The 
 Gloria in excelsis of Pergolesi," " Martin Luther's Hymn," 
 «' The Praise of God" of Haydn," the " Hear my Prayer" of 
 Kent, the " Hymn of Eve" of Arne, and the n Benedictus" 
 in the requiem of Mozart. The devotional taste abstracted 
 from all superstition and fanaticism, is a great addition to 
 the happiness of life. Every thing that is interesting to the 
 human heart is connected with it; and we know of no feelings 
 so pure, or so delightful, as those of grateful adoration, when 
 the mind bends with love and veneration to its bountiful 
 Creator. These have never arisen in our bosoms more power- 
 fully than at the oratorios of the theatre and private concerts, 
 when we have listened to the pieces we have noticed. 
 
 5 It is a favourite theme with the French philosophers, 
 and some of our own writers, to represent all persons attached 
 to religion as bigoted and weak-minded, or as artful, hypo- 
 critical, and knavish; that this is great prejudice equally il- 
 liberal and untrue, the following names of illustrious men, 
 who have sincerely believed Christianity, will evince. 
 
 Milton, Lord Burleigh, 
 
 Locke, Dr. Johnson, 
 
 Grotius, Sir William Jones, 
 
 Sir Isaac Newton, Addison, 
 
94 
 
 Boyle, Burke, 
 
 Bentley, Pitt, 
 
 Pascal, Lord Nelson, 
 
 Fenelon, Euler, 
 
 Gustavus Adolphus, General Washington, 
 
 Bacon, Lord Lyttleton. 
 
 6 These circumstances occurred at the great eclipse of 
 the sun in the beginning of the last century. 
 
 n These visionary beings appear in the northern lite- 
 rature, but have not been used in the works of imagination in 
 this country. An account of them may be seen in the Life of 
 Rolf Kraki, c. vii. p. 46. They are called the Saxicolae. Tor- 
 feres, in his Preface, after giving an extract from the account 
 of an " Icelandic Presbyter de Saxicolarum natura," very 
 gravely says, he might have believed their existence if his 
 friend had but shown how their bodies, cattle, and furniture 
 could be kept under the earth invisible, because the subter- 
 raneous places which were said to be their habitations had 
 been opened with spades, but no traces of any cavern or 
 residence had been found. 
 
 8 Some of the pleasures of religion are well stated in some 
 late ingenious " Essays on the Sources of the Pleasures 
 received from literary Compositions." 
 
 " But religion opens for our consolation happier pro- 
 spects, which give ample scope for the exertions of genius to 
 relieve and even delight affliction itself. Beyond the clouds 
 and storms that surround our present abode, we descry the 
 heavenly regions where the virtuous are called to their high 
 destination j where their time shall be diversified by employ- 
 
95 
 
 ments more honourable, more delightful, and varied than the 
 earth can afford; where the sphere of their existence shall be 
 enlarged by the development of new and unknown faculties, 
 far beyond what the change would be if the eyes of the blind 
 were opened to the beauties of the universe; where they shall 
 be admitted to the society of the immortal powers, in scenes 
 more glorious than nature has ever yet displayed in the fairest 
 arrangements and aspects of our lower world,'' Page 204, 
 
SECTION VI. 
 
 APOLOGY FOR POETRY. 
 
 But shall I toil for rhimes and measured phrase 
 
 In these disjointed and disastrous days ? 
 
 When martial terrors shake th' ensanguin'd earth, 
 
 And social prodigies have daily birth 1 . 
 
 Yes — for what path so harmless can I tread; 
 
 Peace may attend a rhyming hermit's bed. 
 
 To sigh for wild Valclusa's sacred shades*, 
 
 And secret converse with th' Aonian maids, 
 
 May soothe the mind that shuns alike the haunts 
 
 Where care corrodes, or light-wing'd pleasure flaunts. 
 
 Yes, ye blest shades ! whose intellect refin'd, 
 So oft the charms of heaven-born verse combin'd ; 
 
97 
 
 Whose deathless strains with melody sublime, 
 Still float harmonious thro' the storms of time; 
 Your consecrated lyres I love to hear, 
 And oft approach to touch with doubt and fear : 
 Forgive your secret votary who dares 
 Within your bowers to try unpolish'd airs. 
 Perhaps tho' rude the song, some notes may sound 
 Not quite discordant in your hallowed ground. 
 
 Once, when Dan Pindar's eagle genius flew, 
 Some little peace and credit poets knew. 
 Their lays enraptured Greece indulgent cheer'd, 
 And nations triumphed when a muse appear'd : 
 The useful verse the generous censors hail'd ; 
 Prais'd where it pleas'd, and pardon d when it faiPd. 
 
 Severer critics rule in modern days; 
 High beyond hope are hung the envied bays. 
 To quit the charmed ground, the dream disperse, 
 Nor make the folly public by the verse, 
 
 K 
 
98 
 
 Is the hafsh lesson of prudential care; 
 
 But how can bards the tempting rhime forbear? 
 
 When the sweet syrens warble in our ear, 
 
 Can songs so magical awaken fear ? 
 
 Where fancy places her seductive spell, 
 
 The mind will jingle and the verse will swell. 
 
 To woo the moral songstress of the mind, 
 To sound that lyre, so lov'd by taste refin'd; 
 To breathe the thought in music to the heart; 
 And fairy shapes to useful truths impart; 
 To marshal words in symphonies, which charm 
 Time's misanthropic ear and fate disarm, 
 Has prov'd the solace of the noblest souls; 
 Ev'n pale disease the tuneful lay controls. 
 Lo ! at the village feasts the bard of Greece 
 Pour'd his high strains, and sooth'd ev'n toil to 
 
 peace. 
 Tho' old and poor, to nature's scenes all blind, 
 What new creations issued from his mind ! 
 
99 
 
 Thoughts ever flowering! beauty ne'er to fade! 
 
 The forms of truth and taste with fancy's gems array'd. 
 
 If Greece, triumphant with superior fame, 
 For her old bards eternal wonder claim: 
 If every land the gladsome nine adore, 
 As vagrants shall they pine on Albion's shore ! 
 Forbid it, genius ! and forbid it, pride ! 
 The muse to every virtue is allied. 
 Then let the bard, with rhiming trifles gay, 
 Sail down the stream of time where millions play. 
 
 Come then, enchantress of the cultured mind! 
 And let my careless hours thine influence find. 
 All-soothing fancy ! with thy rainbow wings, 
 Be still my sylph and animate my strings. 
 So shall life glide away with softer course, 
 And reason find in thee a kind and safe resource. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 1 The present state of Europe is, indeed, portentous; 
 and, if Austria fails in her present contest, promises to man- 
 kind an age of desolation. Wars, unhappily for our social 
 comforts, have always abounded ; but the limited means of 
 the sovereigns or nations who waged them, have usually nar- 
 rowed their mischievous effects into small circles. Un- 
 fortunately for human peace, a man now predominates in 
 Europe, who, to an insatiable appetite for war, joins an un- 
 pitying sternness and fierceness of disposition with the most 
 unbounded means. No human being has ever shed so much 
 human blood, or personally produced and witnessed so many 
 fields of human slaughter as he has, and yet so hardened is his 
 heart to all the sympathies of our nature, that in his late 
 battles near Ratisbon, he calls it a most beautiful sight to see 
 200.000 human beings struggling to destroy each other — a 
 sentiment which cannot but recal to our minds the times of. 
 Danish ferocity, when Ttagnar Lodbrog declared, that the- 
 sight of a battle was pleasing to his heart, as when he seated 
 by him his blooming bride. The dreadful code of conscrip- ■ 
 tion which Bonaparte has established in his own dominions,' 
 and enforces for his own purpose in those of every other state 
 which he can overawe, gives him such a profusion of military 
 force, that he can triumph and desolate where he pleases. 
 
101 
 
 Nothing ever spread through Europe so much misery, or 
 menaces the world with more ruin than this tremendous 
 engine of unprincipled ambition. If Austria sinks beneath the 
 unequal conflict which she is now maintaining against him, and 
 in which he is assailing her not merely with his own forces, but 
 with those of all Germany likewise, no human obstacles wilt 
 remain to his sanguinary career, and mankind must bleed for; 
 years from the invasions and ravages of a restless, capricious, 
 and unrelenting despot. Yet even in this dark prospect of 
 immediate suffering some luminous points^ appear, which 
 seem to announce, that when this evil being has passed away 
 a bright and happy period is ordained to succeed. We can- 
 not as yet see far enough into the unborn events of time to 
 trace the outline of our future destiny, but many circum- 
 stances may even now be noticed which promise an issue 
 auspicious to our hopes. 
 
 2 Valclusa was the retreat of Petrarch, and is delight- 
 fully described in one of his letters. 
 
 3 Homer, in his hymn to Apollo, thus speaks of himself; 
 I give it in Mr. Blackwall's translation, from his interesting 
 inquiry into the life and writings of Homer. 
 
 u Hail, heavenly powers, whose praises I sing; let 
 " me also hope to be remembered in the ages to comer 
 " and when any one born of the tribes of men comes hither, a 
 " weary traveller, and inquires 'Who is the sweetest of the 
 " singing men that resort to your feasts, and whom you most 
 " delight to hear?' Then do you answer for me, ■ It is the 
 S( blind man that dwells in Chios; his songs excel all that can 
 
102 
 
 u e'er be sung/" p. 108. Mr. BlackwalPs remarks on the 
 Aoidos or Grecian bard, though somewhat too dilated, are 
 worth reading in his Eighth Section. 
 
 Poetry was in very high estimation in Greece. Even 
 Plato, who banished poetry from his republic, could yet say 
 that it was a beautiful enthusiasm, " when the love of the 
 €( muses seizes upon a soft and susceptible mind. It is then 
 " that it exalts the soul, and throwing it into ecstacies, 
 " makes it break forth in hymus and songs and other kinds 
 ** of poetry, and celebrate the high achievements of ancient 
 " times, and instruct the generations to come. 1, Plato in 
 Phaedro, ib. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
T.DAVISON, Whitefriars, 
 London. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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