DE NAVALI LAUDE BRITANNIÆ.

Successu si freta brevi, fatisque secundis,

Europæ sub pace vetet requiescere gentes,

Inque dies ruat ulteriús furialibus armis

Gallia, tota instans à sedibus eruere imis

Fundamenta, quibus cultæ Commercia vitæ

Firmant se subnixa;—tuisne, Britannia, regnis

Ecquid ab hoste times; dum te tua saxa tuentur,

Dum pelagus te vorticibus spumantibus ambit?

Tu medio stabilita mari, atque ingentibus undis

Cincta sedes; nec tu angusto, Vulcania tanquam

Trinacris, interclusa sinu; nec faucibus arctis

Septa freti brevis, impositisque coercita claustris.

Liberiora Tibi spatia, et porrecta sine ullo

Limite regna patent (quanto neque maxima quondam

Carthago, aut Phœnissa Tyros, ditissima tellus

Floruit imperio) confiniaque ultima mundi.

Ergone formidabis adhuc, ne se inferat olim,

Et campis impuné tuis superingruat hostis?

Usque adeone parúm est, quod laté litora cernas

Præruptisturrita jugis, protentaque longo

Circuitu, et tutos passim præbentia portus?

Præsertim australes ad aquas, Damnoniaque arva,

Aut ubi Vecta viret, secessusque insula fidos

Efficit objectu laterum; saxosave Dubris

Velivolum laté pelagus, camposque liquentes

Aeria, adversasque aspectat desuper oras.

Nec levibus sanè auguriis, aut omine nullo

Auguror hinc fore perpetuum per secula nomen:

Dum nautis tam firma tuis, tam prodiga vitæ

Pectora, inexpletâ succensa cupidine famæ,

Nec turpi flectenda metu; dum maxima quercus,

Majestate excelsa suâ, atque ingentibus umbris,

Erigitur, vasto nodosa atque aspera trunco;

Silvarum regina. Hæc formidabilis olim

Noctem inter mediam nimborum, hyemesque sonantes,

Ardua se attollit super æquora; quam neque fluctûs

Spumosi attenuat furor, aut violentia venti

Frangere, et in medio potis est disrumpere ponto.

Viribus his innixa, saloque accincta frementi,

Tu media inter bella sedes; ignara malorum,

Quæ tolerant obsessæ urbes, cúm jam hostica clausas

Fulminat ad portas acies, vallataque circúm

Castra locat, sævisque aditus circumsidet armis.

Talia sunt tibi perpetuæ fundamina famæ,

Ante alias diis cara, Britannia! Prælia cerno

Inclyta, perpetuos testes quid maxima victrix,

Quid possis preclara tuo, maris arbitra, ponto.

Hæc inter, sanctas æternâ laude calendas

Servandas recolo, quibus illa, immane minata

Gentibus excidium, totum grassata per orbem

Ausaque jam imperiis intactum amplectier æquor,

Illa odiis lymphata, et libertate recenti

Gallia, disjectam ferali funere classem

Indoluit devicta, et non reparabile vulnus.

Tempore quo instructas vidit longo ordine puppes

Rostratâ certare acie, et concurrere ad arma,

Ætheraque impulsu tremere, Uxantisque per undas

Lugubre lumen agi, atque rubentem fulgere fumum.

Cerno triumphatas acies, quo tempore Iberûm

Disjectos fastus, lacerisque aplustria velis

Horruit Oceanus:—quali formidine Gades

Intremere, ut fractâ classem se mole moventem

Hospitium petere, et portus videre relictos!

Quid referam, nobis quæ nuper adorea risit,

Te rursús superante, die quo decolor ibat

Sanguine Belgarum Rhenus, fluctusque minores

Volvebat, frustra indignans polluta cruore

Ostia, et Angliaco tremefactas fulmine rupes.

Cerno pias ædes procúl, et regalia quondam

Atria, cæruleis quæ preterlabitur undis

Velivolus Thamesis; materno ubi denique nautas

Excipis amplexu, virtus quoscumque virilis

Per pelagi impulerit discrimina, quælibet ausos

Pro Patriâ. Híc rude donantur, dulcique senescunt

Hospitio emeriti, placidâque quiete potiti

Vulnera præteritos jactant testantia casus.

Macte ideó decus Oceani! macte omne per ævum

Victrix, æquoreo stabilita Britannia regno!

Litoribusque tuis ne propugnacula tantúm

Præsidio fore, nec saxi munimina credas,

Nec tantúm quæ mille acies in utrumque parantur,

Aut patriam tutari, aut non superesse cadenti;

Invictæ quantúm metuenda tonitrua Classis,

Angliacæ Classis;—quæ majestate verendâ

Ultrix, inconcussa, diú dominabitur orbi,

Hostibus invidiosa tuis, et sæpe triumphis

Nobilitata novis, pelagi Regina subacti.

[TRANSLATION OF THE PRECEDING POEM.[^[303]]

By the late A. F. Westmacott, Esq.

Men of Learning,

If by chance the following little poem, on the naval glory of Britain, written a few years since, and very lately revised and corrected, please you, look in your nearest tablets for some private and secure place, where it may be placed to enjoy its good fortune. Should you confer on me this favour, I shall be bound to you by the obligation of your kindness.

Etonian.

ON THE NAVAL GLORY OF BRITAIN.

If buoy’d by short success and fav’ring chance,

Wide Europe’s peace-destroyer, restless France,

Each day still onward rush with fresh alarms,

And threaten ruin with her furious arms;

Ruin to all whereon is based the throne

That life’s sweet charities have made their own;

Fearest thou, Britain, for thy rock-girt realm,

With seas that foam around and whirlpools to o’erwhelm?

Still in the midst of ocean firmly placed,

Circled by mighty waves thy seat is based!

Not by a strait enclosed, as that fair soil

Where Fabled Vulcan plies his fiery toil;

Within no narrow bay thy waters roll,

No yawning gulf, no barrier rocks control.

Wider thy space, thy realm no limit knows,

Not Tyre so rich, not Tyrian Carthage rose.

Wilt thou yet fear, lest here the haughty foe,

Thy fields o’er-run, and still unpunished go!

Is it then nought to view th’ extended strand

O’er which stern crags like beetling turrets stand,

And countless ports in safe embrace expand?

Look to thy southern waves, to Devon’s fields,

Or where green Vectis [^[304]] trusty harbour yields,

Spreading her friendly arms; or Dover’s height

Looks on the sea with widespread canvas white,

And, perched on high, the liquid plain surveys,

And adverse cliffs that bound the wat’ry ways.

Not by vague augury, nor omen slight,

I view thy name through endless ages bright;

While thy firm crews still prodigal of life

Insatiate burn for fame and dare the strife.

No coward fear they know, while stands erect

The mighty oak with boughs umbrageous decked;

Majestic, high, with knotted trunk, the Queen

Of woods! Hereafter, o’er the waters seen

’Mid the dim midnight of the sounding storm

Aloft ’twill rear the terrors of its form;

In vain the roaring surges round it break,

In vain the winds their uncurbed vengeance wreak,

Throned on such pow’rs, surrounded by the sea,

The circling waves have scarce one fear for thee.

Thou know’st not ills that towns besieged await,

When hostile columns thunder at the gate;

Pitch their dread camp with fatal ramparts round,

And with fierce arms enclose the leaguered ground.

Such is to thee the base of lasting fame,

To Heav’n Britannia still the dearest name!

Gladly I view the glories of the fight,

Perpetual witnesses of deathless might,

To show, bright conqueress, nations yet to be,

What dared, what did the mistress of the sea.

’Mid these the day with praise eternal blest

Earns memory’s tribute most, when, direful pest,

Denouncing ruin to the world, while she

Dared grasp the sceptre of the unconquer’d sea,

Wild with new license, mad with hatred’s heat

France, grieved and humbled, viewed her ruined fleet!

Saw how all hopes one fatal wound could mar

When well-manned squadrons armed their prows for war!

When the sky trembled, and o’er Ushant’s tide

Red glared the smoke and sickly light supplied.

I see the conquered lines, what time proud Spain

With tattered sailcloths thickly strewed the main;

How Cadiz quailed when back the shattered fleet

Sought, in the port it left, a safe retreat.

Why should I tell what smile of Vict’ry beamed,

When Rhine’s fair wave with Belgic slaughter gleamed;

When humbled waters tow’rds the sea it sped,

Mad that its mouths with native blood were red,

While England’s thunders rolled above its rocky bed?

I see afar the domes that crown the tide,

Where Thames uncounted sails in triumph glide:

Here, the brave souls whom manly courage drove

Through the deep’s perils in a holy love

Of country, find in thy maternal breast

Their toil rewarded and their daring blest!

Dismissed at length from duty nobly done

They wane in quiet ’neath the noontide sun,

Recal the dangers of their byegone wars,

And boast appealing to their manhood’s scars.

On in thy race of glory, conqueress, on!

For every age thy sea-girt realm is won!

Think not the fortress which thy shores uprear,

Nor thy rock bulwarks shall inspire such fear,

Nor the brave thousands who obey thy call,

With thee to rise, or not survive thy fall,

As the dread thunders of that untamed host:

Thy fleet, Britannia, is thy proudest boast;

Awful, majestic, firm; its flag unfurl’d

Shall long wave lordly o’er the conquered world;

Hateful to foes for triumphs yet to be,

The rightful Sovereign of the subject sea.—Ed.]

No. XXXVI.[^[305]]

Monday, July 9, 1798.

We shall miss thee;

But yet thou shalt have freedom—

—So! to the Elements

Be free, and fare thou well.

—The Tempest.

We have now completed our Engagement with the Public. The Anti-Jacobin has been conducted to the close of the Session in strict conformity with the Principles upon which it was first undertaken.

Its reception with the Public has been highly favourable:—it certainly has been out of proportion to any merit which has appeared in the execution of the Work. This is not said in the mere cant of Authorship. We are sensible that much of our success has been owing to the improved state of the Public mind;—an improvement existing from other causes, and to which, if We have in any degree contributed, it has in return operated to our advantage, by a reaction more than equal to any impression which our exertions could have produced. There is, however, one species of merit to which We lay claim without hesitation:—We mean that of the Spirit and Principles upon which We have acted. That Spirit, We trust We shall leave behind us. The SPELL of Jacobin invulnerability is now broken.[^[306]]

We know from better authority than that of Camille Jordan, that one of our Daily Papers was, early in the French Revolution, purchased by France, and devoted to the dissemination of tenets, which, at the period to which We allude, seemed necessary to the success of the Ruling Party.

For some time matters went on swimmingly. The Editors of the favoured Prints divided their time and their attention between London and Paris; and the superiority of the governing Party in France, over its Opponents, was as duly, and as strenuously maintained in the English Papers, as in the “Journal du Père de Chène,”[^[307]] “Journal par L’Ami du Peuple,”[^[308]] or any other Journal that issued from the Presses of the Jacobin Society.

As the principles of the Revolution, however, acquired consistency in France, the struggle between the Governing Party and its Opponents became an object of less moment, and the Jacobins had leisure, as they long had had inclination, to turn their views to this Country.

A State, enjoying under a Government which they had proscribed as utterly incapable of producing either, as much freedom and happiness as comport with the nature of Man, was too bitter a satire on the decision of these new Solons, to be regarded with patience; and the pens which had been so industriously employed in celebrating the plunderers and perturbators of France, were now engaged in the benevolent design of recommending their principles, and their plans of ameliorating the condition of the human race by Atheism and Plunder, to the serious notice of the People of Great Britain.

Affairs seemed rapidly hastening to a crisis: France saw with delight the numbers seduced by the sophistry of her Writers, and by the alluring prospects of proscription and plunder; and her Agents, who snuffed the scent of blood like Vultures, already anticipated the Revolution which they now believed inevitable; when the Ministry, who had viewed the progress of the evil with an anxious but unterrified eye, roused themselves into unexampled energy, and called on the Nation to rally round the Constitution which they had received from their Forefathers.

The call was gloriously answered;—Thousands and tens of thousands sprung forth in its defence; and the barbarous hordes which so lately threatened its destruction, overawed by their numbers, shrunk from the contest without a struggle, and vanished from the field.

But the nature of a Jacobin is restless. His hatred of all subordination is unbounded, and his thirst of plunder and blood urgent and insatiable. In arms he found himself infinitely too weak to obtain his purpose; he must, therefore, have recourse again to artifice; and by fallacies and lies, endeavoured to subvert and betray the judgment of those he could not openly hope to subdue.

For this purpose, the Press was engaged, and almost monopolized in all its branches: Reviews, Registers, Monthly Magazines, and Morning and Evening Prints, sprung forth in abundance.

Of these last (the only Publications with which We have any immediate concern), it is not too much to say, that they have laboured in the cause of infamy, with a perseverance which no sense of shame could repress, and no dread of punishment overcome. The objects committed to their charge were multifarious. They were to revile all Religions, but particularly the Christian, whose DIVINE FOUNDER was to be blasphemously compared to Bacchus, and represented as equally ideal, or, if real, more bestial and besotted! They were to magnify the power of France, on all occasions; to deny her murders; to palliate her robberies; to suppress all mention of her miseries, and to hold her forth to the unenlightened Englishman as the mirror of justice, and truth, and generosity, and meekness, and humanity, and moderation, and tender forbearance:—and, on the other hand, they were to depreciate the spirit, and the courage, and the resources of England: they were to impede, if possible, and if not, to ridicule and revile, every measure which the honour, the prosperity, or the safety of the Country might imperiously require; they were to represent the Government as insidiously aiming to enslave the Nation, by every attempt to maintain its Independence; and the majority of both Houses, the great body of Proprietors, as anxious to scatter and confound that wealth, which their Patrons alone, the respectable sweepings of Craven-House, and the Crown and Anchor Tavern, were solicitous to augment and preserve.

These, our readers will allow, were no common objects, and if they have looked into the Morning Chronicle, Morning Post, and Courier Journals to which our attention has been chiefly directed, they must have seen that their attainment was sought by no common means; by an invariable course of Falsehood and Misrepresentation—such, at least, was our idea on the first perusal of these Papers, an idea which every succeeding one served to strengthen and confirm.

To detect and expose this Falsehood, and to correct this Misrepresentation, became at length an object of indispensable necessity: a variety of applications of the most malignant nature had obtained currency and credit, from the unblushing impudence with which they were first obtruded on the Public by the Agents of Sedition, and the apathy with which they were suffered to pass uncontradicted by those who despised them for their atrocity, or ridiculed them for their folly:—these were unfortunately operating on the less enlightened part of the Nation; and it was from a full conviction of the pernicious effects they were calculated to produce, that we finally determined to step forth (after patiently waiting to see whether the business would not be taken up by abler hands), and to oppose such antidotes to the evil, as a regard for truth, and a sincere love and veneration for the Constitution under which we have flourished for ages, could supply.

How we have succeeded must be left to the judgment of the Public. If we might venture, indeed, to conjecture from the support which we have experienced, the result would be flattering in an unusual degree. Three complete Editions of our Paper (a circumstance, we believe, as yet without a precedent) have been disposed of, and the demand for them still increases.

But the motives of Profit, as will readily, we believe, be granted to us, have little influence on our minds: we contemplate the extensive circulation of our Paper with pleasure, solely from the consideration of the VAST NUMBERS of our Countrymen whom we have fortified by our animadversions against the profligate attacks of the Agents of Sedition, whether furnished by the Whig Club, the Corresponding Society, or the Directory of France.

Calculation was not originally our delight. Nor was it till after we saw the wonderful effects which it produced in the pages of the Jacobinical Arithmeticians that we were tempted to adopt it. Our first Essay, however, was crowned with the most complete success. In our Seventh Number, we gave (still following the laudable example of the Jacobins, who, when a Ship is to be fitted out, or a Regiment raised, for the purpose of defending our Country from an insolent and barbarous foe, nicely calculate how many idle mouths might be fed by the sums required)—We gave, we say, as accurate a statement as we could form, of the number of People that might be supplied with wholesome food for one day, by the SURCHARGE levied on the Duke of Bedford—a statement which, we are happy to add, placed the matter in so clear a light that we have since had no occasion to repeat it.

Our Readers will not now be surprised if we again have recourse to Calculation to prove the advantages which (we love to flatter ourselves) have been derived from our Paper. Our Sale (to say nothing of the new Editions which have been disposed of) has regularly amounted to Two Thousand Five Hundred a week; on an average of several Papers, we find the Lies which have been detected to amount to six, and the Misrepresentations and Mistakes to an equal number. This furnishes a total of twelve, which, multiplied by thirty-five, the number of the last Anti-Jacobin, gives a total of four hundred and twenty.

If we now take the number of Subscribers (2500) and multiply them by seven, a number of which every one’s family may be reasonably supposed to consist, we shall have a product of 17,500; but as many of these have made a practice, which we highly approve, and cannot too earnestly recommend, of lending our Papers to their poorer Neighbours, We must make our addition to the sum which We evidently take too low at 32,500. We have thus an aggregate of 50,000 People, a most respectable minority of the Readers of the whole Kingdom, who have been put effectually on their guard, by our humble though earnest endeavours, against the artifices of the seditious, and the more open attacks of the profligate and abandoned Foes of their Constitution, their Country, and their God.

Further, if we multiply 50,000, the number of Readers, by 420, the exact number of Falsehoods detected—say 500—for We ought to take in bye-blows, and odd refutations in notes, &c.—the total of Twenty-five Millions will represent the aggregate of Falsehood which We have sent out of the World.

We have more than once repeated that we entered upon this part of our task, not from any vain hope of convincing the Writers themselves. We knew this to be impossible; the forehead of a Jacobin, like the shield of Ajax, is formed of seven bull-hides, and utterly incapable of any impression of shame or remorse—but we are convinced that we have rescued, as we stated above, Fifty Thousand persons from their machinations, and taught them not only a salutary distrust, but a contempt and disbelief, of every laboured article which appears in the Papers of this description.

Nor can We be accused of presumption in this declaration, when it is considered that the conviction on which We so confidently rely is not the effect of a solitary impression on our Readers’ minds, but of one four hundred and twenty times repeated (this being the fair amount of the number of Lies, &c., We have detected)—an agglomeration of impulse which no prejudice could resist and no preconceived partialities weaken or remove.

Here then We rest. We trust We have “done the State some service”;—We have driven the Jacobins from many strongholds to which they most tenaciously held.[^[309]] We have exposed their Principles, detected their Motives, weakened their Authority, and overthrown their Credit. We have shewn them in every instance, ignorant, and designing, and false, and wicked, and turbulent, and anarchical—various in their language, but united in their plans, and steadily pursuing through hatred and contempt, the destruction of their Country.

With this impression on the Minds of our Readers We take our leave of them. Their welfare is in their own hands; if they suffer the Jacobins to regain any of the influence of which We have deprived them, they will compromise their own Safety; but We shall be blameless—Liberavimus animas nostras.—We have done our DUTY.

POETRY.
New Morality.

From mental mists to purge a nation’s eyes;

To animate the weak, unite the wise;

To trace the deep infection that pervades

The crowded town, and taints the rural shades;

To mark how wide extends the mighty waste

O’er the fair realms of Science, Learning, Taste;

To drive and scatter all the brood of lies,

And chase the varying falsehood as it flies;

The long arrears of ridicule to pay,

To drag reluctant dulness back to day;

Much yet remains.—To you these themes belong,

Ye favoured sons of virtue and of song!

Say, is the field too narrow? are the times

Barren of folly, and devoid of crimes?

Yet, venial vices, in a milder age,

Could rouse the warmth of Pope’s satiric rage:

The doating miser, and the lavish heir,

The follies and the foibles of the fair,

Sir Job, Sir Balaam, and old Euclio’s thrift,

And Sappho’s diamonds with her dirty shift,

Blunt, Charteris, Hopkins,—meaner subjects fired

The keen-eyed Poet; while the Muse inspired

Her ardent child—entwining, as he sate,

His laurel’d chaplet with the thorns of hate.

But say,—indignant does the Muse retire,

Her shrine deserted, and extinct its fire?

No pious hand to feed the sacred flame,

No raptured soul a poet’s charge to claim?

Bethink thee, Gifford; when some future age

Shall trace the promise of thy playful page;—

“[^[310]]The hand which brushed a swarm of fools away

Should rouse to grasp a more reluctant prey!”—

Think then, will pleaded indolence excuse

The tame secession of thy languid Muse?

Ah! where is now that promise? why so long

Sleep the keen shafts of satire and of song?

Oh! come, with taste and virtue at thy side,

With ardent zeal inflamed, and patriot pride;

With keen poetic glance direct the blow,

And empty all thy quiver on the foe:—

No pause—no rest—till weltering on the ground

The poisonous hydra lies, and pierced with many a wound.

Thou too!—the nameless Bard,[^[311]]—whose honest zeal

For law, for morals, for the public weal,

Pours down impetuous on thy country’s foes

The stream of verse, and many-languaged prose;

Thou too! though oft thy ill-advised dislike

The guiltless head with random censure strike,—

Though quaint allusions, vague and undefined,

Play faintly round the ear, but mock the mind;—

Through the mix’d mass yet truth and learning shine,

And manly vigour stamps the nervous line;

And patriot warmth the generous rage inspires,

And wakes and points the desultory fires!

Yet more remain unknown:—for who can tell

What bashful genius, in some rural cell,

As year to year, and day succeeds to day,

In joyless leisure wastes his life away?

In him the flame of early fancy shone;

His genuine worth his old companions own;

In childhood and in youth their chief confess’d,

His master’s pride, his pattern to the rest.

Now, far aloof retiring from the strife

Of busy talents, and of active life,

As from the loop-holes of retreat he views

Our stage, verse, pamphlets, politics, and news,

He loathes the world,—or, with reflections sad,

Concludes it irrecoverably mad;

Of taste, of learning, morals, all bereft,

No hope, no prospect to redeem it left.

Awake! for shame! or e’er thy nobler sense

Sink in th’ oblivious pool of indolence!

Must wit be found alone on falsehood’s side,

Unknown to truth, to virtue unallied?

Arise! nor scorn thy country’s just alarms;

Wield in her cause thy long-neglected arms:

Of lofty satire pour th’ indignant strain,

Leagued with her friends, and ardent to maintain

’Gainst Learning’s, Virtue’s, Truth’s, Religion’s foes,

A kingdom’s safety, and the world’s repose.

If Vice appal thee,—if thou view with awe

Insults that brave, and crimes that ’scape the law;

Yet may the specious bastard brood, which claim

A spurious homage under Virtue’s name,

Sprung from that parent of ten thousand crimes,

The New Philosophy of modern times,—

Yet, these may rouse thee!—With unsparing hand,

Oh, lash the vile impostures from the land!

First, stern Philanthropy:—not she, who dries

The orphan’s tears, and wipes the widow’s eyes;

Not she, who sainted Charity her guide,

Of British bounty pours the annual tide:—

But French Philanthropy;—whose boundless mind

Glows with the general love of all mankind;—

Philanthropy,—beneath whose baneful sway

Each patriot passion sinks, and dies away.

Taught in her school to imbibe thy mawkish strain,

Condorcet, filtered through the dregs of Paine,

Each pert adept disowns a Briton’s part,

And plucks the name of England from his heart.

100

What! shall a name, a word, a sound, control

Th’ aspiring thought, and cramp th’ expansive soul?

Shall one half-peopled Island’s rocky round

A love, that glows for all creation, bound?

And social charities contract the plan

Framed for thy freedom, universal Man!

No—through th’ extended globe his feelings run

As broad and general as th’ unbounded sun!

No narrow bigot he;—his reason’d view

Thy interests, England, ranks with thine, Peru!

110

France at our doors, he sees no danger nigh,

But heaves for Turkey’s woes th’ impartial sigh;

A steady patriot of the world alone,

The friend of every country—but his own.

Next comes a gentler Virtue.—Ah! beware

Lest the harsh verse her shrinking softness scare.

Visit her not too roughly;—the warm sigh

Breathes on her lips;—the tear-drop gems her eye.

Sweet Sensibility, who dwells enshrined

In the fine foldings of the feeling mind;

120

With delicate Mimosa’s sense endued,

Who shrinks instinctive from a hand too rude;

Or, like the Anagallis, prescient flower,

Shuts her soft petals at the approaching shower.

Sweet child of sickly Fancy!—her of yore

From her loved France Rousseau to exile bore;

And, while ’midst lakes and mountains wild he ran,

Full of himself, and shunn’d the haunts of man,

Taught her o’er each lone vale and Alpine steep

To lisp the story of his wrongs, and weep;

130

Taught her to cherish still in either eye,

Of tender tears a plentiful supply,

And pour them in the brooks that babbled by;

Taught by nice scale to mete her feelings strong,

False by degrees, and exquisitely wrong;

For the crush’d beetle, first,—the widow’d dove,

And all the warbled sorrows of the grove;

Next for poor suff’ring Guilt; and last of all,

For parents, friends, a king and country’s fall.

Mark her fair votaries, prodigal of grief,

140

With cureless pangs, and woes that mock relief,

Droop in soft sorrow o’er a faded flower;

O’er a dead Jack-Ass pour the pearly shower;

But hear, unmoved, of Loire’s ensanguined flood,

Choked up with slain; of Lyons drenched in blood;

Of crimes that blot the age, the world, with shame,

Foul crimes, but sicklied o’er with Freedom’s name;

Altars and thrones subverted; social life

Trampled to earth,—the husband from the wife,

Parent from child, with ruthless fury torn,—

150

Of talents, honour, virtue, wit, forlorn,

In friendless exile,—of the wise and good

Staining the daily scaffold with their blood,—

Of savage cruelties, that scare the mind,

The rage of madness with hell’s lusts combined,—

Of hearts torn reeking from the mangled breast,—

They hear,—and hope that ALL IS FOR THE BEST.

Fond hope! but Justice sanctifies the prayer—

Justice! here, Satire, strike! ’twere sin to spare!

Not she in British Courts that takes her stand,

160

The dawdling balance dangling in her hand,

Adjusting punishments to fraud and vice,

With scrupulous quirks, and disquisition nice:

But firm, erect, with keen reverted glance,

Th’ avenging angel of regenerate France,

Who visits ancient sins on modern times,

And punishes the Pope for Cæsar’s crimes.[^[312]]

Such is the liberal Justice which presides

In these our days, and modern patriots guides;—

Justice, whose blood-stain’d book one sole decree,

170

One statute, fills—“the People shall be Free!”

Free! By what means?—by folly, madness, guilt,

By boundless rapines, blood in oceans spilt;

By confiscation, in whose sweeping toils

The poor man’s pittance with the rich man’s spoils,

Mix’d in one common mass, are swept away,

To glut the short-lived tyrant of the day;—

By laws, religion, morals, all o’erthrown:—

Rouse, then, ye sovereign people, claim your own:

The license that enthrals, the truth that blinds,

180

The wealth that starves you, and the power that grinds!

So Justice bids.—’Twas her enlighten’d doom,

Louis, thy holy head devoted to the tomb!

’Twas Justice claim’d, in that accurséd hour,

The fatal forfeit of too lenient power.

Mourn for the Man we may;—but for the King,—

Freedom, oh! Freedom’s such a charming thing!

“Much may be said on both sides.”—Hark! I hear

A well-known voice that murmurs in my ear,—

The voice of Candour.—Hail! most solemn sage,

190

Thou drivelling virtue of this moral age,

Candour, which softens party’s headlong rage.

Candour,—which spares its foes;—nor e’er descends

With bigot zeal to combat for its friends.

Candour,—which loves in see-saw strain to tell

Of acting foolishly, but meaning well;

Too nice to praise by wholesale, or to blame,

Convinced that all men’s motives are the same;

And finds, with keen discriminating sight,

Black’s not so black;—nor White so very white.

200

“Fox, to be sure, was vehement and wrong:

But then, Pitt’s words, you’ll own, were rather strong.

Both must be blamed, both pardon’d; ’twas just so

With Fox and Pitt full forty years ago!

So Walpole, Pulteney;—factions in all times

Have had their follies, ministers their crimes.”

Give me th’ avow’d, th’ erect, the manly foe,

Bold I can meet—perhaps may turn his blow;

But of all plagues, good Heav’n, thy wrath can send,

Save, save, oh! save me from the Candid Friend!

210

“Barras loves plunder, Merlin takes a bribe,—

What then!—shall Candour these good men proscribe?

No! ere we join the loud-accusing throng,

Prove,—not the facts,—but, that they thought them wrong.

“Why hang O’Quigley?—he, misguided man,

In sober thought his country’s weal might plan:

And, while his deep-wrought Treason sapp’d the throne,

Might act from taste in morals, all his own.”

Peace to such Reasoners! let them have their way;

Shut their dull eyes against the blaze of day;

220

Priestley’s a Saint, and Stone a Patriot still;

And La Fayette a Hero, if they will.

I love the bold uncompromising mind,

Whose principles are fix’d, whose views defined;

Who scouts and scorns, in canting Candour’s spite,

All taste in morals, innate sense of right,

And Nature’s impulse, all uncheck’d by art,

And feelings fine, that float about the heart:

Content, for good men’s guidance, bad men’s awe,

On moral truth to rest, and Gospel law.

230

Who owns, when Traitors feel th’ avenging rod,

Just retribution, and the hand of God;

Who hears the groans through Olmütz’ roofs that ring,

Of him who mock’d, misled, betray’d his King—

Hears unappall’d, though Faction’s zealots preach,

Unmov’d, unsoften’d by Fitzpatrick’s Speech.[^[313]]

That Speech on which the melting Commons hung,

“While truths divine came mended from his tongue”;

How loving husband clings to duteous wife,—

How pure Religion soothes the ills of life,—

240

How Popish ladies trust their pious fears

And naughty actions in their chaplains’ ears.—

Half novel and half sermon, on it flow’d;

With pious zeal the Opposition glow’d;

And as o’er each the soft infection crept,

Sigh’d as he whin’d, and as he whimper’d, wept;—

E’en Curwen [^[314]] dropt a sentimental tear,

And stout St. Andrew yelp’d a softer “Hear!”

· · · · ·

Oh! nurse of crimes and fashions! which in vain

Our colder servile spirits would attain,

250

How do we ape thee, France! but, blundering still,

Disgrace the pattern by our want of skill.

The borrow’d step our awkward gait reveals:

(As clumsy Courtenay [^[315]] mars the verse he steals.)

How do we ape thee, France!—nor claim alone

Thy arts, thy tastes, thy morals, for our own,

260

But to thy Worthies render homage due,

Their [^[316]] “hair-breadth scapes” with anxious interest view;

Statesmen and Heroines whom this age adores,

Though plainer times would call them Rogues and Whores.

260

See Louvet, patriot, pamphleteer, and sage,

Tempering with amorous fire his virtuous rage.

Form’d for all tasks, his various talents see,

The luscious Novel, the severe Decree.

Then mark him welt’ring in his nasty sty,

Bare his lewd transports to the public eye.

Not his the love in silent groves that strays,

Quits the rude world, and shuns the vulgar gaze.

In Lodoiska’s full possession blest,

One craving void still aches within his breast;

270

Plunged in the filth and fondness of her arms,

Not to himself alone he stints her charms;

Clasp’d in each other’s foul embrace they lie,

But know no joy, unless the World stands by.

The fool of vanity, for her alone

He lives, loves, writes, and dies but to be known.

His widow’d mourner flies to poison’s aid,

Eager to join her Louvet’s parted shade

In those bright realms where sainted lovers stray,

But harsh emetics tear that hope away.[^[317]]

280

Yet hapless Louvet! where thy bones are laid,

The easy nymphs shall consecrate the shade.[^[318]]

There in the laughing morn of genial spring,

Unwedded pairs shall tender couplets sing;

Eringoes o’er the hallow’d spot shall bloom,

And flies of Spain buzz softly round the tomb.[^[319]]

But hold, severer virtue claims the Muse—

Roland the just, with ribands in his shoes—[^[320]]

And Roland’s spouse, who paints with chaste delight

The doubtful conflict of her nuptial night;—

290

Her virgin charms what fierce attacks assail’d,

And how the rigid Minister [^[321]] prevail’d.

And ah! what verse can grace thy stately mien,

Guide of the world, preferment’s golden queen,

Neckar’s fair daughter,—Stael the Epicene!

Bright o’er whose flaming cheek and pumple [^[322]] nose

The bloom of young desire unceasing glows!

Fain would the Muse—but ah! she dares no more,

A mournful voice from lone Guyana’s shore,[^[323]]

Sad Quatremer-the bold presumption checks,

300

Forbid to question thy ambiguous sex.

To thee, proud Barras bows;—thy charms control

Rewbell’s brute rage, and Merlin’s subtle soul;

Rais’d by thy hands, and fashion’d to thy will,

Thy power, thy guiding influence, governs still,

Where at the blood-stain’d board expert he plies,

The lame artificer of fraud and lies;

He with the mitred head and cloven heel;—

Doom’d the coarse edge of Rewbell’s jests to feel;[^[324]]

To stand the playful buffet, and to hear

310

The frequent ink-stand whizzing past his ear;

While all the five Directors laugh to see

“The limping priest so deft at his new ministry”.[^[325]]

Last of th’ anointed Five behold, and least,

The Directorial Lama, Sovereign Priest,—

Lepaux;—whom atheists worship;—at whose nod

Bow their meek heads the Men without a God.[^[326]]

Ere long, perhaps, to this astonish’d isle,

Fresh from the shores of subjugated Nile,

Shall Buonaparte’s victor fleet protect

320

The genuine Theo-Philanthropic sect,—

The sect of Marat, Mirabeau, Voltaire,—

Led by their Pontiff, good La Réveillère.

Rejoiced our Clubs shall greet him, and install

The holy Hunchback in thy dome, St. Paul!

While countless votaries, thronging in his train,

Wave their red caps, and hymn this jocund strain:—

“Couriers and Stars, Sedition’s evening host,

Thou Morning Chronicle and Morning Post,

Whether ye make the Rights of Man your theme,

330

Your country libel, and your God blaspheme,

Or dirt on private worth and virtue throw,

Still, blasphemous or blackguard, praise Lepaux!

“And ye five other wandering bards, that move

In sweet accord of harmony and love,

Coleridge and Southey, Lloyd, and Lamb & Co.

Tune all your mystic harps to praise Lepaux!

“Priestley and Wakefield, humble, holy men,

Give praises to his name with tongue and pen!

“Thelwall, and ye that lecture as ye go,

340

And for your pains get pelted, praise Lepaux!

“Praise him each Jacobin, or Fool, or Knave,

And your cropp’d heads in sign of worship wave!

“All creeping creatures, venomous and low,

Paine, Williams, Godwin, Holcroft, praise Lepaux!

“—— and —— with —— join’d,[^[327]]

And every other beast after his kind.

“And thou, Leviathan! on ocean’s brim

Hugest of living things that sleep and swim;

Thou, in whose nose, by Burke’s gigantic hand

350

The hook was fixed to drag thee to the land,

With ——, ——, and ——, in thy train,

And —— wallowing in the yeasty main,—[^[328]]

Still as ye snort, and puff, and spout, and blow,

In puffing, and in spouting, praise Lepaux!”

· · · · ·

Britain, beware; nor let th’ insidious foe,

Of force despairing, aim a deadlier blow;

Thy Peace, thy Strength, with devilish wiles assail,

And when her Arms are vain, by Arts prevail.

True, thou art rich, art powerful!—thro’ thine Isle

360

Industrious skill, contented labour, smile;

Far Seas are studded with thy countless sails;

What wind but wafts them, and what shore but hails!

True, thou art brave!—o’er all the busy land

In patriot ranks embattled myriads stand;

Thy foes behold with impotent amaze

And drop the lifted weapon as they gaze

But what avails to guard each outward part,

If subtlest poison, circling at thy heart,

Spite of thy courage, of thy pow’r, and wealth,

370

Mine the sound fabric of thy vital health?

So thine own Oak, by some fair streamlet’s side,

Waves its broad arms, and spreads its leafy pride,

Tow’rs from the earth, and rearing to the skies

Its conscious strength, the tempest’s wrath defies.

Its ample branches shield the fowls of air,

To its cool shade the panting herds repair.

The treacherous current works its noiseless way,

The fibres loosen, and the roots decay;

Prostrate the beauteous ruin lies; and all

380

That shared its shelter, perish in its fall.

O thou! lamented Sage! whose prescient scan

Pierc’d through foul Anarchy’s gigantic plan,

Prompt to incredulous hearers to disclose

The guilt of France, and Europe’s world of woes;—

Thou, on whose name each distant age shall gaze,

The mighty sea-mark of these troubled days!

O large of soul, of genius unconfin’d,

Born to delight, instruct, and mend mankind!

Burke! in whose breast a Roman ardour glow’d;

390

Whose copious tongue with Grecian richness flow’d;

Well hast thou found (if such thy country’s doom),

A timely refuge in the sheltering tomb!

As, in far realms, where eastern kings are laid,

In pomp of death, beneath the cypress shade,

The perfum’d lamp with unextinguish’d light

Flames through the vault, and cheers the gloom of night:

So, mighty Burke! in thy sepulchral urn,

To Fancy’s view, the lamp of Truth shall burn.

Thither late times shall turn their reverent eyes,

400

Led by thy light, and by thy wisdom wise.

There are, to whom (their taste such pleasures cloy)

No light thy wisdom yields, thy wit no joy.

Peace to their heavy heads, and callous hearts,

Peace—such as sloth, as ignorance imparts!

Pleas’d may they live to plan their country’s good,

And crop with calm content their flow’ry food!

What though thy venturous spirit loved to urge

The labouring theme to Reason’s utmost verge,

Kindling and mounting from th’ enraptur’d sight;

410

Still anxious wonder watch’d thy daring flight!

While vulgar minds, with mean malignant stare,

Gazed up, the triumph of thy fall to share!

Poor triumph! price of that extorted praise,

Which still to daring Genius Envy pays.

Oh! for thy playful smile, thy potent frown,

To abash bold Vice, and laugh pert Folly down!

So should the Muse, in Humour’s happiest vein,

With verse that flowed in metaphoric strain,

And apt allusions to the rural trade,

420

Tell of what wood young Jacobins are made;

How the skill’d gardener grafts with nicest rule

The slip of coxcomb on the stock of fool;

Forth in bright blossom bursts the tender sprig,

A thing to wonder at—[^[329]] perhaps a Whig:

Should tell, how wise each half-fledged pedant prates

Of weightiest matters, grave distinctions states,

That rules of policy, and public good,

In Saxon times were rightly understood;

That kings are proper, may be useful things,

430

But then, some gentlemen object to kings;

That in all times the minister’s to blame;

That British liberty’s an empty name,

Till each fair burgh, numerically free,

Shall choose its members by the Rule of Three.

So should the Muse, with verse in thunder clothed,

Proclaim the crimes by God and Nature loathed.

Which—when fell poison revels in the veins—

(That poison fell, which frantic Gallia drains

From the crude fruit of Freedom’s blasted tree)

440

Blot the fair records of Humanity.

To feebler nations let proud France afford

Her damning choice,—the chalice or the sword,

To drink or die;—O fraud! O specious lie!

Delusive choice! for if they drink, they die.

The Sword we dread not:—of ourselves secure,

Firm were our strength, our peace and freedom sure.

Let all the world confederate all its powers,

“Be they not backed by those that should be ours,”

High on his rock shall Britain’s Genius stand,

450

Scatter the crowded hosts, and vindicate the land.

Guard we but our own Hearts: with constant view

To ancient morals, ancient manners true;

True to the manlier virtues, such as nerv’d

Our fathers’ breasts, and this proud Isle preserv’d

For many a rugged age: and scorn the while

Each philosophic atheist’s specious guile;

The soft seductions, the refinements nice,

Of gay Morality, and easy Vice;

So shall we brave the storm; our ’stablish’d pow’r

Thy refuge, Europe, in some happier hour.

461

But, French in heart, though Victory crown our brow,

Low at our feet though prostrate Nations bow,

Wealth gild our Cities, Commerce crowd our shore,

London may shine, but England is NO MORE!