STROPHE III.
But lo! yon bark, that rich with India spoils,
O’er the wide-swilling ocean rides triumphant,
Oh! to BRITANNIA’s shore
In safety waft, ye winds, the precious freight!
’Tis HASTINGS; of the prostrate EAST
Despotic arbiter; whose [8] bounty gave
My MARKHAM’s delegated rule
To riot in the plunder of BENARES.
ANTISTROPHE III.
How yet affrighted GANGES, oft distain’d
With GENTOO carnage, quakes thro’ all his branches!
Soon may I greet the morn,
When, HASTINGS screen’d, DUNDAS and GEORGE’s name.
Thro’ BISHOPTHORP’s[9] glad roofs shall sound,
Familiar in domestic merriment;
Or in thy chosen PLACE, ST. JAMES,
Be carol’d loud amid th’ applauding IMHOFFS!
EPODE III.
When wealthy Innocence, pursued
By Factious Envy, courts a Monarch’s succour,
Mean gifts of vulgar cost, alike
Dishonour him, who gives, and him, who takes.
Not thus shall HASTINGS sav’d,
Thee, BRUNSWICK, and himself disgrace.
[10]O may thy blooming Heir,
In virtues equal, be like thee prolific!
Till a new race of little GUELPS,
Beneath the rod of future MARKHAMS train’d,
Lisp on their Grandsire’s knee his mitred Laureat’s lays.
[1] See Virgil’s Æneid, b. vi.
[2] During the Administration of Lord SHELBURNE, I was told by a friend of mine, that Dr. PRICE took occasion, in his presence, to declare the most lively abhorrence of the damnable heresies, which he had formerly advanced against the Jure divino doctrines, contained in some of my Sermons.
[3] See a translation of PINDAR, by EDWARD BURNABY GKEENE.
[4] This alludes wholly to a private anecdote, and in no degree to certain malicious reports of the noble Earl’s conduct during the riots of June, 1780.
[5] The present Ministry have twice gratified the public, with the awfully sublime spectacle of twenty hanged at one time.
[6] These three lines, I must confess, have been interpolated since the introduction of the fourth Proposition in the new Irish Resolutions. They arose, however, quite naturally out of my preceding personification of commerce.
[7] I have taken the liberty of employing Patrick in the same sense as Paddy, to personify the people of Ireland. The latter name was too colloquial for the dignity of my blank verse.