N.B. The above words in italics have the pen drawn through them, and may therefore be considered as cancelled.

[1064a] See the preface to a modern poem called Sleep.

[1064b] Of those little poems, one is entitled The Dissolution; and as the name of Martha Rastrick is affixed to if, we may presume it was a present, perhaps a new years gift to that daughter. The greatest part of it we will here take the liberty of inserting, thought we have no reason to think that the author had the remotest idea of its publication. Yet as it cannot dishonour his memory, and has lain in MS. now nearly if not quite a hundred years, it may be placed here as a curious relic. It runs as follows—

“Happy the man to whom the sacred Muse
Her nightly visits pays,
And with her magic rod
Opens his mortal eyes:
He nature at one glance surveys,
And past and future, near and distant views.

I’m mounted on Fancy, and long to be gone
To some age or some world unknown,
Swifter than time and impatient of stay,
To the west, to the uttermost limits of day,
To the end of the world I’ll hasten away:
Where I may see it all expire
And melt away in everlasting Fire.

’Tis done! I see a flaming Seraph fly,
And light his Flambeau at the Sun;
Then hastening down to the curst globe
His blazing torch apply—
See the green forests crackling burn,
The oily pastures sweat
With intolerable heat:
The mines to hot volcanos turn;
Their horrid jaws extended wide,
The sulphurous contagion spread.

Why do the aged mountains skip,
And little hills like their own sheep,
Like lambs, which on their grizzly head
Once wanton play’d?
Expanded vapours, struggling to the birth,
Roar in the bowels of the earth.

And now the Earth’s foundations crack assunder,
Burst with subterraneous thunder.
Dusky flames and vivid flashes
Reduce the trembling Globe to ashes
Fiery torrents rolling down,
The naked valleys drown;
And with their ruddy waves supply
The channels of th’exhausted sea.

Seas, to thin vapours boil’d away,
Leave their crooked channels dry:
And not one drop returns again,
To cool the thirsty Earth with rain.

And must all Earth th’impartial ruin share?
Spare ye revengeful angels, spare!
Spare the Muses blissful seat:
Let me for Wickham’s peaceful walls intreat.
No, ’tis in vain: and Bodley’s spicy nest
Of learning too must perish with the rest;
—The Oracles of God alone
An hasty Angel snatch’d away,
And bore them high through parted flames
To the Eternal throne.

Behold! fond soul, all thou didst once admire,
The objects of thy hope and thy desire;
Houses and lands and large estate;
The little things that make men great:
The empty trifles are no more,
But vanish all in smoke, scarce lighter than before.

Was it for this the Statesman wrackt his thought?
Was it for this the Soldier fought?
While grumbling drums like thunder beat,
And clanging trumpets rais’d the martial heat?

Now Nature is unstrung,
The Spheres their musick lose,
The Song of ages now
Ends in a solemn close.”

[1069] He had left Lynn the year before, so that the congregation had but four ministers in a hundred years, whose labours here were nearly of equal duration: J. Rastrick 26 years; W. Rastrick 25 years; A. Mayhew 25 years; W. Warner 24 years.—The Baptists, in little more than 40 years, have had at least half a score ministers, and the Methodists ten times as many.

[1070] Coxe’s Memoirs of Walpole.

[1073a] Biographical account of Sir B. Keene, by Bailey Wallis D.D. who married his niece, a daughter of the rev. Venn Eyre, formerly lecturer of Lynn.

[1073b] Of their intellectual character, or mental endowments not much seems now to be known. The father being an alderman may furnish a sort of presumption, that he must have been a person of no common or mean parts: the mother has been spoken of as possessed of a well-cultivated mind; which seems to be corroborated by the following extract of a Letter from her to her son, the ambassador, in 1745, when this town assumed such a warlike appearance; as was observed at p. 920.—

“This place, heretofore famous for the arts and blessings of peace, is now entirely in the guise of war. Every thing has a military air. The ditch before the walls is scoured; but there are unhappily so many hay-stacks just by, that a few Highlanders, or French, by casting two or three of them into the deepest part of it, might be masters of the town in about four hours. The bridge of St. Germans and those above it are to be cut down, if we hear any of the rebels have escaped through the Fens, and are coming towards us. But the river is fordable in many places, and several of them are near the town. The body of the people are formed into 5 regiments, which are commanded by proper officers, chosen out of the body politic. Those whose spouses bear rule over them being disposed into one regiment called greys. Those heroes spend their mornings and evenings in the Guildhall, there learning the trade of war, under able and experienced masters. No merchant sells deals, salt, pitch or tar, without a weapon by their side. Shopkeepers have taken to the sword, and divide their cags of soap with their blades. You can’t purchase a joint of meat, or a loaf of bread, or a pound of candles but of an armed man. Even clergymen are engaged in these death-doing measures. One bears a captain’s commission. Another is a sutler. Most of the fair and timerous persons of the other sex, who had any wits a while ago, have very few remaining now. An ancient Lady indeed of the illustrious house of the R— commands a fortress adjoining to the town-wall, in which are some veteran troops, natives of Spain. [1074] With these she supports herself and wonderfully animates her neighbours whose courage fails; and let the enemy come when they please, ’tis generally believed she will be in a condition to make a sally.”

[1074] “Bottles of Mountain Malaga.”