S^ICULOMASTIX.
 
 SiECULOMASTIX ; 
 
 OR, THE 
 
 LASH OF THE AGE WE LIVE IN; 
 
 & Itoem, 
 
 IN TWO PARTS. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR 
 
 OF 
 
 " CHILDE HAROLDS MONITOR. 
 
 I 
 
 Flagrello 
 
 Tange semel. 
 
 HOHACE. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED FOR J. PORTER, PALL MALL. 
 1819.
 
 J. M'Creerj, Printer, 
 Black-Horse-Court, London.
 
 PR 
 
 i 
 
 
 Hi - <<^ 
 
 S^lCULOMASTIX, 
 
 4-c.
 
 PART THE FIRST. 
 
 The general plan of the work To notice some portion of what is 
 wrong in each leading feature of national character ; Religion and 
 Morals, Politics, and Literature To propose imaginary standards of 
 excellence to the young, whether as Churchmen, Patriots, or Scholars 
 To aid this imagination by reference to what is really right and 
 good in each department. First, Poetry A great moral object essen- 
 tial, &c. &c. Homer Virgil Spenser Shakspeare Milton 
 Dryden Pope Modern insensibility to the full merit of our ances- 
 tors Arrogant pretensions to superior Genius Connection between 
 rude and ignorant poets, and similar professors of Religious Instruc- 
 tion Ramifications of Calvinism Inquiry into some of the Causes of 
 Dissent Futility of such Causes Dissent within the Church strongly 
 condemned Mode of restraining this evil Praise of Society for Pro- 
 moting Christian Knowledge Objections to Bible Society, &c. &c.
 
 S^CULOMASTIX 
 
 8fC. 
 
 PART THE FIRST. 
 
 Of varied ills, of life by passions torn, 
 Reason obscur'd, and ancient Faith forsworn, 
 Mournful I sing : nor, if a lighter lay 
 Mix with my song, and smile o'er Taste's decay, 
 Deem, ye who listen, that my heart awhile 
 Forgets her sorrows in that bitter smile 
 Still, sadly gay, through struggling tears she looks, 
 From vicious crowds of men, to crowds of vicious books 
 Sees the weak product of the brain recoil 
 On him who labour'd with so vain a toil ; 
 Sees fruits corrupt, that load the rotten tree, 
 Add horror to the trunk's deformity ; 
 Till, through each branch and quiv'ring leaf, they shoot, 
 The strengthen'd poisons of the parent root. 
 
 b 2
 
 4 
 
 Oh Thou, that know'st the secrets of the soul, 
 And bidd'st thy thunders o'er the conscience roll; 
 If with firm zeal, with deep unvarying awe, 
 We sued thy Grace, we trembled at thy Law, 
 How would these clouds at once depart! and man 
 See his own place in God's unbounded plan: 
 Content with knowledge that secured his bliss, 
 How would he shrink from dangerous happiness ! 
 Till, at thy good, thy sure appointed time, 
 Faith grew fruition in a loftier clime ; 
 And, startling at the veil withdrawn from Heav'n, 
 Guilt durst not gaze, till Blindness was forgiv'n. 
 
 If yet vouchsafed, to thrill my native lyre, 
 One living beam of Judah's prophet fire ; 
 Or, humbler far, if Delphi's gifted hill 
 Yield its ascent to " one true Briton" still 
 Then may this trembling step precede his way, 
 And clear the coming Glory's path today ! 
 Teach him, disdainful, through his dawning hours 
 To pass the fools that step aside for flowers;
 
 5 
 
 Catch, as he may, their perishing perfume, 
 
 But waste no moment on their worthless bloom ; 
 
 Right onwards borne, where Fame's high turrets soar, 
 
 Where hosts now fail, and few attain'd of yore ; 
 
 Whither no force but Virtue can advance, 
 
 Nor Genius tend with transitory glance ; 
 
 Where Industry alone ne'er won the crown, 
 
 Nor idle Wit achiev'd a long renown 
 
 Like yon stray comet, she may blaze, and lend 
 
 A wayward light to some erratic friend, 
 While moonstruck millions wonder from below 
 But, radiant still, when dies that pageant show, 
 The Sun of Mind a whole bright system claims, 
 And Use and Beauty mingle in his flames : 
 Use, that plain Nature owns in every part, 
 Beauty, that charms the cultivated heart. * 
 
 Js then so steep the hill where Glory dwells ? 
 Eternal Greece the ascending labour tells ; 
 Rome too, eternal in her muse alone, 
 Points to the height of Honour's arduous throne :
 
 6 
 
 Where the fair Form, august in regal grace, 
 Watches, severe, her votary's distant race; 
 Marks, if his eye on her alone is fix'd, 
 No baser dreams with her pure vision mix'd ; 
 While to reach Her, his speed outstrips the wind, 
 And leaves low praise, and glittering wealth behind. 
 
 But is this awful Form, the One that rules 
 In Fame's high temple ? Yes ! howe'er the schools 
 Of Vice, or Vanity, may lead us wrong, 
 This is the sole true Deity of Song. 
 Phantoms, perchance, before the shrine appear, 
 Whose airy hands thin laurel chaplets rear; 
 And, waving bright the visionary wreath, 
 They lure us on to Infamy and Death. 
 
 Come then, ye young ! whose opening mind receives 
 The ready stamp that practis'd folly leaves ; 
 Come then, ye old ! whose rough imperfect tongue 
 Sounds the death-bell to judgment in the young; 
 Ye old offenders in poetic prose, 
 Who lead a patient nation by the nose ;
 
 7 
 
 Pass we your screech-owl melody awhile, 
 And pardon all the Babel of your style ; 
 To grave regrets the passing hours belongs 
 And Truth shall probe the basis of your song. 
 
 If Reason's voice, and oracles from Heaven 
 Alike this precept to mankind have given, 
 " Where much is lent, there much shall be required ;" 
 Hear them both speak, and own their speech inspired. 
 
 But rest not thus When o'er the tuneful dead 
 
 Thy memory wanders with a holy dread, 
 Ask if thy harp, like their's, is strung to pay 
 The loan of God, in Virtue's daring lay ? 
 Ask if the wires are trembling, to diffuse 
 The patriot spirit of the blameless Muse 
 Through distant realms, through ages yet to come* 
 And pour bright Glory round the Poets' home? 
 
 Oh rest not thus Did Homer's ancient lore 
 
 Leave those it taught uncultured as before? 
 Did not each breast, that drank his music in, 
 A roughness lose, if not amend a sin?
 
 8 
 
 In stormiest times that central Sun arose, 
 
 And warm'd a world that barren Darkness froze ; 
 
 Touch'd by his heat, melts Ignorance from earth, 
 
 And unknown Virtue struggles into birth. 
 
 Yes, though deep clouds o'erhung that Pagan light 
 
 Match'd with our guide, unutterably bright ; 
 
 Still, far and wide, it woke the seeds of mind, 
 
 And trail'd its useful glory long behind : 
 
 Bade barbarous tribes obey their chieftain's laws, 
 
 And hallowed Courage in the general cause; 
 
 While Nuptial Love her tenderest halo shed 
 
 O'er the green wreath that circled Valour's head. 2 
 
 Turn to that softer lyre, whose numbers please 
 The polish'd banquets of imperial Ease 
 Breathes not true Honour in the lofty tone? 
 If Arms defend, Religion rears the throne. 
 Her native gods see wandering Troy adore, 
 And own their guidance to the Latian shore : 
 See Rome's best pride from firm endurance spring; 
 Or trace the model of a patriot King.
 
 9 
 
 There too survey yon Tyrant's awful death * 
 
 Hear the sad murmurs of his parting breath 
 
 Implore his foe, to guard his ashes cold 
 
 From the fierce- hate of those he once control'd 
 
 Rise from the warning tale improv'd, and feel 
 
 A Heathen power through Christian bosoms steal ! 
 
 Then blush, when, list'ning to coeval lyres, 
 
 Wasted thou feel'st their desultory fires ; 
 
 No moral end or aim'd at, or attain'd ; 
 
 Or some high truth with mingling error stain'd ; 
 
 Though the clear Watch-Tow'r shines sublime above, 
 
 Fear loudly warns, and gently beckons Love. 
 
 Not thus abus'd, in old Eliza's days, 
 By Mulla's bard 4 were pure Religion's rays : 
 Sparkling they stream'd o'er all his mystic lore, 
 And each new Hero taught a Virtue more. 
 But He, 5 great prophet of the favouring skies, 
 Who roll'd far back the gates of Paradise, 
 And shew'd the beauty of the scene within, 
 Ere Life's first lustre was eclips'd by Sin
 
 10 
 
 How from his strain does drooping Virtue find 
 A vigour emanate, to nerve the mind ! 
 While Piety, whose plume had swept the earth, 
 Springs up, and hails the mansion of her birth. 
 
 Though less divine, though mingling in the strife 
 And busy mart of many-passion'd Life, 
 Still can the magic Seer fl of Avon's wave 
 Subdue the good, and stimulate the brave; 
 Still his deep notes awake a generous pride, 
 And set the war of soul on Virtue's side : 
 While Fancy, hovering o'er the tuneful ranks, 
 Gilds with fresh beams her native river's banks. 
 
 Why why (but answer thou, Pollution's nurse ! 
 Chill Want, the Bard's hereditary curse) 
 Why spread o'er Dryden's heav'n-descended strains 
 Such clouds of Shame, in party-coloured stains ? 
 For Him, on Reason's philosophic lay 
 Darts mighty Truth an ineffectual ray ; 
 E'en holy Faith her radiance vainly pours 
 Wreck'd lies his bark on Flattery's fatal shores.
 
 11 
 
 But still the streamers, fluttering o'er the deck, 
 Show the proud promise of that brilliant wreck ; 
 And giant planks, that float around the prow, 
 Boast the deep strength that ribs the hull below. 
 
 Forgive, high bard ! thy wonders on my soul 
 
 Rush in new crowds or, sooth'd with sweet controul, 
 
 Pensive I seek thy green Eiysian groves, 7 
 
 Where hapless lovers reunite their loves ; 
 
 Or, in pale Babylon's astonished halls, 
 
 A God ! a God ! runs thrilling round the walls 8 
 
 Forgive, high Bard thine Arcite's eyes 1 see 
 
 Fix'd in soft grief on " charming Emily" 9 
 
 Nay, more uprais'd from earth, and placed on high 
 
 Mid the consulting Synod of the sky, 
 
 See, while mute Angels hang their heads around, 
 
 Sole in the midst the Atoning Mercy found 10 
 
 All, all thy glories on my Fancy throng, 
 
 And Censure dies in ecstacy of song. 
 
 Where yon fair stream majestically flows, 
 Freshening the rural riches as it goes ;
 
 12 
 
 Painting, within the mirror of its floods, 
 
 The clear blue concave, and the branching woods ; 
 
 Ere yet beneath that beauteous hill they roam, 
 
 The lucid waves, they pass a Poet's home 
 
 There, girt with elegance, that well became 
 
 The accomplish'd heir of universal fame, 
 
 Lov'd Swan of Thames, 11 thy graceful bower arose; 
 
 There "Virtue launch'd her arrows at thy foes; 
 
 There, in pleas'd crowds, the good, the great conspire, 
 To crown the lord of Britain's moral lyre. 
 Say ye, whose bosom of ingenuous Youth, 
 First caught from Him the thrilling sense of Truth, 
 That clear'd your eyes through Nature's frame to see 
 The world's great soul, the inspiring Deity 
 While, in fair order, each symphonious part 
 Mov'd to the music of the master's art 
 What flowers shall decorate his sacred urn ? 
 Say ye, whose darkling breast could never burn 
 O'er Homer's native lamp, what deathless bays 
 Shall wreathe his head, what coronals of praise, 
 Who led your steps within the Grecian shrine, 
 And drew the veil from all the dazzling Nine?
 
 ]3 
 
 Now, strike your hearts, ye Britons ! and confess 
 That following fame is weaker and is less : 
 That Pope's bright mantle decks no tuneful child, 
 Fresh as in youth, and wholly undefiled. 
 Renounce the little wits, 12 that toil to span 
 With puny grasp the giant stars of Anne, 
 Whose orbs for all yet glitter but the blind ; 
 And warm whole nations save the Sophist's mind. 13 
 
 Let Gray, let Collins from the field retire, 
 Let partial love withdraw her Goldsmith's lyre ; 
 And Fancy's self no later strain can show, 
 Soul-thrilling Heloise, to match thy woe ; 
 Or raise the soft complaint, so sadly made 
 By yon dim ghost " along the moon-light glade." 
 But, clearer yet, if Wisdom's warning voice 
 From Delphic Twitnam guide our moral choice, 
 Shines thy fair title to unrivall'd fame, 
 Guide of thy Country, o'er each after name ! 
 
 Shall Cowper mate with thee ? tho' sterling sense, 
 
 Kind love to man, firm trust in Providence,
 
 14 
 
 Raise, nobly raise, the Christian s guileless strains, 
 And leave, but here and there, some gloomy stains 
 Still let the critic, undeterr'd, discharge 
 His weighty task ; and fearless, and at large, 
 (Spite of an erring weakness, that o'erlooks 
 Faults, gross as day, in favourite men and books) 
 Expose the style, whose broken pauses yawn 
 Like famish'd jackdaws, when their dam's withdrawn; 
 Expose the style, whose roughly measured prose 
 Like a canal, through locks unnumbered, flows ; 
 Sluggish, and colourless, with level banks, 
 Where feeble poplars shoot in formal ranks ; 
 Or, o'er the plashy marsh below, aspire 
 Chaldaean willows but without a lyre. 
 No! if in honest Essays, 14 plainly bound 
 And letter'd, without show of tuneful sound, 
 The bard of Ouse had taught us to be good, 
 His generous aim all hearts had understood ; 
 And none denied the humbler bays awhile, 
 When Selkirk, Gilpin, claim'd our tear or smile.
 
 15 
 
 Well knows the Monitor, what storms of rage, 
 What floods of bile, will pelt this hapless page ! 
 But welcome, Truth ! for thee, whate'er they list. 
 Tradesman, or Dunce, or Droll, or Methodist; 
 Yes, welcome all ! perchance, in brighter times, 
 Perchance where ocean laves her western climes, 
 When embryo seeds of greatness shall have burst, 
 To raise a second world beyond the first 
 When, as in conquering Rome, arts follow arms, 
 And the fierce soldier owns his captive's charms; 15 
 Some bard, just labouring into grace, whose line 
 Taste's filtering power stands ready to refine, 
 On Cowper's careless muse, unwarn'd, may fall, 
 And, pleas'd with Indolence, that pleases all, 
 Snatch at his vulgar laurel, and forego 
 The loftier crown that polish'd strains bestow 
 Then, should these lowly numbers but retard 
 The threaten'd downfall of Columbia's bard ; 
 Should they but kindle one brief blush of shame, 
 Thus to desert the immortal ranks of fame, 
 Where, trumpet-tongued, she sounds each classic 
 name
 
 16 
 
 And, sweeter far ! if yet one English heart 
 Be thus recalled to genius graced by art 
 Oh ! doubly blest beyond her airiest hope, 
 Truth grasps her prize, Ambition fills her scope. 
 
 As when the wanderer, thro' some lowland ground, 
 Stands by the stream that floods the vale around, 
 Wondering he marks the broadness of the tide, 
 And glories in his own compatriot pride 
 Thus too, in those who roam MinerVa's fields, 
 And crop the fruits that learning's harvest yields, 
 A pleasure glows, to find so widely spread 
 The fruits that rarely blossom'd for the dead ; 
 To mark all England sprinkled with the shower 
 Of wit, whose column, in her earlier hour, 
 Fell down direct upon the favour'd few 
 " How grand a flood !" Alas ! 'tis shallow too ; 
 Alas ! Diffusion is the bane of Strength ; 
 The muse grows languid by her journey's length. 
 
 But critics, shallow as the bards they praise, 
 For wit mistake the lengthiness of lays ;
 
 17 
 
 And deem a thought, which in compression strong 
 Escaped their glance, most wond'rous when 'tis long. 
 Hence the vain praise, that Scottish tongues so loud 
 Pour on their own contemporary crowd: 16 
 When Addison's calm sense inflated shines 
 Through some dull sophist's everlasting lines ; 
 Or Pope, condensed no more, no longer bright, 
 Lends inspiration weak, and marshy light 
 To some faint follower, who in strains diffuse 
 Obscures bis Beauty, and impairs his Use ; 
 Then, pleased to find the point they miss'd before, ir 
 They cry " Ah! wiser we, than those of yore." 
 
 "What! has not England grown in knowledge then ?'" 
 Perchance, of outward things but not of men. 
 Doubtless, indeed, through Nature's lurking soul 
 Science has farther reach'd ; tho' not the goal : 
 But moral argument, but worldly lore 
 To guide our steps say, Moderns, have ye more? 
 Say, " can ye deeper dive, or higher rise," 
 Than Swift on earth, than Milton in the skies ? 
 Swift! at that name what thousands dread disgrace! 
 And Vice, exposed, asks banter'd Folly's place ; 
 
 c
 
 IB 
 
 While Satire tears Religion's mask away, 
 And drags the canting scoundrel into day. 18 
 
 Turn then, awhile, my countryman ! with me, 
 (Thy friend, tho' censor) Briton, turn and see, 
 What waste discordant in thy Church is made,. 
 Wide, as the discord of thy tuneful shade. 
 
 One rooted error bottoms every sect, 
 Bardling, or Saint 'tis Learning's proud neglect. 
 The same self-gifted minds, that dare essay 
 The lyre's loose chords, dare holier notes than they 
 Nature for them seems guide enough to show 
 The Muse's bowers to all her sons below : 
 For them the Bible is sufficient light, 
 And human comments only dim their sight. 
 No more prepared by years of classic toil, 
 Hence the raw labourer turns the tuneful soil ; 
 And deems a nobler inspiration given, 
 Where artless Genius only trusts to Heaven. 
 Thus too the happy priest no longer wants 
 Deep treasures of our old Hierophants ;
 
 19 
 
 He sips some art of piety, Vi and grows 
 
 Adept at once in all that faith bestows ; 
 
 All that, by means unknown, sectarians teach, 
 
 Skill to interpret, eloquence to preach. 
 
 Leave for the future lashes of the muse 
 
 The mob who thus her sacred rights abuse ; 
 
 And bend your eye on Obstinacy's prism, 
 
 Where each new colour charms the soul of Schism. 
 
 When now, relieved from fears of bigot Rome, 
 Nor longer vex'd with martial broils at home, 
 The Church at ease reposed that fatal rest 
 Stole, like a numbing serpent, o'er her breast. 
 Then, spawn'd in Safety's dangerous hour, arose 
 To break her peace, a host of in-bred foes ; 
 Then, drest in Calvin's half-discarded suit, 
 Glared the dire form, nor man, nor wholly brute, 
 Yclep'd a Methodist with narrow creed, 
 That holds himself alone the chosen seed ; 
 With morals scorn'd as righteous rags, he stands, 
 New spectre in the pale Dissenting bands ! 
 
 c2
 
 20 
 
 His Hope, Assurance ; Knowledge, his Belief; 
 His Charity, (by Paul esteemed the chief,) 
 Damnation of his Brotherhood, who wear 
 A nobler aspect, and a happier air. 
 Tho' in gross terms (such terms as thou could'st find, 
 Thou gloomy, dreadful, misanthropic mind !) 
 Tho' in dark Calvin's words, he dares not deal 
 Wholesale Perdition on the common weal ; 
 Yet still, unconscious of the blest extent 
 Of Mercy's boundless call, " repent, repent," 
 Himself elects the favour'd few on earth, 
 Who plainly feel with him their second birth 
 Thus ample space for each wild dream is given, 
 And maniac whims grow impulses from Heaven ; 
 While, done in corners, and withdrawn from sight, 
 Baptismal Grace becomes a formal rite. 
 
 " Baptize ai,l Nations !" said the parting Word, 
 And farthest Earth in conscious rapture heard. 
 Realms of the setting Eve, or rising Morn, 
 " By Water and the Spirit are ye born !"
 
 21 
 
 Thus issues forth that evangelic voice, 
 
 Shem hails the call, and Javan's isles rejoice ; 
 
 Mysterious Mercy to the world declares 
 
 Lost Adam's offspring his adopted heirs; 
 
 From Sin's poor race the Curse has past away, 
 
 And their eyes open on celestial day. 30 
 
 Oh teach them, thou, whom Nature marks their 
 
 guide, 
 Still in that gracious promise to abide ; 
 Teach them, whoe'er have ratified their vow, 
 Christ is their God, and they his Children now. 
 Before the gather'd Church, in riper years, 
 While angels witness from their circling spheres, 
 Bid them confirm the solemn deed, and own 
 Their will to walk by Gospel rules alone. 
 But, since within the holiest human breast 
 The seeds of Vice, on earth, must ever rest, 
 Teach them, in reverent, humble prayer, to ask 
 For daily strength to do their daily task ; 
 Teach them, whene'er they fall, to sue for Grace 
 In God's own way, at His appointed place ; 
 Where still the streams of pure Atonement run, 
 The eternal Altar of the suffering Son.
 
 22 
 
 Thus let them tread, in truth before their God, 
 The path that sages, saints, apostles trod ; 
 Here let their Faith be closed, and here begin, 
 Regenerate thus, and thus Renew'd from Sin. 
 
 Vain mind of man ! how sudden thy extremes 
 To cold abstractions from fanatic dreams ! 
 Never content with what is clearly taught, 
 We must be wiser than we can or ought ! 
 Never resolv'd the Law we know to keep, 
 We rave in Follies, or in Forms we sleep : 
 Now dress'd in trappings of the harlot Rome, 
 Now rudely naked in our Scottish home : 
 When, when, concenter'd in the middle path, 
 Shall jarring Christians lay aside their wrath ? 
 Never ! till one division of the fold 
 Its leading sheep, at least, shall firmly hold ; 
 Define, anew, the doctrines she demands, 
 Nor leave Discretion in her servants' hands, 
 To mould, at will, the Faith of those they teach, 
 And, in her name, discordant systems preach. 
 How shall plain Sense upon the truth decide, 
 When, in each pulpit, stands a differing guide?
 
 23 
 
 When, narrowing here her puritanic pale, 
 Geneva breathes a mildew o'er the vale ; 
 And bolder now, by silent increase, grown, 
 Claim's England's Church, exclusive, for her own ; 
 Beards her pale Bishops on their mitred seat, 
 And bids " the Arminian" 21 sound his last retreat. 
 
 But there, perchance, illumed by Scripture's ray, 
 
 Arminius, Calvin, Luther, cast away, 
 
 The genuine Shepherd stands " What! he! whose 
 
 sheep 
 " Thin scattered round the tottering pulpit sleep ?" 
 Rouse them with thunders of the heav'n-sent law, 
 Scare them with lightnings that the journeyer saw 
 By red Damascus, when, with heart on flame, 
 To scourge the persecuted Church he came 
 Then pour thine oil upon the troubled waves, 
 And smooth the horrors of their opening graves, 
 Thou Christian Pastor ! Energy be thine, 
 And mingling Mercy stamp thy voice divine. 
 But thou must watch, or wolves will leap thy fold ; 
 But thou must watch, or soon wilt thou behold,
 
 24 
 
 Assail'd without, and mined and sapp'd within, 
 
 Thy Sion lower than that Man of Sin 
 
 Above whose fall she rose Oh! guard her, Heaven, 
 
 Guard her ! to whom thy martyr'd saints were given, 
 
 To make their blood her seed, and lift her high, 
 
 Ev'n to that purer Sion in the sky. 
 
 Nor let her wait, presumptuous, passive, still, 
 
 For some fresh mandate of the sacred will, 
 
 Ere, help'd by human means, by virtuous power, 
 
 She strive to ward Destruction's threatening hour ; 
 
 Ere, safe by Prudence, and by Learning wise, 
 
 Against her foes a Giant she arise ; 
 
 Stand forth the prop of Christendom confest, 
 
 Nor tolerate Dissent within her breast. 22 
 
 For lo ! diverging from his tainted roots, 
 Dark Calvin rears his methodistic shoots ; 23 
 Whether in Whitfield's towering branch they spread, 
 Or drop round Wesley's less obnoxious head ; 
 Drop, as they will, and tower where'er they please, 
 Shall learned foreheads wear such locks as these?
 
 25 
 
 Lank, black remembrancers of that sad day, 
 
 When shrines and thrones were swept at once away % 
 
 When Prayer-Books * 4 sank, and God's perverted word 
 
 Held, like the Koran, union with the sword ; 
 
 Robb'd Christian hearts of all relenting ruth, 
 
 And arm'd unblushing lies with texts of Truth. 
 
 Then Ignorance stood up, from Doubt released, 
 
 And every Tradesman was a self-made Priest 5 s5 
 
 Cobblers interpreted, and Tinkers taught, 
 
 And low-bred language uttered low-born thought; 
 
 Familiar speech call'd down the Heavenly King, 
 
 And reverential awe became a carnal thing. 
 
 How should they fear, whom intercourse sublime 
 
 Already raises to the immortal clime ? 
 
 How should they fear, who feel distinct within 
 
 The power of Grace annihilate their sin ? 
 
 Nay, sanctify whate'er they say or do, 
 
 Their oaths, their ravings, and their actions too ? 
 
 How should they fear, whom Perseverance sure, 
 
 Fail as they will, has fated to endure ; * 6 
 
 And lifts them, glorying, o'er each rival sect, 
 
 The final conquerors, the foredoom'd elect?
 
 26 
 
 Say, have these poisons blossom'd once, and died? 
 Ev'n now, renascent, soars their boundless pride; 
 Ev'n now, within the shrine, (appalling sound !) 
 In full luxuriance the rank shoots are found ; 
 Ev'n now the unhappy flock are forced to feed 
 On the dire produce of the damning seed ; 
 While, roaming fierce the unguarded fold about, 
 The fox, the bear, the tiger, howl without. 27 
 
 Oh, glaring parallel with days gone by ! 
 Can Britain pass it with a heedless eye? 
 Yes ! mazed in politics, or lost in sports, 
 The whirl of race-grounds, or the pomp of courts, 
 Move Lords and Commons in their proper sphere 
 The Church stands gazing on herself in fear. 
 While, spread abroad, through all our central ranks, 
 Dissent's deep river overflows its banks ; 
 Merchant, mechanic, farmer, labourer, find 
 Some holy hair-splitter to suit their mind ; 
 While " itching ears" no novelty resist, 
 But hail the Babel-languaged Methodist.
 
 27 
 
 " What ! in this land of Freedom, shall the rod 
 ' Of Power restrain the worship of our God ?" 
 Forbid it, Heaven ! but pause a while, and see 
 The point, my friend, that separates you and me. 
 Behold, how near we bring our Faith ! then why 
 Desert the Church, that stagger'd Popery ; 
 Desert the Church, a wondering world beheld 
 Unbribed by pomp, by tyranny unquell'd, 
 Keep even on her brilliant path, between 
 The Enthusiast's ardour, and the Bigot's spleen ; 
 Here from Geneva hedged, and there from Rome, 
 By Learning nursed, the child of Martyrdom : 
 Desert the Church, whose simple rites combine 
 The essential basis of your creed and mine ; 
 Whose Heaven-taught Sacraments you own with awe, 
 Implore whose Spirit, and confess whose Law 
 What banish'd thee? " Her Postures" Shame, oh! 
 
 shame 
 " Her vestments" Argument has lost its name. 
 Perchance, old Heresy's acknowledged heir, 
 You cling to unpremeditated prayer.
 
 28 
 
 Has then Donatus 48 left, or recent Fox, 
 So strong an impulse on their fervent flocks, 
 That they can breathe, more reverently free, 
 More calmly pious, their desires, than we? 
 " No but a written form, so strict, so cold ! " 
 Not thus they deem'd their Liturgies of old ; 
 Not thus in Antioeh's holy dome they heard 
 The appointed echo of the Preacher's word ; 
 When he the great, the golden-mouth'd* 9 of yore, 
 High o'er the East his Master's standard bore. 
 
 And where, from East to West, from Faith's first 
 hours, 
 Find we a Form, of nobler, holier powers, 
 Than happy England's? happy, if her love 
 Yet prized that treasure, all save one above. 
 But, Lo ! when tried for rolling years, and found 
 Eager to spread o'er every Pagan ground 
 The Sacred Oracles, a 30 Band has ask'd 
 Each Churchman's aid, nor high his labours task'd ; 
 When to their native home that band has dealt, 
 (Prop of the shrine at which their Fathers knelt),
 
 29 
 
 This hallow'd Book of Prayer, a humble friend, 
 But not unmeet its Master to attend, 
 Shall thoughtless Shepherds, led alas ! astray 
 By broad Philanthropy's unsound display, 
 Neglect that Band ? neglect their chosen shrine, 
 And those pale thousands who in darkness pine, 
 Yet where some fields of favour'd England spread. 
 Where Wales yet shows Secession's hydra head ; 
 Where hapless Erin pleads to Pity's heart 
 For Light's due share, for pure Religion's part ? 
 And, while some split-text Anabaptist stands 
 Snug at their side, and rears his grasping hands, 
 Preach in Town-Halls most righteously aloud, 
 Convert Hindus, and charm the Christian crowd? 
 " Is this your Charity ?" J1 'tis trash, my Friend, 
 To talk of Union, without Union's end. 
 " Is it peace, Jehu ?" How can it be peace, 
 Till, humbly still'd, your various discords cease ? 
 Come, trace them head by head, and line by line. 
 And stamp the limits of your creed and mine.
 
 30 
 
 Can we agree ? then art thou bound to kneel, 
 By every tie that binds the common weal, 
 At that time-honour'd Altar, where with zeal 
 Thy Fathers knelt But if, by deep Dissent, 
 The Coat unseam'd must wretchedly be rent, 
 If we must part 32 God bless thee on thy way ! 
 And guide thee upward to our Union Day. 
 
 But deem not, Friend ! in this unhallow'd place 
 I meet the scorner of Baptismal Grace," 
 Boldly to talk unutterable things, 
 (Fit for assembled Priests, and listening Kings), 
 Where Ignorance attends, and unform'd Sense 
 Mistakes a Drama for a Conference 
 No ! the plain end of this is not to join, 
 John Knox, your faith ; George Fox, your faith 
 
 with mine ; 
 'Tis to supplant the Church plain end, if not design. 
 For how should proselytes be gain'd by them, 
 Who seem no adverse errors to condemn ?
 
 31 
 
 Or how should they retain their friends, who lend 
 An equal countenance to foe or friend ? 
 Or they believe their own belief, or not- 
 Spread it, if sound if sapless, let it rot. 
 The unskill'd spectator yet must doubt indeed 
 Which Party has resign'd his private creed ; 
 That thus, by wondrous Concord, they withhold 
 The marks that lent distinction to their fold 
 *' Oh, Charity divine ! they fought of old, 
 " And now the Calf, and Kid, and Lamb agree !" 
 The sweet results of such alliance see 
 Out-number'd far, the Churchman's credit goes ; 
 The flock here owe their pasture to his foes : 
 And he, already sunk, or sinking soon, 
 Plays second to some Presbyter's bassoon. 
 
 " Let him arouse his strength !" Thank Heaven, 
 'tis done 
 Whate'er is lost, this glorious good is won ; 
 And, nobly rising o'er the rescued land, 3 * 
 Spread the safe bulwarks of that Christian Band,
 
 32 
 
 Plain is their task, pellucid their design ; 
 
 Here, as elsewhere, 35 their duties they combine; 
 
 God's own blest banquet for their flock provide, 
 
 While to those pastures leads their ancient guide. 
 
 Oh! if each Son of England's Church would lend 
 
 His guardian hand to prop this precious friend ; 
 
 Not only o'er the happy land he loves, 
 
 But where the Mountains rise, or Ocean roves, 
 
 The Word of God with lightning speed should run, 
 
 With its old stamp of " Father, Spirit, Son" 
 
 No compromising fear should cast away 
 
 The sacred ensigns of a purer day ; 
 
 Nor Eastern Brethren tremble to receive 30 
 
 The doubtful gift that Europe's offspring give. 
 
 Meet, if ye will, ye Christians ! meet in heart, 
 [n wealth, in toil, this treasure to impart 
 To the whole earth but meet not in Town-Halls, 
 Taverns, and Market-places, Booths, and Stalls, 
 To spout Religion for a mob's applause, 
 Shame every creed, and weaken every cause. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST PART.
 
 SjECULOMASTIX 
 
 PART THE SECOND. 
 
 ii
 
 PART THE SECOND. 
 
 Literature again Critical and moral objections to several well- 
 known authors-Political blemishes-Want of seriousness and dignity 
 in the Senate-Appeal to other times and loftier characters-National 
 education-Miserable effect of the Poor Laws-Practices requiring 
 amendment in manufactories -Commerce Agriculture -Utopian 
 project for the restoration of the character of the English peasant! 
 Education of the rich-The public schools-Indulgence of parents- 
 Mania of sporting-Driving-Gambling-TheUniversities-Military 
 glory Treatment of Bonaparte Recapitulation of the general causes 
 of decline and fall in powerful empires Increase of crimes Con- 
 cluding prayer for our redemption from ruin .
 
 SjECULOMASTIX 
 
 tyc. 
 
 PART THE SECOND. 
 
 Thus far in sorrow, and reluctant rage, 
 The Muse has dared to lash a boasting age. 
 Not, while the favourites of the town dispense 
 Their prose for verse, their solemn cant for sense, 
 Lured by vain hope to teach the lawless law, 
 Or stop the tide of Folly with a straw ! 
 But, as revolving Fashion yet may bring 
 New life to Genius, and a second spring ; 
 And Bards resume that harmony they lost, 
 When Dryden's school awhile gave up the ghost; 
 (As Creeds may meet in gentle peace again, 
 Tho' human toils exhort that peace in vain) 
 Perchance, 'twere well, to lend the gifted youth 
 One fearless sanction to his dream of Truth ; 
 
 d2
 
 36 
 
 Bid him, lest rising doubts his judgment warp, 
 Snatch from the wall the long-neglected harp ; 
 Strike a bold prelude from the chords at once, 
 Rouse spell-bound Wit, and petrify the Dunce. 
 
 " What! praise the past," (I hear some modern say) 
 " Blind to the light of England's noblest day? 37 
 " Have we not Southey, Critic, dull, and cold ?" 
 We have : and Blackmore was our own of old. 
 Nay, frown not thus if Blackmore will not do, 
 Throw elder Drayton in, and Withers too. 
 This triple parallel must please the bard, 
 Who strives to win each ancestor's reward ; 
 From Withers catch Expression's simple growth, 
 From Blackmore tsedium, and from Drayton both. 
 " This, this, of Southey !" Calmly 1 return, 
 More flowers, and sweeter from his laureat urn 
 The bard would scatter (he, whose ample mind 
 Knowledge lias strengthen'd, raised, enrich'd, refined) 
 More flowers, and sweeter than his own whole sect, 
 The Synod of the Lakes, the true elect,
 
 37 
 
 Did not a heavy weight oppress his soul, 
 
 A curb restrain his Muse with merciless control. 
 
 That weight is fruitless Imitation's aim, 
 
 That curb the dread of some sublimer name. 
 
 Form'd on the fancied model of the Wise, 
 Stars of those shining, deathless galaxies, 
 That gemm'd the British sphere, from that blest day 
 When baffled Lust chaced Bigotry away, 
 Till Christ's pure Freedom into License grew, 
 O'erturn'd a throne, and wreck'd an altar too; 38 
 Formed on the ideal copy of a style, 
 Strongest, perchance, and richest of our isle, 
 Has Southey reached the summit of his aim ? 
 Is his like Taylor's language? has the flame 
 Of Bacon, Raleigh, past into his heart ? 
 Claims he in Milton's heritage a part? 
 Could Shakspeare own him for a genuine child? 
 The truth, my friend, then reach'd you as you smiled 
 What then this boast ? and where the likeness here ? 
 Come, class your favourite in his proper sphere.
 
 38 
 
 Without the figurative force of those 
 
 Whom Wisdom lent her own prophetic prose ; 
 
 Without the grace, and elegance, and strength 
 
 When Art and Nature met in one at length, 
 
 At Dryden's mighty bidding summon'd down 
 
 From some aetherial region of his own ; 
 
 Without the charm of Addisonian ease, 
 
 First to instruct whom first it knew to please ; 
 
 Without the sparkling point that Blockheads blame, 
 
 When yet they shake at their Tormentor's name n 
 
 What rank has Sbuthey ? Plain Expression's power, 
 
 Soaring to verse at some propitious hour, 
 
 But prose, pure prose (let this be praise enough!) 
 
 Wrought through the substance of his tuneful stuff, 
 
 Fixes his rank : dilated he expires 
 
 In languid odours, and in glimmering fires : 
 
 Thus Joan of Arc, thus Thalaba shall die, 
 
 Thus Madoc, Roderic, pass unquoted by; 
 
 In vain the Cid Kehama's Curse implore, 40 
 
 And sunk Brazil 11 repose on Lethe's shore; 
 
 While unborn Heroes his best meed shall give, 
 
 And Nelson's Life in future Nelsons live.
 
 39 
 
 Enough of Style: advance we to the thought: 
 Sou they is wise, chaste, pious, as he ought. 
 High praise ! and perish every strain of mine, 
 That foils to bow to Virtues so 4ivine. 
 But list, awhile. Though stamp'd upon their works 
 Some Bards have left the moral charms of Turks, 
 To tickle Christian ears, and double praise 
 Awaits the pure possessor of the bays ; 
 Yet say, what noble moral shall we find 
 " Roderic the Goth !" I have him in my mind 
 What, noble moral, fit for Epic Song, 
 Lucid tho' deep, and forcible tho' long, 
 In our good Laureat's best and loftiest flight ? 
 " Say, did not Roderic for his country fight ?" 
 He fought indeed ; and with so keen a gust, 
 Vindictive Pagans never match'd his lust. 
 Is this the moral of a Christian lay ? 
 " What, would you quakerize our Muse?" Away! - 
 Tho' the just vengeance of a Nation's wrongs 
 To God, and under God, to man belongs, 
 Still, when a Christian lifts the sword, yes, still, 
 Should his heart leap with ecstacy to kill?
 
 40 
 
 Should raging joy in priestly bosoms glow, 
 
 Ev'n when they trample on their deadliest foe? 
 
 Should not one thought to Charity be given, 
 
 One prayer confess the New Command of Heaven? 
 
 Thus, when his chariot whirl'd by trembling Troy 
 
 The bleeding carcase of that ill-match'd boy, 
 
 Achilles' heart might burn with savage force, 
 
 Or Turnus triumph o'er the Arcadian corse: 
 
 Thus too, in fiercer hours, might Christians rage 4e 
 
 But will their furies mend our gentle age? 
 
 An age, so long in arms and bloodshed nursed, 43 
 
 That England's core with fierceness is accursed. 
 
 Oh painful charge ! but in our sports alone 
 See the dread truth, the burning stigma own. 
 Allow, with liberal Windham, if you will, 
 The brutal manliness of boxing still : 
 Point not, invidious, to yon bloody scene, 
 Where the stretched carcase stains the village green! 
 
 But mark yon Theatre, where crowded sit 
 From flower-bed boxes, and from crop-hair'd pit,
 
 41 
 
 To unwash'd gallery, in one human heap 
 The race of Sympathy, Applause, or Sleep- 
 Before them Bertram, in Daemoniac pride, 
 Stabs his adulteress' husband at her side, 
 And quits the scene a glorious Suicide! 
 Disgusted, turn from that polluted stage, 
 And look, what Epic heroes charm the age: 
 In Victory's lap see cursed Marmion fall. 
 While the waves dash against that Convent wall, 
 Where young guilt shudders in her living tomb 
 Then, in yon Church, behold the Robber's doom!* 4 
 The loud bolt echoing in his glutted ears, 
 Nobly he dies; his full revenge he hears: 
 " Revenge!" the Pagan shouts, with thrilling sound, 
 " Revenge!" the Christian chorus echoes round. 
 
 But, worthier far to share the Laureat's blame 
 Than gross partakers of this common shame, 
 Behold, brave Samor 45 arms the British car, 
 And lights the beacon of the patriot war. 
 Yet here, ev'n here, when that retiring mind 
 Has left the world, Revenge remains behind ;
 
 42 
 
 Nor Sorrows moonlight hours one sigh can yield 
 To mourn the righteous horrors of the field. 
 In Genius rich, adorn'd with many a seed 
 Of Learning's soil, what wrong Poetic creed 
 Retards brave Samor's passage to the shrine 
 Where Glory dwells? Vain labour, to combine 
 Milton and Shakspeare in one modern line: 
 Condemn'd a tuneful monster to produce, 
 Close without order, without light diffuse ; 
 Where hard Inversion, with pedantic force, 
 Delights to fix the cart before the horse ; 
 Where wide Redundance holds alternate rule, 
 And weakly overflows Compression's ancient school/ 
 But oft, full oft, indignant Nature, free 
 From the vile bonds of verbal mimicry, 
 In language of her own distinctly heard 
 Shoots inborn Vigour through each living word ; 
 Glides unrestrain'd, glides royally along, 
 Deepens the mass of Samor's liquid song, 
 And, rapt by Virtue into purer day, 
 The Patriot soul is stamp'd upon the lay.
 
 43 
 
 And thou too, Wonder of the reasoning mind, 
 Pain oi the feeling heart whom now we find 
 Nerved with deep lore of Plato's angel tongue, 
 Now offering rudest models to the young, 46 
 Forms by thyself and mystic Wordsworth made, 
 Abstracts of vacuum, shadows of a shade^- 
 Or with Invention's grave and stale pretence * T 
 In worse new language clouding alien sense ; 
 Or strangely charm'd with Bebmen's phrenzied rant/ 
 And fancying clear profundity for Kant 
 (To whom thyself, allow'd thy due degree, 
 Wert Hercules to boneless Infancy !) 
 What, Coleridge ! honour'd, pitied, injured name, 
 What thus obscures thy glory with thy ^hame? 
 Oh ! rouse thee from the dream indulged too long, 
 List yet again to Nature's Grecian song ; 
 Hear, with thine inward sense, how watchful Art 
 Warbles beneath the whole her humbler part ; 
 Yet checks each loud extravagance the while 
 Like unseen Law, in some well-go vern'd Isle, 
 Whose ready power forbids excess to thrive, 
 Whose cautious veil keeps energy alive;
 
 44 
 
 While, inly temper'd by her righteous rules, 
 
 No Rage o'erflows, and no just Ardour cools. 
 
 But if Advice be vain, and still thine eye 
 
 The true-born Bard in Wordsworth must descry, 
 
 (Whose one idea 49 half thine own appears, 
 
 Darting your double soul through Nature's outward 
 
 spheres, 
 And colouring lifeless things with human glow, 
 As many a minstrel tinged them long ago ! 
 Yet fancied not his practice so profound, 
 Or such Mare's nests in common notions found) 50 
 If thou must still identify thy Lake 
 With meaner waters, for sweet Friendship's sake, 
 Proceed in peace ; accept a Brothers thanks, 
 For quitting Folly's Pantheistic ranks ; 
 Receive the hail of Hope, from one at least, 
 Who, whether Layman grave, or genial Priest, 
 Awaits thy " Logos" 51 with no critic zeal, 
 Resolved to meditate, and sure to feel ; 
 While through the " deep obscure*' thou sound'st thy 
 
 way, 
 And lead'st Belief to philosophic day.
 
 45 
 
 Tuni we to Life. What countless blots appear, 
 What varied shades, to dim our prospect here ! 
 Whether on foreign schemes our glances light, 
 Where Victory's Child, Partition, blasts our sight; 52 
 Where every voice "Legitimacy!" sounds, 
 And every hand removes a neighbour's bounds ; 
 Religious Leagues 53 with Spoliation mix, 
 And shelter Fraud beneath a Crucifix ; 
 Prolong the web accursed Catherine wove, 
 Or point the bolts of Gaul's Infernal Jove 
 Why wrench the Sceptre from his lawless hand, 
 And sanctify his crimes, ye Royal Band ? 
 Say, baffled Genoa, injured Venice say, 
 And limbs of Saxony, torn raw away, 
 Where, in yon Congress, with a wondrous love 
 Lambs herd with Lions, Vultures shield the Dove, 
 Does generous Britain plead the weaker cause? 
 Indignant Shame her downcast eye withdraws. 
 
 Home be our boundary. Here what glorious scope 
 For Virtue's cares, for sun-lit dreams of Hope !
 
 4,6 
 
 Survey those hallow'd walls, where nightly rise 
 Wisdom's grave tones, and moral energies, 
 
 To make whole nations blest Oh, bitter fame ! 
 
 Oh, praise that stultifies the unworthy name !- 
 
 Is that a Senator, whose loose undress 
 
 (Fit Emblem of his Mind's worse carelessness) 
 
 Whose Merry-Andrew Eloquence, whose jest, 
 
 Reeking with blood-drops from a Kingdom's breast, 
 
 Demands the votes of Britons, sworn to guard 
 
 Those rights, alike by grov'ling Courtiers marr'd, 
 
 And raging Demagogues ? Is this the place, 
 
 (Severe sojourn of Freedom's earlier race, 
 
 Who calFd triumphant Nassau to supply 
 
 The vacant seat of iron Bigotry) 
 
 Is this the place where Folly dares to brand 
 
 With idiot scorn the Patriots of the land ; 
 
 Or callous Vice each principle derides, 
 
 That toils to stem Corruption's ocean tides ? 
 
 JJere too, witji shame, with hopeless grief opprest, 
 The Muse would lock the weight within her breast;
 
 47 
 
 Did not, resistless, on her awestruck eyes 
 The godlike form of matchless Chatham rise ! 
 While majesty of mien, and depth of sense, 
 Lend lustre to a Seraph's eloquence; 
 While Justice folds the falling patriot's robe, 
 And Empire shakes on her divided globe 
 Oh, summon back that Spirit ! to control 
 This wreck of sense, this sacrifice of soul, 
 That dares, unblushing Statesman! 6 * to provoke 
 A suffering nation with a barbarous joke. 
 Oh ! think what interests dwell upon thy tongue ! 
 Graves of the old, and cradles of the young 
 Wait all their solace, all their hope from thee, 
 And darken in thy loss of dignity. 
 Yes, the long honours of thy native land 
 Hang on thy words her fate is in thy band ? 
 Europe beholds thee with concentering eyes, 
 And Asia watches from her eager skies ; 
 While, well-prepared to profit by thy fall, 
 The rival West forbids thee to recall 
 Thy dangerous Madness, and with ruthless hate 
 Records the follies of thy mean debate.
 
 48 
 
 Teach her a nobler lesson ! let her feel, 
 When England's language guards the public weal, 
 'Tis more than yet to new-found worlds is given, 
 'Tis Angel pleading in the cause of Heaven. 
 
 Nor can a holier theme your cares demand, 
 Ye guides and fathers of your native land, 
 Than that which now ye ponder : well-bestow'd 
 Is every thought to keep in Virtue's road 
 The rising hopes of Britain ; and dispense 
 To Poverty's low roof the cultured sense, 
 The moral worth, the pious confidence, 
 That God then destined for the race of man, 
 When dawn'd the Gospel's all-embracing plan. 
 Fear not this growth of Knowledge, ye who shrink 
 From proud equality ! but, patient, think, 
 What right have ye in darkness to retain 
 Your fellow Being ? Yet, to clear the brain 
 From inbred phantoms, cast a searching eye 
 Through the stored page of prophet history ; 
 And mark, how Ignorance with changeless crimes 
 Stains the long current of her shadowy times ;
 
 49 
 
 While Health revives, where Knowledge opes her vein, 
 And Piety's meek dove descends to earth again. 
 Nor dream, that Labour's useful band will rise 
 Beyond their sphere of humble energies ; 
 That learned swains above the plough will soar 
 Diffuse the blessing, and the danger's o'er. 55 
 Where to six feet shoots upward all the crowd, 
 The Patagonian is no longer proud. 
 
 Nor fancy yet, when Learning's new-born Sun 
 Has lit the awaken'd Isle, that all is done: 
 With gradual hand blot out the deep disgrace 
 Accepted alms entail upon our race; 
 While shameless Sloth, incapable of cure, 
 Stamps half a nation for the parish poor ! 
 Oh, where is England's ancient peasant fled, 
 Who scorn'd the pauper's ignominious bread ; 
 And, save in Age, or Health's o'erclouded hour, 
 Clung, hardy Toil! to thy ennobling power? 
 But now Oh blush, my Country! thus to sec 
 Thy realm o'errun with licensed beggary 55 
 
 E
 
 50 
 
 While pale-faced Commerce, 5r in her close-pent hive, 
 
 Keeps her sick bees luxuriously alive ; 
 
 Till some dread crash brings down her ill-propp'd 
 
 dome, 
 And the wide ruin whelms each meaner home. 
 Then the lame wretch, accustom'd to enjoy 
 The social gains of pining girl and boy, 
 (Reversing Nature's Order, which demands 
 The child's protection at the parent's hands) 
 Turn'd, with that whole lost family, adrift, 
 In o'erstock'd trades for scanty bread to shift, 
 Plies his vain skill, till, bow'd by ruthless fate, 
 He swells the burthen of the groaning Rate. 
 
 But thou, who mourn'st our general ills, devise, 
 Amid the mass of moral quackeries, 
 Some check for Commerce, now her sail is spread 
 Call, if thou canst, that Spirit from the dead, 
 Which bade each English Cincinnatus feel 
 " The plough, the pasture, are our common weal!" 
 True, from the core the canker grows ; and Time, 
 That moulds anew the heart of every clime,
 
 51 
 
 Has moulded our's to artificial wants, 
 All that Ease asks, and all that Commerce grants. 
 But still the tainted stream may wind its course 
 Through branching channels with diminish'd force ; 
 And some well-counterpoised desire restrain 
 This raging mercantile disease of gain. 
 Let not one acre of uncultured earth 
 Deny its answering crop of rustic worth : 
 But, as long-tried and faithful service proves 
 The labourer's claim upon the lord he loves, 
 Let the poor plot he rents, his own become 
 And strengthening Virtue shall adorn his home ; 
 His free-born children flourish at his side, 
 And peasant hearts resume their blameless pride. 
 By due degrees advance them, Ye who reign 
 O'er the best realm, Earth's natural domain ; 
 Nor turn, with callous sneer, or childish awe, 
 From self-form'd dreams of an Agrarian law. 
 No dangerous phantom here assails your power : 
 Review the thought in Reason's tranquil hour ; 
 (The plain, the pleasing, the convincing thought, 
 Home to your hearts by inbred Virtue brought) 
 
 E 2
 
 52 
 
 And say, if some few perches, thus bestow'd, 
 
 With a small garden, and a warm abode, 
 
 Were not a generous prize for toil to win, 
 
 Were not a safeguard from a host of sin?* 8 
 
 Nor rest content in others to admire 
 
 Such casual gifts 59 but catch the constant fire, 
 
 Catch it, en masse, ye Nobles ! and oppose 
 
 This iron bulwark to your Country's foes : 
 
 Thus quell Sedition's clamour ; thus receive 
 
 The prayers of Earth, and more than Earth can give. 
 
 A louder voice arrests you ; closer ties 
 Twine round your hearts with pleading sympathies : 
 Mark your own children ; mark the high-born race, 
 Old England's destined glory, or disgrace. 
 Say, do ye suit, by sound Discretion's rules, 
 Their differing talents to congenial schools ? 
 Rouse ye the sluggish, and restrain the proud, 
 By keen collision in the rival crowd ? 
 While, if a fatal easiness of soul 
 Bows the young victim to each friend's controul,
 
 53 
 
 Watch ye that stripling with a father's care, 
 
 Or seek some guardian shade, and plant him there, 
 
 Where Christian discipline may crown the mind, 
 
 By Learning strengthen'd, and by Taste refined ? 
 
 Far from this heart be methodistic zeal, 
 
 And each warm social impulse let me feel, 
 
 As with a cautious, but an honest hand, 
 
 I probe the fairest gangrene of our land. 
 
 First then, ye Parents ! have ye sown the seed* 
 And raised pure morals from a pious creed? 
 If such your care, how dread the crime of those 
 Who leave that ground to indolent repose, 
 Which every flower and every fruit might yield, 
 Improved by culture of the generous field ! 
 Toil ye enough, Instructors of our youth, 
 To fight false Honour with religious Truth ? 
 To kill the Pagan root that lurks within, 
 The dangerous pride of virtue-seeming sin ? 
 Forgive this question, from a mind that loves 
 Your haunted rivers, and your Delphic groves ; 
 But fain would pour, on every ancient stream, 
 And fabled woodland, Faith's aetherial beam
 
 54 
 
 Ye are Another's Servants He will ask 
 
 The just acquittal of your solemn task. 
 
 And hard indeed your duty, to restrain 
 
 In their own faults the wealthy 60 and the vain ; 
 
 To curb excess, where all the race exceeds, 
 
 And warn the stripling from fraternal deeds; 
 
 To bind, with chains of paper and of pen, 
 
 Boys, whose home hot-beds force them into men ; 61 
 
 Who, from the cradle used to dog and gun, 
 
 Still o'er the Game Preserve in fancy run, 
 
 While, to yon hated desk confined, they seem 
 
 To ply the labours of the moral theme. 
 
 How can they grow in knowledge, whose whole talk, 
 
 Or in the social task, or friendly walk, 
 
 Turns on the kennel, or the county race, 
 
 Or the long wonders of the glorious chace ? 
 
 Folly ne'er framed a fashion, to destroy 
 
 Each genial gift, and Virtue of the boy, 
 
 Like Sporting's mania, that our land consumes, 
 
 And sinks our youth to gamekeepers and grooms. 
 
 Who would proscribe, what moralist precise, 
 
 The just indulgence ? But the excess is vice.
 
 55 
 
 Fix not, too early, on their gallant horse 
 
 The aspiring Nimrods : waste not all their force, 
 
 Body and mind, on foxes : ere they gain 
 
 One glow of heart, one energy of brain, 
 
 To catch the natural feeling, or to find 
 
 The lofty vision of the expanding mind. 
 
 Hence, Sportsmen still, dishonouring every seat, 
 
 Pulpit, or Senate, Town, or green Retreat, 
 
 Hunting and Shooting share their narrow soul, 
 
 Waste the long day, or dull the midnight bowl. 
 
 But some, with Hackney-Coachmen for their peers, 
 Whirl through the streets, high-titled Charioteers ! 
 Revive the scandal of imperial Rome, 
 And brand, with varied shame, their injured home. 
 Nay in mid sunshine, yon Buffoon 62 behold, 
 Watching, with mimic motions, uncontrol'd, 
 The noble Coachman seated by his side ! 
 (Oh where, my Country, is thy virtuous pride ?) 
 He practises that copy through the day, 
 Which all the harden'd Town at night shall see him 
 play.
 
 56 
 
 But lo ! the gambler -circled by that host, 
 The black-leg monsters of the Betting Post ; 
 Or with more elegant adventurers girt, 
 Each bowing, smiling, to his brother's hurt, 
 What worthy, honourable friends, are his ! 
 Aye there s the wound ! in mixtures such as this, 
 Of rogue and noble, whore and spotless dame, 
 Link'd by those epicenes of either name, 
 Lies England's ruin. Oh distinctly trace, 
 Ye, her most virtuous, ye, her wisest race, 
 The lines of Right and Wrong ! nor deign to sit 
 In the same circle with abandon'd Wit, 
 With titled Infamy, or Beauty frail, 
 Or Scorn, that views Religion as a tale 6S 
 Strike bantering Folly dead with awful Truth, 
 And purify the scene that waits our generous Youth. 
 
 Ere yet they launch on Life's tumultuous tide, 
 And Granta's bowers their safer follies hide, 
 Enter those bowers awhile ; and calmly see, 
 Even in the courts of grave Philosophy, 
 If greybeard Discipline, with steadier hand, 
 Might not restrain her Academic band ?
 
 : 57 
 
 Ask, if those numerous tenants of the Town, 
 Monsters no more, but guiltless of a gown, ** 
 Ready to scour Newmarket's fatal plain, 
 And cross the ditch 63 that bounds the Devil's reign, 
 Ask, if they bow to Alma Mater's rules 
 With reverence due, and hang her marble schools 
 With ivy wreaths of knowledge, when appears 
 The close of three much mutilated years, 
 And yon fair Senate House beholds them claim 
 Their sanction'd titles to Collegiate fame? 
 Alas, poor sportsmen ! just prepared before 
 With some three months of geometric lore, 
 They pass a careless muster, and set forth, 
 (Shamed by their pale-brow'd rivals of the North, 
 Spawn of gymnastic mountains) to disgrace, 
 Where'er they wander, Granta's graduate race ! 
 :Why bears she this? and why, with all her love 
 For cold Abstraction, all her joy to prove, 
 Mingles she not some spell of kindlier power, 
 Some fairy blooms from Fancy's summer bower, 
 To teach the soul of deeper thought to twine 
 Minerva's fruits with flow'rets of the Nine ?
 
 58 
 
 Or, if unfit for Wisdom's pensive toil, 
 Rear a light produce on the sandy soil? 
 What, if a nobler few, of inborn fire, 
 The Titan race of genius, 66 may aspire 
 To double palms of glory, and may chuse 
 An after wedding with the beauteous Muse 
 When wrinkled Mathesis has breathed her last, 
 And left her treasures to reward the past 
 How can the Many win a chance like this ? 
 Must they then lose all humbler happiness ? 
 No draught of Hippocrene to cheer their soul, 
 Because too weak to drain the golden bowl ? 6r 
 Be wise, loved Cam ! arouse thee, and be wise ; 
 Blot out these foul, these old anomalies ; 
 Bid all thy sons a glimpse of Rome obtain, 
 And purge with Grecian drugs the misty brain. 
 
 If Classic Lore such varied arms can yield, 
 Fit for the bar, the senate, or the field ; 
 If young Ambition here may catch the flow 
 That charms the crowd in lucid Cicero ;
 
 59 
 
 If Caesar here may prompt the brave to learn 
 How pen and sword a mutual honour earn ; 
 If Socrates may teach some stripling peer 
 The wholesome truths he breathed in Glauco's ear ; 
 If Emulation, warm'd by Plutarch's page, 
 Weigh the contrasted worth of many a glorious age- 
 Then, Granta ! rob not of their school-boy store 
 Thy injured sons, but kindly make it more; 
 Kindly complete what needful rods began, 
 Nor turn the letter'd youth to Algebraic man. 
 
 Stretch'd on the torturing Procrustean bed, 
 That palsies each variety of head, 
 Why, Alma Mater, languish thus thy sons? 
 'Tis not the reasoning vein, that largely runs 
 Through those whom Mathesis absorbs, can pay 
 For the lost beams of Fancy's dawning day ; 
 Supply the moral pow'r, the soften'd sense, 
 The taste matured, the glowing eloquence, 
 The tone of thought for active life prepared, 
 The love of Freedom, by all scholars shared,
 
 60 
 
 That Classic toils unerringly inspire, 
 "When worthy Honour feeds the generous fire 6 * 
 No ! nor can Reason's self the charge deny, 
 That many a hog of Euclid's grunting sty, 
 Too closely bound by Demonstration's thongs, 
 And valuing moral proofs as idle songs, 
 Comes forth, unfit in that wide scene to war, 
 Where, clad in Faith, we live, and move, and are. 
 Not thus, high Mathesis ! thy sons of fame, 
 Newton's blest pow'r, and Paley's cloudless name. 
 Abused their gifts; but threw o'er Reason's shield 
 The brilliant veil of Faith, and won the field. 
 Still, for the myriad lights, the unnumber'd shades 
 Of graduated mind, the Aonian maids 
 Would lend congenial changes of employ, 
 Nor waste the first acquirements of the boy 
 To whose vain choice it never should be left, 
 To live of classic lore disgracefully bereft. 
 Strengthen that lore with abstract themes of Truth ; 
 Let Locke's pure logic rule the flights of youth ; 
 Let Christian morals intersperse their charm 
 With Heathen codes, and Heathen pride disarm ;*
 
 61 
 
 And, varying thus the mathematic task, 
 With all that wit can dream, or judgment ask, 
 Sure, better fruits from such well-chosen seeds, 
 The fruits of wise designs and virtuous deeds, 
 Would spring, and flourish with a lovelier bloom, 
 Than those now nursed in Granta's halls of gloom. 
 
 But, gentler Isis ! o'er whose hallow'd grove 
 The shade of Addison still seems to rove, 
 Endure, awhile, from one who loves thee well, 
 Some jealous doubts and, if thou canst, dispel. 
 Say then, reviving from too soft a sleep, 70 
 Thy new-found path securely dost thou keep ? 
 Find'stthou the golden mean, where Right from Wrong 
 (Tho' e'er so close) runs clearly mark'd along ? 
 Where Rigour ends ere Laxity begins, 
 And pardon'd faults stop short of licensed sins? 
 'Tis well but, candid Rhedycina, say, 
 In this the reflux of thy brighter day, 
 Screws not thy hand too tight the strong machine, 
 Where thy young votaries ne'er before were seen ?
 
 62 
 
 How canst thou hope degenerate times like these 
 
 Will yield a host to storm Thucydides? 
 
 How canst thou bid them at so green an age, 
 
 Reap the full vigour of that Attic page? 
 
 Or, if I wrong thee here (though Fame reports 
 
 Such deeds are done in thy collegiate courts, 
 
 As make thy trembling Freshmen wing their flight, 
 
 Ere stripp'd of all their plumes, and bare outright) 
 
 Say, when the soul of Greece should warm thine own, 71 
 
 And thy veins throb with Liberty alone, 
 
 Dost thou not teach the highborn generous band, 
 
 The destined guardians of the British land, 
 
 That Persian stoop, unworthy of a man, 
 
 That slavish crawl accurst of Ispahan? 
 
 Ha! start'st thou at the word? Then answer here: 
 
 Have we not twice beheld the thousandth year, 
 
 Since Greece was glorious, since her pride expired ? 
 
 Why then, e'en now, with factious hate inspired, 
 
 Burns Scotland's son, whose dark historic page 
 
 Pours on the People's cause his ruthless rage, 
 
 And blights each germ of Freedom? shame! oh shame! 
 
 Redeem not thus thy long-lost patriot name,
 
 63 
 
 Tory Oxonia ! In the fountain seek, 
 In the pure records of the native Greek, 
 For sacred Truth, chastised by Attic lore, 
 And trust a modern partizan no more. 
 Oh ! what a height Thucydides commands, 
 Scanning the contests of compatriot bands 
 With firm impartial justice, and serene 
 Amid the brave, the spirit-stirring scene 
 
 Pollute not Him with M d. Yet again, 
 
 Fair Rhedycina, in my daring strain, 
 
 I ask thee this Can no consenting** Powers, 
 
 King, Lords, and Commons, through thy classic 
 
 bowers 
 Diffuse a larger spirit, and forbid 
 In want to pine, in darkness to be hid 
 Full many a young aspirant, on whose woes 
 Thy County Colleges their portals close, 
 Spite of his crying Virtues ? Oh expand 
 The shrine of Learning to a grateful land ; 
 That altar's mighty screen let merit claim, 
 And let a Kingdom's voice repeal thy Gothic shame!
 
 64 
 
 How ill they deem of Satire's burning lays, 
 Who count them pleasant as the notes of praise! 
 Fain would the Muse indulge a plausive tone, 
 And boast of England's brilliant deeds alone. 
 Rise then, ye Visions to my raptured thought, 
 Ye forms of Battles honourably fought ! 
 Where, forward thrust on Maida's ardent plain, 
 The British bayonet shook the Gallic reign 
 Where, on Barrosa's height it flash'd again ; 
 Or forced, on dreadful TaJavera's 73 field, 
 The outnumbering host of Victory's Child to yield. 
 Hark! 'tis a voice from red Corunna's shore 
 The voice of conquest from expiring Moore ! 
 Another Wolfe, in Victory's lap he dies, 
 A new Epaminondas cold he lies ! 
 Weep, England, weep thy soldier's laurell'd fall, 
 And kindling Valour hold his bloody pall ! 
 Not this his tomb on Spain's unworthy strand; 
 But the proud memory of his native land. 
 Shrined in the beating bosoms of the brave, 
 Their tears triumphant sparkle o'er his grave.
 
 65 
 
 Twice on that fatal coast has England mourn 'd 
 Her shout of pride to funeral wailing turn'd. 
 There too, enwrapt in clouds of deathful fire, 
 She saw her naval thunderbolt expire. 
 Him, whom pale Nil us watch'd with awe-struck 
 
 glance 
 Tear our own trident from the grasp of France ; 
 Him, whom stout Hafnia, struck with horror, felt 
 Force his brave passage through her guardian belt, 
 And reach her heart. Oh ! bursting from his tomb, 
 Let rival plants of English glory bloom ; 
 And Ocean's sons maintain their ancient pride, 
 While warlike landsmen flourish at their side. 
 Enough not blind to living worth, the Muse ? 
 Trembling her lofty province to abuse, 
 And scared by Flattery's shadow, drops the veil 
 O'er many a recent memorable tale ; 
 And, thoughtful, rests, with fix'd impassion'd view, 
 Where Fame's bright Evening glows o'er Waterloo. 
 
 Yon guarded rock, that rises o'er the main, 
 Where jealous Caution plants her warlike train ;
 
 66 
 
 Is that the abode where Grandeur prostrate lies, 
 
 And reaps the fruit of countless Victories? 
 
 Yes 'tis the prison of a Storm, whose breath 
 
 Would shake the world, and wrap her sons in death. 
 
 But answer, generous England ! dost thou shed 
 
 No needless torments on the guilty head ? 
 
 Rear'st thou too close a barrier round his home, 
 
 IN or givest the tiger in his cage to roam ? 
 
 Thou can'st not, would'st not, for all India's wealth, 
 
 Hob the worst wretch of Nature's boon of health : 
 
 Still less, with Cruelty by art refined, 
 
 Would'st thou descend to lacerate his mind. 
 
 But, think what care thine ancient honours claim ! 
 
 Nor let Suspicion taint thy spotless name. 
 
 Safe while thou keep'st thine own and Europe's foe, 
 
 Insult him not with rude distress, and low ; 
 
 Grant him that only balm of wounded pride, 
 
 That grief unseen to none but him denied : 
 
 Free let him reign on Misery's barren throne, 
 
 And mourn his fall in desert woods alone. 
 
 Much yet remains to warn, to blame, to praise; 
 To catch each tint of our cameleon days :
 
 67 
 
 Mrich yet impels his Country's mourning friend 
 To watch and weep, to check her fatal end. 
 Vain hope ! impetuous, as the setting Sun 
 Urges his steeds their last bright space to run ; 
 And darts, ere lost in Ocean's glimmering bed, 
 Wide but weak lustres from his golden head 
 So swift, so brilliant, in thy sure decline, 
 Loved England, sets the light that once was thine ! 
 So, feebly copious, cheers thy coming gloom, 
 And, through the shallow radiance, shows thy tomb. 
 
 Restore, oh Heaven ! to this my native land, 
 The heart to feel, the head to understand 
 Her true, her natural glory. Fix her eye 
 On each famed state that fell by Luxury ; 
 While Taste corrupt, and loose-robed Morals came 
 The sure precursors of the day of shame. 
 Loved England, profit by the past ! and learn 
 (If yet thou may'st) to Virtue to return, 
 Frugal, forgotten Virtue such, of old, 
 As graced thy children, and their pride control'd ;
 
 68 
 
 Taught them, at home their best delights to find; 7 * 
 
 To fill with love the peasant's grateful mind ; 
 
 In rural studies and baronial sports, 
 
 Safe from the folly and the vice of courts. 
 
 Then, as the seventh, the sacred morn arose, 
 
 Comfort to sorrow, and to toil repose, 
 
 Led by example, venerably good, 
 
 By yon grey porch the rustic circle stood ; 
 
 Well-pleased beheld the chief they loved approach, 
 
 And hail'd the known hereditary coach ; 
 
 Guiltless of other journeys 75 on that day, 
 
 When Heaven directs, and shortens too, the way. 
 
 Blush, England's nobles ! who, in impious scorn, 
 
 Rejoice to journey on the holy morn ; 
 
 And mock the house of Prayer, God's own abode, 
 
 With clattering wheels, resounding through the road ; 
 
 Till simple peasants stare their faith away, 
 
 And trust their betters' judgment of the day. 
 
 Ah ! what avails Ambition's growing reign, 
 And new-built Thrones 76 o'er India's conquered main?
 
 60 
 
 What boots it, Commerce ! that thy prosperous sails 
 Tempt all the viewless tracks of all the gales ? 
 What boots it, Courage ! that thy warlike wreath 
 Is snatch'd, triumphant, from the brow of Death ? 
 And thou, Religion's self! 77 whose plenteous lore 
 Has found, and left us needy as before ? 
 Say, what avails your joint result? alas! 
 The boast, the worth of nations, dawn and pass ; 
 Pass, like a northern sun-beam, into shade, 
 Now help'd by Heaven, now beggar'd of its aid. 
 England has been ! The bloated wealth we see, 
 'Tis one brief mine 'Tis general poverty. 
 Beyond our means, or rich, or poor, we live, 
 And all must soon expect what none can give. 
 
 Such is the common fate : if Greece, if Rome, 
 Teach the same lesson, why escape at home? 
 Empires oergrown must perish by their weight,. 
 And, morals lost, Religion comes too late. 
 Some few, perchance, she rescues from the fire, 
 Ere yet the Son revives the guilty Sire :
 
 70 
 
 But the great mass have mercy on them, Heaven! 
 
 They ask a miracle to be forgiven. 
 
 " Too dark a picture, Satirist! you draw" 
 
 Survey our shrines of Piety and Law. 
 
 One fill'd with prayers, and one with crimes you find: 
 
 Resolve, great Sage ! this riddle of the mind. 
 
 'Tis plain we talk far better than we act : 
 
 Newgate's dread Calendar attests the fact. 
 
 Still as we grow in Learning, and in Fame, 
 
 Deeper we sink, and stamped with darker shame : 
 
 The laden gallows 78 casts her followers back 
 
 On those vile jails that led them in the track : 
 
 Want, Misery, Guilt stand close in every path, 
 
 And boasting Britain towers a monument of Wrath! 
 
 Save her, Angelic hosts ! whose guardian power 
 Redeems lost Kingdoms at their awful hour ; 
 Drop from your shadowy wings a healing dew, 
 And generate Health in this pale realm anew ! 
 Forbid Corruption's giant stride to move 
 In ampler ruin o'er the land ye love :
 
 71 
 
 Forbid her heedless rulers to decree' 
 
 The licensed gambling of a Lottery: 
 
 Forbid each foul extravagance at home, 
 
 Nor let her Conquering Ensigns farther roam, 
 
 In foreign schemes of plunder to unite 
 
 With Holy Leagues, that turn the Wrong to Right 
 
 Self-authorized to do Heaven's fancied work, 
 
 By spoliation of the Pole or Turk. 
 
 Let Britain's heart from fraud like this abstain, 
 
 Let Britain's hand her ancient bounds maintain ; 
 
 Turn on herself her scrutinizing eye, 
 
 Probe her old wounds, her failing strength supply; 
 
 Breathe peaceful whispers through the gathering storm, 
 
 And chace her guilty Terror of Reform. 
 
 Reform! 79 dread word! whose prodigal abuse 
 Alarms the feeble from its genuine use ; 
 Thou, like Philosophy, debased by France, 
 Even to the godless Atheist's giddy trance ; 
 Or Liberty, who still laments her shock, 
 Dash'd by the Gaul on Revolution's rock ;
 
 72 
 
 Thou, like these heaven-born gifts, disgraced on earth, 
 
 Say, wilt thou e'er resume thy native worth ? 
 
 Shall Britain's Senators, unblushing, speak 
 
 Thy sacred name, and in thy bosom seek 
 
 The sole sufficient harbour, ere too late, 
 
 To save the sinking vessel of the state ? 
 
 Oh, waft these vows for Britain to the skies, 
 
 Angelic hosts, and swell them as they rise ! 
 
 Till pure Reform's descending Power has shown 
 
 The pleading influence at the eternal throne ; 
 
 Till ( if deep Awe the glowing hope may dare ) 
 
 Almighty Mercy hears a patriot's prayer.
 
 NOTES
 
 NOTES. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Note I, page 5, line 16. 
 
 Use, that plain Nature owis in every part, 
 Beauty, that charms the cultivated heart. 
 
 Here is the real excellence of the classical poets, in 
 every age and country 
 
 Et prodesse volunt, et delectare Poetaz. 
 
 The higher sons of genius, at least, (if we refer to 
 their long and laboured productions,) have ever con- 
 veyed the most useful doctrines in the most elegant 
 language, and in the most harmonious versification. 
 
 This, indeed, is their title to pre-eminence. 
 
 " Comparisons," as the misapplied old proverb says, 
 " are odious." Let them be so but the odium should 
 attach to that vain presumption which arrogates the 
 honours of poetry, with few of its fundamental qua- 
 lities, and with none of its accessory ornaments; 
 which professes the aim of those who ought both to 
 profit and to please, without a moral design to enable 
 them to attain the nobler object ; and without the labour, 
 g 2
 
 76 
 
 and the care, and the taste, and the science, upon 
 which the graces of the execution, and the pleasure of 
 the cultivated reader must entirely depend. 
 
 Note 2, page 8, line 12. 
 
 While Nuptial Love her tenderest halo shed 
 O'er the green wreath that circled Valour's head. 
 Hector and Andromache. 
 
 Note 3, page 9, line 1. 
 
 There too survey yon Tyrant's aweful death. 
 M ezentius. 
 
 Note 4, page 9, line 14. 
 
 By Mulla's Bard, voere pure Religion's rays. 
 Spenser. 
 
 Note 5, page 9, line 17- 
 
 But he 3 greut prophet of the favouring skies. 
 Milton. 
 
 Note 6, page 10, line 7- 
 
 Still can the magic Seer of Avon's wave. 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 What eulogy can add to the simple grandeur of these 
 three names ? 
 
 Note 7, page 11, line 7. 
 
 Pensive I seek the green Elysian groves, 
 Where hapless lovers reunite their loves. 
 
 Dryden's translation of the 6th Book of Virgil; which, 
 i n many passages, possesses an unrivalled beauty.
 
 77 
 
 Note 8, page 11, line 10. 
 
 A God! a God! runs thrilling round the walls. 
 Alexander's Feast. 
 
 Note 9, page 1 1, line 12. 
 
 Fix'd in soft grief on "charming Emily." 
 Palamon and Arcite. 
 
 ' Note 10, page 11, line 16. 
 
 See, while mute Angels hang their heads around, 
 Sole in the midst the Atoning Mercy found. 
 
 A celebrated passage in the Hind and Panther. 
 
 Note 11, page 12, line 7. 
 
 Loved Swan of Thames, thy graceful bower arose. 
 Pope 
 
 Note 12, page 13, line 5. 
 
 Renounce the little wits 
 
 And the Minute Philosophers. See a very weak and 
 superficial article, in the Edinburgh Review, on the last 
 Edition of Swift. The " burthen of the song," the 
 design and worthy purport of this sublime and self- 
 gratulating critic, is to prove the superiority of the 
 writers of his own day over those of the period of 
 Anne, and George the first and second. A most pro- 
 found speculation indeed !
 
 78 
 
 " Err shall they not, who, resolute, explore 
 
 " Time's gloomy backward with judicious eyes ; 
 
 " Aud, scanning sage the practices of yore, 
 " Shall deem our hoar progenitors unwise." 
 
 Burlesque Stanza, by Dr. Johnson. 
 
 Note 13, page 13, line 8. 
 
 And warm vohole nations save the Sophist's mind. 
 
 " Praster inertem animum Sophistag." 
 
 Parody of Horace. 
 
 Note 14, page 14, line 15. 
 
 No if in honest Essays plainly bound. 
 
 " An honest man, close button'd to the chin, 
 " Broadcloth without, and a warm heart within." 
 
 Cowper. 
 
 This appears to be no faint resemblance of the poet 
 himself; or, rather, of his style of Poetry, if we may 
 so personify it. To have persuaded mechanics, and 
 persons of low habits and manners, that they too can 
 be poets (according to the moderate conditions now ex- 
 acted from those who lay claim to that once most 
 honourable title!) must have done some harm to morals 
 as well as to literature; must have perverted many an 
 honest artificer's head, as well as bedaubed many a fair 
 ream of foolscap. Much of kin to this facility of at- 
 taining poetical honours, where neither music is re- 
 quired in the verse, nor ornament in the expression, is the 
 perfect equality in modern times between the learned and 
 unlearned teachers of religion. But see, on this fearful 
 matter, the subsequent text and notes of the Poem.
 
 79 
 
 Note 15, page 15, line 10. 
 
 And the fierce soldier owns his captive's charms. 
 
 Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit, &c. Sec. 
 
 Horace. 
 
 But, it is to be feared that there is a prematurity of 
 corruption, mixed with an infancy of civilization, in the 
 New World, which forbids all her hopes of lasting or 
 real aggrandizement. 
 
 Note 16, page 17, line 4. 
 
 Hence the vain praise that Scottish tongues so loud 
 Pour on their own contemporary crowd. 
 
 It is a most extraordinary instance of self-contradic- 
 tion, that critics who have condemned, in the indivi- 
 dual examples, so much the major part of the writers 
 of the day, should yet prefer them, en masse, to the 
 authors of our Augustan age of literature ! The pla- 
 giarisms of the moderns from these sources are innu- 
 merable ; but they so bedizen with tawdry finery, and 
 discolour with gipsey juices, the persons and the com- 
 plexions of the genuine children of genius, that they 
 are mistaken for their own. 
 
 Et depravatum creditur esse suum. 
 Besides other articles in the Review abovementioned, 
 (a Review whose general powers of political reasoning, 
 of literary amusement, all readers must confess,,) see 
 the extravagant eulogy upon Madame de Stae'l, which 
 from time to time has rendered its pages ridiculous ; 
 and proved the clear perception, the classical learning, 
 and the correct taste, of the Reviewers, to stand upon an 
 equal footing.
 
 . 80 
 
 Note 17, page 17, line 11. 
 
 Then, pleased to find the point they miss' d before. 
 
 Such critics are very like the old gentleman, who, on 
 
 his approach to Edinburgh in the mail-coach, discovered 
 
 a joke that his young companion had cut upon Highgate 
 
 hill. 
 
 Note 18, page 18, line 2. 
 
 While Satire tears Religion's mask away, 
 And drags the canting scoundrel into day. 
 
 See " Tale of a Tub ;" and other writings of Swift. 
 No reflecting person can, however, lend his unqualified 
 approbation to compositions, where a want of sym- 
 pathy with the nobler qualities of human nature leaves 
 a blank in the general portrait ; and induces the painter 
 to overcharge the masses of shade. Still, by a judi- 
 cious selection, the reader may here find passages, 
 wholly unrivalled in their happy ridicule of absurdity, 
 and in their damning exposure of deceit. 
 
 Note 19, Page 19, line 1. 
 He sips some art of piety. 
 
 As his counterpart, perhaps, dips into Byshe's Art 
 of Poetry. 
 
 Note 20, page 21, line 6. 
 And their eyes open on celestial day. 
 May we not ask, with an earnestness, but with a re- 
 verence suited to the occasion What is the meaning of 
 all the magnificent promises attached to the coming of 
 the Messiah, if only a few in each nation are to be se- 
 lected^/ 1 the offer of happiness?
 
 81 
 
 Note 21, page 23, line 6. 
 
 And bids " the Arminian" sound Ms last retreat. 
 
 Of all the ingenious attempts that are daily making, 
 or rather reviving, to prove the Church of England to 
 rest upon a human basis, and to deny her Scriptural 
 Foundation, none perhaps is more obviously absurd 
 than that which would refer her articles to an Arminian 
 origin ; Arminius having been born just two years pre- 
 vious to the final settlement of those articles in 1562. 
 With regard to Calvin, the ineffectual attempt of the 
 Puritans to affix a Calvinistic sense to the doctrines 
 of the Church, by the insertion of new matter, in 
 their several conferences with the Churchmen, will for 
 ever stand recorded as a proof against them, that they 
 fully felt the impossibility of so interpreting the said 
 doctrines, without such insertion. See Heylin's Quin- 
 quarticular History. See also the u Nonconformist's 
 " Memorial," on the subject of Baptism. 
 
 Note 22, page 24, line 14. 
 Nor tolerate Dissent within her breast. 
 
 This alarming imperium in imperio which has lately 
 arisen amongst us ; this daring variation from the lan- 
 guage of the creed, and actual defiance of the authority 
 of the Church to which they profess to belong, which 
 certain Calvinistic ministers have so plainly manifested ; 
 are surely among the many weighty reasons that ren- 
 der a Convocation of the Clergy expedient at this mo- 
 ment. But see the Appendix.
 
 82 
 
 Note 23, page 24, line 16. 
 Dark Calvin rears his methodistic shoots. 
 
 The rapid spread of all the ramifications of Calvin- 
 ism, after the wound given to Popery at the Reforma- 
 tion, are a proof indeed of the eagerness with which 
 mankind run from one extreme to the other. " The 
 " human mind," says Luther, " is like a drunken pea- 
 *' sant upon horseback ; set it up on one side, it falls 
 " down on the other." Men of reflection cannot fail 
 to be struck with the virtual identity of the methodistical 
 doctrines of conscious communication with Heaven, and 
 perfect Assurance, with the Calvinistic tenet of exclusive 
 Election. Self-conceit is the true foundation of each. 
 See Locke's chapter on Enthusiasm. And again, for 
 the strange similarity of opinion between parties that 
 seem most discordant to a superficial view, for the close 
 approximation of " Jack and Peter," refer to that 
 curious and valuable work of Bishop Lavington's, " The 
 Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists compared" 
 
 The features of Exclusiveness, and of private Confes- 
 sion, will at once suggest the resemblance to the most 
 careless observer. 
 
 " Thus, in our waking systems, strange as dreams, 
 " Folly still joins her opposite extremes." 
 
 Note 24, page 25, line 3. 
 
 When Prayer Books sank, and God's perverted word. 
 
 A tendency to underrate the importance of our inimit- 
 able Liturgy, as an instrument of devout edification, has 
 ever been the concomitant of ignorance and vanity in 
 matters of religion. The Puritans, consistently, although
 
 83 
 
 most presumptuously, substituted the Directory for the 
 Prayer Book. We, yes we (Churchmen, in the 
 
 name of as we are !) think the circulation of 
 
 the Bible without the Prayer Book, sufficient in our own 
 Country. We believe that God has joined them ; 
 and yet, when we could maintain their union, we put 
 them asunder ! 
 
 Note 25, page 25, lines 8 and 18. 
 And every Tradesman was a self-made Priest. 
 See the admirable Notes to Grey's Hudibras. How 
 might they now be added to, yet how repeated ! How 
 varied, in their leading topics of Satire ! 
 
 Their oaths, their ravings, and their actions too. 
 
 The constant irreverent use of the name of the incar- 
 nate Deity, whether in the pulpit or out of it, in the ear 
 of Reason can sound like nothing but profane swear- 
 ing, or excessive enthusiasm. 
 
 Note 26, page 25, line 20. 
 
 Fail as they will, has fated to endure. 
 
 See the records of the Hampton Court Conference. 
 
 Note 27, page 26, line 8. 
 The fox, the bear, the tiger howl without. 
 
 The fox : the sly, cautious animal, that niches away 
 part of the fold in the night. The bear : the coarse 
 creature, that hugs you to death with seeming affection. 
 The tiger : the religionist, aptly enough compared to 
 a " moderate tiger."
 
 84 
 
 Note 28, page 28, line 1. 
 
 Has then Donatus left, or recent Fox. 
 
 The antiquity of the newest heresies is most astonish- 
 ing. When Chatterton said, " he would invent a new 
 religion," his want of reading was as evident as his 
 presumption. What Donatus, and many another here- 
 tical and well-sounding name, once was, every great city 
 in Europe can now exhibit. To preach, however, or 
 to pray extempore, seems to be the sine qua non of all 
 enthusiasm. Fox and his disciples are as devoid of 
 originality as they are of real humility. 
 
 Note 29, page 28, line 9- 
 
 When he the great, the golden-mouth' d of yore. 
 
 Chrysostom. Do the clergy often enough admonish 
 their congregations of the antiquity, of the venerable 
 character of our Reformed Liturgy ? Well may it be said, 
 " the Antiquity ; n for he who stops at the Reformation, 
 in tracing back to its origin this noble form of Christian 
 worship, ill appreciates the sources from which Cranmer 
 and his co-adjutors drew their knowledge, and is most 
 imperfectly acquainted with the history of the primitive 
 church. Is a little knot of enthusiasts, (growing, like a 
 fungus, out of the academical trunk of Oxford), is the 
 author of Whitfield's, or of Wesley's Journal to over- 
 turn, by their unauthorized omissions and additions, 
 such a system of congregational devotion as this ? Dii 
 meliora piis ! 
 
 Note 30, page 28, line 17. 
 The Sacred Oracles, a Band has ask'd. 
 The Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, in- 
 stituted in 1699
 
 85 
 
 Note 31, page 9,9, Hue 15. 
 
 f * Is this your charity f* 'tis trash, my Friend. 
 
 The disputes on the subject of the Bible Society have 
 been too numerous to suffer any addition ; and too de- 
 cisively argued, in favour of the opponents of that seem- 
 ing benefit, but real detriment to the cause of piety in 
 England, to require any fresh illustration, of a formal 
 kind. The regular prose dragoons have swept all be- 
 fore them, save a few scattered fugitives who may be 
 " shot flying" by the light artillery of rhyme. For one 
 curious anecdote, (worth indeed a thousand arguments), 
 see the Appendix. 
 
 Note 32, page 30, line 6. 
 If we must part, God bless thee on thy way. 
 
 A conscientious, patient, and adequate examination 
 of the creed of their fathers, seems to be the only con- 
 ceivable method, compatible with sense and honesty, by 
 which they who entertain doubts as to that creed, can 
 satisfy them. How different a practice is adopted by 
 those, who contend that " they have a right to chuse 
 " their own preacher," need not be observed. Obsti- 
 nacy, and " itching ear3," are the usual incentives to this 
 magnanimous freedom of choice. 
 
 Note 33, page 30, line 9. 
 I meet the scorner of Baptismal Grace. 
 
 The root of many evils of dissent, both without and 
 within the church, lies here. The clergy, who are truly 
 and rationally attached to the cause of religion, would 
 do well to weigh the importance of reviving the primi-
 
 86 
 
 tive respect paid to the Sacrament of Baptism. It pre- 
 sents an effectual bar to many of the most insidious ap- 
 proaches of heresy. The Methodist and the Calvinist, 
 the Methodistico-Calvinist, and the Calvinistico- Metho- 
 dist, sink before this mighty engine of the Faith, " as it 
 * l was once delivered to the Saints." And how in- 
 genuous, how honest, appears the old Non-conformist, 
 who avowed his objection on this point, and left the 
 Church with which he could not agree, compared to 
 the modern quibbling Clergyman, who endeavours to 
 interpret away the plain meaning of the Baptismal 
 Service, which he has sworn to maintain ! 
 
 Note 34, page 31, line 18. 
 
 And, nobly rising o'er the rescued land, 
 
 Spread the safe bulwarks of that Christian Band. 
 
 The rapid increase, and the extensive utility of the 
 District Committees of the Society for Promoting 
 Christian Knowledge, must afford to every friend of the 
 Church of England the most reasonable and warm satis- 
 faction. 
 
 Note 35, page 32, line 2. 
 
 Here, as elseivhere, their duties titer/ combine. 
 
 See Appendix, for some notice of the Society for 
 Propagating the Gospel. 
 
 Note 36, page 32, line 13. 
 
 Nor Eastern Brethren tremble to receive. 
 
 For an explanation of this allusion, see the anecdote 
 referred to above (note 31), as contained in the Ap- 
 pendix.
 
 87 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Note 37, page S6, line 6. 
 
 Blind to the light of England's noblest day. 
 
 Some well-meaning country gentlemen may doubt it; 
 but, in this Town of our's, they may be assured, that 
 we Londoners could shew them several full-grown spe- 
 cimens of that portentous species of critics, who main- 
 tain that " we modern Britons of the nineteenth cen- 
 " tury, are decidedly the first people that the world has 
 " ever produced ;" that (besides the accident of being 
 the best men) we are the best authors that our own 
 modest country has ever produced ; that as for Han- 
 nibal, " he was a pretty fellow in his day ;" that Dryden 
 indeed might have been a great man, had he so chosen; 
 
 but that Pope pooh ! nobody, but a mere laudator 
 
 temporis acti would think of placing him in the first 
 ranks of genius. Our ancestors indeed would have 
 stared at this ! Mais n'importe. Nous avons changi- 
 tout cela. 
 
 Note 38, page 37, line 10. 
 
 O'erturn'd a throne, and wreck' d an altar too. 
 
 The writers from the Reformation to the reign of 
 Charles the First, and later.
 
 88 
 
 Note 39 f page S8, line 10. 
 
 Without the sparkling point that Blockheads blame. 
 When yet they shake at their Tormentor's name. 
 
 The irreconcileable enmity of all blockheads past, 
 present, and to come, against the brilliant wit of Pope, 
 is the true secret of the impotent attacks upon that un- 
 assailable reputation. 
 
 " The strong antipathy of good to bad" did not more 
 distinctly separate his higher qualities from the mean- 
 spirited and the dishonourable, than his rapid and bright 
 imagination opposed him to the slow, the heavy, and 
 the stupid. They howled at his light, as a dog howls 
 at the moon ; and (as suggested by Warburton) gave 
 equal evidence to its lustre. 
 
 Note 40, page 38, line 19- 
 In vain the Cid Kehama's Curse implore. 
 This was the Curse of Immortality. Is the " Cid" 
 likely to suffer from such an infliction ? 
 
 Note 41, page 38, line 20. 
 
 And sunk Brazil repose on Lethe's shore. 
 
 Unsatisfied with Spanish and Portuguese history, Mr. 
 Southey, it is said, intends to oblige the world with 
 Select Methodistical Biography. Cui bono " The Life 
 " of John Wesley ?" 
 
 Note 42, page 40, line 9- 
 
 Thus too, in fiercer hours, might Christians rage. 
 
 It is not intended to deny the historical ferocity of 
 " Roderic the last of the Goths." But it is intended
 
 89 
 
 most strenuously to controvert the expediency of asso-* 
 dating this ancient spirit of Christian Revenge, 
 with our modern resentment against the Invader of 
 Spain. The two feelings, combined by the Poet, pre- 
 sent altogether a most amiable religious picture ! 
 
 Note 43, page 40, line 11. 
 
 An age so long in arms and bloodshed nursed. 
 
 It should be remembered, that none of our rising, 
 and comparatively few of our risen generation, have seen 
 any thing but a state of war. The necessary tendency 
 which this has to harden the heart, should not be for- 
 gotten by any moralist, prosaic or poetical. 
 
 Note 44, page 41, line 11. 
 Then in yon church behold the Robber's doom. 
 The death of Bertrand, in Rokeby. 
 
 Note 45, page 41, line 18. 
 
 Behold, brave Samor arms the British car. 
 
 The poem of Samor, by Mr. Milman, displays all 
 the striking talent which the Fazio of that author exhi- 
 bited. But it too largely partakes of the faults of its 
 elder brother ; and, if they are not amended in the next 
 attempt, they will corrupt the whole family. 
 
 Note 46, page 43, line 4. 
 Now offering rudest models to the young. 
 The mixture of Classical learning with Gothic taste
 
 90 
 
 is one of the most painful pbcenomena that a good- 
 natured person can behold. Why will Mr. Coleridge 
 inflict such pain ? 
 
 Note 47, page 43, line 7. 
 
 Or, with Invention's grave and stale pretence, 
 In worse new language clouding alien sense. 
 
 The fulsome pretensions to originality, advanced by 
 the Water Poets of the Lakes, are nowhere more 
 offensively urged than in the Biographia Literaria of 
 Mr. Coleridge. The truth is, they have a quaint way of 
 saying common things, and a common way of saying 
 quaint things ; upon which their reputation rests. So 
 solid a basis must support a very permanent super- 
 structure. 
 
 Note 48, page 43, line 9. 
 Or strangely charm' d ivith Behmen's phrenzied rant. 
 
 For the Apotheosis of Behmen and Kant, see the 
 work referred to in the last note. Wesley, we presume, 
 is left for Mr. Southey. 
 
 " Et Vitula tu dignus, et hie !" 
 
 Note 49, page 44, line 5. 
 
 Whose one idea half thine own appears. 
 
 This one idea, shared by Mr. Coleridge and Mr. 
 Wordsworth, is the old notion of the transfer of human 
 properties and passions to all the world without us. 
 It is a sort of demi-poetical Berkleyan idealism, which 
 seems to consider nothing alive, until man has put life 
 into it by his consideration and intercourse ; which, in a 
 word, hardly allows existence to any being, in this lower
 
 91 
 
 scene of creation, but to our noble selves. So much 
 egoism cannot fail to end in some egotism; and the 
 whole result is, that a sort of Quack- Nostrum has been 
 discovered, by which we may find (as Shakspeare, and 
 others, long ago found by a much simpler process) 
 " tongues in brooks," and " sermons in stones," and 
 " good in every thing," save and except in our own 
 style of poetical composition. 
 
 Note 50, page 44, line 10. 
 
 Or such mares' nests in common notions found. 
 
 The air of simplicity with which these worthies of 
 the lakes assure us that much of the language of poetry 
 must be the same as that of prose, is delightful, and ori- 
 ginal indeed ! but when they proceed (or rather when 
 Mr. Wordsworth proceeds) to assert that there is no 
 difference between them, we fully allow the merit of a 
 first discovery, and of an ample induction of particulars, 
 (namely, their own verses), to establish the theory even 
 to a demonstration. 
 
 " The style of poetry is that of prose !" 
 
 " Wordsworth asserts and by his practice shows." 
 
 Note 51, page 44, line 17. 
 
 Awaits thy " Logos," ivith no critic zeal, 
 Resolved to meditate, and sure to feel. 
 
 This promised work of Mr. Coleridge will, no 
 doubt, be highly ingenious. For the allusion to Pan- 
 theism, see Biog. Lit. 
 
 H 2
 
 92 
 
 Note 52, page 45, line 4. 
 
 Where Victory's Child, Partition, blasts our sight. 
 
 Imitated from Porson's verses upon " Satan, visiting 
 the earth." 
 
 Note 53, page 45, line 7. 
 
 Religious Leagues with Spoliation mix. 
 
 As if every league was not religious in its old, autho- 
 rized, professed commencement ; but was so only in the 
 commencement of the present " Holy Alliance." But 
 this is an age in which discoveries of every description 
 are ostentatiously announced. " Mares' nests" (as hinted 
 above) are found in every department of art and nature ; 
 and, in a word without any real claim to novelty, we 
 are vain of committing 
 
 " The oldest sins the newest kinds of ways." 
 
 Note 54, page 47, line Q. 
 
 That dares, unblushing Statesman ! to provoke 
 A suffering nation with a barbarous joke. 
 
 The memory of my readers will point out too many 
 originals for this copy. Would to Heaven, that such 
 reflections might prevent any present, youthful senator, 
 from imitating the cold, undignified, cruel, and con- 
 temptible trifling, of the worst of these rhetoricians !
 
 93 
 
 Note 55, page 49, line 6. 
 
 That learned swains above the plough will soar 
 Diffuse the blessing, and the danger's o'er. 
 
 The state of the peasantry in Scotland and in Switz- 
 erland, and in other countries where learning (as it is 
 called) is generally diffused, furnishes an ample refu- 
 tation of the timid and haughty arguments of the ad- 
 versaries to National Instruction. In such educated 
 bodies of men, every improvement finds a ready recep- 
 tion. Here Friendly Societies, and Savings Banks 
 flourish ; here all that benefits the individual, and fastens 
 the bonds of the social union, is sure to be promoted 
 and encouraged. 
 
 Note 56, page 49, line 20. 
 
 Thy realm o'errun with licensed beggary. 
 See the Appendix. 
 
 Success attend the Committee on the Poor Laws ! 
 This is the fundamental evil of the state : even deeper 
 seated than the Bank Restriction, or the Abuse of 
 Charities, it calls for superior wisdom, and a more 
 cautious boldness of remedy, than any, or all, of our 
 political disorders. But if our Senators are to exclude 
 a patriotic brother from any one of these discussions, 
 merely because 
 
 " He loves to pour out all his soul, as plain 
 " As downright Shippen, or as old Montaign," 
 
 they may rest assured (if they can rest under such an 
 assurance) that the only result of this suspicious ex-
 
 94 
 
 elusion will be to disgust the country ; and to confer 
 on the excluded member the universal title, of " The 
 Man too much in earnest for a Committee." 
 
 Note 57, page 50, line 1. 
 
 While pale-faced Commerce, in her close-pent hive, 
 
 The evidence which has been published, on Sir 
 Robert Peel's bill for the Amelioration of the condition 
 of Children employed in Manufactories, presents two 
 most distressing features to the reflecting and humane 
 mind. First, it is most disgracefully manifest, that 
 many of the medical men examined on the subject have 
 given time-serving and evasive answers ; answers that 
 form a contrast honourable indeed to the reports of 
 other more fearless practitioners ; and, secondly, it ap- 
 pears to every person of common sense, and it is almost 
 unavoidable to add, of common honesty, that, unless 
 some interference takes place on the part of the Legis- 
 lature (whatever other evils such interference may occa- 
 sion), the cruel curtailment of the life, or the miserable 
 destruction of the health of thousands of our helpless 
 fellow-creatures, must continue without a remedy ; must 
 still impair our physical resources, and undermine the 
 moral strength of the English character. It is needless 
 to add any testimony to the virtuous and prudent con- 
 duct of many individual manufacturers. But these per- 
 sons cannot have any real interest in opposing inquiry, 
 and in submitting to judicious regulation. What pity is 
 it, to find the stork joining in the clamour of the cranes ! 
 If he suffers with them, who is to be blamed ?
 
 95 
 
 Note 58, page 52, line 4. 
 
 Were not a safeguard from a host of sin. 
 
 The feeling of moderate independence seems to be as 
 general a friend to the domestic virtues, as the con- 
 sciousness of excessive wealth and power is to their 
 opposite vices. Was it not dangerous to adduce in- 
 stances, drawn from that watch-word of evil, the French 
 Revolution, it would be very easy to confirm this posi- 
 tion by thousands of living examples. Alas ! that it 
 should be the interest of any government, that it should 
 accord with any system of policy, to diminish rather 
 than to increase this truly honourable race of beings! 
 See that passage of hopeless excellence, in the Traveller. 
 
 Note 59, page 52, line 6. 
 
 Such casual gifts but catch the constant fire. 
 
 Of these beautiful little donations we occasionally 
 hear. Virtuous indeed is the exertion ! To part with 
 an inch of land in this manner, is a severer trial to a 
 proprietor than to give purses of money. 
 
 Note 60, page 54, line 4. 
 
 In their own faults the wealthy 
 
 The absurd and vicious quantity of pocket money, 
 brought by boys to public schools, is one great source 
 of their too general failure in diligence and obedience 
 at those seats of learning; which, if the parents co- 
 operated cordially and effectually with the tutors, might 
 be made nurseries of knowledge and virtue indeed !
 
 Note 61, page 54, line 8. 
 
 Boys, whose home hot-beds force them into men. 
 
 It is painful to witness the prematurity of the present 
 race of children. Besides the general cause of this sud- 
 den manliness touched upon in the text, several others 
 may be briefly alluded to. But it would require a vo- 
 lume to do justice to this important argument. The 
 author must be contented, at present, with endeavouring 
 to awaken attention to the subject. 
 
 First then, he has grieved to observe the practice of 
 suffering boys to listen to, and to partake in, the un- 
 guarded conversation of men around the table, to a late 
 hour in the evening ! Secondly, it has often occurred to 
 him and to thousands, 
 
 " Who raise their feeble ineffectual voice 
 
 " Against these whimsies of patrician choice," 
 
 to lament the early impropriety, or, if it be preferred, 
 the improper earliness, of introducing children at balls ! 
 Hence a feverish, affected manhood ; hence allu- 
 sions to unknown, but conjectured, and deeply interest- 
 ing subjects ; hence a revolting forwardness ; hence all 
 the bloom of youth brushed off; hence a foreign, and 
 not an English character, stamped, and perhaps ( Dii, 
 talem avertite pestem !) indelibly stamped upon the 
 rising generation. The increase of juvenile vice in the 
 lower orders, keeping pace with the increase of folly in 
 the higher, forms altogether an alarming picture of the 
 youth of England ! 
 
 Note 61, page 55, line 15. 
 Nay, in mid sunshine yon Buffoon behold. 
 Those who paid any attention to the proceedings of
 
 97 
 
 the Barouche Club a few years since, when they met in 
 Cavendish Square, to start for Salt Hill, &c. &c, may 
 recollect the degrading anecdote to which the text al- 
 ludes. An actor sate by a man of high birth, to learn, 
 by accurate observation, the grimaces of his noble 
 friend and companions, in driving four-in-hand 
 
 (Curru servus portatur eodem !)* 
 
 and to enable himself to mimic with fidelity the said 
 grimaces at one of the theatres ! 
 
 Note 63, page 56, line 14. 
 
 With titled Infamy, or Beauty frail, 
 Or Scorn, that vieivs Religion as a tale. 
 
 Saeculomastix (who, by the way, in the last note ap- 
 peared in the character of his predecessor Histrio- 
 mastix, or the Whip and the Actor) would be most 
 happy to have an opportunity of paying his tribute of 
 praise to each of those worthy individuals, or to the se- 
 lect few, who form an exception to each head of satire, 
 into which he has been forced to divide his hydra- 
 headed work. Among these instances of virtue, pecu- 
 liarly opposed to the vice that is under censure, to 
 whose example could the author refer, when talking of 
 the indelicate, undignified countenance afforded to sus- 
 pected characters, even in the highest female society 
 to whose example could he refer, as to an honourable 
 
 * When we recollect the purpose for which the Roman Slave was 
 admitted into the chariot of the Consul, aud compare it with the de- 
 sign of admitting the English Buffoon into the barouche of his 
 betters, must we not blush at the comparison ?
 
 98 
 
 contrast to the offence in question, more triumphantly, 
 than to that of the late Queen of England ? 
 
 Hoc habeat secum, servetque sepulchro. 
 
 Note 64, page 57, line 2. 
 
 Ask, if those numerous Tenants of the Town, 
 Monsters no more, but guiltless of a goxun. 
 
 The first of these lines alludes to that practice which 
 is so detrimental to the improvement of many young 
 men at Cambridge ; the practice of admitting more 
 members than the Colleges will hold, and consequently 
 compelling many students (by courtesy so called) to re- 
 side in the town. Oxford in this respect, and indeed in 
 many other points of discipline, seems to excel her sister 
 University. Were they judged, however, by the emi- 
 nent persons, whom they have each produced of late 
 years in all the various departments of Church and 
 State, of mathematical and classical learning, the scale 
 perhaps would preponderate on the other side. The 
 second line of the passage quoted above has reference 
 to a jocose appellation, given by a wit of Cambridge, to 
 the union of Boots and a Gown in the same individual. 
 
 Monstrum ocreatum et togatum simul. 
 
 Note 65, page 57, line 4. 
 
 And cross the ditch that bounds the Devil's reign. 
 
 " The Devil's Dyke" is the appropriate name of a 
 ditch at Newmarket.
 
 99 
 
 Note 66, page 58, line 4. 
 The Titan race of genius, may aspire 
 
 At Cambridge, a candidate for public Classical ho- 
 nours (save and except the University Scholarships, ac- 
 cessible only to men of the highest attainments, and the 
 Poetical Prizes) must previously have taken a certain 
 Mathematical degree ; and, in the Senate House Exami- 
 nations for Degrees, Mathematics alone are required. 
 That is, the disproportionate quantity of Moral Philo- 
 sophy and Metaphysics leave the whole stress of the 
 examination upon the Mathematical acquirements of 
 the Candidate ; and even those acquirements are not 
 expected beyond a very moderate extent, if nothing is 
 attempted but to pass muster with the multitude. This 
 is not a state of things that should be suffered to con- 
 tinue. The text will sufficiently explain the author's 
 views on the subject. 
 
 Note 67, page 58, line 12. 
 
 No draught of Hippocrene to cheer their soul, 
 Because too iveak to drain the golden boivl. 
 
 That often quoted couplet of Pope, " A little know- 
 ledge," 8cc. has, it may be feared, done some harm, by 
 the injudicious misapplication of those, who have felt 
 no wish, either for themselves or others, to enjoy or to 
 diffuse the advantages of Classical Learning. 
 
 Note 68, page 60, line 2. 
 When worthy Honour feeds the generous fire. 
 " Magnificum quiddam et generosum sapere," may
 
 100 
 
 surely be predicated of classical study ; and, if so, what 
 other recommendation does it need, when viewed by 
 the cultivated and the philosophical understanding ? 
 
 Note 69, page 60, line 22. 
 
 Let Christian morals intersperse their charm 
 With Heathen codes, and Heathen pride disarm. 
 
 This important subject has been hinted at above. It 
 is with the utmost reluctance that the author makes any 
 allusion to the imputed omissions of those who have the 
 care of youth ; but, assuredly, the objection that is urged 
 against the Classical Mythology, by many well disposed 
 persons, might be entirely obviated, by a careful con- 
 trast of the follies of Heathen Superstition, and the im- 
 perfections of Heathen Morality, with the simplicity 
 of doctrine, and the purity of practice, inculcated by 
 the Gospel. Such a contrast, no doubt, is often pre- 
 sented to our young countrymen. 
 
 Note 70, page 61, line 11. 
 
 Say then, reviving from too soft a sleep. 
 
 It is only within these few years that the public ex- 
 aminations for degrees at Oxford have been at all placed 
 on that footing of scholarship which they demand. The 
 strictness of the new Statute lias, however, been consi- 
 dered, by some well-judging persons, to be carried to 
 too great an extent ; and it has certainly fallen within 
 the opportunities of the author himself, to become ac- 
 quainted with instances, in which more exactness seems 
 to have been required than is generally attainable by the 
 youthful candidate. It is, no doubt, a most difficult
 
 101 
 
 and delicate point, to hit the precise medium of proper 
 inquiry into the attainments of the early scholar ; but 
 to err on the liberal side, will probably always be found 
 the safest. 
 
 Note 71, page 62, line 9- 
 
 Say, when the soul of Greece should warm thine own. 
 
 The second point to which a just impartiality compel* 
 the reflecting mind to advert, among the blemishes 
 which disfigure the noble University of Oxford, is that 
 still prevalent spirit of excessive Toryism, which intro- 
 duces itself even into the calm researches of History 
 and Antiquity ; and lends the colouring of a modern 
 faction to the philosophical and dispassionate records of 
 the greatest of the Greek Historians. But the text 
 amply illustrates the opinions of the author, and of many 
 much better judges, on this subject. 
 
 Note 72, page 63, line 11. 
 
 J ask thee this Can no consenting Powers, &c. 
 
 Whatever may be thought of the judgment which the 
 author, with much hesitation and unwillingness, has ven- 
 tured to pronounce upon the two former heads of the 
 charge against Oxford, few individuals, he thinks, even 
 of that learned body itself, will be disposed to contro- 
 vert the wisdom and the justice of throwing open the 
 fellowships that are now so disgracefully shut up, in 
 most of the Colleges; provided always, that an act 
 could be so modified, by the united powers of the Le-
 
 102 
 
 gislative and Executive, as to incur no sound imputa- 
 tion of a breach of faith in that Government, whose 
 first duty it is to protect all virtuous and useful institu- 
 tions. 
 
 Note 73, page 64, line 10. 
 
 Or, forced on dreadful Talavera's field 
 
 The most enthusiastic admirers of our great living 
 General will not, it is concluded, be disposed to rest his 
 military skill on the battle here alluded to. It is con- 
 sidered, therefore, among the brave actions of past 
 times ; and the slight anachronism of which the text is 
 guilty, may be thought excusable. 
 
 Note 74, page 6d, line 1 . 
 
 Taught them, at home their best delights to find. 
 
 Absenteeship is the ruin of every country, upon which 
 this growing curse is inflicted. Why will not some 
 English Novelist do for his native land, what Miss 
 Edgeworth has so nobly attempted to effect for Ire- 
 land ? 
 
 Note 75, page 68, line 11. 
 
 Guiltless of other journeys on that day. 
 
 It is impossible for any man of the least religious 
 feeling, to extend his indulgence for the customs of 
 fashionable life so far, as to tolerate the contemptible 
 excuses that are adduced for travelling on a Sunday. 
 There are hundreds of the high, and of the wealthy
 
 103 
 
 circle, who make an express point of it. How can 
 they be so silly ? They are rapidly preparing the de- 
 struction of their own enjoyments, by weakening their 
 strongest hold upon the minds of the vulgar. 
 
 Note 76, page 68, line 20. 
 
 Ah ! what avails Ambition's growing reign, 
 
 And new-built Thrones o'er India's conquered main ? 
 
 What patriot can look at Ceylon without the deepest 
 melancholy ? Is this the way that the English prove 
 their real abhorrence of Tyranny ? 
 
 Note 77, page 69, line 5. 
 
 And thou, Religion's self! whose plenteous lore 
 Has found, and left us needy as before. 
 
 God forbid, that any being, endowed with reason, 
 should deny any efficacy to religious instruction. But 
 the degree of good, done at a particular time, by the 
 diffusion of knowledge, must always be a subject of 
 philosophical dispute. Surely, it is not evident at pre- 
 sent, that much has been effected, in the intended ame- 
 lioration of our higher or our lower orders, by the 
 various and increasing means of sacred education. That 
 they will ultimately prosper, every considerate and every 
 pious mind, must be ready to allow but how, without 
 the aid of miraculous interposition, seems beyond the 
 conjecture of all but the Perfectionist. Would that we 
 did advance as rapidly as these sanguine and amiable 
 beings think that we do !
 
 104 
 
 Note 78, page 70, line 11. 
 
 The laden gallows casts her followers back 
 On those vile jails that led them in the track. 
 
 To a foreigner these allusions would be perfectly un- 
 intelligible. To an Englishman they are too plain. 
 Such is the severity of our criminal law that the 
 gallows actually rejects the victims offered to it. It 
 does not dare to receive them. Such is the contamina- 
 tion of our jails, that the wretch who has in them been 
 prepared for the gallows, has yet more wickedness to 
 learn, when he is returned, unhanged, upon his old 
 abode, to be prepared for transportation!!! But, in 
 the midst of this sink of vice, this painful subject for 
 the Moral Satire of an Englishman, in the heart of 
 Newgate itself, how encouraging, how ennobling it is, 
 to watch the labours of that benevolent female, who has 
 executed the most hopeless of tasks, and reclaimed the 
 most abandoned of her fellow beings ! 
 
 Note 79, page 71, line 15. 
 
 Reform/ dread word! whose prodigal abuse 
 Alarms the feeble from its genuine use. 
 
 " Give a dog an ill name, and hang him," is a pro- 
 verb as forcibly applicable to the subject of " Reform," 
 as to any other. Let but a sycophant, or a time- 
 server, get hold of this dreaded name, and he will 
 destroy all his opponents by it ! How incumbent then 
 is it, upon the real and rational friends of their country, 
 to present such an impregnable barrier of prudence to 
 the vile insinuations and false charges of their enemies,
 
 105 
 
 that, like Locke, in that caution which baffled the 
 courtly informer Dr. Fell, they may be able to escape 
 even out of the very den of Suspicion !
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 It was the intention of the author, when he made any 
 reference to an Appendix, in the preceding Notes, to 
 attempt a further discussion than those Notes seemed to 
 permit, of several interesting questions. But the matter 
 of his work, and the incidental reflections to which it 
 has given occasion, have so swelled under his hands, 
 that he finds any prolongation of his present labours very 
 unadvisable. He will therefore confine himself to a 
 few illustrations of the preceding remarks, and to some 
 other subjects. The first reference was in Note 14, 
 where some observations were promised " upon the 
 " frequency of ignorant pretensions to poetry in the 
 " present aera." But this is a point so amply examin- 
 ed, both in " Childe Harold's Monitor," and in the 
 present work (to say nothing of ten thousand worthier 
 pieces of criticism), that, upon second thoughts, it seems 
 much better to say no more about it. While he refers 
 to " Childe Harold's Monitor," the author is desirous 
 of correcting an error or two in that little publication. 
 He begs to acknowledge his mistake in supposing
 
 108 
 
 that " Messrs. Whistlecraft's" poem was a serious com- 
 position ! The frequency of sham appellations in real 
 life, and the constant appearance of trading poets, led 
 him into the error. He had only heard of the work in 
 question ; and Suffolk has been so productive in tuneful 
 mechanics, that he unwarily thought this was another of 
 the Tribe. The Satire, however, was levelled against 
 the general confusion of ranks and orders in Literature 
 as well as in Society ; and, therefore, its principle re- 
 mains uninjured by the misapplication of it to a parti- 
 cular instance. It still supports the Aristocracy of 
 Poetry. Perhaps this opportunity may also serve to 
 correct an erratum in one of the quotations in the notes; 
 where the word " mores" is printed for " moras." 
 There are other errors indeed, and solely attributable 
 to himself, in that poem ; but these he cannot be 
 allowed here to notice, however he may desire to do 
 so. 
 
 The next reference to the present portion of this 
 publication, was in note the twenty-second, where it 
 was hazarded, that a Convocation of the Clergy would 
 be highly expedient at this juncture. And where is the 
 objection ? " Oh, you would open the door to all 
 " sorts of disputes." Unfortunately the door is opened 
 already ; and it is to settle such disputes for ever, with- 
 in the pale of the Establishment, that the measure seems 
 advisable. Will it be denied, that the present Articles 
 of the Church of England are interpreted in a diame- 
 trically opposite sense by numbers of her own mem- 
 bers ? Is it not possible, by revision, most patient and 
 most cautious, and by adaptation of these Elizabethan
 
 109 
 
 sentences to the present frame and character of the 
 English language, to prevent the possibility of subscrip- 
 tion by any Jesuitical interpreters ; and to brand with 
 everlasting infamy those who dare to preach against the 
 doctrines of the Church into which they have solemuly 
 entered ? " Aye but the Doctrines themselves." 
 Well, let them be examined by the most competent 
 judges; let the history of the Reformation be tho- 
 roughly canvassed ; and let the reference to the whole 
 contexture and spirit of the New Testament be full and 
 frequent The result, no real lover of the Church of 
 England can anticipate, with any other feelings than 
 those of hope and humble exultation. Meanwhile 
 
 " mussat Doctrina," Fidesque 
 
 Vera timet. 
 
 Learning and Faith cast an eye of apprehensive 
 expectation towards the rulers of their Church ; and, 
 amid the storm of increasing Calvinism, whether it 
 thunders from Leicestershire pulpits,* or murmurs in 
 mild and methodistical notes, subdivided in the most 
 exquisite manner, from the fens of Cambridge, they 
 anxiously inquire 
 
 " When will such portents cease to shake the realm r" 
 When Judgment, watchful at the royal helm, 
 Props the consulting Church, and bids her trace 
 A line of demarcation for her race 
 
 . * The fearful and disgraceful publication of Mr. Vaughan, iu 
 answer to Mr. Beresford, is here alluded to.
 
 no 
 
 Bids her, throngh all her black-robed legions, seek 
 Those who can soundly think, and clearly speak ; 
 And, after deep debate, and caution due, 
 Put forth the language of her Faith anew. 
 Thus shall no loophole for dissent remain 
 To lurk within the bosom of the fane ; 
 Uncompromising words shall closely bind 
 The Arminian heart and Calvinistic mind ; 
 Scripture's undoubted rock shall form the base, 
 And all the superstructure glow with grace." 
 
 " Dark Calvin rears his metbodistic shoots." 
 
 Thi9 line forms the thesis of the twenty-third note. 
 But neither a note, nor the space that can be allowed in 
 these brief addenda, will suffice, even to sketch an out- 
 line of the multiform and Protean varieties of Calvinism, 
 in these our days of " monstrous productions." The 
 antisocial spirit pervades them all. 
 
 " Since Faith grew cool, and monasteries lost 
 Their ancient riches to the farmer's cost ; 
 (Leaving the poor to stamp upon the laws 
 The curse of rates that multiply their cause) * 
 New Schools ascetic in their place have sprung, 
 And Calvin's followers talk with monkish tongue. 
 These would renounce their mortal joys, and find 
 A gloomy Eden in the waste of mind ; 
 Abstract the body from the human whole, 
 Nor leave a sense to wake the conscious soul. 
 
 * The Poor Rates seem to have been that destined evil (if it is 
 allowable to talk in so Manichaean a manner!) which grew out of 
 the dissolution of the monasteries ; and was best calculated to coun- 
 teract that great good. It was the reverse line in the zigzag pro- 
 gress of human improvement.
 
 Ill 
 
 One half the soul to Life should still be given, 
 Nor rendered useless here, by dreams of Heaven. 
 Refresh'd by Pleasure's intervening charms, 
 Doty, content, resumes her toilsome arms ; 
 But, ever bound to the revolving wheel, 
 She moves mechanic, and forgets to feel. 
 Hope, like Antzeus, when it falls to earth, 
 Springs up revived, and claims a second birth ; 
 But, held too long above its native ground, 
 Dies in the heavens, and with its God is found." 
 
 At the thirty-first note, a story was promised, which 
 is here subjoined. It was copied from a periodical 
 publication, and the author has never seen any thing to 
 invalidate the authority of the report. 
 
 " The Bible Society undertook to print an Arabic 
 Bible, for the use of the Oriental Christians. But those 
 at present circulated in Constantinople and Asia Minor 
 have for their motto, in the title page " In the name 
 " of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen." 
 To have reprinted this form of Christian Baptism, 
 would have been throwing down the apple of discord 
 with a vengeance. It would have been as a live shell in 
 a powder magazine. Therefore, instead thereof, was 
 substituted the deistical motto from the Koran " In the 
 " name of God the most merciful"; and the conse- 
 quence is, that the Oriental Christians will not receive 
 an European Bible; reasonably suspecting that there 
 may be other changes in the body of the work," chap- 
 ters printed in italics perhaps, as in the celebrated 
 " New Version." 
 
 If such a statement as the above is founded in fact 
 (which, at present, the author must believe), it appears
 
 112 
 
 difficult for any sincere Church-of-England-man to 
 avoid drawing his own inferences, and withdrawing 
 his subscription from so dangerous a Society. Why, 
 indeed, any member of that Church, lay or clerical, 
 should belong to an union of yesterday for the circula- 
 tion of the Bible alone, when he might belong to an 
 institution, of above a century's continuance and credit, 
 for the propagation of his own mode of faith, together 
 with that of the foundation of all Christianity, seems 
 hardly possible to conceive ; but the same love of no- 
 velty and of experiment, in preference to old and tried 
 measures, which leads to this obliquity of judging and 
 acting, leads also to the neglect of the long-established 
 " Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts ;" 
 and to the patronage of a mushroom coalition for the 
 same purposes, mixed (it is to be feared) with many in- 
 gredients of a fungous description. 
 
 u No surer test of Vanity conceal'd, 
 Than long-known ills by novel nostrums heal'd. 
 As quacks, who gain nor profit nor applause 
 By following Medicine's old establish'd laws, 
 Invent a panacea, to assure 
 The gaping crowd of a miraculous cure 
 So churchmen, fired with missionary rage, 
 Spurn the tried efforts of a soberer age 
 To spread the Gospel's blessings, first at home ; 
 Then, gradual on, where Britain's Lions roam, 
 And rule the conquer'd land ; then, farther still, 
 To Squaws, Hindus, Moriscoes, where ye will. 
 u Too narrow plan!" the Methodists reply, 
 And check, themselves, the counsels they decry ; 
 Divide the mite of charity, and find 
 Some new-born scheme, more suited to their mind;
 
 H3 
 
 Where heedless Churchmen with Dissenters mix, 
 
 And interchange their pulpit politics ; 
 
 Extol their like Societies, and leave 
 
 Faith's ancient honsehold o'er her loss to grieve ; 
 
 To guard a scanty treasury, and to pray 
 
 For hopeless aid in our schismatic day." * 
 
 The author is aware that he may be thought, by 
 lighter readers, to have paid a disproportionate share of 
 attention to our religious follies, among the evil signs 
 of the times ; but he is persuaded, that no considerate 
 person will make this objection to his humble endea- 
 vours to reprove the vicious, and to laugh the absurd 
 out of countenance. The great features of national 
 character obviously divide themselves into " Religion 
 (includingMorals), Politics, and Literature." Upon 
 the first of these heads, in summing up the general ar- 
 gument, there is only room to add, or rather to repeat, 
 that, if the great increase of religious talk, and meet- 
 ings and subscriptions for religious purposes, had hi- 
 therto practically benefited us to any great extent, we 
 should not have to deplore the frightful increase of 
 crimes in the lower orders of society, nor the undi- 
 minished corruption of the higher. That there are more 
 
 * Let a Church-of-England-man ask himself these two questions 
 First, can I afford to patronize the Bible Society, and the Society 
 for Promoting Christian Knowledge ? Secondly, supposing I can do 
 so, will it not still be better to give my undivided support to my 
 own Society ; and to endeavour, as much as in me lies, to make this 
 powerful friend of the Church-of-England, the friend also of all the 
 world? It is obvious that each of these questions is in due degree 
 applicable to the " Society for Propagating the Gospel," and the 
 " Church Missionary Society."
 
 114 
 
 truly good people in England now than there were fifty 
 years ago, is indeed a tenet of a certain sect or party 
 amongst us ; but it is thought, by the majority, to be an 
 opinion indicative only of the self-approving puritanism 
 and spiritual pride of the persons in question. That the 
 generally diffusing advantages of Education will, in an- 
 other generation, produce a sensible effect upon our 
 national character, is an equally pleasing and reasonable 
 expectation. But we are yet in the agonies of the 
 change. A gradual alteration in the system of our 
 poor laws ; a careful mitigation of our criminal code ; 
 an amendment in the state of our prisons ; and, above 
 all, an active attention, on the part of the great landed 
 proprietors, to the interests of their tenants, these are 
 points upon which hope delights to dwell, and upon 
 which philosophy may beneficially speculate. And 
 now the bustle and the tumult, and the bad passions, 
 and the ruinously expensive expeditions of war are 
 over, let us indulge the glowing dream, that Eco- 
 nomy, and personal and patriotic virtue will return in 
 the train of Peace. That Commerce will consult the 
 health and the morals of her dependants ; that our 
 Government will cease to gamble, and to countenance 
 by its own sad example, that most pernicious of vices, 
 in every species of bargain and sale, of foreign and 
 domestic exchange ; that the Bank will blush to thrive 
 any longer upon the fluctuating and ruinous state of 
 credit among all its countrymen ; that Abused Charities 
 will virtuously obtrude their inmost concerns upon the 
 strictest inquiries that, in short, 
 
 Terras Astraea reviset !
 
 115 
 
 while the Priest, by his practical morality and pure 
 Church-of-England faith, redeems Religion from the 
 brand of "Enthusiasm, or of Hypocrisy ; and the Patriot 
 no longer trembles at the perversions, which identify 
 Reform with Sedition, and Liberty with Licentious- 
 ness ; while lastly, the Poet, (to complete the climax 
 of probability !) who is destined to record these new- 
 born wonders, shall no longer separate Taste from 
 Genius, but shall write again, as Virgil wrote before 
 him. 
 
 But, incumbent as it may be upon every reflecting 
 Englishman, by any means in his power to restrain the 
 boasting tone, and to moderate the self-complacent sa- 
 tisfaction of " the age we live in," still the author, at 
 parting, cannot bring himself to discuss, with any mix- 
 ture of sarcasm, the awful interests of his Country. 
 Much rather would he implore a blessing upon the 
 well-meant endeavours of his cotemporaries, for the 
 correction of our numerous abuses, and for the encou- 
 ragement of all that is sound and sincere amongst us. 
 Cordially indeed should he rejoice to see every sect and 
 every party, each in their several spheres, co-operating 
 in the glorious task of reformation. While he depre- 
 cates any hollow compromise of their distinguishing 
 principles, he anxiously hopes that the expanding spirit 
 of the times, under judicious management, may pro- 
 cure for them all, in their due degree, that protection 
 and support which their safe and honourable objects de- 
 mand from a paternal legislature. In a word, he fer- 
 vently prays, that while Innovation on the one hand may
 
 ne 
 
 cease to be mistaken for Amendment, on the other, no 
 obstinate adherence to every outward feature of old in- 
 stitutions, may retard their Restoration to their real 
 design and character. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 J. M'Cieery, Priuter. 
 Black-Horse-Court, London. 
 
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