Imagens da página
PDF
ePub

The ruffian-officer oppos'd her stay,
And, cruel, bore her in her pangs, away,
So far beyond the town's last limits drove,
That to return were hopeless, had she strove.
Abandon'd there-with famine, pain, and cold,
And anguish, she expir'd-the rest I've told.

'Now let me swear-For, by my soul's last sigh, That thief shall live, that overseer shall die.'

Too late!-His life the generous robber paid,
Lost by that pity which his steps delay'd!
No soul-discerning Mansfield sat to hear,
No Hertford* bore his prayer to mercy's ear;
No liberal justice first assign'd the jail,

Or urg'd, as Camplin would have urg'd, his tale.

The living object of thy honest rage,
Old in parochial crimes, and steel'd with age,
The grave churchwarden! unabash'd he bears
Weekly to church, his book of wicked prayers;
And pours, with all the blasphemy of praise,
His creeping soul in Sternhold's creeping lays!

*The Countess of Hertford had successfully interceded, in procuring the king's pardon for Savage the Poet. See Dr. Johnson's lives of the Poets.

END OF THE SECOND PART.

THE

COUNTRY JUSTICE.

PART THE THIRD.

ΤΟ

THOMAS SMITH, M. D.

Of Wrington, in the County of Somerset,

THIS LAST OF THE LITTLE POEMS,

INTENDED TO CULTIVATE,

IN

THE PROVINCIAL ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE,

THAT HUMANITY

BY WHICH HE IS SO AMIABLY DISTINGUISHED,

IS GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED

BY HIS MOST OBLIGED,

MOST AFFECTIONATE,

AND

MOST FAITHFUL SERVANT,

THE AUTHOR.

« AnteriorContinuar »