THE OVER-DRIVEN OX.

Ir happens oft, on Smithfield market day,
Some wanton drovers, for their cruel sport,
Will goad an ox, which harmless holds its way,
Till, stung with pain, it 'gins to foam and snort.

With joy the fiends behold the growing fun,

And ply their sticks to keep the game alive; "MAD OX!" they shout; the beast sets out to run, And into shops or cellars people dive.

The brute, by worse brutes driven, raging falls On woman, man, or child, whate'er it meets, O'erwhelms old women 'neath their apple-stalls, And with dismay and terror fills the streets.

An ox so goaded once, its error found

To vent its rage thus on a flying crew;

So on its fell pursuers turning round,
High in the air the brace of drovers flew.

Then down they came, but not on beds of down,
Nor beds of roses, but Scotch paving stones;
None pitied them-a nuisance to the town-
They very well deserv'd their broken bones.

MORAL.

Tis dangerous to urge, to any length,
A man, or beast, beyond their nat❜ral strength;
Despair has often snapp'd the tyrant's chain,
And caus'd the slave his freedom to regain.

James II. of England, whose pretended legal massacres, by means of his bloody instrument Jefferies, justified what was said of him by Lord Churchill, that a marble chimney-piece was as capable of feeling compassion as the king's heart, afforded a remarkable instance of a haughty tyrant in prosperity, and of an abject coward in adversity. This unfeeling monarch received a most cutting stroke, at a council which was called soon after the landing of the prince of Orange, when, amidst the silent company, he applied himself to the earl of Bedford, father of the Lord Russel, whom he and his brother had brought to the block, saying"My lord, you are a good man, and have great interest; you can do much for me at

this time."-To which the earl replied: "I am an old man, and can do but little-(then added, with a sigh)-I had once a son, who could now have been very serviceable to your majesty." Which words, says Echard, struck the king half dead with silence and confusion. Thus friendless, he was obliged to take to his heels, and exist upon the scanty bounty of the French king, and the kingdom was happily delivered from the last of the tyrannical and cruel, though weak dynasty of the Stuarts.-Yes, Jamie ran

"Over the hills and far awa’—”

and was received by our good friends, the French, in hopes of raising a civil war amongst us; and, as one good turn deserves another, now, when they sent the Bourbon dynasty to grass, we returned the compliment. When examples, therefore, are as plenteous as blackberries in autumn, why will not kings take them, but on compulsion, as children take physic, or horses drenches. Why will they not remember that

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Kings can only appear great through the medium of their subjects' happiness; without their love, royalty is but an ombre Chinoise; a single puff blows out the candles, and all cats are grey in the dusk. To look down from an elevated station is too apt to turn weak heads giddy :

How fearful

And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low!

The crows and chonghs, that wing the midway air,
Shew scarce so gross as beetles. Half way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire; dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head.
The fishermen, that walk upon the beach,
Appear like mice; and yon tall anchoring bark
Diminish'd to her cock; her cock a buoy

Almost too small for sight. The murm'ring surge,
That on th' unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes,

Cannot be heard so high."

SHAKESPEAR'S LEAR,

Hence it is that a people, viewed at an im mense distance below the throne, through the

misty medium of lying courtiers, are too often mistaken for the scum of a pot-a swinish multitude; and the "murmuring surge, ," their remonstrances or petitions for redress of grievances "cannot be heard so high." But there is a time for all things. James II. found not that pity to which he himself had ever turned a deaf ear; he despised his people without cause, and he was more than despised by them with the justest cause.

It is far easier to lose rights than to recover them, and therefore a free people ever are, and should be, extremely jealous of them. Such jealousy, far from giving pain to government, should afford it the utmost satisfaction and confidence, as men so tenacious of their own, will scarcely ever seize upon another's. They have no incitement to encroachment;-born to consider their own ease and happiness as the summum bonum of life, although they may be at times misled or abused, their judgments are always the sounder as they are devoid of a lust for power.