Thus England, hot from Denmark's smoking meads,
Turns up her eyes at Gallia's guilty deeds;
Thus, self-pleas'd still, the same dishonouring chain
She binds in Ireland, she would break in Spain;
While prais'd at distance, but at home forbid,
Rebels in Cork are patriots at Madrid.

If Grotius be thy guide, shut, shut the book,-
In force alone for Laws of Nations look.
Let shipless Danes and whining yankees dwell
On naval rights, with Grotius and Vattel,
While Cobbet's pirate code alone appears
Sound moral sense to England and Algiers.

Woe to the Sceptic, in these party days,
Who wafts to neither shrine his puffs of praise!
For him no pension pours its annual fruits,

No fertile sinecure spontaneous shoots;

Not his the meed that crown'd Don Hookham's rhyme,

Nor sees he e'er, in dreams of future time,
Those shadowy forms of sleek reversions risc,
So dear to Scotchmen's second-sighted eyes.
Yet who, that looks to History's damning leaf,
Where Whig and Tory, thief opposed to thief,
On either side in lofty shame are seen,*

While Freedom's form hangs crucified between

"Those two thieves," says Ralph, "between whom the nation is crucified.". Use and Abuse of Parliaments.

Who, Burdett, who such rival rogues can see,
But flies from both to Honesty and thee?

If, weary of the world's bewildering maze,
Hopeless of finding, through its weedy ways,
One flower of truth, the busy crowd we shun,
And to the shades of tranquil learning run,
How many a doubt pursues! how oft we sigh,
When histories charm, to think that histories lie!!
That all are grave romances, at the best,

And Musgrave's* but more clumsy than the rest.
By Tory Hume's seductive page beguiled,
We fancy Charles was just and Strafford mild;
And Fox himself, with party pencil, draws
Monmouth a hero, "for the good old cause!"
Then, rights are wrongs, and victories are defeats,
As French or English pride the tale repeats;
And, when they tell Corunna's story o'er,
They'll disagree in all, but honouring Moore:
Nay, future pens, to flatter future courts,
May cite perhaps the Park-gun's gay reports,
Το prove that England triumph'd on the morn
Which found her Junot's jest and Europe's scorn.

*This historian of the Irish rebellions has outrun even his predecessor in the same task, Sir John Temple, for whose character with respect to veracity the reader may consult Carte's Collection of Ormond's Original Papers, p. 207. See also Dr. Nalson's account of him, in the introduction to the second volume of his Historic. Collect.

In science, too

how many a system, raised

pen,

Like Neva's icy domes, awhile hath blazed
With lights of fancy and with forms of pride,
Then, melting, mingled with the oblivious tide!
Now Earth usurps the centre of the sky,
Now Newton puts the paltry planet by;
Now whims revive beneath Descartes' *
Which now, assail'd by Locke's, expire again.
And when, perhaps, in pride of chemic powers,
We think the keys of Nature's kingdom ours,
Some Davy's magic touch the dream unsettles,
And turns at once our alkalis to metals.
Or, should we roam, in metaphysic maze,
Through fair-built theories of former days,
Some Drummond † from the north, more ably skill'd,
Like other Goths, to ruin than to build,
Tramples triumphant through our fanes o'erthrown,
Nor leaves one grace, one glory of his own.

Oh Learning, whatsoe'er thy pomp and boast, Unletter'd minds have taught and charm'd men

most.

The rude, unread Columbus was our guide

To worlds, which learn'd Lactantius had denied ;

* Descartes, who is considered as the parent of modern scepticism, says, that there is nothing in the whole range of philosophy which does not admit of two opposite opinions, and which is not involved in doubt and uncertainty.

† See this gentleman's Academic Questions.

And one wild Shakspeare, following Nature's lights, Is worth whole planets, fill'd with Stagyrites.

See grave Theology, when once she strays From Revelation's path, what tricks she plays; What various heav'ns, all fit for bards to sing,

Have churchmen dream'd, from Papias * down to

King!†

While hell itself, in India nought but smoke,‡

In Spain's a furnace, and in France

a joke.

Hail, modest Ignorance, thou goal and prize, Thou last, best knowledge of the simply wise! Hail, humble Doubt, when error's waves are past, How sweet to reach thy shelter'd port § at last, And, there, by changing skies nor lured nor awed, Smile at the battling winds that roar abroad.

* Papias lived about the time of the apostles, and is supposed to have given birth to the heresy of the Chiliastæ, whose heaven was by no means of a spiritual nature, but rather an anticipation of the Prophet of Hera's elysium. See Eusebius, Hist. Ecclesiast. lib. iii. cap. 33, and Hieronym. de Scriptor. Ecclesiast. From all I can find in these authors concerning Papias, it seems hardly fair to impute to him those gross imaginations in which the believers of the sensual millennium indulged.

† King, in his Morsels of Criticism, vol. i., supposes the sun to be the receptacle of blessed spirits.

The Indians call hell "the House of smoke." See Picart upon the Religion of the Banians.

La Mothe le

"Chère Sceptique, douce pâture de mon ame, et l'unique port de salut à un esprit qui aime le repos!". Vayer.

There gentle Charity, who knows how frail
The bark of Virtue, even in summer's gale,
Sits by the nightly fire, whose beacon glows
For all who wander, whether friends or foes.
There Faith retires, and keeps her white sail furl'd,
Till call'd to spread it for a better world;
While Patience, watching on the weedy shore,
And, mutely waiting till the storm be o'er,
Oft turns to Hope, who still directs her eye
To some blue spot, just breaking in the sky!

Such are the mild, the blest associates given To him who doubts, and trusts in nought but Heaven!