In Britain's senate, make and unmake laws
He learn'd but late to keep; beat down prerogative, "And make bold power look pale ”—a patriot he, Profound economist, the people's friend,
And champion of reform. Now Leonard's sire
Was one of ancient lineage, and estate
For many generations handed down,
Without an acre added or impair'd—
He counted a long line of senators
Among his ancestry, and ill could brook
The lineal honours of his house usurp❜d
By the ill-gotten purse of yesterday.
And now the day of license was at hand,
Britain's septennial Saturnalia,
When the soft palm of nice nobility,
Ungloved, solicits the Herculean gripe
Of hands with bestial slaughter newly stain'd;
When ladies stoop their coroneted brows,
And patriotic kisses deal to churls
A gipsy would refuse; and, reeling ripe,
Big Independence, reeking as he goes
Through the rank poll-booth, works his burly way
To hiccup perjury.—O Mountain Nymph!
-O Virgin Liberty! behold thy shrine,
And send a snow-blast from thy native hills,
Or thy fat offerings will all dissolve
And choke the world with incense.-Plutus now,
And roaring Bacchus, are thy ministers,
While swoln Corruption, like a toad, half-hid
Beneath the purple trappings of the throne,
Distends her bloated features with a laugh,
To hear the many take thy name in vain.
Unequal strife had Leonard's sire to wage-
Too proud to flatter, and too proud to yield
The palm to flatterers, he fondly deem'd
Hereditary gratitude—the name
Of his time-honour'd house-and all the links
That bind the present to the past, and make
Each moment sponsor for eternity,
Were barriers potent to resist the flood
Of pauper treason, back'd with traitorous gold.
Hark! the loud war proclaim'd by drum and fife,
And labell'd banners, that affront the sky
With gaudy blazonry of factious hate,
Turning the innocent hues of flower and field
To party shibboleths. The clear blue sky
Frown'd on the crimson of the regal rose-
Nor spared the maiden blush. Fierce riot rung
In homely mansions, long devote to peace,
And mild, benignant mirth. From vale to vale
The uproar echoed through the spacious shire,
The clang o'erpowering of the madding wheels.
That glow'd incessant in the whirling fog
Of sleepy dust that courts the ground in vain.
The Sabbath bells alarm the slumbering dead
With irreligious peals; old Silence flies
From all her hallow'd haunts, and hides her head
In the brute dumbness of o'ergorged excess :-
Talk not of Hecatombs, imperial feasts,
Or antique feats of Roman gluttony;
For every alehouse is a temple now,
And flocks and herds but half suffice to stay
The popular maw.-Not sapient Egypt's god,
The lowing Apis, had escaped the knife,
Had slavish Egypt ever claim'd the right
Of unbought suffrage and election free.
Who dare deny-that beast, and fish, and fowl
Were made for man? Calves, sheep, and oxen, slain
In freedom's cause, by freemen are devour'd—
A feller fate attends the generous steed―
Outworn with toil, he gluts a freeman's cur.
But Leonard-and the gentle Susan? Where Walk they the while? Oft, when the rafter'd hall Shook with the jovial laugh of loyalty,
Till each grim ancestor and grandam fair,
That on the smoky canvas smiled for aye,
In multiplied confusion roll'd around,
Would Leonard steal into the quiet air
Of pensive Night, Love's trusty confidante,
To meet his Susan on the silent hill,
And silent sit beneath the silent moon;
His hand laid lightly on his Susan's palm,
While thousand, thousand voices, heard afar,
Were soft as murmurs of the distant ocean-
Solemn and soft-and yet a weary sound
To her, who knew her parent's heart estranged
From him she long'd to call her second sire;
For Susan's father, reckless of her tears,
Of ancient neighbourhood, and deeds of love
Too natural to call for gratitude-
Blind to the pleadings of the meek, sad eyes
Of his child's mother, and his only child—
Had pledged his voice, and purse, and utmost power
To his friend's rival-whether borne away
By the loud torrent of the popular cry,
That universal voucher, for whose truth
No man can vouch,—or vex'd by wounded pride
For prudent counsel by his friend refused,—
Or by congenial baseness, and the bent
And instinct of an earthy, purblind spirit
That hated honour, as a darkling fiend
Detests the sun, to kindred baseness drawn-
My Muse, unversed in vileness, not reveals.
Fearful the perils that beset our youth, But are there none that lie in wait for age?
Is not the sight, whose erring faith mistakes
An exhalation for a guiding star,
Better than total blindness?
To be a Persian, and adore the sun
At morn and eve-or deem the changeful moon
Imperial arbitress of fickle fate,
To hail the day-dawn as a visible God,
Or, trembling, think the terrible vast sea
A living Godhead in a wrathful mood,
Rather than dwell within the gaol of sense,
To see no God in all the beauteous world-
To feel no God in man.-
The passive Susan pace the public way;
Her meek, obedient head with weight oppress'd
Of gaudy colours, that but ill became
Her pale fair cheek—to hear her soft low voice
Reluctant task'd to warble scurril rhymes,
Set by some ale-bench Pindar to such tunes
As carmen whistle. Worse it was to find
The Nabob and his train of Bacchanals
Establish'd in her home; but worst to see
Her Leonard welcomed with such courtesy
As courtiers use to men they hate and fear.
In vain the eulogists of good old times Upheld the good old cause. New wealth prevail'd,
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