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THE PRElude.

The proposition. An address to the vessel that brought over the king. Who should sing on this occasion. A Pindaric boast.

FAST by the surge my limbs are spread, The naval oak nods o'er my head; The winds are loud; the waves tumultuous roll; Ye winds! indulge your rage no more; Ye sounding billows! cease to roar; The god descends; and transports warm my soul. The waves are hush'd; the winds are spent!This kingdom, from the kingdoms rent, I celebrate in song-Fam'd Isle! no less, By Nature's favour, from mankind, Than by the foaming sea, disjoin'd; Alone in bliss! an isle, in happiness!

Though fate and time have damp'd my strains, Though youth no longer fires my veins, Though slow their streams in this cold climate run; The royal eye dispels my cares, Recals the warmth of blooming years, Returning George supplies the distant Sun.

Away, my soul! salute the Pine',
That glads the heart of Caroline,
Its grand deposit faithful to restore;

Salute the bark that ne'er shall hold
So rich a freight in gems or gold,
And loaded from both Indies would be poor.

My soul! to thee, she spreads her sails;
Their bosoms fill with sacred gales;
With inspiration from the godhead warm;
Now bound for an eternal clime

O send her down the tide of time,

Snatch'd from oblivion, and secure from storm.

Or teach this flag, like that to soar,
Which gods of old and heroes bore;
Bid her a British constellation rise-

The sea she scorns; and, now, shall bound
On lofty billows of sweet sound,

I am her pilot, and her port the skies!

Dare you to sing, ye tinkling train?
Silence, ye wretched! ye profane!

Who shackle prose, and boast of absent gods ;

Who murder thought, and numbers maim,
Who write Pindarics cold and lame,
And labour stiff Anacreontic Odes.

Ye lawful sons of genius, rise!
Of genuine title to the skies;

Ye founts of learning! and ye mints of fame!
You, who file off the mortal part
Of glowing thought, with Attic art,

And drink pure song from Cam's or Isis' stream.

The vessel that brought over the king.

STRAIN THE FIRST.

THE ARGUMENT.

How the king attended. A prospect of happiness. Industry. A surprising instance of it in old Rome. The mischief of sloth. What happiness is. Sloth its greatest enemy. Trade natural to Britain. Trade invoked. Described. What the greatest human excellence. The praise of wealth. Its use, abuse, end. The variety of Nature. The final mo. ral cause of it. The benefit of man's necessities. Britain's naval stores. She makes all Nature serviceable to her ends. Of reason. Its excellence. How we should form our estimate of things. Rea. son's difficult task. Why the first glory hers. Her effects in old Britain.

"OUR monarch comes! nor comes alone!" What shining forms surround his throne, O Sun! as planets thee !-To my loud strain See Peace, by Wisdom led, advance; The Grace, the Muse, the Season, Dance; And Plenty spreads behind her flowing train!

"Our monarch comes! nor comes alone:" New glories kindle round his throne, The visions rise! I triumph as I gaze:

By Pindar led, I turn'd of late
The volume dark, the folds of Fate;
And, now, am present to the future blaze.
By George and Jove it is decreed,
The mighty Months in pomp proceed,
Fair daughters of the Sun!-0 thou, divine,
Blest Industry! a smiling Earth
From thee alone derives its birth:
By thee the ploughshare and its master shine.
From thee, mast, cable, anchor, oar,
From thee the cannon and his roar ;
On oaks nurst, rear'd by thee, wealth, empire grow;
O golden fruit! oak well might prove
The sacred tree, the tree of Jove;

| All Jove can give, the naval oak bestows.
What cannot industry complete?
When Punic war first flam'd, the great,
Bold, active, ardent, Roman fathers meet:

"Fell all your groves," a Flamen cries;
As soon they fall; as soon they rise;
One moon, a forest, and the next, a fleet.
Is sloth indulgence? T is a toil;
Enervates man, and damns the soil;
Defeats creation, plunges in distress,

Cankers our being, all devours;
A full exertion of our powers!
Thence, and thence only, glows our happiness.
The stream may stagnate, yet be clear,
The Sun suspend his swift career,
Yet healthy Nature feel her wonted force;
Ere man, his active springs resign'd,
Can rust in body and in mind,
Yet taste of bliss, of which he chokes the source,

Where, Industry! thy daughter fair?
Recal her to her native air;

Here, was Trade born, here bred, here flourish'd long;
And ever shall she flourish here:

What though she languish'd? 'twas but fear,
She's sound of heart; her constitution strong.

Wake, sting her up. Trade! lean no more
On thy fixt anchor, push from shore,
Earth lies before thee, every climate court.

And, see, she's rous'd, absolv'd from fears,
Her brow, in cloudless azure, rears,
Spreads all her sail, and opens every port.
See, cherish'd by her sister, Peace,
She levies gain on every place,

Religion, habit, custom, tongue, and name;

Again, she travels with the Sun,

Again, she draws a golden zone

[fame!

Round Earth and main; bright zone of wealth and

Ten thousand active hands, that hung In shameful sloth with nerves unstrung, The nation's languid load, defy the storms, The sheets unfurl, and anchors weigh, The long-moor'd vessel wing to sea,

Worlds, worlds salute, and peopled Ocean swarms.

His sons, Po, Ganges, Danube, Nile,
Their sedgy foreheads lift, and smile;

Their urns inverted prodigally pour

Streams, charg'd with wealth, and vow to buy
Britannia for their great ally,

Happy the man! who, large of heart,
Has learnt the rare, illustrious art

Of being rich: stores starve us, or they cloy;
From gold, if more than chemic skill,
Extract not what is brighter still:

'Tis hard to gain, much harder to enjoy.

Plenty's a means, and joy her end:
Exalted minds their joys extend:
A Chandos shines, when others' joys are done:
As lofly turrets, by their height,

When humbler scenes resign their light,
Retain the rays of the declining Sun.

Pregnant with blessings, Britain! swear
No sordid son of thine shall dare

Offend the donor of thy wealth and peace;
Who now his whole creation drains
To pour into thy tumid veins

That blood of nations! commerce and increase.
How various Nature! turgid grain

Here nodding floats the golden plain;

There, worms weave silken webs; here, glowing vines
Lay forth their purple to the Sun,
Beneath the soil, there harvests run,

And kings' revenues ripen in the mines.

What's various Nature? Art divine
Man's soul to soften and refine;

Heaven different growths to different lands imparts,
That all may stand in need of all,
And interest draw around the ball,

With climes paid down; what can the gods do more? A net to catch and join all human hearts.

Cold Russia costly furs from far,
Hot China sends her painted jar,

France generous wines to crown it, Arab sweet

With gales of incense swells our sails,
Nor distant Ind our merchant fails,

Her richest ore the ballast of our fleet.

Luxuriant isle! What tide that flows,
Or stream that glides, or wind that blows,
Or genial Sun that shines, or shower that pours,
But flows, glides, breathes, shines, pours for
How every heart dilates to see
[thee?
Each land's each season blending on thy shores!

All these one British harvest make!
The servant Ocean for thy sake

Both sinks and swells: his arms thy bosom wrap,

And fondly give, in boundless dower,
To mighty George's growing power,
The wafted world into thy loaded lap.

Commerce brings riches, riches crown
Fair Virtue with the first renown:
A large revenue, and a large expense,

When hearts for others' welfare glow,
And spend as free as gods bestow,
Gives the full bloom to mortal excellence.

Glow then, my breast! abound, my store!
This, and this boldly I implore,
Their want and apathy let Stoics boast:
Passions and riches, good or ill,
As us'd by man, demand our skill;

All blessings wound us, when discretion's lost.

Wealth, in the virtuous and the wise,
'Tis vice and folly to despise :
Let those in praise of poverty refine,
Whose heads or hearts pervert its use,
The narrow-soul'd, or the profuse,
The truly great find morals in the nine;

Thus has the great Creator's pen
His law supreme, to mortal men,
In their necessities distinctly writ:

E'en appetite supplies the place
Of absent virtue, absent grace,
And human want performs for human wit.
Vast naval ensigns strow'd around,
The wond'ring foreigner confound!
How stands the deep-aw'd continent aghast,
As her proud sceptred sons survey,
At every port, on every quay,

Huge mountains rise, of cable, anchor, mast!
The unwieldy tun! the ponderous bale !—
Each prince his own clime set to sale

Sees here, by subjects of a British king:

How Earth's abridg'd! all nations range
A narrow spot, our throng'd Exchange!
And send the streams of plenty from their spring.
Nor Earth alone, all Nature bends
In aid to Britain's glorious ends:
Toils she in trade? or bleeds in honest wars ?
Her keel each yielding sea enthrals,
Each willing wind her canvass calls,
Her pilot into service lists the stars.

In size confin'd, and humbly made,
What though we creep beneath the shade,
And seem as emmets on this point, the ball?
Heaven lighted-up the human soul,
Heaven bid its rays transpierce the whole,
And, giving godlike reason, gave us all.

Thou golden chain 'twixt God and men,
Blest Reason! guide my life and pen,
All ills, like ghosts, fly trembling at thy light:
Who thee obeys, reigns over all;
Smiles, though the stars around him fall;
A God is nought but reason infinite.

The man of reason is a god

Who scorns to stoop to fortune's nod ; Sole agent he beneath the shining sphere, Others are passive, are impell'd,

Are frighten'd, flatter'd, sunk, or swell'd, As accident is pleas'd to domineer.

;

Our hopes and fears are much to blame Shall monarchs awe? or crowns inflame? From gross mistake our idle tumult springs;

Those men the silly world disarm,

Elude the dart, dissolve the charm,
Who know the slender worth of men and things.

The present object, present day,
Are idle phantoms, and away;
What's lasting only does exist. Know this,

Life, fame, friends, freedom, empire, all,
Peace, commerce, freedom, nobly fall
To lanch us on the flood of endless bliss.

How foreign these, though most in view!
Go, look your whole existence through;
Thence, form your rule; thence fix your estimate,
For so the gods: but as the gains,

How great the toil! 'Twill cost more pains, To vanquish folly, than reduce a state.

Hence, Reason! the first palm is thine, Old Britain learnt from thee to shine. [smile, By thee, trade's swarming throng, gay freedom's Armies, in war of fatal frown,

Of peace the pride, arts flowing down, Enrich, exalt, defend, instruct our isle.

STRAIN THE SECOND.

THE ARGUMENT.

Arts from commerce. Why Britons should pursue it. What wealth includes. An historical digression which kind is most frequent in Pindar. The wealth and wonderful glory of Tyre, The approach of her ruin. The cause of it. Her crimes through all ranks and orders. Her miserable fall. The neighbouring kings' just reflection on it. An awful image of the divine power and vengeance. From what Tyre fell, and how deep her calamity.

COMMERCE gives arts, as well as gain;
By commerce wafted o'er the main,
They barbarous climes enlighten as they run;
Arts, the rich traffic of the soul !
May travel, thus, from pole to pole,
And gild the world with learning's brighter sun.

Commerce gives learning, virtue, gold!
Ply commerce, then, ye Britons bold,
Inur'd to winds and seas! lest gods repent:
. The gods that thron'd you in the wave,
And, as the trident's emblem, gave
A triple realm, that awes the continent :

And awes with wealth; for wealth is power:
When Jove descends a golden shower,
'Tis navies, armies, empire, all, in one.-
View, emulate, outshine old Tyre;
In scarlet rob'd, with gems on fire,
Her merchants, princes! every deck, a throne !

She sate an empress! aw'd the flood!
Her stable column Ocean trod;

She call'd the nations, and she call'd the seas,
By both obey'd: the Syrian sings;
The Cyprian's art her viol strings;
Togarmagh's steed along her valley neighs.

The fir of Senir makes her floor,
And Bashan's oak, transform'd, her oar;
High Lebanon her mast; far Dedan warms
Her mantled host; Arabia feeds;
Her sail of purple Egypt spreads;
Arvad sends mariners; the Persian, arms.

The world's last limit bounds her fame;
The golden city was her name!
Those stars on Earth, the topaz, onyx, blaze
Beneath her foot: extent of coast,

And rich as Nile's, let others boast;
Hers the far nobler harvest of the seas.

O merchant land! as Eden fair!
Antient of empires! Nature's care!
The strength of Ocean! head of plenty's springs!
The pride of isles! In wars rever'd!
Mother of crafts! lov'd! courted! fear'd I
Pilot of kingdoms! and support of kings!

Great mart of nations !—But she fell :
Her pamper'd sons revolt! rebel!
Against his favourite isle loud roars the main !

The tempest bowls! her sculptur'd dome
Soon, the wolf's refuge; dragon's home!
The land, one altar! a whole people, slain!
The destin'd day puts on her frown;
The sable hour is coming down:

She's on her march from yon Almighty throne:
The sword and storm are in her hand;

She trumpets shrill her dread command: Dark be the light of Earth! the boast, unknown !

For, oh her sins as red as blood, As crimson deep, outcry the flood; The queen of trade is bought! once wise and just, Now, venal is her council's tongue : How riot, violence, and wrong, Turn gold to dross, her blossom into dust!

To things inglorious, far beneath

Those high-born souls they proudly breathe,
Her sordid noble sinks! her mighty, bow!
Is it for this, the groves around
Return the tabret's sprightly sound?
Is it for this, her great-ones toss the brow?

What burning feuds 'twixt brothers reign!
To nuptials cold, how glows the vein,
Confounding kindred, and misleading right?
The spurious lord it o'er the land!
Bold blasphemy dares make a stand,
Assault the sky, and brandish all her might:
Tyre's artisan, sweet orator,

Her merchant sage, big man of war,
Her judge, her prophet, nay her hoary heads,

Whose brow with wisdom should be crown'd,
Her very priests in guilt abound:
Hence, the world's cedar all her honours sheds.

What death of truth! what thirst of gold! Chiefs warm in peace, in battle cold! What youth unletter'd! base ones lifted high!

What public boasts! what private views! What desert temples! crowded stews! What women!-practis'd but to roll an eye!

O foul of heart, her fairest dames Decline the Sun's intruding beams, To mad the midnight in their gloomy haunts: Alas! there is, who sees them there; There is, who flatters not the fair, When cymbals tinkle, and the virgin chants.

He sees, and thunders !-Now, in vain! The courser paws, and foams the rein; And chariots stream along the printed soil:

In vain! Her high, presumptuous air
In gorgeous vestments rich and rare,

"Ah! wretched isle, once call'd the great!
Ah! wretched isle, and wise too late!
The vengeance of Jehovah is gone out:
Thy luxury, corruption, pride,
And freedom lost, the realms deride,
Ador'd thee standing, o'er thy ruins shout:

"To scourge with war, or peace bestow,
Was thine, O fallen! fallen low!

'Twas thine, of jarring thrones to still debates: How art thou fallen, down, down, down! Wide waste, and night, and horrour frown,

O'er her proud shoulder throws the poor man's toil. Where empire flam'd in gold, and balanc'd states.

In robes or gems, her costly stain.
Green, scarlet, azure, shine, in vain!
In vain! their golden heads her turrets rear;
In vain high-flavour'd foreign fruits,
Sydonian oils, and Lydian lutes,
Glide o'er her tongue, and melt upon her ear.

In vain! wines flow in various streams,
With helm and spear each piliar gleams;
Damascus, vain! unfolds the glossy store;
The golden wedge from Ophir's coasts,
From Arab incense vain, she boasts,
Vain are her gods, and vainly men adore.

Bel falls! the mighty Nebo bends!
The nations hiss! her glory ends !
To ships, her confidence! she flies from foes;

Foes meet her there: the wind, the wave,
That once aid, strength, and grandeur gave,
Plunge her in seas, from which her glory rose.
Her ivory deck, embroider'd sail,
And mast of cedar naught avail,
Or pilot learn'! She sinks, nor sinks alone,
Her gods sink with her! to the sky,
Which never more shall meet her eye,
She sends her soul out in one dreadful groan.

What though so vast her naval might, In her first dawn'd the British right! All flags abas'd her sea-dominion greet:

What though she longer warr'd than Troy? At length her foes that isle destroy Whose conquest sail'd, as far as sail'd her fleet.

The kings she cloth'd in purple shake Their aweful brows: "O foul mistake! O fatal pride" they cry, "this, this is she,

Who said-' With my own art and arm, In the world's wealth I wrap me warm'And swell'd at heart, vain empress of the sea!

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This, this is she, who meanly soar'd:
Alas! how low, to be ador'd,

And style herself a God!-Through stormy wars
This Eagle-isle her thunder bore,

High-fed her young with human gore ;

And would have built her nest among the stars.

"But ah, frail man! how impotent To stand Heaven's vengeance, or prevent! To turn aside the great Creator's aim!

Shall island-kings with him contend,
Who makes the poles beneath him bend?
And shall drink up the sea herself with flame?

"Earth, Ether, Empyreum bow,
When from the brazen mountain's brow
The God of Battles takes his mighty bow:
Of wrath prepares to pour the flood,
Puts on his vesture dipt in blood,
And marches out to scourge the world below,

STRAIN THE THIRD.

THE ARGUMENT.

An inference from this history. Advice to Britain. More proper to her than other nations. How far the stroke of tyranny reaches. What supports our endeavours. The unconsider'd benefits of liberty. Britain's obligation to pursue trade. Why above half the globe is sea. Britain's grandeur from her situation. The winds, the seas, the constellations, described. Sir Isaac Newton's praise. Britain compared with other states. The leviathan described. Britain's site, and antient title to the seas. Who rivals her. Of Venice. Holland. Some despise trade as mean. Censured for it. Trude's glory. The late Czar. Solomon. A surprising instance of magnificence. The merchant's dignity. Compared with men of letters.

HENCE learn, as hearts are foul or pure,
Our fortunes wither or endure:
Nations may thrive, or perish by the wave.
What storms from Jove's unwilling frown,
A people's crimes solicit down!
Ocean's the womb of riches, and the grave.

This truth, O Britain! ponder well;
Virtues should rise, as fortunes swell:
What is large property?—The sign of good,
Of worth superior: if 't is less,
Another's treasure we possess,

And charge the gods with favours misbestow'd.

This council suits Britannia's isle,
High-flush'd with wealth, and freedom's smile:

To vassals prison'd in the continent,

Who starve, at home, on meagre toil,
And suck to death their mother soil,

'T were useless caution, and a truth mis-spent.

Fell tyrants strike beyond the bone,
And wound the soul; bow genius down,
Lay virtue waste! for worth or arts, who strain,
To throw them at a monster's foot?
'Tis property supports pursuit :
Freedom gives eloquence; and freedom, gain.

She pours the thought, and forms the style,
She makes the blood and spirits boil;

I feel her now! and rouse, and rise, and rave
In Theban song: O Muse! not thine,
Verse is gay freedom's gift divine:
The man that can think greatly, is no slave,

Others may traffic if they please;
Britain, fair daughter of the seas,

Is born for trade; to plough her field, the wave:
And reap the growth of every coast:
A speck of land! but let her boast,
Gods gave the world, when they the waters gave.
Britain! behold the world's wide face;
Nor cover'd half with solid space,
Three parts are fluid; empire of the sea!

And why for commerce. Ocean streams For that, through all his various names: And, if for commerce, ocean flows for thee.

Britain, like some great potentate

Of eastern clime, retires in state,

Shuts out the nations! would a prince draw nigh?
He passes her strong guards, the waves,
Of servant winds admission craves,
Her empire has no neighbour but the sky.

There are her friends; soft Zephyr there,
Keen Eurus, Notus never fair,

Rough Boreas bursting from the pole: all urge,
And urge for her, their various toil;
The Caspian, the broad Baltic boil,
And into life the dead Pacific scourge.

There are her friends, a marshal'd train:
A golden host! and azure plain!
By turns do duty, and by turns retreat :

They may retreat, but not from her;
The star that quits this hemisphere
Must quit the skies, to want a British flect.

Hyad, for her, leans o'er her urn;
For her, Orion's glories burn,
The Pleiads gleam. For Britons set and rise
The fair-fac'd sons of Mazaroth,
Near the deep chambers of the South,
The raging Dog that fires the midnight skies.

These nations Newton made his own;
All intimate with him alone.
His mighty soul did, like a giant, run
To the vast volume's closing star;
Decypher'd every character:
His reason pour'd new light upon the Sun.

Let the proud brothers of the land
Smile at our rock and barren strand,
Not such the sea: let Fohé's antient line

Vast tracts and ample beings vaunt;
The camel low, small elephant-

O Britain! the leviathan is thine.

Leviathan whom Nature's strife
Brought forth, her largest piece of life;
He sleeps an isle! his sports the billows warm!
Dreadful leviathan! thy spout
Invades the skies; the stars are out:

He drinks a river, and ejects a storm.

Th' Atlantic surge around our shore
German and Caledonian roar;

Their mighty Genii hold us in their lap.

Hear Egbert, Edgar, Ethelred;

"The seas are ours."-The monarch saidThe floods their hands, their hands the nations, clap.

Whence is a rival, then, to rise?
Can he be found beneath the skies?

No, there, they dwell, that can give Britain fear:
The powers of Earth, by rival aim
Her grandeur but the more proclaim;
And prove their distance most, as they draw near.

Proud Venice sits amid the waves;

Her foot ambitious ocean laves : Art's noblest boast! but O what wondrous odds "Twixt Venice and Britannia's isle!

'T wixt mortal and immortal toil! Britannia is a Venice built by gods.

Let Holland triumph o'er her foes,
But not o'er friends by whom she rose;
The child of Britain! and shall she contend
It were no less than parricide:—
What wonders rise from out the tide
Her high and mighty to the rudder bend.
And are there, then, of lofty brow,
Who think trade mean, and scorn to bow
So far beneath the state of noble birth?
Alas! these chiefs but little know
Commerce how high, themselves how low;
The sons of nobles are the sons of Earth.

And what have Earth's mean sons to do,
But reap her fruits, and warm pursue
The world's chief good, not glut on others' toil?
High commerce from the gods came down,
With compass, chart, and starry crown,
Their delegate, to make the nations smile.

Blush, and behold the Russian bow,
From forty crowns, his mighty brow
To trade. To toil he turns his glorious hand:
That arm, which swept the bloody field,
See! the huge axe, or hammer, wield;
While sceptres wait, and thrones impatient stand.
O shame to subjects! first renown,
Matchless example to the crown !
Old Time is poor: what age boasts such a sight ?
Ye drones! adore the man divine-
No; virtue still as mean decline,
Call Russians barbarous, and yourselves polite.

He too of Judah, great, as wise,
With Hiram strute in merchandise:
Monarchs with monarchs struggle for an orr !
That merchant sinking to his grave,
A flood of treasure swells the cave;
The king left much, the merchant bury'd more.
Is merchant an inglorious name?
No; fit for Pindar such a theme,
Too great for me; I pant beneath the weight!
If loud as Ocean's were my voice,

If words and thoughts to court my choice Out-number'd sands, I could not reach its height.

Merchants o'er proudest heroes reign;
Those trade in blessing, these in pain,
At slaughter swell, and shout, while nations groan:
With purple monarchs, merchants vie ;
If great to spend, what, to supply?
Priests pray for blessings; merchants pour them
down.

Kings, merchants are in league and love;
Earth's odours pay soft airs above,
That o'er the teeming field prolific range;
Planets are merchants; take, return,
Lustre and heat; by traffic burn;

The whole creation is one vast Exchange.

* Vast treasure taken from Solomon's tomb 1500 years after his death.-YOUNG,

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