Hook difappointment on the public wheels;
With all their flippant fluency of tongue,
Moft confident, when palpably most wrong:
If this be kingly, then farewell for me
All kingship; and may I be poor and free!
To be the Table Talk of clubs
up ftairs,
To which the unwash'd artificer repairs,
To indulge his genius after long fatigue,
By diving into cabinet intrigue;
(For what kings deem a toil, as well they may, To him is relaxation and mere play);
To win no praise when well wrought plans prevail,
But to be rudely cenfured when they fail;
To doubt the love his favourites may pretend,
And in reality to find no friend;
If he indulge a cultivated taste,
His galleries with the works of art well graced,
To hear it call'd extravagance and waste;
If these attendants, and if such as these,
Must follow royalty, then welcome ease;
However humble and confined the sphere,
Happy the state that has not these to fear.
A. Thus men, whofe thoughts contemplative
On fituations that they never felt,
[have dwelt Start up fagacious, cover'd with the duft Of dreaming study and pedantic rust,
prate and preach about what others prove, As if the world and they were hand and glove. Leave kingly backs to cope with kingly cares; They have their weight to carry, fubjects theirs; Poets, of all men, ever least regret
Increafing taxes and the nation's debt.
Could you contrive the payment,
The mighty plan, oracular, in verse,
No bard, howe'er majestic, old or new,
Should claim my fix'd attention more than you.
B. Not Brindley nor Bridgewater would effay
To turn the course of Helicon that way;
Nor would the Nine consent the facred tide
Should purl amidst the traffic of Cheapfide,
Or tinkle in 'Change Alley, to amuse
The leathern ears of stockjobbers and Jews.
A. Vouchfafe, at least, to pitch the key of rhyme
To themes more pertinent, if less sublime.
When ministers and ministerial arts,
Patriots, who love good places at their hearts,
When admirals extoll'd for standing still,
Or doing nothing with a deal of skill;
Generals, who will not conquer when they may,
Firm friends to peace, to pleasure, and good pay;
When Freedom, wounded almost to despair,
Though discontent alone can find out where;
When themes like these employ the poet's tongue,
I hear as mute as if a fyren fung.
Or tell me, if you can, what power maintains
A Briton's scorn of arbitrary chains?
That were a theme might animate the dead,
And move the lips of poets caft in lead.
B. The cause, though worth the search, may yet Conjecture and remark, however shrewd. [elude They take perhaps a well directed aim,
Who seek it in his climate and his frame.
Liberal in all things elfe, yet Nature here
With stern severity deals out the year.
Winter invades the spring, and often pours
A chilling flood on fummer's drooping flowers;
Unwelcome vapours quench autumnal beams,
Ungenial blasts attending curl the streams:
The peasants urge their harvest, ply the fork
With double toil, and shiver at their work.
Thus with a rigour, for his good defign'd,
She rears her favourite man of all mankind.
His form robust and of elastic tone,
Proportion'd well, half muscle and half bone,
Supplies with warm activity and force
A mind well lodged, and masculine of course.
Hence Liberty, sweet Liberty inspires
And keeps alive his fierce but noble fires.
Patient of conftitutional control,
He bears it with meek manliness of foul;
But if authority grow wanton, woe
To him that treads upon his free-born toe;
One step beyond the boundary of the laws
Fires him at once in Freedom's glorious cause.
Thus proud prerogative, not much revered,
Is feldom felt, though fometimes feen and heard;
And in his
like
cage,
fine and gay,
parrot
Is kept to strut, look big, and talk away.
Born in a climate fofter far than ours,
Not form'd like us, with fuch Herculean
The Frenchman, easy, debonair, and brisk,
Give him his lass, his fiddle, and his frisk,
Is always happy, reign whoever may,
And laughs the sense of misery far away:
He drinks his fimple beverage with a gust;
And, feasting on an onion and a crust,
We never feel the alacrity and joy
With which he shouts and carols Vive le Roy,
Fill'd with as much true merriment and glee
As if he heard his king say-Slave, be free!
Thus happiness depends, as Nature shows,
Lefs on exterior things than most suppose.
Vigilant over all that he has made,
Kind Providence attends with gracious aid,
Bids equity throughout his works prevail,
And weighs the nations in an even scale;
He can encourage flavery to a smile,
And fill with discontent a British isle.
A. Freeman and slave then, if the case be such,
Stand on a level; and you prove too much :
If all men indiscriminately share
His foftering power, and tutelary care,
As well be yoked by Defpotifm's hand,
As dwell at large in Britain's charter'd land.
B. No. Freedom has a thousand charms to
That flaves, howe'er contented, never know.
The mind attains beneath her happy reign
The growth that Nature meant she should attain ;
The varied fields of fcience, ever new,
Opening and wider opening on her view,
She ventures onward with a profperous force,
While no base fear impedes her in her course :
Religion, richest favour of the skies,
Stands most reveal'd before the freeman's eyes;
No fhades of fuperftition blot the day,
Liberty chases all that gloom away;
The foul, emancipated, unoppreff'd,
Free to prove all things, and hold fast the best,
Learns much; and to a thousand listening minds
Communicates with joy the good she finds;
Courage in arms, and ever prompt to show
His manly forehead to the fierceft foe;
Glorious in war, but for the fake of peace,
His fpirits rifing as his toils increase,
Guards well what arts and industry have won,
And Freedom claims him for her firstborn fon.
Slaves fight for what were better cast away—
The chain that binds them, and a tyrant's sway;
But they that fight for freedom undertake
The nobleft caufe mankind can have at stake,
Religion, virtue, truth, whate'er we call
A bleffing, freedom is the pledge of all.
O Liberty! the prisoner's pleasing dream,
The poet's mufe, his paffion, and his theme;
Genius is thine, and thou art Fancy's nurse,
Loft without thee the ennobling powers of verse;
Heroic fong from thy free touch acquires
Its clearest tone, the rapture it inspires:
Place me where Winter breathes his keenest air,
And I will fing, if Liberty be there;
And I will fing at Liberty's dear feet,
In Afric's torrid clime, or India's fierceft heat.
A. Sing where you please; in fuch a cause I
An English poet's privilege to rant.
But is not Freedom-at least, is not ours
Too apt to play the wanton with her powers,
Grow freakish, and o'erleaping every mound
Spread anarchy and terror all around? [horfe
B. Agreed. But would you fell or flay your
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