fellow-student in astrology, and are known to have assisted him in these his calculations. The medicine was given in the form of extract; but the patient could not have used more wry faces had it been extract of coloquintida. And indeed it produced a most unpleasant effect. Ever since that time his paroxysms have been more violent, and he has been troubled with occasional ravings, accompanied with periodical discharges of bile in its most offensive state. Nevertheless, dreadfully bilious as he is, and tormented with acrid humours, it is hoped that by a cool diet, by the proper use of refrigerants, above all, by paying due attention to the state of the primæ viæ, and observing a strict abstinence from the Quarterly Review, the danger of a cholera morbus may be averted.

I have not been travelling out of the record while thus incidentally noticing a personage with whom you, Sir, are more naturally and properly associated than I have been with Mr. Wordsworth, this your colleague and you being the Gog and Magog of the Edinburgh Review. Had it not been for a difference of opinion upon political points between myself and certain writers in that journal who laid claim to the faculty of the second sight, I suspect that I should never have incurred your hostility. What those points of difference were I must here be permitted to set forth for the satisfaction of those readers who may not be so well acquainted with them as you are they related to the possibility of carrying on the late war to an honourable and successful termination.

It was in our state of feeling, Sir, as well as in our state of knowledge, that we differed, in our desires as much as in our judgement. They predicted for us nothing but disgrace and defeat: predicted is the word; for they themselves assured us that they were "seriously occupied with the destinies of Europe and of mankind; "

"As who should say I am Sir Oracle!"

They ridiculed "the romantic hopes of the English nation," and imputed the spirit by which the glory of that nation has been raised to its highest point, and the deliverance of Europe accomplished, to "the tricks of a paltry and interested party." They said that events had "verified their predictions," had "more than justified their worst forebodings." They told us in 1810 that the fate of Spain was decided, and that that "misguided" country (misguided in having ventured to resist the most insolent usurpation that ever was attempted) "had yielded to the Conqueror." This manner of speaking of an event in the preter-pluperfect tense, before it has come to pass, may be either a slight grammatical slip, or a prophetical figure of speech: but, as old Dr. Eachard says, "I hate all small ambiguous surmises, all quivering and mincing conjectures: give me the lusty and bold thinker, who when he undertakes to prophesy does it punctually." "It would be blood-thirsty and cruel," they said, "to foment petty insurrections, (meaning the war in Spain and Portugal) after the only contest is over from which any good can spring in the present unfortunate state of affairs." "France has conquered Europe. This is the melancholy truth. Shut our eyes to it as we may, there can be no doubt about the matter. For the present, peace and submission must be the lot of the vanquished." "Let us hear no more of objections to a Buonaparte ruling in Spain."

"Harry, the wish was father to that thought!"

They told us that if Lord Wellington was not driven out of Portugal, it was because the French government thought

him "better there than any where else." They told us they were prepared to "contemplate with great composure"

"Si mens sit læta tibi crederis esse propheta,"

says an old Leonine rhymester. And as for expecting “a MUTINY (hear Germany! for so they qualified it!) amongst the vassal states of France, it would be as chimerical," they said, "as to expect one amongst the inhabitants of Bourdeaux." And here these lucky prophets were peculiarly felicitous; the inhabitants of Bourdeaux having been the first people in France who threw off the yoke of Buonaparte's tyranny, and mounted the white cockade.

"Omnia jam fiunt, fieri quæ posse negabam."

Poor Oracle! the face is double-bronzed; and yet it is but a wooden head!

I stood upon firm ground, while they were sticking in the Slough of Despond. Hinc illæ lacrymæ ! 1 charged them at the time with ignorance, presumption, and pusillanimity. And now, Sir, I ask of you, were they or were they not ignorant? Here are their assertions ! -- Were they or were they not presumptuous ? Here are their predictions! Were they or were they not pusillanimous? Have they or have they not been confuted, and confounded, and exposed, and shamed, and stultified, by the event?

They who know me will bear witness, that, before a rumour of war was heard from the Peninsula, I had looked toward that quarter as the point where we might hope first to see the horizon open; and that, from the hour in which the struggle commenced, I never doubted of its final success, provided England should do its duty: this confidence was founded upon a knowledge of the country and the people, and upon the principles which were then and there first brought into action against the enemy. At the time when every effort was made (as you, Sir, well know) to vilify and disgust our allies, to discourage the public, to impede the measures of government, to derange its finances, and thereby cut off its means, to paralyse the arm and deaden the heart of England; when we were told of the irresistible power and perfect policy of Buonaparte, the consummate skill of his generals, and the invincibility of his armies, my language was this: "The one business of England is to abate the power of France: that power she must beat down, or fall herself; that power she will beat down, if she do but strenuously put forth her own mighty means." And again,-"For our soldiers to equal our seamen, it is only necessary for them to be equally well commanded. They have the same heart and soul, as well as the same flesh and blood. Too much, indeed, may be exacted from them in a retreat but set their face toward a foe, and there is nothing within the reach of human achievement which they cannot perform." And again; -"Carry on the war with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, of this mighty empire, and you will beat down the power of France Was I wrong, Sir? Or has the event corresponded to this confidence?

'Αμέραι ἐπίλοιποι Μάρτυρες σοφώτατοι.

Bear witness Torres Vedras, Salamanca, and Vittoria ! Bear witness Orthies and Thoulouse ! Bear witness Waterloo, and that miserable tyrant, who was then making and unmaking kings with a breath, and now frets upon the rock

of St. Helena, like a tiger in his cage!

ODE,

WRITTEN DURING THE NEGOTIATIONS WITH

BUONAPARTE, IN JANUARY, 1814.

1.

WHO Counsels peace at this momentous hour, When God hath given deliverance to the oppress'd, And to the injured power?

Who counsels peace, when Vengeance like a flood
Rolls on, no longer now to be repress'd;
When innocent blood

From the four corners of the world cries out
For justice upon one accursed head;
When Freedom hath her holy banners spread
Over all nations, now in one just cause
United; when with one sublime accord
Europe throws off the yoke abhorr'd,
And Loyalty and Faith and Ancient Laws
Follow the avenging sword!

2.

Woe, woe to England! woe and endless shame,
If this heroic land,

False to her feelings and unspotted fame,
Hold out the olive to the Tyrant's hand!
Woe to the world, if Buonaparte's throne
Be suffer'd still to stand!

For by what names shall Right and Wrong be known,..
What new and courtly phrases must we feign
For Falsehood, Murder, and all monstrous crimes,
If that perfidious Corsican maintain
Still his detested reign,

And France, who yearns even now to break her chain,
Beneath his iron rule be left to groan?
No! by the innumerable dead,

Whose blood hath for his lust of power been shed,
Death only can for his foul deeds atone;
peace which Death and Judgement can bestow,
That peace be Buonaparte's, that alone!

That

3.

For sooner shall the Ethiop change his skin, Or from the Leopard shall her spots depart, Than this man change his old flagitious heart. Have ye not seen him in the balance weigh'd, And there found wanting? On the stage of blood Foremost the resolute adventurer stood;

And when, by many a battle won, He placed upon his brow the crown, Curbing delirious France beneath his sway, Then, like Octavius in old time, Fair name might he have handed down, Effacing many a stain of former crime. Fool! should he cast away that bright renown! Fool! the redemption proffer'd should he lose! When Heaven such grace vouchsafed him that the way To Good and Evil lay

Before him, which to choose.

4.

But Evil was his Good,

For all too long in blood had he been nurst, And ne'er was earth with verier tyrant curst. Bold man and bad,

Remorseless, godless, full of fraud and lies, And black with murders and with perjuries, Himself in Hell's whole panoply he clad; No law but his own headstrong will he knew, No counsellor but his own wicked heart. From evil thus portentous strength he drew, And trampled under foot all human ties, All holy laws, all natural charities.

5.

O France! beneath this fierce Barbarian's sway Disgraced thou art to all succeeding times; Rapine, and blood, and fire have mark'd thy way, All loathsome, all unutterable crimes. A curse is on thee, France! from far and wide It hath gone up to Heaven. All lands have cried For vengeance upon thy detested head! All nations curse thee, France for wheresoe'er In peace or war thy banner hath been spread, All forms of human woe have follow'd there. The Living and the Dead

Cry out alike against thee! They who bear, Crouching beneath its weight, thine iron yoke, Join in the bitterness of secret prayer The voice of that innumerable throng, Whose slaughter'd spirits day and night invoke The Everlasting Judge of right and wrong, How long, O Lord! Holy and Just, how long!

6.

A merciless oppressor hast thou been, Thyself remorselessly oppress'd meantime ; Greedy of war, when all that thou couldst gain Was but to dye thy soul with deeper crime, And rivet faster round thyself the chain. O blind to honour, and to interest blind, When thus in abject servitude resign'd To this barbarian upstart, thou couldst brave God's justice, and the heart of human kind! Madly thou thoughtest to enslave the world, Thyself the while a miserable slave. Behold the flag of vengeance is unfurl'd! The dreadful armies of the North advance; While England, Portugal, and Spain combined, Give their triumphant banners to the wind, And stand victorious in the fields of France.

7.

One man hath been for ten long wretched years The cause of all this blood and all these tears; One man in this most aweful point of time Draws on thy danger, as he caused thy crime.

Wait not too long the event,

For now whole Europe comes against thee bent, His wiles and their own strength the nations know: Wise from past wrongs, on future peace intent, The People and the Princes, with one mind, From all parts move against the general foe: One act of justice, one atoning blow,

One execrable head laid low, Even yet, O France! averts thy punishment. Open thine eyes! too long hast thou been blind; Take vengeance for thyself, and for mankind!

8.

France if thou lovest thine ancient fame, Revenge thy sufferings and thy shame! By the bones which bleach on Jaffa's beach; By the blood which on Domingo's shore Hath clogg'd the carrion-birds with gore; By the flesh which gorged the wolves of Spain, Or stiffen'd on the snowy plain Of frozen Moscovy ;

By the bodies which lie all open to the sky,
Tracking from Elbe to Rhine the Tyrant's flight;
By the widow's and the orphan's cry;
By the childless parent's misery;
By the lives which he hath shed;
By the ruin he hath spread;

By the prayers which rise for curses on his head;
Redeem, O France! thine ancient fame,
Revenge thy sufferings and thy shame,
Open thine eyes!.. too long hast thou been blind;
Take vengeance for thyself, and for mankind!

9.

By those horrors which the night Witness'd, when the torches' light To the assembled murderers show'd Where the blood of Condé flow'd; By thy murder'd Pichegru's fame; By murder'd Wright,.. an English name; By murder'd Palm's atrocious doom; By murder'd Hofer's martyrdom ; Oh! by the virtuous blood thus vilely spilt, The Villain's own peculiar private guilt, Open thine eyes! too long hast thou been blind! Take vengeance for thyself and for mankind!

Keswick.

ODE,

WRITTEN DURING THE WAR WITH AMERICA,

1814. 1.

WHEN shall the Island Queen of Ocean lay The thunderbolt aside,

And, twining olives with her laurel crown, Rest in the Bower of Peace?

2.

Not long may this unnatural strife endure Beyond the Atlantic deep;

Not long may men, with vain ambition drunk, And insolent in wroug,

Nobly hast thou stood up

Against the foulest Tyranny that ere,

In elder or in later times,

Hath outraged human kind.

O glorious England! thou hast borne thyself Religiously and bravely in that strife; And happier victory hath blest thine arms Than, in the days of yore,

Thine own Plantagenets achieved,

Or Marlborough, wise in council as in field,
Or Wolfe, heroic name.

Now gird thyself for other war;
Look round thee, and behold what ills,
Remediable and yet unremedied,

Afflict man's wretched race!
Put on the panoply of faith!
Bestir thyself against thine inward foes,
Ignorance and Want, with all their brood
Of miseries and of crimes.

6.

Powerful thou art: imperial Rome, When in the Augustan age she closed The temple of the two-faced God, Could boast no power like thine.

Less opulent was Spain,

When Mexico her sumless riches sent

To that proud monarchy;

And Hayti's ransack'd caverns gave their gold;
And from Potosi's recent veins
The unabating stream of treasure flow'd.
And blest art thou, above all nations blest,
For thou art Freedom's own beloved Isle
The light of Science shines
Conspicuous like a beacon on thy shores,
Thy martyrs purchased at the stake
Faith uncorrupt for thine inheritance;
And by thine hearths Domestic Purity,
Safe from the infection of a tainted age,
Hath kept her sanctuaries.

Yet, O dear England! powerful as thou art,
And rich and wise and blest,
Yet would I see thee, O my Mother-land!
Mightier and wealthier, wiser, happier still!

7.

For still doth Ignorance
Maintain large empire here,

Dark and unblest amid surrounding light;
Even as within this favour'd spot,
Earth's wonder and her pride,

The traveller on his way
Beholds with weary eye

Bleak moorland, noxious fen, and lonely heath,
In drear extension spread.

Oh grief! that spirits of celestial seed, Whom ever teeming Nature hath brought forth With all the human faculties divine

Of sense and soul endued,..

Disherited of knowledge and of bliss,
Mere creatures of brute life,
Should grope in darkness lost!

8.

Must this reproach endure?
Honour and praise to him,

The universal friend,

The general benefactor of mankind;
He who from Coromandel's shores
His perfected discovery brought;
He by whose generous toils

This foul reproach ere long shall be effaced,
This root of evil be eradicate!
Yea, generations yet unborn
Shall owe their weal to him,
And future nations bless
The honour'd name of Bell.

9.

Now may that blessed edifice
Of public good be rear'd
Which holy Edward traced,
The spotless Tudor, he whom Death
Too early summon'd to his heavenly throne.
For Brunswick's line was this great work reserved,
For Brunswick's fated line;

They who from papal darkness, and the thrall
Of that worst bondage which doth hold
The immortal spirit chain'd,
Saved us in happy hour.

Fitly for them was this great work reserved;

So, Britain, shall thine aged monarch's wish
Receive its due accomplishment,

That wish which with the good,
(Had he no other praise,)

Through all succeeding times would rank his name,
That all within his realms

Might learn the Book, which all

Who rightly learn shall live.

10.

From public fountains the perennial stream
Of public weal must flow.

O England! wheresoe'er thy churches stand,
There on that sacred ground,
Where the rich harvest of mortality
Is laid, as in a garner, treasured up,
There plant the Tree of Knowledge! Water it
With thy perpetual bounty! It shall spread
Its branches o'er the venerable pile,
Shield it against the storm,

And bring forth fruits of life.

11.

Train up thy children, England! in the ways
Of righteousness, and feed them with the bread
Of wholesome doctrine. Where hast thou thy mines
But in their industry?

Thy bulwarks where, but in their breasts?
Thy might, but in their arms?

Shall not their numbers therefore be thy wealth, Thy strength, thy power, thy safety, and thy pride? Oh grief then, grief and shame,

If, in this flourishing land,

There should be dwellings where the new-born babe Doth bring unto its parent's soul no joy! Where squalid Poverty

Receives it at its birth,

And on her wither'd knees Gives it the scanty food of discontent!

12.

Queen of the Seas! enlarge thyself;
Redundant as thou art of life and power,
Be thou the hive of nations,
And send thy swarms abroad!
Send them like Greece of old,
With arts and science to enrich
The uncultivated earth;

But with more precious gifts than Greece or Tyre
Or elder Egypt, to the world bequeath'd;
Just laws, and rightful polity,
And, crowning all, the dearest boon of Heaven,
Its word and will reveal'd.
Queen of the Seas! enlarge
The place of thy pavilion. Let them stretch
The curtains of thine habitations forth;
Spare not; but lengthen thou
Thy cords, make strong thy stakes.

13.

Queen of the Seas! enlarge thyself; Send thou thy swarms abroad! For in the years to come, Though centuries or millenniums intervene, Where'er thy progeny,

Thy language, and thy spirit shall be found, . .

If on Ontario's shores,

Or late-explored Missouri's pastures wide, Or in that Austral world long sought, The many-isled Pacific,. . yea where waves, Now breaking over coral reefs, affright The venturous mariner,

When islands shall have grown, and cities risen
In cocoa groves embower'd;..
Where'er thy language lives,

By whatsoever name the land be call'd,
That land is English still, and there
Thy influential spirit dwells and reigns.
Thrones fall, and Dynasties are changed;
Empires decay and sink

Beneath their own unwieldy weight;
Dominion passeth like a cloud away:
The imperishable mind
Survives all meaner things

The Continent was leagued,
Its numbers wielded by one will,
Against the mighty Isle ;

All shores were hostile to the Red Cross flag,
All ports against it closed;

Save where, behind their ramparts driven,
The Spaniard, and the faithful Portugal,
Each on the utmost limits of his land,
Invincible of heart,

Stood firm, and put their trust
In their good cause and thee.

3.

Such perils menaced from abroad;
At home worse dangers compass'd thee,
Where shallow counsellors,

A weak but clamorous crew,
Pester'd the land, and with their withering breath
Poison'd the public ear.

For peace the feeble raised their factious cry: Oh, madness, to resist

The Invincible in arms!

Seek the peace-garland from his dreadful hand! And at the Tyrant's feet

They would have knelt to take

The wreath of aconite for Britain's brow.
Prince of the mighty Isle !
Rightly may'st thou rejoice,

For in the day of danger thou did'st turn From their vile counsels thine indignant heart; Rightly may'st thou rejoice,

When Britain round her spear
The olive garland twines, by Victory won.

4.

Rejoice, thou mighty Isle,
Queen of the Seas! rejoice;

Ring round, ye merry bells,

Till every steeple rock,

And the wide air grow giddy with your joy!
Flow streamers to the breeze!

And ye victorious banners to the sun
Unroll the proud Red Cross !

Now let the anvil rest;

Shut up the loom, and open the school-doors, That young and old may with festivities Hallow for memory, through all after years, This memorable time:

This memorable time,

When Peace, long absent, long deplored, returns.
Not as vile Faction would have brought her home,
Her countenance for shame abased,
In servile weeds array'd,
Submission leading her,

Fear, Sorrow, and Repentance following close;
And War, scarce deigning to conceal
Beneath the mantle's folds his armed plight,
Dogging her steps with deadly eye intent,
Sure of his victim, and in devilish joy
Laughing behind the mask.

5.

Not thus doth Peace return!.. A blessed visitant she comes, . . . Honour in his right hand Doth lead her like a bride;