Whate'er she hides bencath her verdant floor,
The vegetable and the mineral reigns;
Or else he scann'd the globe, those small domains, Where restless mortals such a turmoil keep,
Its feas, its floods, its mountains, and its plains ; But more he search'd the mind, and rous'd from fleep Those moral feeds whence we heroic actions reap.
Nor would he scorn to stoop from high pursuits
Of heavenly Truth, and practise what she taught.
Vain is the tree of Knowledge without fruits,
Sometimes in hand the spade or plough he caught,
Forth-calling all with which boon earth is fraught;
Sometimes he ply'd the strong mechanic tool,
Or rear'd the fabric from the finest draught;
And oft' he put himself to Neptune's school,
Fightingwith winds andwaves on the vext ocean pool.
To folace then these rougher toils, he try'd
To touch the kindling canvass into life;
With Nature his creating pencil vy'd,
With Nature, joyous at the mimic strife:
Or, to fuch shapes as grac'd Pygmalion's wife
He hew'd the marble; or, with varied fire,
He rous'd the trumpet and the martial fife;
Or bade the lute sweet tenderness inspire;
Or verses fram'd that well might wake Apollo's lyre.
Accomplish'd thus, he from the woods issu'd,
Full of great aims, and bent on bold emprize;
The work which long he in his breast had brew'd
Now to perform he ardent did devise,
To wit, a barbarous world to civilize.
Earth was till then a boundless forest wild,
Nought to be feen but favage wood and skies;
No cities nourish'd arts, no culture smil'd,
No government, no laws, no gentle manners mild.
A rugged wight, the worst of brutes, was man;
On his own wretched kind he, ruthless, prey'd;
The strongest fstill the weakest over-ran;
In every country mighty robbers fway'd,
And guile and ruffian force were all their trade.
Life was a fcene of rapine, want, and woe,
Which this brave knight, in noble anger, made
To fwear he would the rafcal rout o'erthrow,
For, by the powers Divine, it should no more be fo!
It would exceed the purport of my fong,
To say how this best fun, from orient climes
Came beaming life and beauty all along,
Before him chafing Indolence and crimes.
Still as he pafs'd, the nations he fublimes,
And calls forth Arts and Virtues with his ray:
Then Egypt, Greece, and Rome, their golden times
Successive had; but now in ruins grey
They lie, to flavish sloth and tyranny a prey.
To crown his toils, Sir Industry then spread
The swelling fail, and made for Britain's coaft.
A fylvan life till then the natives led,
In the brown shades and green-wood forest loft,
All careless rambling where it lik'd them most:
Their wealth the wild deer bouncing thro' the glade;
They lodg'd at large, and liv'd at Nature's cost;
Save spear and bow, withouten other aid,
Yet not the Roman steel their naked breast dismay'd.
XVIII.
He lik'd the foil, he lik'd the clement skies,
He lik'd the verdant hills and flowery plains.
Be this my great, my chosen Isle (he cries),
This, whilst my labours Liberty sustains,
This Queen of Ocean all afsault difdains.
Nor lik'd he lefs the genius of the land,
To freedom apt and perfevering pains,
Mild to obey, and generous to command,
Temper'd by forming Heaven with kindest, firmest
Here, by degrees, his master-work arose,
Whatever Arts and Industry can frame;
Whatever finish'd Agriculture knows,
Fair Queen of arts! from heaven itself who came
When Eden flourish'd in unspotted fame:
And still with her sweet Innocence we find,
And tender Peace, and joys without a name,
That, while they ravish, tranquillize the mind:
Nature and Art at once delight and use combin'd.
Then towns he quicken'd by mechanic arts,
And bade the fervent city glow with toil;
Bade focial Commerce raise renowned marts,
Join land to land, and marry foil to foil,
Unite the poles, and without bloody spoil
Bring home of either Ind the gorgeous stores;
Or, should defpotic rage the world embroil,
Bade tyrants tremble on remotest shores,
While o'er the encircling deep Britannia's thunder [roars.
The drooping Muses then he westward call'd,
From the fam'd City* by Propontic sea,
What time the Turk th' enfeebled Grecian thrall'd,
Thence from their cloister'd walks he fet them free,
And brought them to another Caftalie,
Where Isis many a famous noursling breeds;
Or where old Cam foft-paces o'er the lea
In penfive mood, and turns his Doric reeds,
Thewhilsthisflocks at large the lonelyshepherd feeds.
Yet the fine arts were what he finish'd leaft.
For why? they are the quintessence of all,
The growth of labouring time, and flow increast;
Unless, as feldom chances, it should fall,
That mighty patrons the coy Sifters call
Up to the sun-shine of uncumber'd ease,
Where no rude care the mounting thought may thrall,
And where they nothing have to do but please :
Ah!gracious God!thou know'st they ask no other fees.
But now, alas! we live too late in time:
Our patrons now even grudge that little claim,
Except to fuch as fleek the foothing rhyme:
And yet, forfooth, they wear Mæcena's name,
Poor fons of puft-up Vanity, not Fame,
Unbroken spirits, cheer! still, still remains
Th' eternal Patron, Liberty! whose flame,
While the protects, inspires the noblest strains,
The best, and sweetest far, are toil-created gains.
XXIV.
When as the knight had fram'd, in Britain land,
A matchless form of glorious government,
In which the fovereign laws alone command,
Laws stablish'd by the public free confent,
Whose majefty is to the fceptre lent;
When this great plan, with each dependant art,
Was fettled firm, and to his heart's content,
Then fought he from the toilfome scene to part,
And let life's vacant eve breathe quiet thro' the heart.
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