And hunt new fancies. Still, thy glaring form Bids Commerce thrive, and o'er the Indian

waves,

O'er-stemming danger, draw the laboring keel,
From China's coast to Britain's colder clime,
Fraught with the fruits and herbage of her vales.
In them whatever vegetable springs,
How loathsome and corrupted, triumphs here,
The bane of life, of health the sure decay:
Yet, yet we swallow, and extol the draught,
Tho' nervous ails should spring, and vaporish
qualms

Our senses and our appetites destroy.

Look round, ye sipplers of the poisoned cup From foreign plant distilled! No more repine That Nature, sparing of her sacred sweets, Hath doomed you in a wilderness to dwell; While round Britannia's streams she kindly

rears

Green sage, and wild thyme.-These were sure decreed,

As plants of Britain, to regale her sons With native moisture, more refreshing sweet, And more profuse of health and vigor's balm, Than all the stems that India can boast.

THE SOW OF FEELING.

Well! I protest there's no such thing as dealing
With these starched poets,—with these Men of Feeling!

EPILOGUE TO THE PRINCE OF TUNIS.

MALIGNANT planets! do ye

still combine

Against this wayward, dreary life of mine?
Has pitiless Oppression-cruel case!
Gained sole possession of the human race?
By cruel hands has every virtue bled,
And Innocence from men to vultures fled!

Thrice happy, had I lived in Jewish time, When swallowing pork or pig was deemed a crime;

My husband long had blessed my longing arms, Long, long had known love's sympathetic charms!

My children, too,--a little suckling race,

With all their father growing in their face,

From their prolific dam had ne'er been torn, Nor to the bloody stalls of butchers borne.

Ah, Luxury! to you my being owes
Its load of misery,-its load of woes!
With heavy heart I saunter all the day;
Gruntle and murmur all my hours away!
In vain I try to summon old desire

For favourite sports,-for wallowing in the mire:
Thoughts of my husband, of my children slain,
Turn all my wonted pleasure into pain!
How oft did we, in Phoebus' warming ray,
Bask on the humid softness of the clay?
Oft did his lusty head defend my tail
From the rude whispers of the angry gale;
While nose-refreshing puddles streamed around,
And floating odours hailed the dung-clad
ground.

Near by a rustic mill's enchanting clack, Where plenteous bushels load the peasant's back, In straw-crowned hovel, there to life we came, One boar our father, and one sow our dam. While tender infants on our mother's breast, A flame divine in either shone confest: In riper hours love's more than ardent blaze, Inkindled all his passion, all his praise ! No deadly, sinful passion fired his soul; Virtue o'er all his actions gained control!

That cherub which attracts the female heart,
And makes them soonest with their beauty part,
Attracted mine ;-I gave him all my love,
In the recesses of a verdant grove;

'Twas there I listened to his warmest vows,
Amidst the pendant melancholy boughs;
'Twas there my trusty lover shook for me
A shower of acorns from the oaken tree;
And from the teeming earth, with joy, ploughed
out,

The roots salabrious with his hardy snout.

But Happiness! a floating meteor, thou, That still inconstant art to man and sow, Left us in gloomiest horrors to reside, Near by the deep-dyed sanguinary tide, Where whetting steel prepares the butchering knives,

With greater ease to take the harmless lives Of cows, and calves, and sheep, and hogs, who

fear

The bite of bull-dogs, that incessant tear Their flesh, and keenly suck the blood-distilling ear!

At length, the day, the eventful day, drew

near,

Detested cause of many a briny tear!

I'll weep, till sorrow shall my eye-liès drain,
A tender husband and a brother slain !
Alas, the lovely languor of his eye,

When the base murderers bore him captive by!
His mournful voice, the music of his groans,
Had melted any hearts-but hearts of stones!
Oh! had some angel at that instant come,
Given me four nimble fingers and a thumb,
The blood-stained blade I'd turned upon his foe,
And sudden sent him to the shades below,—
Where, or Pythagoras' opinion jests,
Beasts are made butchers,

to beasts.

butchers changed

Wisely in early times the law decreed,
For human food few quadrupeds should bleed!
But monstrous man, still erring from the laws,
The curse of heaven upon his banquet draws!
Already has he drained the marshes dry,
For frogs, new victims of his luxury;

And soon the toad and lizard may come home,
In his voracious paunch to find a tomb.
Cats, rats, and mice, their destiny may mourn;
In time their carcases on spits may turn;
They may rejoice to-day,-While I resign
Life, to be numbered 'mongst the FEELING

SWINE.