Sublim'd awhile their Nature to your own,

Think that you hear them plead from REASON'S

1

throne!

Yet, ah! the sufferers need no aid of speech,
The bosom'd advocates of man to reach-

Of man, whose form, ascending from the clod,
Shames not the awful image of his God,
The light celestial beaming in his face,
Protector, patron of the bestial race!

They ask not lengthen'd days, they ask not life,
All they could wish, to pass devoid of strife;
The little span, by craving man decreed 4,

Ere for his raiment and his food they bleed!

Their hopes, their prayers, e'en were they granted

all,

Alas! how great to them, to man how small!
O then, at length the saving code impart,

Tis your's to frame this statute of the heart.

This be YOUR law-TO MAKE EACH TYRANT.

KNOW,

THE WOE HE GIVES SHALL BE RETURN'D BY

WOE.

/ Proclaim it loud! high Heav'n shall bless the sound,
And Mercy's Angel spread the tidings round;
Immortal hands the chaplet shall entwine,
And fondly wreath it round Britannia's shrine,

And thou! as oft the raptur'd Muse has sung,
Devote to thee since first the lyre she strung;
E'en to the hour that warns her now to part-
O may her last fond offering reach thy heart!
Yes; thou rever'd and sympathizing land,

First to extend thy ever-helping hand.
Oft has thy tender pity temper'd power,

And rais'd e'en Vice in dark Misfortune's hour;
Brought timely succour to the hapless Slave,

And snatch'd Pride's destin'd victim from the grave;

Not Conquest's only, thine COMPASSION's isle,
A truth thy Myriads sanction with a smile:

Bulwarks of strength! when warm'd to MERCY'S

cause,

These Myriads MERCY calls to aid her gentle laws,

And, ah! when homefelt, or when foreign storms, The chequer'd scenery of life deforms,

Folly and vice, the darkling prospect shroud,
And wrap thy virtues in an awful cloud;

Tho' threat'ning tumults, like tornados fell,

Life's wholesome breeze to hurricane should swell;
Or more portentous of some ill profound,

The SILENCE THAT IS FELT should brood around;
While Charities like these, shall pour the ray,
And shed their lustre o'er fair England's day,

Still mid the nations, towering o'er the rest,
Honour'd shall be her deeds, her name be bless'd,

END OF BOOK IV.

NOTES.

BOOK I.

Tho' yon dire Snake- -] Alluding to the CONSTRICTOR, painted by Mr. JAMES WARD, in a manner that exhibits the powers of his mind employed on sublime subjects; at the same time that it displays the truth and vi gour of his delineation, in regard to the subjects themselves. His painting of this Terror of Nature is still, we believe, part of his private collection in Newman Street.

This enormous serpent certainly holds the first rank, in regard of size and force, both in the genus, and in the whole order of serpents. In beauty, size, agility, strength, and patient industry to wait for and seize its prey, it far surpasses every other species, and may well be named the king or emperor of serpents. Like the elephant and lion among quadrupeds, the Constrictor far surpasses all the animals of its kind, resembling the elephant in size, and the lion in strength and courage *.

* Count de la Cepede's Oviparous Quadrupeds and Serpents, from the Collections of Buffon, translated by Kerr.