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THE PATRIOT'S PRAYER.

PARENT of all, Omnipotent!
In heaven and earth below;
Through all creation's bounds unspent,
Whose streams of goodness flow.
Teach me to know from whence I rose,
And unto what design'd;
No private aims let me propose,

Since link'd with human kind.
But chief to hear my country's voice,
May all my thoughts incline;
"Tis reason's law, 'tis virtue's choice,
'Tis nature's call and thine.

Me from fair freedom's sacred cause
Let nothing e'er divide;
Grandeur, nor gold, nor vain applause,
Nor friendship false misguide.

Let men of factions, partial hate
Pursue to Britain's woe,

Nor

grasp the thunder of the state
To wound a private foe.

If for the right to wish the wrong
My country should combine;
Single to serve th' erroneous throng,

Spite of themselves be mine.

London Chronicle, 1757.

SINGULAR EPITAPH.

The Providence Gazette" gives the following epitaph as copied from a tomb-stone in the town of Cranston, R. I. "Here lies the Body of JOSEPH WILLIAMS, Esq.

Son of ROGER WILLIAMS, Esq.

(Who was the First White Man that came to Providence.) He was born 1644,

And died in the 81st year of his age.

In King Philip's war, he courageously went through,
And the native Indians he bravely did subdue,

And now he's gone down into the grave, and he will be

no more

Until it please Almighty God his body to restore

Into some proper shape, as he thinks fit to be,

Perhaps, like a grain of wheat, as Paul set forth, you see, Corinthians 1 Book, 15 Chap. 37 Verse."

THE NEGRO's RETORT.

As lately return'd from the Isles of the West,
Lorenzo, with health and prosperity blest,

And surrounded by friends, at his table presided,
Where all the good things of this world were provided;
A domestic, with Africa's hue on his skin,

A basket of apples and chesnuts brought in.
Lorenzo, with wine and good fellowship warm,
To laugh at poor Mungo conceiv'd it no harm;
And exclaim'd, as he held up the fruit to his view,
"This apple's a white man; this chesnut is you."
"Ah! Massa," said Mungo, " acknowledge I must,
The connection is good, the comparison just;
But Negro, like chesnut, tho' dark in his skin,
Is white, firm, and sound, at the kernel within;
While, tho' beauteous like apples is Buckra* so smart,
He has oft many little black grains at his heart.”

A.

PROCLAMATION OF JAMES THE FIRST.

THE following curious Proclamation by James the First, respecting the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell, who had fled into foreign parts to escape the punishment due to repeated treasons, shews a greater anxiety than we see usually evinced by crowned heads, to stand well in the judgment of the world. It is transcribed from an original copy of the Proclamation, Imprinted at London, by Robert Barker, printer to the King's Most Excellent Majestie, Anno Dom. 1607."

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By the King. A Proclamation touching the Earles of Tyrone and Tyrconnell.

Seeing it is common and natural in all persons of what condition soever, to speak and judge variably of all new and sudden accidents, and that the flight of the Earles of Tyrone and Tyrconnell, with some others of their fellowes out of the North parts of our realme of Ireland, may haply proove a subject of like discourse: wee have thought it not amisse to deliver some such matter in publique, as may better cleare mens judgements concerning the same; not in respect of any worth or value in these mens persons, being base and rude in their originall; but to take away all such inconveniences as may blemish the reputation of that friendship which ought to be

* The Negro's name for a white man.

mutually observed between us and other princes. For although it is not unlikely, that the report of their titles and dignities may draw from princes and states some such courtesies at their first comming abroad, as are incident to men of extraordinary rancke and qualitie: yet when wee have taken the best meanes wee can to lay them open in every condition, wee shall then expect from our friends and neighbours all such just and noble proceedings, as stand with the rules of honour and friendship; and from our subjects at home and abroad, that duty and obedience (in their carriage toward them) which they owe to us by inseparable bonds and obligations of nature and loyaltie, whereof we intend to take streight accompt. For which purpose we do hereby first declare that these persons above mentioned had not their creations or possessions in regard of any lineall or lawfull descent from ancestors of blood or vertue, but were onely preferred by the late queene our sister of famous memory, and by our selves for some reasons of state, before others, who for their qualitie and birth (in those provinces where they dwell) might better have challenged those honours which were conferred upon them. Secondly, wee doe professe, that it is both known to us and our counsell here, and to our deputie and state there, and so shall it appeare to the world (as cleare as the sunne) by evident proofes, that the onely ground and motive of this high contempt in these mens departure, hath bene the private knowledge and inward terrour of their own guiltinesse: whereof, because wee heare that they doe seeke to take away the blot and infamie by divulging that they have withdrawn themselves for matter of religion, (a cloake that serves too much in these dayes to cover many evill intentions) adding also thereunto some other vaine pretexts of receiving injustice, when their rights and claimes have come in question betweene them and us, or any of our subjects and them, wee thinke it not impertinent to say somewhat thereof.

And therefore, although wee judge it needlesse to seeke for many arguments to confirme whatsoever shall be said of these mens corruption and falshood, (whose hainous offences remaine so fresh in memorie since they declared themselves so very monsters in nature, as they did not only withdraw themselves from their personall obedience to their soveraigne, but were content to sell over their native countrey to those that stood at that time in the highest termes of hostilitie with the two crownes of England and Ireland) yet to make the absurditie and ingratitude of the allegations above mentioned, so much the more cleare to all men of equall judgement, wee doe hereby professe in the worde of a king, that there was never so much as any shadowe of molestation, nor purpose of proceeding in any degree against them for matter concerning re

ligion such being their condition and profession, to thinke murder no fault, marriage of no use, nor any man worthy to bee esteemed valiant that did not glorie in rapine and oppression, as wee should have thought it an unreasonable thing to trouble them for any different point in religion, before any man could perceive by their conversation, that they made truely conscience of any religion. So do wee also for the second part of their excuse, affirme, that (notwithstanding all that they can claime must be acknowledged to proceed from meere grace upon their submission after their great and unnaturall treasons) there hath never come any question concerning their rights or possessions, wherein wee have not bene more inclinable to doe them favour, then to any of their competitours, except in those cases wherein wee have plainely discerned that their onely end was to have made themselves by degrees more able then now they are, to resist all lawfull authoritie (when they should returne to their vomit again) by usurping a power over other good subjects of ours, that dwell among them, better borne then they, and utterly disclaiming from any dependancie upon

them.

66

Having now delivered thus much concerning these men's estates and their proceedings, wee shall onely end with this conclusion, that they shall not be able to denie, whensoever they should dare to present themselves before the seate of justice, that they have (before their running out of our kingdom) not onely entered into combination for stirring sedition and intestine rebellion, but have directed divers instruments, as well priestes as others, to make offers to forreine states and princes (if they had beene as ready to receive them) of their readinesse and resolution to adhere to them, whensoever they would seeke to invade that kingdome. Wherein amongst other things, this is not to be forgotten, that under the condition of being made free from English government, they resolved also to comprehend the better extirpation of all those subjects that are nowe remayning alive within that kingdome, formerly descended from the English race. In which practises and propositions, followed and fomented by priestes and jesuites (of whose function in these times the practise and perswasion of subjects to rebell against their soveraignes, is one special and essentiall part and portion) as they have found no such incouragement as they expected and have boasted of: so wee doe assure ourselves, that when this declaration shall bee seene and duely weighed with all due circumstances, it will bee of force sufficient to disperse and to discredit all such untrueths, as these contemptible creatures, so full of infidelity and ingratitude, shall disgorge against us,

S.

and our just and moderate proceeding, and shall procure unto them no better usage then they would wish should be afforded to any such packe of rebels, borne their subjects, and bound unto them in so many and so great obligations.

"Given at our palace of Westminster, the fifteenth day of November, in the fifth yeere of our reigne of Great Britaine, France and Ireland.

"God save the King."

EPIGRAMS.

From a scarce Tract printed in 1606, called the " Mouse Trap."

I.

Ask Ficus how his luck at dicing goes,

"Like to the tide (saith he) it ebbs and flowes :"

Then I suppose his cannot be good,

For all men know, 'tis longer ebb than flood.

II.

Tassus hath learning, but no ready wit,
For drink and dotage dayly drowneth it.

III.

Paulus, a pamphlet doth in prose present
Unto his Lord (the fruits of idle time,)
Who far more careless, than therewith content,
Wisheth he would convert it into rhyme.

Which done, (and brought him at another season)
Said, "Now 'tis rhyme; before, nor rhyme nor reason."

IV.

Magus would needs, forsooth, the other day,

Upon an idle humour, see a play;

When asking him at door, that held the box,

"What might you call the play?" Quoth he" The Fox."

In goes my gemman (who could judge of wit)
And being asked, how he liked it?

Said all was ill, both Fox and him that play'd it,
But was not he, think you, a goose that said it?

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