A. Vouchsafe, at least, to pitch the key of rhime

To themes more pertinent, if lefs fublime.
When ministers and minifterial arts;

Patriots, who love good places at their hearts;

When admirals, extoll'd for standing still,
Or doing nothing with a deal of skill;

Gen'rals, who will not conquer when they may,
Firm friends to peace, to pleasure, and good pay;
When freedom, wounded almost to despair,
Though discontent alone can find out where;
When themes like these employ the poet's tongue,
I hear as mute as if a fyren fung.

Or tell me, if you can, what pow'r maintains

A Briton's fcorn of arbitrary chains?

That were a theme might animate the dead,

And move the lips of poets caft in lead.

B. The caufe, tho' worth the fearch, may yet elude Conjecture and remark, however shrewd. They take, perhaps, a well-directed aim, Who feek it in his climate and his frame.

Lib'ral in all things elfe, yet nature here

With stern severity deals out the year.
Winter invades the fpring, and often pours
A chilling flood on fummer's drooping flow'rs;
Unwelcome vapours quench autumnal beams,
Ungenial blafts attending, curl the streams;
The peasants urge their harvest, ply the fork
With double toil, and fhiver at their work;
Thus with a rigour, for his good defign'd,
She rears her fav'rite man of all mankind,

His form robust and of elastic tone,
Proportion'd well, half muscle and half bone,
Supplies with warm activity and force

A mind well lodg'd, and mafculine of course.
Hence liberty, sweet liberty inspires,

And keeps alive, his fierce but noble fires.
Patient of conftitutional controul,

He bears it with meek manliness of foul;

But, if authority grow wanton, woe

To him that treads upon his free-born toe;

One ftep beyond the bound'ry of the laws

Fires him at once in freedom's glorious cause.
Thus proud prerogative, not much rever'd,

Is feldom felt, though sometimes feen and heard; fine and gay,

And in his

like cage,

parrot

Is kept, to strut, look big, and talk away.

Born in a climate fofter far than our's, Not form'd like us, with fuch Herculean pow'rs, The Frenchman, eafy, debonair, and brisk, Give him his lass, his fiddle, and his frifk, Is always happy, reign whoever may, And laughs the sense of mis'ry far away: He drinks his fimple bev'rage with a guft; And, feasting on an onion and a crust, We never feel th' alacrity and joy

With which he shouts and carols, Vive le Roy, Fill'd with as much true merriment and glee, As if he heard his king fay-Slave, be free. Thus happiness depends, as nature shows, Lefs on exterior things than moft fuppofe.

Vigilant over all that he has made,
Kind Providence attends with gracious aid;
Bids equity throughout his works prevail,
And weighs the nations in an even scale;
He can encourage flav'ry to a smile,

And fill with discontent a British isle.

A. Freeman and flave, then, if the case be such,

Stand on a level; and you prove too much:

If all men indiscriminately share

His foft'ring pow'r, and tutelary care,
As well be yok'd by defpotifm's hand,

As dwell at large in Britain's charter'd land.

B. No. Freedom has a thousand charms to show,

That flaves, howe'er contented, never know.

The mind attains, beneath her happy reign,

The growth that nature meant she should attain;
The varied fields of science, ever new,
Op'ning and wider op'ning on her view,
She ventures onward with a prosp'rous force,
While no base fear impedes her in her course:

Religion, richest favour of the skies,

Stands moft reveal'd before the freeman's eyes; No shades of superstition blot the day,

Liberty chases all that gloom away;

The foul, emancipated, unopprefs'd,

Free to prove all things and hold faft the beft,
Learns much; and, to a thousand lift'ning minds,
Communicates with joy the good she finds:

Courage in arms, and ever prompt to show
His manly forehead to the fierceft foe;
Glorious in war, but for the fake of peace,
His fpirits rifing as his toils increase,

Guards well what arts and induftry have won,
And freedom claims him for her firft-born fon.
Slaves fight for what were better cast away-
The chain that binds them, and a tyrant's fway;
But they, that fight for freedom, undertake

The nobleft caufe mankind can have at ftake:Religion, virtue, truth, whate'er we call

A bleffing-freedom is the pledge of all.