And last of all, amidst the gaping crew,
Some calm spectator, as he takes his view,
In silent indignation mix'd with grief,
Admires the plunder, but abhors the thief.
Oh, loath'd in life, nor pardon'd in the dust,
May hate pursue his sacrilegious lust!
Link'd with the fool that fired the Ephesian dome,
Shall vengeance follow far beyond the tomb,
And Eratostratus and Elgin shine
In many a branding page and burning line;
Alike reserved for aye to stand accurs'd,
Perchance the second blacker than the first.
"So let him stand, through ages yet unborn,
Fix'd statue on the pedestal of Scorn;
Though not for him alone revenge shall wait,
But fits thy country for her coming fate:
Hers were the deeds that taught her lawless son
To do what oft Britannia's self had done.
Look to the Baltic-blazing from afar,
Your old ally yet mourns perfidious war.12
Not to such deeds did Pallas lend her aid,
Or break the compact which herself had made;
Far from such councils, from the faithless field
She fled-but left behind her Gorgon shield;
A fatal gift that turn'd your friends to stone,
And left lost Albion hated and alone.
"Look to the East, where Ganges' swarthy race
Shall shake your tyrant empire to its base;
Lo! there Rebellion rears her ghastly head,
And glares the Nemesis of native dead;
Till Indus rolls a deep purpureal flood,
And claims his long arrear of northern blood.
So may ye perish !-Pallas, when she gave
Your free-born rights, forbade ye to enslave.
"Look on your Spain !-she clasps the hand she hates, But boldly clasps, and thrusts you from her gates.
Bear witness, bright Barossa! thou canst tell
Whose were the sons that bravely fought and fell.
But Lusitania, kind and dear ally,
Can spare a few to fight, and sometimes fly.
Oh glorious field! by Famine fiercely won,
The Gaul retires for once, and all is done!
But when did Pallas teach, that one retreat
Retrieved three long olympiads of defeat?
"Look last at home-ye love not to look there;
On the grim smile of comfortless despair:
Your city saddens: loud though Revel howls,
Here Famine faints, and yonder Rapine prowls.
See all alike of more or less bereft;
No misers tremble when there's nothing left.
'Blest paper credit; ' 13 who shall dare to sing?
It clogs like lead Corruption's weary wing.
Yet Pallas pluck'd each premier by the ear,
Who gods and men alike disdain'd to hear;
But one, repentant o'er a bankrupt state,
On Pallas calls,-but calls, alas! too late:
Then raves for **; to that Mentor bends,
Though he and Pallas never yet were friends.
Him senates hear, whom never yet they heard,
Contemptuous once, and now no less absurd.
So, once of yore, each reasonable frog
Swore faith and fealty to his sovereign 'log.'
Thus hail'd your rulers their patrician clod,
As Egypt chose an onion for a god.
"Now fare ye well! enjoy your little hour;
Go, grasp the shadow of your vanish'd power;
Gloss o'er the failure of each fondest scheme;
Your strength a name, your bloated wealth a dream.
Gone is that gold, the marvel of mankind,
And pirates barter all that's left behind.1+
No more the hirelings, purchased near and far,
Crowd to the ranks of mercenary war.
The idle merchant on the useless quay
Droops o'er the bales no bark may bear away;
Or, back returning, sees rejected stores
Rot piecemeal on his own encumber'd shores:
The starved mechanic breaks his rusting loom,
And desperate mans him 'gainst the coming doom.
Then in the senate of your sinking state
Show me the man whose counsels may have weight.
Vain is each voice where tones could once command;
E'en factions cease to charin a factious land:
Yet jarring sects convulse a sister isle,
And light with maddening hands the mutual pile.
"Tis done, 'tis past, since Pallas warns in vain ; The Furies seize her abdicated reign:
Wide o'er the realm they wave their kindling brands,
And wring her vitals with their fiery hands.
But one convulsive struggle still remains,
And Gaul shall weep ere Albion wear her chains.
The banner'd pomp of war, the glittering files,
O'er whose gay trappings stern Bellona smiles;
The brazen trump, the spirit-stirring drum,
That bid the foe defiance ere they come;
The hero bounding at his country's call,
The glorious death that consecrates his fall,
Swell the young heart with visionary charms,
And bid it antedate the joys of arms.
But know, a lesson you may yet be taught,
With death alone are laurels cheaply bought:
Not in the conflict Havoc seeks delight,
His day of mercy is the day of fight.
But when the field is fought, the battle won,
Though drench'd with gore, his woes are but begun :
His deeper deeds as yet ye know by name;
The slaughter'd peasant and the ravish'd dame,
The rifled mansion and the foe-reap'd field,
Ill suit with souls at home, untaught to yield.
Say with what eye along the distant down
Would flying burghers mark the blazing town?
How view the column of ascending flames
Shake his red shadow o'er the startled Thames ?
Nay, frown not, Albion! for the torch was thine
That lit such pyres from Tagus to the Rhine:
Now should they burst on thy devoted coast,
Go, ask thy bosom who deserves them most.
The law of heaven and earth is life for life,
And she who raised, in vain regrets, the strife."
NOTES TO THE CURSE OF MINERVA.
1.-Page 261, line 22.
That closed their murder'd sage's latest day!
SOCRATES drank the hemlock a short time before sunset (the hour of execution), notwithstanding the entreaties of his disciples to wait till the sun went down.
The queen of night asserts her silent reign;
The twilight in Greece is much shorter than in our own country; the days in winter are longer, but in summer of less duration.
3.-Page 262, line 16.
The gleaming turret of the gay kiosk,
The kiosk is a Turkish summer-house; the palm is without the present walls of Athens, not far from the temple of Theseus, between which and the tree the wall intervenes. Cephisus' stream is indeed scanty, and Ilissus has no stream at all.
And dull were his that pass'd them heedless by.
[The Temple of Theseus is the most perfect ancient edifice in the world. In this fabric, the most enduring stability, and a simplicity of design peculiarly striking, are united with the highest elegance and accuracy of workmanship.-HOBHOUSE.]
5.-Page 263, line 30.
Thy country sends a spoiler worse than both.
"Ah, Athens! scarce escaped from Turk and Goth.
Hell sends a paltry Scotchman worse than both."]
6.-Page 263, line 33.
These Cecrops placed, this Pericles adorn'd,
This is spoken of the city in general, and not of the Acropolis in particular. The temple of Jupiter Olympius, by some supposed the Pantheon, was finished by Hadrian; sixteen columns are standing, of the most beautiful marble and architecture.
7.- Page 263, line 38.
The insulted wall sustains his hated name:
[On the original MS. is written
"Aspice quos Pallas Scoto concedit honores
Infra stat nomen-facta supràque vide.”]
When Venus half avenged Minerva's shame."
His lordship's name, and that of one who no longer bears it, are carved conspicuously on the Parthenon; above, in a part not far distant, are the torn remnants of the basso-relievos, destroyed in a vain attempt to remove them. [In another place there was deeply cut in a plaster wall the words
"QUOD NON FECERUNT GOTI,
HOC FECERUNT SCOTI."]
9.-Page 264, line 21.
And well I know within that bastard land
"Irish bastards," according to Sir Callaghan O'Brallaghan,
10.-Page 265, line 26.
And own himself an infant of fourscore.
Mr. West, on seeing the "Elgin Collection," (I suppose we shall hear of the "Abershaw" and "Jack Shephard" collection) declared himself "a mere tyro" in art.
And marvel at his lordship's 'stone shop' there.
Poor Crib was sadly puzzled when the marbles were first exhibited at Elgin House; he asked if it was not "a stone shop?"-He was right; it is a shop.
12.-Page 266, line 20.
Your old ally yet mourns perfidious war.
[The affair of Copenhagen.]
13.-Page 267, line 11.
'Blest paper credit;' who shall dare to sing?
"Blest paper credit! last and best supply,
That lends Corruption lighter wings to fly."-- POPE.
14.-Page 267, line 30.
And pirates barter all that's left behind.
The Deal and Dover traffickers in specie.
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