Or from the pyramid's tall pinnacle
Beheld the desert peopled, as from hell,
With clashing hosts, who strew'd the barren sand
To re-manure the uncultivated land!

Spain which, a moment mindless of the Cid,
Beheld his banner flouting thy Madrid!
Austria! which saw thy twice-ta'en capital
Twice spared to be the traitress of his fall!
Ye race of Frederic! - Frederics but in name
And falsehood- heirs to all except his fame;
Who, crush'd at Jena, crouch'd at Berlin, fell
First, and but rose to follow! Ye who dwell
Where Kosciusko dwelt, remembering yet
The unpaid amount of Catherine's bloody debt!
Poland! o'er which the avenging angel past,
But left thee as he found thee, still a waste,
Forgetting all thy still enduring claim,
Thy lotted people and extinguish'd name,
Thy sigh for freedom, thy long flowing tear,
That sound that crashes in the tyrant's ear-
Kosciusko ! On-on-on-the thirst of war
Gasps for the gore of serfs and of their czar.
The half barbaric Moscow's minarets
Gleam in the sun, but 't is a sun that sets!
Moscow thou limit of his long career,
For which rude Charles had wept his frozen tear
To see in vain-he saw thee -how? with spire
And palace fuel to one common fire.
To this the soldier lent his kindling match,
To this the peasant gave his cottage thatch,
To this the merchant flung his hoarded store,
The prince his hall-and Moscow was no more!
Sublimest of volcanos! Etna's flame

Pales before thine, and quenchless Hecla's tame,
Vesuvius shows his blaze, an usual sight
For gaping tourists, from his hackney'd height:
Thou stand'st alone unrivall'd, till the fire
To come, in which all empires shall expire!

Thou other element! as strong and stern, To teach a lesson conquerors will not learn! — Whose icy wing flapp'd o'er the faltering foe, Till fell a hero with each flake of snow; How did thy numbing beak and silent fang Pierce, till hosts perish'd with a single pang! In vain shall Seine look up along his banks For the gay thousands of his dashing ranks ! In vain shall France recall beneath her vines Her youth- - their blood flows faster than her wines; Or stagnant in their human ice remains In frozen mummies on the Polar plains. In vain will Italy's broad sun awaken Her offspring chill'd; its beams are now forsaken. Of all the trophies gather'd from the war,

What shall return?-the conqueror's broken car !

1 [Gustavus Adolphus fell at the great battle of Lutzen, in November, 1632.]

2 [The Isle of Elba.]

3 I refer the reader to the first address of Prometheus in Eschylus, when he is left alone by his attendants, and before the arrival of the Chorus of Sea-nymphs. [Thus translated by Potter :

"Ethereal air, and ye swift-winged winds,

Ye rivers springing from fresh founts, ye waves,
That o'er th' interminable occan wreath
Your crisped smiles, thou all-producing earth,
And thee, bright sun, I call, whose flaming orb
Views the wide world beneath, see what, a god,
I suffer from the gods; with what tlerce pains,
Behold, what tortures for revolving ages

The conqueror's yet unbroken heart! Again
The horn of Roland sounds, and not in vain.
Lutzen, where fell the Swede of victory, 1
Beholds him conquer, but, alas! not die:
Dresden surveys three despots fly once more
Before their sovereign-sovereign as before;
But there exhausted Fortune quits the field,
And Leipsic's treason bids the unvanquish'd yield;
The Saxon jackal leaves the lion's side
To turn the bear's, and wolf's, and fox's guide;
And backward to the den of his despair
The forest monarch shrinks, but finds no lair!

Oh ye! and each, and all! Oh France! who found Thy long fair fields, plough'd up as hostile ground, Disputed foot by foot, till treason, still

His only victor, from Montmartre's hill
Look'd down o'er trampled Paris! and thou Isle,
Which see'st Etruria from thy ramparts smile,
Thou momentary shelter of his pride,
Till woo'd by danger, his yet weeping bride!
Oh, France! retaken by a single march,
Whose pach was through one long triumphal arch!
Oh, bloody and most bootless Waterloo!
Which proves how fools may have their fortune too,
Won half by blunder, half by treachery:
Oh, dull Saint Helen! with thy gaoler nigh-
Hear hear Prometheus 3 from his rock appeal
To earth, air, ocean, all that felt or feel
His power and glory, all who yet shall hear
A name eternal as the rolling year;
He teaches them the lesson taught so long,
So oft, so vainly-learn to do no wrong!
A single step into the right had made
This man the Washington of worlds betray'd:
A single step into the wrong has given
His name a doubt to all the winds of heaven;
The reed of Fortune, and of thrones the rod,
Of Fame the Moloch or the demigod;
His country's Cæsar, Europe's Hannibal,
Without their decent dignity of fall.
Yet Vanity herself had better taught
A surer path even to the fame he sought,
By pointing out on history's fruitless page
Ten thousand conquerors for a single sage.
While Franklin's quiet memory climbs to heaven,
Calming the lightning which he thence hath riven,
Or drawing from the no less kindled earth
Freedom and peace to that which boasts his birth; *
While Washington's a watchword, such as ne'er
Shall sink while there's an echo left to air: >
While even the Spaniard's thirst of gold and war
Forgets Pizarro to shout Bolivar !6
Alas! why must the same Atlantic wave
Which wafted freedom gird a tyrant's grave

I here must struggle; such unseemly chains
This new-raised ruler of the gods devised.
Ah me! That groan bursts from my anguish'd heart,
My present woes and future to bemoan. -
For favours shown

To mortal man I bear this weight of woe!"]

[The well-known motto on a French medal of Franklin

The king of kings, and yet of slaves the slave,
Who bursts the chains of millions to renew
The very fetters which his arm broke through,
And crush'd the rights of Europe and his own,
To flit between a dungeon and a throne?

VI.

But 'twill not be the spark's awaken'd-lo!
The swarthy Spaniard feels his former glow;
The same high spirit which beat back the Moor
Through eight long ages of alternate gore
Revives and where? in that avenging clime
Where Spain was once synonymous with crime,
Where Cortes' and Pizarro's banner flew,
The infant world redeems her name of "New."
"Tis the old aspiration breathed afresh,
To kindle souls within degraded flesh,
Such as repulsed the Persian from the shore

Where Greece was- No she still is Greece once

more.

One common cause makes myriads of one breast,
Slaves of the east, or helots of the west;
On Andes' and on Athos' peaks unfurl'd,
The self-same standard streams o'er either world:
The Athenian wears again Harmodius' sword; I
The Chili chief abjures his foreign lord;
The Spartan knows himself once more a Greek,
Young Freedom plumes the crest of cach cacique;
Debating despots, hemm'd on either shore,
Shrink vainly from the roused Atlantic's roar;
Through Calpe's strait the rolling tides advance,
Sweep slightly by the half-tamed land of France,
Dash o'er the old Spaniard's cradle, and would fain
Unite Ausonia to the mighty main:

But driven from thence awhile, yet not for aye,
Break o'er th' gean, mindful of the day
Of Salamis !- - there, there the waves arise,
Not to be lull'd by tyrant victories.
Lone, lost, abandon'd in their utmost need

By Christians, unto whom they gave their creed,
The desolated lands, the ravaged isle,
The foster'd feud encouraged to beguile,
The aid evaded, and the cold delay,
Prolong'd but in the hope to make a prey; 2

These, these shall tell the tale, and Greece can show
The false friend worse than the infuriate foe.
But this is well: Greeks only should free Greece,
Not the barbarian, with his mask of peace.
How should the autocrat of bondage be
The king of serfs, and set the nations free?
Better still serve the haughty Mussulman,
Than swell the Cossaque's prowling caravan ;
Better still toil for masters, than await,
The slave of slaves, before a Russian gate, -
Number'd by hordes, a human capital,
A live estate, existing but for thrall,
Lotted by thousands, as a meet reward
For the first courtier in the Czar's regard;
While their immediate owner never tastes
His sleep, sans dreaming of Siberia's wastes ;
Better succumb even to their own despair,
And drive the camel than purvey the bear.

[The famous hymn, ascribed to Callistratus: —
"Cover'd with myrtle-wreaths, I'll wear my sword
Like brave Harmodius, and his patriot friend
Aristogeiton, who the laws restored,

The tyrant slew, and bade oppression end," &c. &c.] [For the first authentic account of the Russian intrigues

VII.

But not alone within the hoariest clime
Where Freedom dates her birth with that of Time,
And not alone where, plunged in night, a crowd

Of Incas darken to a dubious cloud,

The dawn revives: renown'd, romantic Spain
Holds back the invader from her soil again.
Not now the Roman tribe nor Punic horde
Demand her fields as lists to prove the sword;
Not now the Vandal or the Visigoth
Pollute the plains, alike abhorring both;
Nor old Pelayo on his mountain rears
The warlike fathers of a thousand years.
That seed is sown and reap'd, as oft the Moor
Sighs to remember on his dusky shore.
Long in the peasant's song or poet's page
Has dwelt the memory of Abencerrage;
The Zegri, and the captive victors, flung
Back to the barbarous realm from whence they sprung.
But these are gone-1 their faith, their swords, their

sway,

Yet left more anti-christian foes than they :
The bigot monarch and the butcher priest,
The Inquisition, with her burning feast,
The faith's red "auto," fed with human fuel,
While sate the catholic Moloch, calmly cruel,
Enjoying, with inexorable eye,
That fiery festival of agony!

The stern or feeble sovereign, one or both

By turns; the haughtiness whose pride was sloth:
The long degenerate noble; the debased
Hidalgo, and the peasant less disgraced,
But more degraded; the unpeopled realm;
The once proud navy which forgot the helm;
The once impervious phalanx disarray'd;
The idle forge that form'd Toledo's blade;
The foreign wealth that flow'd on ev'ry shore,
Save hers who earn'd it with the natives' gore;
The very language which might vie with Rome's,
And once was known to nations like their homes,
Neglected or forgotten: - such was Spain;
But such she is not, nor shall be again.
These worst, these home invaders, felt and feel
The new Numantine soul of old Castile.
Up! up again! undaunted Tauridor!
The bull of Phalaris renews his roar;
Mount, chivalrous Hidalgo! not in vain
Revive the cry- "Iago! and close Spain!"3
Yes, close her with your armed bosoms round,
And form the barrier which Napoleon found, -
The exterminating war, the desert plain,
The streets without a tenant, save the slain;
The wild sierra, with its wilder troop
Of vulture-plumed guerrillas, on the stoop
For their incessant prey; the desperate wall
Of Saragossa, mightiest in her fall;
The man nerved to a spirit, and the maid
Waving her more than Amazonian blade; 4
The knife of Arragon 5, Toledo's steel;
The famous lance of chivalrous Castile;
The unerring rifle of the Catalan ;
The Andalusian courser in the van;

in Greece, in the years alluded to, see "Gordon's History of the Greek Revolution" (1832), vol. i.]

3 ["Santiago y serra España ! the old Spanish war-cry.] 4 See antè, p. 10.]

The Arragonians are peculiarly dexterous in the use of this weapon, and displayed it particularly in former French

wars.

M m

Advance,

'The torch to make a Moscow of Madrid;
And in each heart the spirit of the Cid: -
Such have been, such shall be, such are.
And win-not Spain, but thine own freedom, France!
VIII.

But lo! a Congress!! What! that hallow'd name
Which freed the Atlantic? May we hope the same
For outworn Europe? With the sound arise,
Like Samuel's shade to Saul's monarchic eyes,
The prophets of young Freedom, summon'd far
From climes of Washington and Bolivar;
Henry, the forest-born Demosthenes,
Whose thunder shook the Philip of the seas; 2
And stoic Franklin's energetic shade,
Robed in the lightnings which his hand allay'd;
And Washington, the tyrant-tamer, wake,
To bid us blush for these old chains, or break.
But who compose this senate of the few
That should redeem the many? Who renew
This consecrated name, till now assign'd
To councils held to benefit mankind?
Who now assemble at the holy call?

The blest Alliance, which says three are all !
An earthly trinity! which wears the shape
Of heaven's, as man is mimick'd by the ape.
A pious unity! in purpose one-

To melt three fools to a Napoleon.
Why, Egypt's gods were rational to these ;
Their dogs and oxen knew their own degrees,
And, quiet in their kennel or their shed,
Cared little, so that they were duly fed;
But these, more hungry, must have something more,
The power to bark and bite, to toss and gore.
Ah! how much happier were good Æsop's frogs
Than we ! for ours are animated logs,
With ponderous malice swaying to and fro,
And crushing nations with a stupid blow;
All duly anxious to leave little work
Unto the revolutionary stork.

IX.

Thrice blest Verona ! since the holy three
With their imperial presence shine on thee;
Honour'd by them, thy treacherous site forgets
The vaunted tomb of "all the Capulets: "3
Thy Scaligers-for what was "Dog the Great,"
"Can Grande 4," (which I venture to translate,)

[The Congress of the Sovereigns of Russia, Austria, Prussia, &c. &c. &c. which assembled at Verona, in the autumn of 1832.]

[Patrick Henry, of Virginia, a leading member of the American Congress, died in June, 1797. Lord Byron alludes to his famous speech in 1765, in which, on saying," Cæsar had his Brutus Charles the First had his Cromwelland George the Third" Henry was interrupted with a shout of Treason! treason!!"— but coolly finished the sentence with "George the Third may profit by their example."]

3 ["I have been over Verona. The amphitheatre is wonderful beats even Greece. Of the truth of Juliet's story, they seem tenacious to a degree, insisting on the fact-giving a date (1503), and showing a tomb. It is a plain, open, and partly decayed sarcophagus, with withered leaves in it, in a wild and desolate conventual garden, once a cemetery, now ruined to the very graves. The situation struck me as very appropriate to the legend, being blighted as their love. I have brought away a few pieces of the granite, to give to my daughter and my nieces." The Gothic monuments of the Scaliger princes pleased me, but a poor virtuoso am I.'"'— Byron Letters, Nov. 1816.]

4 [Cane I. Della Scala, surnamed the Great, died in 1329: he was the protector of Dante, who celebrated him as " il Gran Lombardo."]

To these sublimer pugs? Thy poet too,
Catullus, whose old laurels yield to new;
Thine amphitheatre, where Romans sate;
And Dante's exile shelter'd by thy gate;
Thy good old man, whose world was all within
Thy wall, nor knew the country held him in : 6
Would that the royal guests it girds about
Were so far like, as never to get out!
Ay, shout! inscribe! rear monuments of shame,
To tell Oppression that the world is tame!
Crowd to the theatre with loyal rage,
The comedy is not upon the stage;
The show is rich in ribandry and stars,
Then gaze upon it through thy dungeon bars;
Clap thy permitted palms, kind Italy,

For thus much still thy fetter'd hands are free!
X.
Resplendent sight! Behold the coxcomb Czar, 7
The autocrat of waltzes and of war!

As eager for a plaudit as a realm,

And just as fit for flirting as the helm ;

A Calmuck beauty with a Cossack wit,

And generous spirit, when 't is not frost-bit;
Now half dissolving to a liberal thaw,

But harden'd back whene'er the morning's raw;
With no objection to true liberty,

Except that it would make the nations free.

How well the imperial dandy prates of peace!
How fain, if Greeks would be his slaves, free Greece!
How nobly gave he back the Poles their Diet,
Then told pugnacious Poland to be quiet!
How kindly would he send the mild Ukraine,
With all her pleasant pulks, to lecture Spain !
How royally show off in proud Madrid
His goodly person, from the South long hid
A blessing cheaply purchased, the world knows,
By having Muscovites for friends or foes.
Proceed, thou namesake of great Philip's son !
La Harpe, thine Aristotle, beckons on;
And that which Scythia was to him of yore
Find with thy Scythians on Iberia's shore.
Yet think upon, thou somewhat aged youth,
Thy predecessor on the banks of Pruth;
Thou hast to aid thee, should his lot be thine,
Many an old woman, but no Catherine. 8
Spain, too, hath rocks, and rivers, and defiles -
The bear may rush into the lion's toils.

--

[Verona has been distinguished as the cradle of many illustrious men. There is one still living:

Per cui la fama in te chiara risuona
Egregia, eccelsa, alma Verona, —

I mean Ippolito Pindemonte, a poet who has caught a portion
of that sun whose setting beams yet gild the horizon of Italy.
His rural pieces, for their chaste style of colouring, their
repose, and their keeping, may be said to be in poetry, what
the landscapes of Claude Lorraine are in picture. — ROSE.]
6 [Claudian's famous old man of Verona, “ qui suburbium
nunquam egressus est."- The Latin verses are beautifully
imitated by Cowley:-

Happy the man who his whole life doth bound
Within th' enclosure of his little ground:
Happy the man whom the same humble place
(Th' hereditary cottage of his race)

From his first rising infancy has known,
And, by degrees, sees gently bending down,
With natural propension, to that earth
Which both preserved his life and gave him birth.
Him no false distant lights, by Fortune set,
Could ever into foolish wanderings get;
No change of Consuls marks to him the year:
The change of seasons is his calendar," &c. &c.]

7 [The Emperor Alexander; who died in 1825.]

8 The dexterity of Catherine extricated Peter (called the

Fatal to Goths are Xeres' sunny fields; '

Think'st thou to thee Napoleon's victor yields?
Better reclaim thy deserts, turn thy swords

To ploughshares, shave and wash thy Bashkir hordes,
Redeem thy realms from slavery and the knout,
Than follow headlong in the fatal route,

To infest the clime whose skies and laws are pure
With thy foul legions. Spain wants no manure :
Her soil is fertile, but she feeds no foe;
Her vultures, too, were gorged not long ago;
And wouldst thou furnish them with fresher prey?
Alas! thou wilt not conquer, but purvey.
I am Diogenes, though Russ and Hun
Stand between mine and many a myriad's sun;
But were I not Diogenes, I'd wander
Rather a worm than such an Alexander!
Be slaves who will, the cynic shall be free;
His tub hath tougher walls than Sinopé :
Still will he hold his lantern up to scan
The face of monarchs for an "honest man.

XI.

And what doth Gaul, the all-prolific land
Of ne plus ultra ultras and their band
Of mercenaries? and her noisy chambers
And tribune, which each orator first clambers
Before he finds a voice, and when 't is found,
Hears" the lie" echo for his answer round?
Our British Commons sometimes deign to "hear!'
A Gallic senate hath more tongue than hear;
Even Constant, their sole master of debate,
Must fight next day his speech to vindicate.
But this costs little to true Franks, who had rather
Combat than listen, were it to their father.
What is the simple standing of a shot,
To listening long, and interrupting not?
Though this was not the method of old Rome,
When Tully fulmined o'er cach vocal dome,
Demosthenes has sanction'd the transaction,
In saying eloquence meant " Action, action!"
XII.

But where's the monarch? hath he dined? or yet
Groans beneath indigestion's heavy debt?
Have revolutionary patés risen,

And turn'd the royal entrails to a prison ?

Have discontented movements stirr'd the troops ?
Or have no movements follow'd traitorous soups?
Have Carbonaro 2 cooks not carbonadoed
Each course enough? or doctors dire disaded
Repletion? Ah! in thy dejected looks

I read all France's treason in her cooks!
Good classic Louis! is it, canst thou say,
Desirable to be the Desiré ? "

Great by courtesy), when surrounded by the Mussulmans on the banks of the river Pruth.

1["Eight thousand men had to Asturias march'd

Beneath Count Julian's banner; the remains
Of that brave army which in Africa

So well against the Mussulman made head,
Till sense of injuries insupportable,
And raging thirst of vengeance, overthrew
Their leader's noble spirit. To revenge
His quarrel, twice that number left their bones,
Slain in unnatural battle on the field

Of Xeres, where the sceptre from the Goths
By righteous Heaven was reft."-
t."—Southey's Roderick.]

? [According to Botta, the Neapolitan republicans who, during the reign of King Joachim, fled to the recesses of the Abruzzi, and there formed a secret confederacy, were the first that assumed the designation, since familiar all over Italy, of "Carbonari" (colliers).]

Why wouldst thou leave calm Hartwell's green abode, 3

Apician table, and Horatian ode,

To rule a people who will not be ruled,

And love much rather to be scourged than school'd?

Ah! thine was not the temper or the taste

For thrones; the table sees thee better placed ;

A mild Epicurean, form'd, at best,

To be a kind host and as good a guest,

To talk of letters, and to know by heart
One half the poet's, all the gourmand's art;
A scholar always, now and then a wit,
And gentle when digestion may permit; —
But not to govern lands enslaved or free;
The gout was martyrdom enough for thee.

These are the themes thus sung so oft before,
Methinks we need not sing them any more;
Found in so many volumes far and near,
There's no occasion you should find them here.
Yet something may remain perchance to chime
With reason, and, what's stranger still, with rhyme.
Even this thy geniu, Canning! may permit,
Who, bred a statesmen, still wast born a wit,
And never, even in that dull House, couldst tame
To unleaven'd prose thine own poetic flame;
Our last, our best, our only orator,6
Even I can praise thee- Tories do no more:
Nay, not so much; they hate thee, man, because
Thy spirit less upholds them than it awes.

The hounds will gather to their huntsman's hollo,
And where he leads the duteous pack will follow;
But not for love mistake their yelling cry;
Their yelp for game is not an eulogy;
Less faithful far than the four-footed pack,
A dubious scent would lure the bipeds back.

The Roman applies it to one who merely was imperious to his acquaintance.

5 ["The Pilot that weather'd the storm" is the burthen of a song, in honour of Pitt, by Mr. Canning.]

6 ["I have never heard any one who fulfilled my ideal of an orator. Grattan would have been near it, but for his harlequin delivery. Pitt I never heard - Fox but once: and then he struck me as a debater, which to me seems as different from an orator as an improvisatore or a versifier from a poet. Grey is great, but it is not oratory. Canning is sometimes very like one. Whitbread was the Demosthenes of bad taste and vulgar vehemence, but strong, and English. Holland is impressive from sense and sincerity. Burdett is sweet and silvery as Belial himself, and, I think, the greatest favourite in Pandemonium."- Byron Diary, 1821.]

Thy saddle-girths are not yet quite secure,
Nor royal stallion's feet extremely sure; 1
The unwieldy old white horse is apt at last
To stumble, kick, and now and then stick fast
With his great self and rider in the mud;
But what of that? the animal shows blood.
XIV.

Alas, the country! how shall tongue or pen
Bewail her now uncountry gentlemen?
The last to bid the cry of warfare cease,
The first to make a malady of peace.

For what were all these country patriots born?
To hunt, and vote, and raise the price of corn?
But corn, like every mortal thing, must fall,
Kings, conquerors, and markets most of all.
And must ye fall with every ear of grain ?
Why would you trouble Buonaparte's reign?
He was your great Triptolemus; his vices

Destroy'd but realms, and still maintain'd your

prices;

He amplified to every lord's content

The grand agrarian alchymy, hight rent.
Why did the tyrant stumble on the Tartars,
And lower wheat to such desponding quarters?
Why did you chain him on yon isle so lone?
The man was worth much more upon his throne.
True, blood and treasure boundlessly were spilt,
But what of that? the Gaul may bear the guilt;
But bread was high, the farmer paid his way,
And acres told upon the appointed day.
But where is now the goodly audit ale?
The purse-proud tenant, never known to fail?
The farm which never yet was left on hand?
The marsh reclaim'd to most improving land?
The impatient hope of the expiring lease?
The doubling rental? What an evil's peace!
In vain the prize excites the ploughman's skill,
In vain the Commons pass their patriot bill;
The landed interest—(you may understand
The phrase much better leaving out the land) —
The land self-interest groans from shore to shore,
For fear that plenty should attain the poor.
Up, up again, ye rents! exalt your notes,
Or else the ministry will lose their votes,
And patriotism, so delicately nice,

Her loaves will lower to the market price;
For ah!" the loaves and fishes," once so high,
Are gone their oven closed, their ocean dry,
And nought remains of all the millions spent,
Excepting to grow moderate and content.
They who are not so, had their turn-and turn
About still flows from Fortune's equal urn;
Now let their virtue be its own reward,

And share the blessings which themselves prepared.
See these inglorious Cincinnati swarm,
Farmers of war, dictators of the farm;
Their ploughshare was the sword in hireling hands,
Their fields manured by gore of other lands;
Safe in their barns, these Sabine tillers sent
Their brethren out to battle-why? for rent!
Year after year they voted cent. per cent.,
Blood, sweat, and tear-wrung millions—why ? for

[rent!

[On the suicide of Lord Londonderry, in August, 1822, Mr. Canning, who had prepared to sail for India as GovernorGeneral, was made Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, -not much, it was alleged, to the personal satisfaction of George the Fourth, or of the high Tories in the cabinet. He lived to verify some of the predictions of the poet-to

They roar'd, they dined, they drank, they swore they

meant

To die for England-why then live?—for rent !
The peace has made one general malcontent
Of these high-market patriots; war was rent!
Their love of country, millions all mis-spent,
How reconcile? by reconciling rent!

And will they not repay the treasures lent?
No down with every thing, and up with rent!
Their good, ill, health, wealth, joy, or discontent.
Being, end, aim, religion—rent, rent, rent!
Thou sold'st thy birthright, Esau! for a mess;
Thou shouldst have gotten more, or caten less;
Now thou hast swill'd thy pottage, thy demands
Are idle; Israel says the bargain stands.
Such, landlords! was your appetite for war,
And, gorged with blood, you grumble at a scar!
What! would they spread their earthquake even o'er

cash?

And when land crumbles, bid firm paper crash?
So rent may rise, bid bank and nation fall,
And found on 'Change a Fundling Hospital?
Lo! Mother Church, while all religion writhes,
Like Niobe, weeps o'er her offspring, Tithes;
The prelates go to-where the saints have gone,
And proud pluralities subside to one;
Church, state, and faction wrestle in the dark,
Toss'd by the deluge in their common ark.
Shorn of her bishops, banks, and dividends,
Another Babel soars- but Britain ends.
And why? to pamper the self-seeking wants,
And prop the hill of these agrarian ants.
"Go to these ants, thou sluggard, and be wise;"
Admire their patience through each sacrifice,
Till taught to feel the lesson of their pride,
The price of taxes and of homicide;
Admire their justice, which would fain deny
The debt of nations:- pray who made it high?

XV.

Or turn to sail between those shifting rocks,
The new Symplegades- the crushing Stocks,
Where Midas might again his wish behold
In real paper or imagined gold.

That magic palace of Alcina shows
More wealth than Britain ever had to lose,
Were all her atoms of unleaven'd ore,
And all her pebbles from Pactolus' shore.
There Fortune plays, while Rumour holds the

stake,

And the world trembles to bid brokers break.
How rich is Britain! not indeed in mines,
Or peace or plenty, corn or oil, or wines;
No land of Canaan, full of milk and honey,
Nor (save in paper shekels) ready money:
But let us not to own the truth refuse,
Was ever Christian land so rich in Jews?
Those parted with their teeth to good King John,
And now, ye kings! they kindly draw your own;
All states, all things, all sovereigns they control,
And waft a loan "from Indus to the pole."
The banker — broker- baron 2 — brethren, speed
To aid these bankrupt tyrants in their need.

----

abandon the foreign policy of his predecessor-to break up the Tory party by a coalition with the Whigs-and to prepare the way for Reform in Parliament.]

2 [The head of the illustrious house of Montmorenci has usually been designated "le premier haron Chrétien;" his ancestor having, it is supposed, been the first noble convert