should have avoided their censure. The heat that offended them is the ardour of conviction, and that zeal for the service of my country which neither hope nor fear shall influence me to suppress.

I will not sit unconcerned while my liberty is invaded, nor look in silence upon public robbery. I will exert my endeavours, at whatever hazard, to repel the aggressor, and drag the thief to justice, | what power soever may protect the villany, and whoever may partake of the plunder. |

GENIUS.

(AKENSIDE.)

From heaven my strains begin; | from heaven descends
The flame of genius to the human breast, |
And love, and beauty, and poetic joy,
And inspiration. Ere the radiant sun
Sprang from the east, or 'mid the vault of night |-
1
The moon suspended her serener lamp; |

Ere mountains, woods, or streams adorn'd the globe, |
Or Wisdom taught the sons of men her lore; |
Then lived the Almighty ONE; then, deep retired,
In his unfathom'd essence, | view'd the forms, |
The forms eternal of created things; |

The radiant sun, the moon's nocturnal lamp, |
The mountains, woods, and streams, the rolling globe, |
And Wisdom's mien celestial.]

From the first
Of days, on them his love divine he fix'd, |
His admiration: | till, in time complete, |
What he admired and loved, | his vital smile
Unfolded into being. Hence the breath
Of life informing each organic frame, |

Hence the green earth, and wild resounding waves;
Hence light and shade alternate; | warmth and cold, |
And clear autumnal skies, and vernal showers, |
And all the fair variety of things.

But not alike to every mortal eye

Is this great scene unveil'd. For, since the claims
Of social life, to different labours urge
The active powers of man, with wise intent |
The hand of Nature on peculiar minds |
Imprints a different bias, and to each
Decrees its province in the common toil. |
To some she taught the fabric of the sphere, |
The changeful moon, the circuit of the stars, |
The golden zones of heaven: to some she gave
To weigh the moment of eternal things, |
Of time, and space, and Fate's unbroken chain, |
And will's quick impulse; | others by the hand |
She led o'er vales and mountains, to explore
What healing virtue | swells the tender veins
Of herbs and flowers; or what the beams of morn
Draw forth, distilling from the clifted rind
In balmy tears. |

But some to higher hopes Were destin'd; | some within a finer mould She wrought, and temper'd with a purer flame: [ To these the Sire Omnipotent | unfolds

The world's harmonious volume, there to read
The transcript of himself. On every part |
They trace the bright impressions of his hand; |
In earth or air, the meadow's purple stores, |
The moon's mild radiance, or the virgin's form,
Blooming with rosy smiles, they see pourtray'd
That uncreated beauty which delights
The Mind Supreme. They also feel her charms,
Enamour'd; they partake the eternal joy.

GREATNESS.

(AKENSIDE.)

Say, why was man so eminently raised 1
Amid the vast creation? why ordain'd
Thro' life and death | to dart his piercing eye,

With thought beyond the limit of his frame, |
But that the Omnipotent might send him forth, |
In sight of mortal and immortal powers,
As on a boundless theatre, to run
The great career of justice: | to exalt
His generous aim to all diviner deeds; |

To chase each partial purpose from his breast; |
And thro' the mists of passion and of sense,
And thro' the tossing tide of chance and pain, |
To hold his course unfaltering, while the voice
Of Truth and Virtue, up the steep ascent
Of Nature, calls him to his high reward, |
The applauding smile of Heaven? |

Else wherefore burns In mortal bosom this unquenched hope, | That breathes from day to day sublimer things, And mocks possession? | Wherefore darts the mind, | With such resistless ardour | to embrace Majestic forms, impatient to be free; | Spurning the gross control of wilful might; | Proud of the strong contention of her toils; | Proud to be daring? Who but rather turns To Heaven's broad fire his unconstrained view, | Than to the glimmering of a waxen flame? | Who that, from Alpine heights, his labouring eye Shoots round the wide horizon, to survey Nilus or Ganges rolling his bright wave | Thro' mountains, plains, thro' empires black with shade, And continents of sand, will turn his gaze | To mark the windings of a scanty rill That murmurs at his feet? |

The high-born soul |
Disdains to rest her heaven aspiring wing
Beneath its native quarry. | Tired of earth
And this diurnal scene, she springs aloft
Thro' fields of air; pursues the flying storm; |
|
Rides on the volley'd lightning thro' the heavens; |
Or, yoked with whirlwinds and the northern blast

Sweeps the long tract of day. | Then high she soars
The blue profound, and hovering round the sun,
Beholds him pouring the redundant stream
Of light; beholds his unrelenting sway |
Bend the reluctant planets to absolve

The fated rounds of time. Thence far effused |
She darts her swiftness up the long career
Of devious comets: thro' its burning signs
Exulting measures the perennial wheel
Of Nature, and looks back on all the stars,
Whose blended light, as with a milky zone, |
Invests the orient. |

Now amazed she views The empyreal waste, where happy spirits hold, Beyond this concave heaven, their calm abode; | And fields of radiance, | whose unfading light | Has travell'd the profound six thousand years, | Nor yet arrives in sight of mortal things. | Ev'n on the barriers of the world untired | She meditates the eternal depth below, I Till, half recoiling, down the headlong steep She plunges; soon o'erwhelm'd and swallowed up | 1 In that immense of being.

There her hopes
Rest at the fatal goal: for, from the birth
Of mortal man, the sovereign Maker said, |
That not in humble nor in brief delight, |
Not in the fading echoes of renown, |
Power's purple robes, nor Pleasure's flowery lap, I
The soul should find enjoyment; | but, from these
Turning disdainful to an equal good, |

Thro' all the ascent of things enlarge her view, |
Till every bound at length should disappear, |
And infinite perfection close the scene. I

PAPER.

[A CONVERSATIONAL PLEASANTRY.]

(FRANKLIN.)

Some wit of old· | such wits of old there were, |
Whose hints show'd meaning, whose allusions care, |
By one brave stroke, to mark all human kind,
Call'd clear blank paper ev'ry infant mind; |
Where, still, as opening sense her dictates wrote, |
Fair Virtue put a seal, or Vice, a blot. |
The thought was happy, pertinent, and true;|
Methinks a genius might the plan pursue. |

I (can you pardon my presumption ?), | I,
No wit, no genius, yet, for once, will try. |
Various the paper, various wants produce ; |
The wants of fashion | elegance, and use. I
Men are as various; and if right I scan, |
Each sort of paper represents some man. |

Pray note the fop, | half powder and half lace; |
Nice, as a band-box were his dwelling place; |
He's the gilt-paper, which apart you store,
And lock from vulgar hands in the scrutoire."

Mechanics, servants, farmers, and so forth, |
Are copy-paper, | of inferior worth; |
Less priz'd, more useful, for your desk decreed;
Free to all pens, | and prompt at ev'ry need.

a

The wretch, whom avarice bids to pinch and spare, |
Starve, cheat, and pilfer, to enrich an heir, |
Is coarse brown paper, such as pedlars choose |
I
To wrap up wares, which better men will use. I

Take next the miser's contrast, who destroys
Health, fame, and fortune, in a round of joys; |

Scrutoire, a case of drawers for writings.