III.
This council suits Britannia's Ille,

High-futh'd with wealth, and Freedom's smile : To vaffals prison'd in the Continent,

Who starve, at home, on meager toil,

And suck to death their mother foil,
"Twere useless caution, and a truth mis-spent.

IV.
Fell Tyrants strike beyond the bone,

And wound the soul ; bow Genius down,
Lay Virtue waste! for worth or arts, who strain,

To throw them at a monster's foot ?

'Tis property supports pursuit : Freedom gives eloquence; and Freedom, gain.

V.

She pours the thought, and forms the style,

She makes the blood and spirits boil;
I feel her now! and rouse, and rise, and rave

In Theban song: 0 Muse! not thine,

Verse is gay Freedom's gift divine :
The man that can think greatly, is no llave.

VI.
Others

may

traffick if they please ;
Britain, fair daughter of the seas,
Is born for trade; to plough her field, the wave;
And

reap the growth of every coast :
A speck of land ! but let her boast,
Gods gave the world, when they the waters gave.

VII, Britain !

VII.

Britain ! behold the world's wide face;

Nor cover'd half with solid space, Three parts are fiuid; empire of the sea !

And why? for Commerce. Ocean streams

For that, through all his various names : And, if for Commerce, Ocean flows for Thee,

VIII.

Britain, like some great potentate

Of Eastern clime, retires in state, Shuts out the nations ! Would a Prince draw nigh?

He passes her strong guards, the waves,

Of servant winds admission craves, Her empire has no neighbour but the sky.

IX.

There are her friends; soft Zephyr there,

Keen Eurus, Notus never fair,
Rough Boreas bursting from the pole : all urge,
And
urge

for her, their various toil; The Caspian, the broad Baltick boil, And into life the dead Pacifick scourge.

X.
There are her friends, a marshal'd train :

A golden hoft! and azure plain!
By turns do duty, and by turns retreat :

They may retreat, but not from her;

The star that quits this hemisphere Muit quit the skies, to want a British ficet.

S 3

XI. livad,

XI.
Hyad, for her, leans o'er her urn;

For her, Orion's glories burn,
The Pleiads gleam. For Britons set and rise

The fair-fac'd sons of Mazaroth,

Near the deep chambers of the South,
The raging Dog that fires the midnight skies.

XII.
These nations Newton made his own;

All intimate with him alone.
His mighty soul did, like a giant, run

To the vast volume's closing star;

Decypher'd every character :
His reason pour'd new light upon the fun.

XIII.
Let the proud brothers of the land

Smile at our rock and barren strand,
Not such the sea : let Fohé's ancient line

Vast tracts and ample beings vaunt;

The camel low, fmall elephantO Britain ! the Leviathan is thine.

XIV.
Leviathan ! whom Nature's strife

Brought forth, her largest piece of life;
He seeps an isle ! his sports the billows warm !

Dreadful Leviathan ! thy spout

Invades the skies; the stars are out : He drinks a river, and ejects a storm.

XV, Th'

XV.
Th’ Atlantic surge around our fhore

German and Caledonian roar;
Their mighty Genii hold us in their lap.-

Hear Egbert, Edgar, Ethelred;

" The feas are ours.”—The monarch said The floods their hands, their hands the nations, clap.

XVI.
Whence is a rival, then, to rise ?

Can he be found beneath the skies?
No, there, they dwell, that can give Britain fear:

The powers of earth, by rival aim

Her grandeur but the more proclaim;
And
prove
their distance most, as they draw near.

XVII,
Proud Venice fits amid the waves ;

Her foot ambitious Ocean laves :
Art's noblest boast! but O what wondrous odds

'Twixt Venice and Britannia's ille !

'Twixt mortal and immortal toil! Britannia is a Venice built by Gods.

XVIII.
Let Holland triumph o'er her foes,

But not o'er friends by whom she rose ;
The child of Britain ! And shall the contend ?

It were no less than parricide

What wonders rise from out the tide! Her High and Mighty to the rudder bend.

XIX. And

S4

XIX
And are there, then, of lofty brow,

Who think trade mean, and scorn to bow
So far beneath the state of noble birth?

Alas! these chiefs but little know

Commerce how high, themselves how low;
The sons of Nobles are the sons of earth.

XX.
And what have earth's mean sons to do,

But reap her fruits, and warm pursue
The world's chief good, not glut on others' toil?

High Commerce from the Gods came down,

With compass, chart, and starry crown,
Their delegate, to make the nations smile..

XXI.
Blush, and behold the Russian bow,

From forty crowns, his mighty brow
To trade.-To toil he turns his glorious hand :

That arm, which swept the bloody field,

See! the huge axe, or hammer, wield;
While scepters wait, and thrones impatient ftand..

XXII.
O mame to fubjets ! first renown,

Matchless example to the crown !
Old Time is poor : what age boasts such a fight?

Ye drones! adore the man divine

No; Virtue still as mean decline,
Call Ruffians barbarous, and yourselves polite.

XXIII. He