For I, amidst thy living choir,
I, too, can touch the sacred lyre.

I love Thee, when I contemplate
The full-orb'd grandeur of thy state;
Thy laws and liberties, that rise,
Man's noblest works beneath the skies,
To which the Pyramids are tame,
And Grecian temples bow their fame:
These, thine immortal sages wrought
Out of the deepest mines of thought;
These, on the scaffold, in the field,
Thy warriors won, thy patriots seal'd;
These, at the parricidal pyre,
Thy martyrs sanctified in fire,

And, with the generous blood they spilt,
Wash'd from thy soil their murderers' guilt,
Cancell'd the curse which Vengeance sped,
And left a blessing in its stead.

Can words, can numbers count the price,
Paid for this little Paradise?

Never, oh! never be it lost;

The land is worth the price it cost.

I love Thee,-when thy Sabbath dawns
O'er woods and mountains, dales and lawns,
And streams, that sparkle while they run,
As if their fountain were the Sun:
When, hand in hand thy tribes repair,
Each to their chosen house of prayer,
And all in peace and freedom call
On Him who is the Lord of all.

I love Thee,-when my soul can feel
The seraph-ardours of thy zeal:
Thy charities, to none confined,
Bless, like the sun, the rain, the wind;
Thy schools the human brute shall raise,
Guide erring youth in wisdom's ways,
And leave, when we are turn'd to dust,
A generation of the just.

I love Thee,

when I see thee stand

The hope of every other land;

A sea-mark in the tide of time,

Rearing to heaven thy brow sublime;
Whence beams of Gospel-splendour shed
A sacred halo round thine head;
And Gentiles from afar behold
(Not as on Sinai's rocks of old)
GOD,-from eternity conceal'd,—
In his own light, on Thee reveal'd.

I love Thee,-when I hear thy voice
Bid a despairing world rejoice,
And loud from shore to shore proclaim,
In every tongue, Messiah's name;
That name, at which, from sea to sea,
All nations yet shall bow the knee.

I love Thee :-next to heaven above,
Land of my fathers! thee I love;
And, rail thy slanderers as they will,
"With all thy faults I love Thee" still:
For faults thou hast, of heinous size;
Repent, renounce them, ere they rise
In judgment ;-lest thine ocean-wall
With boundless ruin round thee fall,
And that, which was thy mightiest stay,
Sweep all thy rocks like sand away.

Yes, thou hast faults of heinous size,
From which I turn with weeping eyes;
On these let them that hate Thee dwell:
Yet one
I spare not,-one I tell,

Tell with a whisper in thine ear;

Oh! might it wring thy heart with fear!
Oh! that my weakest word might roll,
Like heaven's own thunder, through thy soul!
There is a lie in thy right hand;
A bribe, corrupting all the land;
There is within thy gates a pest,
-Gold and a Babylonish vest;

Not hid in shame-concealing shade,
But broad against the sun display'd.
These, tell it not,-it must be told;
These from thy LOTTERY WHEELS are sold;
Sold, and thy children, train'd to sin,
Hazard both worlds these plagues to win;
Nay, thy deluded statesmen stake

Thyself, and lose Thee for their sake!

-Lose Thee?—They shall not ;-HE, whose will
Is Nature's law, preserves Thee still;
And while th' uplifted bolt impends,
One warning more his mercy sends.
O BRITAIN! O my country! bring
Forth from thy camp th' accursed thing;
Consign it to remorseless fire;

Watch till the latest spark expire,

Then cast the ashes on the wind,
Nor leave one atom-wreck behind.
So may thy wealth and
power increase;
So may thy people dwell in peace;
On Thee th' Almighty's glory rest,
And all the world in Thee be blest.
Sheffield, Oct. 10, 1816,

THE CLIMBING BOY'S SOLILOQUIES.

In the summer of 1807, a local association for the purpose of "superseding the employment of Climbing Boys in sweeping chimneys, and bettering the condition of those who were already so engaged," was established in Sheffield. Through three-and-thirty years, that object has been kept in view, though many and long interruptions have crippled or retarded our active exertions towards the desired accomplishment. But our interest in the subject, and our sympathy towards the infantine and juvenile victims of so unnatural a practice, have been periodically quickened, on every return of Easter Monday, when a good dinner has been given by our small Committee to all the Climbing Children of this district. The change,-which this attention to their welfare has gradually occasioned in the personal appearance, decent behaviour, and improved intelligence (most of them having been Sunday scholars) of the successive generations of these poor creatures, which have passed before us during that period,-has been very creditable to their Masters and very encouraging to ourselves under the disheartening hinderances to our progress, in attempting otherwise to lessen the evils of the occupation in our own neighbourhood, and the repeated failures of our endeavours to obtain legislative redress for the grievance itself throughout the whole kingdom.

The experience of ten years convinced us, that all efforts as well as plans materially and permanently to benefit this class of boys must be unavailing, because so long as the employment was authorized by the legislature, it would never be superseded by the introduction of mechanical apparatus:-it being the interest, or rather the practice, of the masters, as much as possible, to disgust their customers, by wilfully negligent, or slovenly mismanagement of such substitutes when required to use them. This repugnance arose principally from a desire to spare themselves, and lay upon their apprentices (who were often their own children) the labour and torture of a villanous trade, which cannot be taught without cruelty, learnt without suffering, or practised without peril to life and limb, under the most humane master, and by the most obedient scholar. This fact is the unanswerable objection to the whole system,-it cannot be mended, though its inevitable miseries may be, and are, in numberless instances, frightfully aggravated.

Wherefore, in March, 1817, we roused our townspeople to set the first example of moving the legislature against this sin of the nation. A public meeting was accordingly held, and a petition adopted, earnestly imploring the House of Commons, to whom it was primarily addressed, to take the subject into early and serious consideration. This was presented by Lord Milton, (now Earl Fitzwilliam,) one of the representatives for Yorkshire, with a view merely of its being received and laid upon the table; for no expectation was entertained of any immediate steps being taken upon it by those to whom we appealed. Though temperately worded, and supported only by a few frank and plain expressions of his own kind disposition towards the suffering children, the reading of this document produced so happy an impression upon the minds of the members present, that his Lordship, availing himself of the propitious omen, immediately moved for the appointment of a Committee to investigate the subject and report on the same. Meanwhile similar petitions coming in from other quarters, and the result of the Committee's inquiries proving highly satisfactory, the Metropolitan Society, (instituted in 1803, for the same benevolent purposes as ours at a later period,) using their utmost zeal and diligence to promote

the object, on the 25th of June following a Bill was brought into the House of Commons, for prohibiting the employment of Climbing Boys in sweeping chimneys, from as brief a prospective date as should be found practicable under existing circumstances. Certain technical difficulties, however, respecting the nature of the Bill, and the probability of Parliament being prorogued before an Act could be passed, caused the postponement of further proceedings till the next Session. In the following year, 1818, the Bill was revived, carried triumphantly through the Commons, sent up to the Lords, read, committed, counsel heard, evidence examined, favourably reported, but withdrawn before the third reading, to give to the government surveyors, and other professional gentlemen, opportunity to make certain experiments and estimates, recommended by their Lordships' Committee, previous to their ultimate decision on the merits of the case.

In the third year, 1819, the Bill was again introduced in the House of Peers, when, after some very strange discussion, it was summarily thrown out. Two causes, exceedingly dissimilar, concurred to effect this catastrophe: namely, certain grave doubts, expressed by high legal authority, whether, in making laws, more tenderness were due to old chimneys or to young children;-the former being inveterately crooked and therefore incurable, whereas (though this was left to be inferred) the latter (the children) might easily be made crooked, by accommodating their pliable bodies to the perverse ways through which they followed their craft. The second stumbling-block, on which indeed the neck of the Bill was broken, deserves more distinct exposure. A noble Earl, who resisted the Bill less by argument than by banter, among other illustrations of the calamities which would befall the nation, if the use of Climbing Boys were abolished, is reported to have said: "I might illustrate the confined humanity of the supporters of this measure, by repeating a story, commonly told in Ireland. It was usual in that country to sweep chimneys by tying a string to the leg of a goose, and dragging the unfortunate bird down the chimney. This practice was reprobated by many humane persons, who looked upon the goose as very ill treated; but an honest Irishman having asked what he should use instead of the goose, one of the humane gentlemen replied, 'Why don't you get a couple of ducks?'-Such was the humanity that dictated this measure, which, dwelling on the sufferings of the Climbing Boys, forgot every care for the safety of society, which, considering the few children employed in sweeping chimneys, threw out of its protection the many children who should be exposed to the hazards of fire, and to be tossed out of the windows."

This pleasant sally put their Lordships into such good humour, that, to borrow a couple of the noble Earl's phrases, the Bill was either "tossed out of the window," or "exposed to the hazard of fire," for aught that I could ever learn of its fate.

The report of the foregoing debate and decision in the House of Peers was published in my newspaper of March 23, 1819. Under the date of April the 13th following, I find this paragraph, written by myself, and for the authenticity of which I can as conscientiously vouch, as his Lordship could for the truth of "a story commonly told in Ireland:"

"Yesterday (being Easter Monday), at the Cutlers' Hall, in this town, the Committee for abolishing the use of Climbing Boys, and bettering the condition of Chimney Sweepers' Apprentices, gave their annual dinner to the children. employed in that business here. Twenty-two were present; and though the lads of this town and neighbourhood fare as well, if not better, than others in the like situation elsewhere, their friends here are more and more convinced, from experience, observation, and reflection during twelve years past, that the practice of employing Climbing Boys to sweep chimneys is a national crime as well as a national disgrace, and ought to be prohibited.

"A boy, about thirteen years of age, who attended the dinner at the Cutlers' Hall, on last Easter Monday, lately came to a shocking and premature end, in the following manner, as we were, on this occasion, informed by his companions.