Hush'd the rude roar of discord, rage, and lust,
And spurn'd licentious demagogues to dust.

Is this the queen of realms! the glorious isle, Britannia, blest in Heaven's indulgent smile! Guardian of truth, and patroness of art, Nurse of th' undaunted soul, and generous heart Where, from a base unthankful world exiled, Freedom exults to roam the careless wild: Where taste to science every charm supplies, And genius soars unbounded to the skies! And shall a Bufo's most polluted name Stain her bright tablet of untainted fame? Shall his disgraceful name with theirs be join'd, Who wish'd and wrought the welfare of their kind? His name accurst, who leagued with ****** and Hell, Labour'd to rouse, with rude and murderous yell, Discord the fiend, to toss rebellion's brand, To whelm in rage and woe a guiltless laud: fo frustrate wisdom's, virtue's noblest plan,

And triumph in the miseries of man.

Drivelling and dull, when crawls the reptile Muse, Swoln from the sty, and rankling from the stews, With envy, spleen, and pestilence replete, And gorged with dust she lick'd from Treason's feet: Who once, like Satan, raised to Heaven her sight, But turn'd abhorrent from the hated light :O'er such a Muse shall wreaths of glory bloom? No-shame and execration be her doom.

Hard-fated Eufo! could not dulness save

Thy soul from sin, from infamy thy grave?

Blackmore and Quarles, those blockheads of renown,
Lavish'd their ink, but never harm'd the town.
Though this, thy brother in discordant song,
Harass'd the ear, and cramp'd the labouring tongue:
And that, like thee, taught staggering prose to stand,
And limp on stilts of rhyme around the land.

Harmless they dozed a scribbling life away,
And yawning nations own'd th' innoxious lay;
But from thy graceless, rude, and beastly brain
What fury breathed th' incendiary strain?

Did hate to vice exasperate thy style?
No-Bufo match'd the vilest of the vile.

Yet blazon'd was his verse with Virtue's name-
Thus prudes look down to hide their want of shame :
Thus hypocrites to truth, and fools to sense,
And fops to taste, have sometimes made pretence:
Thus thieves and gamesters swear by honour's laws:
Thus pension-hunters bawl their country's cause :'
Thus furious Teague for moderation raved,
And own'd his soul to liberty enslaved.

Nor yet, though thousand cits admire thy rage,
Though less of fool than felon marks thy page:
Nor yet, though here and there one lonely spark
Of wit half brightens through th' involving dark,
To shew the gloom more hideous for the foil,
But not repay the drudging reader's toil;
(For who for one poor pearl of clouded ray

Through Alpine dunghills delves his desperate way?)
Did genius to thy verse such bane impart?

No. 'Twas the demon of thy venom'd heart

(Thy heart with rancour's quintessence endued),

And the blind zeal of a misjudging crowd.

Thus from rank soil a poison'd mushroom sprung, Nursling obscene of mildew and of dung:

By Heaven design'd on its own native spot
Harmless t' enlarge its bloated bulk, and rot.
But Gluttony th' abortive nuisance saw;

It roused his ravenous undiscerning maw:

Gulp'd down the tasteless throat, the mess abhorr'd
Shot fiery influence round the maddening board.
O had thy verse been impotent as dull,
Nor spoke the rancorous heart, but lumpish skull;

Had mobs distinguish'd, they who howl'd thy fame,
The icicle from the pure diamond's flame,
From fancy's soul thy gross imbruted sense,
From dauntless truth thy shameless insolence,
From elegance confusion's monstrous mass,
And from the lion's spoils the sculking ass,
From rapture's strain the drawling doggrel line,
From warbling seraphin the grunting swine;
With gluttons, dunces, rakes, thy name had slept,
Nor o'er her sullied fame Britannia wept;
Nor had the Muse, with honest zeal possess'd,
T' avenge her country, by thy name disgraced,
Raised this bold strain for virtue, truth, mankind,
And thy fell shade to infamy resign'd.

When frailty leads astray the soul sincere,
Let mercy shed the soft and manly tear.
When to the grave descends the sensual sot,
Unnamed, unnoticed, let his carrion rot.
When paltry rogues, by stealth, deceit, or force,
Hazard their necks, ambitious of your purse:
For such the hangman wreaths his trusty gin,
And let the gallows expiate their sin.

But when a ruffian, whose portentous crimes
Like plagues and earthquakes terrify the times,
Triumphs through life, from legal judgment free,
For Hell may hatch what law could ne'er foresee;
Sacred from vengeance shall his memory rest?—
Judas though dead, though damn'd, we still detest.

THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS.

(Published in 1765.)

FAR in the depth of Ida's inmost grove,
A scene for love and solitude design'd;
Where flowery woodbines wild by Nature wove
Form'd the lone bower, the royal swain reclined.

R.

All up the craggy cliffs, that tower'd to Heaven, Green waved the murmuring pines on every side, Save where, fair opening to the beam of even,

A dale sloped gradual to the valley wide.
Echo'd the vale with many a cheerful note;
The lowing of the herds resounded long,
The shrilling pipe, and mellow horn remote
And social clamours of the festive throng.

For now, low hovering o'er the western main,
Where amber clouds begirt his dazzling throne,
The Sun with ruddier verdure deckt the plain;
And lakes and streams, and spires triumphal shone.
And many a band of ardent youths were seen;
Some into rapture fired by glory's charms,
Or hurl'd the thundering car along the green,
Or march'd embattled on in glittering arms.

Others more mild, in happy leisure gay,
The darkening forest's lonely gloom explore,
Or by Scamander's flowery margin stray,

Or the blue Hellespont's resounding shore.

But chief the eye to Ilion's glories turn'd,

That gleam'd along th' extended champaign far, And bulwarks in terrific pomp adorn'd,

Where Peace sat smiling at the frowns of War.

Rich in the spoils of many a subject-clime,

In pride luxurious blaz'd th' imperial dome; Tower'd 'mid th' encircling grove the fane sublime ; And dread memorials mark'd the hero's tomb.

Who from the black and bloody cavern led

The savage stern, and sooth'd his boisterous breast; Who spoke, and Science rear'd her radiant head, And brighten’d o'er the long benighted waste;

Or, greatly daring in his country's cause,

Whose heaver. taught soul the awful plan design'd, Whence Power stood trembling at the voice of Laws; Whence soar'd on Freedom's wing th' ethereal mind.

But not the pomp that royalty displays,

Nor all the imperial pride of lofty Troy,

Nor Virtue's triumph of immortal praise

Could rouse the languor of the lingering boy.

Abandon'd all to soft Enone's charms,

He to oblivion doom'd the listless day; Inglorious lull'd in Love's dissolving arms,

While flutes lascivious breathed th' enfeebling lay.

To trim the ringlets of his scented hair;

To aim, insidious, Love's bewitching glance; Or cull fresh garlands for the gaudy fair,

Or wanton loose in the voluptuous dance:

These were his arts; these won Enone's love,
Nor sought his fettered soul a nobler aim.
Ah why should Beauty's smile those arts approve,
Which taint with infamy the lover's flame!

Now laid at large beside a murmuring spring,
Melting he listen'd to the vernal song,
And Echo, listening, waved her airy wing,
While the deep winding dales the lays prolong.

When slowly floating down the azure skies

A crimson cloud flash'd on his startled sight;
Whose skirts gay sparkling with unnumber'd dies
Launched the long billowy trails of flickery light.

That instant hush'd was all the vocal grove,
Hush'd was the gale, and every ruder sound,

And strains aërial, warbling far above,

Rung in the ear a magic peal profound.