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Nec dabunt, quamvis redeant in aurum
Tempora priscum.

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HOR. Lib. iv. Od. 2.

FAIREST and foremost of the train that wait me ded

On man's most dignified and happiest state,

Whether we name thee Charity or Love,
Chief grace below, and all in all above,
Prosper (I press thee with a powerful plea)
A task I venture on, impelled by thee:
O never seen but in thy blest effects,

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Or felt but in the soul that Heaven selects; the
Who seeks to praise thee, and to make thee known
To other hearts, must have thee in his own.
Come, prompt me with benevolent desires,
Teach me to kindle at thy gentle fires,

And, though disgraced and slighted, to redeem wa
A poet's name, by making thee the theme.

God, working ever on a social plan,

By various ties attaches man to man :

He made, at first, though free and unconfined,

One man the common father of the kind;

That every tribe, though placed as he sees best, bef

Where seas or deserts part them from the rest,
Differing in language, manners, or in face,
Might feel themselves allied to all the race.

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When Cook-lamented, and with tears as juste besh mold As ever mingled with heroic dust

Steered Britain's oak into a world unknown,
And in his country's glory sought his own,
Wherever he found man, to nature true,
The rights of man were sacred in his view;
He soothed with gifts, and greeted with a smile,
The simple native of the new-found isle;
He spurned the wretch, that slighted or withstood
The tender argument of kindred blood,
Nor would endure, that any should control
His freeborn brethren of the southern pole.
But though some nobler minds a law respect,
That none shall with impunity neglect,
In baser souls unnumbered evils meet,

To thwart its influence, and its end defeat.
While Cook is loved for savage lives he saved,
See Cortez odious for a world enslaved!

Where wast thou then, sweet Charity? where then,
Thou tutelary friend of helpless men?

Wast thou in monkish cells and nunneries found,
Or building hospitals on English ground?
No.-Mammon makes the World his legatee
Through fear, not love; and Heaven abhors the fee.
Wherever found, (and all men need thy care,)

Nor

age nor infancy could find thee there.

The hand, that slew till it could slay no more,

Was glued to the sword-hilt with Indian gore.
Their prince, as justly seated on his throne
As vain imperial Philip on his own,

Tricked out of all his royalty by art,

That stripped him bare, and broke his honest heart,

Died by the sentence of a shaven priest,

For scorning what they taught him to detest.

How dark the veil, that intercepts the blaze

Of Heaven's mysterious purposes and ways; e din maid af

God stood not, though he seemed to stand, aloof;
And at this hour the conqueror feels the proof:
The wreath he won drew down an instant curse,
The fretting plague is in the public purse,
The cankered spoil corrodes the pining state,
Starved by that indolence their minds create.
Oh could their ancient Incas rise again,
How would they take up Israel's taunting strain!
Art thou too fallen, Iberia ? Do we see
The robber and the murderer weak as we ?
Thou, that hast wasted Earth, and dared despise
Alike the wrath and mercy of the skies,
Thy pomp is in the grave, thy glory laid
Low in the pits thine avarice has made.
We come with joy from our eternal rest,
To see the oppressor in his turn oppressed.
Art thou the god, the thunder of whose hand,
Rolled over all our desolated land,

Shook principalities and kingdoms down,

And made the mountains tremble at his frown?
The sword shall light upon thy boasted powers,
And waste them, as thy sword has wasted ours.
'Tis thus Omnipotence his law fulfils,
And Vengeance executes what Justice wills.
Again--the band of commerce was designed
To associate all the branches of mankind;
And if a boundless plenty be the robe,
Trade is the golden girdle of the globe.
Wise to promote whatever end he means,
God opens fruitful nature's various scenes:
Each climate needs what other climes produce,
And offers something to the general use;
No land but listens to the common call,
And in return receives supply from all.

This genial intercourse, and mutual aid,
Cheers what were else a universal shade,
Calls Nature from her ivy-mantled den,
And softens human rock-work into men.
Ingenious Art, with her expressive face,
Steps forth to fashion and refine the race:
Not only fills Necessity's demand,
But overcharges her capacious hand:
Capricious Taste itself can crave no more,
Than she supplies from her abounding store;
She strikes out all that luxury can ask,
And gains new vigour at her endless task.
Hers is the spacious arch, the shapely spire,
The painter's pencil and the poet's lyre;
From her the canvass borrows light and shade,
And verse, more lasting, hues that never fade.
She guides the finger o'er the dancing keys,
Gives difficulty all the grace of ease,
And pours a torrent of sweet notes around,
Fast as the thirsting ear can drink the sound.

These are the gifts of Art, and Art thrives most
Where commerce has enriched the busy coast;
He catches all improvements in his flight,
Spreads foreign wonders in his country's sight,
Imports what others have invented well,
And stirs his own to match them, or excel.
'Tis thus reciprocating, each with each.
Alternately the nations learn and teach;
While Providence enjoins to every soul
A union with the vast terraqueous whole.
Heaven speed the canvass, gallantly unfurled
To furnish and accommodate a world,
To give the pole the produce of the sun,
And knit the unsocial climates into one,-

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