Heaven turns from with abhorrence and disdain ;
Not more affronted by avow'd neglect,

Than by the mere dissembler's feign'd respect.
What is all righteousness that men devise
What, but a sordid bargain for the skies?
But Christ as soon would abdicate His own,
As stoop from heaven to sell the proud a throne.
His dwelling a recess in some rude rock;
Book, beads, and maple dish, his meagre stock;
In shirt of hair and weeds of canvas dress'd,
Girt with a bell-rope that the Pope has bless'd;
Adust with stripes told out for every crime,
And sore tormented, long before his time;
His prayer preferred to saints that cannot aid;
His praise postponed, and never to be paid;
See the sage hermit, by mankind admired,
With all that bigotry adopts inspired,
Wearing out life in his religious whim,
Till his religious whimsy wears out him.
His works, his abstinence, his zeal allow'd,

You think him humble-God accounts him proud.
High in demand, though lowly in pretence,

Of all his conduct this the genuine sense

My penitential stripes, my streaming blood,

Have purchased heaven, and prove my title good."
Turn eastward now, and fancy shall apply

To your weak sight her telescopic eye.
The Brahmin kindles on his own bare head
The sacred fire, self-torturing his trade ;;
His voluntary pains, severe and long,
Would give a barbarous air to British song.
No grand inquisitor could worse invent
Than he contrives to suffer, well content.
Which is the saintlier worthy of the two?
Past all dispute, yon anchorite, say you.

Your sentence and mine differ. What's a name? say the Brahmin has the fairer claim.

I

If sufferings Scripture nowhere recommends,
Devised by self to answer selfish ends,
Give saintship, then all Europe must agree
Ten starveling hermits suffer less than he.

The truth is, (if the truth may suit your ear,
And prejudice have left a passage clear,)
Pride has attain'd its most luxuriant growth,
And poison'd every virtue in them both.

Pride may be pamper'd while the flesh grows lean;
Humility may clothe an English dean:

That grace was Cowper's*—his, confess'd by all-
Though placed in golden Durham's second stall.
Not all the plenty of a bishop's board,

His palace, and his lacqueys, and "my Lord!"
More nourish pride, that condescending vice,
Than abstinence, and beggary, and lice;
It thrives in misery, and abundant grows,
In misery fools upon themselves impose.
But why before us Protestants produce
An Indian mystic or a French recluse ?
Their sin is plain; but what have we to fear,
Reform'd and well-instructed? You shall hear.
Yon ancient prude,† whose wither'd features show
She might be young, some forty years ago,
Her elbows pinion'd close upon her hips,
Her head erect, her fan upon her lips,

Her eyebrows arch'd, her eyes both gone astray
To watch yon amorous couple in their play,
With bony and unkerchief'd neck defies
The rude inclemency of wintry skies,
And sails with lappet head and mincing airs
Duly at clink of bell to morning prayers.
To thrift and parsimony much inclined,
She yet allows herself that boy behind;
The shivering urchin, bending as he goes,
With slipshod heels, and dewdrop at his nose,-
His predecessor's coat advanced to wear,
Which future pages yet are doom'd to share,
Carries her Bible tuck'd beneath his arm,
And hides his hands to keep his fingers warm.
She, half an angel in her own account,
Doubts not hereafter with the saints to mount,
Though not a grace appears on strictest search,
But that she fasts, and item, goes to church.
Conscious of age, she recollects her youth,
And tells, not always with an eye to truth,
Who spann'd her waist, and who, where'er he came,
Scrawl'd upon glass Miss Bridget's lovely name,

Who stole her slipper, fill'd it with tokay,
And drank the little bumper every day.

Of temper as envenom'd as an asp,
Censorious, and her every word a wasp,

In faithful memory she records the crimes,

* Spencer Cowper, second cousin of the poet. He was Dean of Durham from 1746 to his death in 1774.

+ This picture is taken from Hogarth's "Morning."

He can encourage slavery to a smile,
And fill with discontent a British isle.

A. Freeman and slave then, if the case be such,
Stand on a level, and you prove too much.
If all men indiscriminately share

His fostering power, and tutelary care,
As well be yoked by despotism's hand,

As dwell at large in Britain's charter'd land.

B. No. Freedom has a thousand charms to show, That slaves, howe'er contented, never know.

The mind attains beneath her happy reign

The growth that Nature meant she should attain;
The varied field of science, ever new,

Opening and wider opening on her view,
She ventures onward with a prosperous force,
While no base fear impedes hier in her course.
Religion, richest favour of the skies,

Stands most reveal'd before the freeman's eyes;
No shades of superstition blot the day,
Liberty chases all that gloom away.
The soul, emancipated, unoppress'd,

Free to prove all things, and hold fast the best,
Learns much, and to a thousand listening minds,
Communicates with joy the good she finds.
Courage in arms, and ever prompt to show
His manly forehead to the fiercest foe;
Glorious in war, but for the sake of peace,
His spirits rising as his toils increase,
Guards well what arts and industry have won,
And Freedom claims him for her firstborn son.
Slaves fight for what were better cast away,
The chain that binds them, and a tyrant's sway;
But they that fight for freedom, undertake
The noblest cause mankind can have at stake,
Religion, virtue, truth, whate'er we call
A blessing, freedom is the pledge of all.
O Liberty! the prisoner's pleasing dream,
The poet's muse, his passion, and his theme,
Genius is thine, and thou art Fancy's nurse,
Lost without thee the ennobling powers of verse;
Heroic song from thy free touch acquires
Its clearest tone, the rapture it inspires.
Place me where Winter breathes his keenest air,
And I will sing, if Liberty be there;

And I will sing at Liberty's dear feet,

In Afric's torrid clime, or India's fiercest heat.

A. Sing where you please; in such a cause I grant An English poet's privilege to rant.

But is not Freedom, at least is not ours,
Too apt to play the wanton with her powers,
Grow freakish, and, o'erleaping every mound,
Spread anarchy and terror all around?

B. Agreed. But would you sell or slay your horse
For bounding and curveting in his course?

Or if, when ridden with a careless rein,

He break away, and seek the distant plain ?
No. His high mettle, under good control,

Gives him Olympic speed, and shoots him to the goal.
Let discipline employ her wholesome arts;
Let magistrates alert perform their parts,*
Not skulk, or put on a prudential mask,
As if their duty were a desperate task;
Let active laws apply the needful curb,
To guard the peace that riot would disturb;
And Liberty, preserved from wild excess,
Shall raise no feuds for armies to suppress.
When Tumult lately burst his prison door,
And set plebeian thousands in a roar;
When he usurp'd authority's just place,
And dared to look his master in the face,
When the rude rabble's watchword was-Destroy!
And blazing London seem'd a second Troy;
Liberty blush'd, and hung her drooping head,
Beheld their progress with the deepest dread,
Blush'd that effects like these she should produce,
Worse than the deeds of galley-slaves broke loose.
She loses in such storms her very name,

And fierce licentiousness should bear the blame.
Incomparable gem! thy worth untold;

Cheap, though blood-bought, and thrown away when sold;
May no foes ravage thee, and no false friend

Betray thee, while professing to defend !
Prize it, ye ministers; ye monarchs, spare;
Ye patriots, guard it with a miser's care!

A. Patriots, alas! the few that have been found,
Where most they flourish, upon English ground,
The country's need have scantily supplied;
And the last left the scene when Chatham died.
B. Not so-the virtue still adorns our age,
Though the chief actor died upon the stage.†

* Cowper is hinting here at the timid and dilatory conduct of the magistrates during the Lord George Gordon Riots in 1780, to which the following passage refer.

† Lord Chatham, who was struck down in a fit while addressing the House of Lords, It was his death-stroke.

In him, Demosthenes was heard again;
Liberty taught him her Athenian strain;
She clothed him with authority and awe,
Spoke from his lips, and in his looks gave law.
His speech, his form, his action, full of grace,
And all his country beaming in his face,
He stood, as some inimitable hand

Would strive to make a Paul or Tully stand.
No sycophant or slave that dared oppose
Her sacred cause, but trembled when he rose,
And every venal stickler for the yoke
Felt himself crush'd at the first word he spoke.

Such men are raised to station and command.
When Providence means mercy to a land,
He speaks, and they appear; to Him they owe
Skill to direct, and strength to strike the blow,
To manage with address, to seize with power
The crisis of a dark decisive hour.

So Gideon earn'd a victory not his own,
Subserviency his praise, and that alone.

Poor England! thou art a devoted deer,
Beset with every ill but that of fear.

The nations hunt: all mark thee for a prey;

They swarm around thee, and thou stand'st at bay:
Undaunted still, though wearied and perplex'd,

Once Chatham saved thee; but who saves thee next?
Alas! the tide of pleasure sweeps along

All that should be the boast of British song.

'Tis not the wreath that once adorn'd thy brow,
The prize of happier times, will serve thee now.
Our ancestry, a gallant Christian race,
Patterns of every virtue, every grace,

Confess'd a God: they kneel'd before they fought,
And praised Him in the victories He wrought.
Now from the dust of ancient days bring forth
Their sober zeal, integrity, and worth;
Courage, ungraced by these, affronts the skies,
Is but the fire without the sacrifice.

The stream that feeds the well-spring of the heart
Not more invigorates life's noblest part,
Than virtue quickens with a warmth divine
The powers that sin has brought to a decline.
A. The inestimable estimate of Brown*
Rose like a paper kite, and charmed the town:

* Dr. John Brown published in 1757 his "Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times." It was a very popular work at the time; seven editions of it were published. The book has long been forgotten.