War and the chase engross the savage whole;
War followed for revenge, or to fupplant
The envied tenants of fome happier spot:
The chase for suftenance, precarious truft!
His hard condition with fevere conftraint
Binds all his faculties, forbids all growth
Of wisdom, proves a school, in which he learns
Sly circumvention, unrelenting hate,
Mean felf-attachment, and scarce aught befide.
Thus fare the shivering natives of the north,
And thus the rangers of the western world,
Where it advances far into the deep,
Towards the Antarctic. Even the favoured ifles
So lately found, although the constant sun
Cheer all their seasons with a grateful smile,
Can boaft but little virtue; and inert
Through plenty lofe in morals, what they gain
In manners-victims of luxurious eafe.
These therefore I can pity, placed remote
From all that science traces, art invents,
Or infpiration teaches; and enclosed
In boundlefs oceans never to be paffed
By navigators uninformed as they,
Or ploughed perhaps by British bark again :
But far beyond the reft, and with moft caufe
Thee, gentle favage! whom no love of thee
Or thine, but curiofity perhaps,
Or elfe vain glory, prompted us to draw
Forth from thy native bowers, to fhew thee here
With what fuperior skill we can abuse
The gifts of Providence, and fquander life.
The dream is paft; and thou haft found again
Thy cocoas and bananas, palms and yams,
And homeftall thatched with leaves. But haft thou found
Their former charms? And having seen our state,
Our palaces, our ladies, and our pomp
Of equipage, our gardens, and our sports,
And heard our mufic; are thy fimple friends,
Thy fimple fare, and all thy plain delights,
As dear to thee as once? And have thy joys
Loft nothing by comparison with our's?
Rude as thou art, (for we returned thee rude
And ignorant, except of outward fhow)
I cannot think thee yet fo dull of heart
And ípiritlefs, as never to regret
Sweets tafted here, and left as foon as known.
Methinks I fee thee ftraying on the beach,
And asking of the furge, that bathes thy foot,
If ever it has washed our diftant shore.
I fee thee weep, and thine are honest tears,
A patriot's for his country: thou art fad
At thought of her forlorn and abject ftate,
From which no power of thine can raife her up.
Thus fancy paints thee, and though apt to err,
Perhaps errs little when the paints thee thús.
She tells me too that duly every morn
Thou climbeft the mountain top, with eager eye
Exploring far and wide the watery waste
For fight of fhip from England. Every speck
Seen in the dim horizon turns thee pale
With conflict of contending hopes and fears.
But comes at laft the dull and dusky eve,
And fends thee to thy cabin, well-prepared
To dream all night of what the day denied.
Alas! expect it not. We found no bait
To tempt us in thy country. Doing good,
Difinterefted good, is not our trade.
We travel far, 'tis true, but not for nought;
And must be bribed to compass earth again
By other hopes and richer fruits than your's.
But though true worth and virtue in the mild And genial foil of cultivated life
Thrive moft, and may perhaps thrive only there, Yet not in cities oft: in proud and gay
And gain-devoted cities. Thither flow,
As to a common and most noisome fewer,
The dregs and feculence of every land.
In cities foul example on moft minds
Begets its likeness. Rank abundance breeds
In grofs and pampered cities floth and luft,
And wantonness and gluttonous excess.
In cities vice is hidden with most ease,
Or feen with leaft reproach; and virtue, taught
By frequent lapse, can hope no triumph there
Beyond the achievement of successful flight.
I do confefs them nurseries of the arts,
In which they flourish moft; where, in the beams
Of warm encouragement, and in the eye
Of public note, they reach their perfect fize.
Such London is, by tafle and wealth proclaimed
The faireft capital of all the world,
By riot and incontinence the worst.
There, touched by Reynolds, a dull blank becomes
A lucid mirror, in which Nature fees
All her reflected features. Bacon there
Gives more than female beauty to a stone,
And Chatham's eloquence to marble lips.
Nor does the chiffel occupy alone
The powers of sculpture, but the ftyle as much;
Each province of her art her equal care.
With nice incision of her guided steel
She ploughs a brazen field, and clothes a foil
So fterile with what charms foever fhe will,
The richest scenery and the lovelieft forms.
Where finds philofophy her eagle eye,
With which the gazes at yon burning disk
Undazzled, and detects and counts his spots?
In London: where her implements exact,
With which the calculates, computes and scans,
All distance, motion, magnitude, and now
Measures an atom, and now girds a world?
In London. Where has commerce fuch a mart,
So rich, fo thronged, fo drained, and fo fupplied,
As London-opulent, enlarged, and ftill
Increafing, London? Babylon of old
Not more the glory of the earth than fhe,
A more accomplished world's chief glory now.
She has her praise. Now mark a spot or two,
That fo much beauty would do well to purge;
And fhow this queen of cities, that fo fair
May yet be foul; fo witty, yet not wife.
It is not feemly, nor of good report,
That she is flack in difcipline; more prompt
To avenge than to prevent the breach of law:
That she is rigid in denouncing death
On petty robbers, and indulges life
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