Or tell me, if you can, what pow'r maintains
A Britain's fcorn of arbitrary chains?

That were a theme might animate the dead,
And move the lips of poets caft in lead.

B. The caufe, though worth the fearch, may
yet elude

Conjecture and remark, however fhrewd.
They take, perhaps, a well-directed aim,
Who seek it in his climate and his frame.
Lib'ral in all things elfe, yet nature here
With stern severity deals out the year.
Winter invades the spring, and often pours
A chilling flood on fummer's drooping flow'rs;
Unwelcome vapours quench autumnal beams,
Ungenial blasts attending, curl the streams;
The peasants urge their harveft, ply the fork
With double toil, and shiver at their work;
Thus with a rigour, for his good defign'd,
She rears her fav'rite man of all mankind.
His form robuft and of elaftic tone,
Proportion'd well, half mufcle and half bone,
Supplies with warm activity and force

A mind well-lodg'd, and inafculine of course.

Hence liberty, fweet liberty inspires,
And keeps alive, his fierce but noble fires.
Patient of conftitutional controul,

He bears it with meek manliness of foul;
But, if authority grow wanton, woe
To him that treads upon his free-born toe;
One step beyond the bound'ry of the laws
Fires him at once in freedom's glorious cause.
Thus proud prerogative, not much rever'd,
Is feldom felt, though fometimes feen and heard;
And in his cage, like parrot fine and gay,
Is kept, to ftrut, look big, and talk away.
Born in a climate fofter far than our's,
Not form'd like us, with fuch Herculean pow'rs,
The Frenchman, easy, debonair, and brisk,
Give him his lafs, his fiddle, and his frisk,
Is always happy, reign whoever may,
And laughs the sense of mis'ry far away:
He drinks his fimple bev'rage with a guft;
And, feafting on an onion and a cruft,
We never feel th' alacrity and joy

With which he shouts and carols, Vive le Roy,

Fill'd with as much true merriment and glee,
As if he heard his king fay-Slave, be free.

Thus happiness depends, as nature fhows,
Less on exterior things than most suppose.
Vigilant over all that he has made,
Kind Providence attends with gracious aid;
Bids equity throughout his works prevail,
And weighs the nations in an even scale;
He can encourage flav'ry to a smile,
And fill with discontent a British ifle.

A. Freeman and flave, then, if the cafe be fuch,
Stand on a level; and you prove too much :
If all men indifcriminately fhare

His foft'ring pow'r, and tutelary care,
As well be yok'd by defpotifm's hand,

As dwell at large in Britain's charter'd land.
B. No. Freedom has a thousand charms to fhow,
That flaves, howe'er contented, never know.
The mind attains, beneath her happy reign,
The growth that nature meant she should attain;
The varied fields of fcience, ever new,

Op'ning and wider op'ning on her view,
She ventures onward with a profp'rous force,
While no base fear impedes her in her course;
Religion, richest favour of the skies,

Stands most reveal'd before the freeman's eyes;

证

No fhades of fuperftition blot the day,
Liberty chafes all that gloom away;
The foul, emancipated, unoppress'd,

Free to prove all things and hold fast the best,
Learns much; and, to a thousand lift'ning minds,
Communicates with joy the good the finds:
Courage in arms, and ever prompt to show
His manly forehead to the fiercest foe;
Glorious in war, but for the fake of peace,
His fpirits rifing as his toils increase,

Guards well what arts and industry have won,
And freedom claims him for her first-born fon.
Slaves fight for what were better caft away-
The chain that binds them, and a tyrant's fway;
But they, that fight for freedom, undertake
The nobleft cause mankind can have at ftake:-
Religion, virtue, truth, whate'er we call
A bleffing-freedom is the pledge of all.
Oh liberty! the pris'ner's pleasing dream,
The poet's mufe, his paffion and his theme;
Genius is thine, and thou art fancy's nurse;
Loft without thee th' ennobling pow'rs of verse;
Heroic fong from thy free touch acquires
Its cleareft tone, the rapture it inspires;

Place me where winter breathes his keenest air, And I will fing, if liberty be there;

And I will fing, at liberty's dear feet,

In Afric's torrid clime, or India's fierceft heat.
A. Sing where you please, in fuch a cause, I grant,
An English poet's privilege to rant ;

But is not freedom-at least, is not our's

Too apt to play the wanton with her pow'rs,
Grow freakish, and, o'erleaping ev'ry mound,
Spread anarchy and terror all around?

B. Agreed. But would you fell or flay your horse
For bounding and curvetting in his course;
Or if, when ridden with a careless rein,

He break away, and seek the diftant plain ?
No. His high mettle, under good controul,
Gives him Olympic speed, and shoots him to the goal.
Let difcipline employ her wholesome arts;
Let magiftrates alert perform their parts,
Not fkulk or put on a prudential mask,
As if their duty were a defp'rate task;
Let active laws apply the needful curb
To guard the peace that riot would disturb;
And liberty, preferv'd from wild excefs,
Shall raife no feuds for armies to fupprefs.