Improvement too, the idol of the age,
Is fed with many a victim. Lo! he comes,-
The omnipotent magician, Brown, appears.
Down falls the venerable pile, the abode
Of our forefathers, a grave whiskered race,
But tasteless. Springs a palace in its stead,
But in a distant spot, where more exposed,
It may enjoy the advantage of the north,
And aguish east, till time shall have transformed
Those naked acres to a sheltering grove.
He speaks. The lake in front becomes a lawn,
Woods vanish, hills subside, and valleys rise,
And streams, as if created for his use,
Pursue the track of his directing wand,
Sinuous or straight, now rapid and now slow,
Now murmuring soft, now roaring in cascades,
Even as he bids. The enraptured owner smiles.
'Tis finished! and yet, finished as it seems,
Still wants a grace, the loveliest it could show,
A mine to satisfy the enormous cost.
Drained to the last poor item of his wealth,

He sighs, departs, and leaves the accomplished plan
That he has touched, retouched, many a long day
Laboured, and many a night pursued in dreams,

Just when it meets his hopes, and proves the heaven
He wanted, for a wealthier to enjoy.

And now perhaps the glorious hour is come,

When having no stake left, no pledge to endear
Her interests, or that gives her sacred cause

A moment's operation on his love,

He burns with most intense and flagrant zeal
To serve his country. Ministerial grace
Deals him out money from the public chest ;
Or if that mine be shut, some private purse
Supplies his need with a usurious loan,
To be refunded duly, when his vote,

770

780

790

Well managed, shall have earned its worthy price.
Oh innocent, compared with arts like these,
Crape and cocked pistol, and the whistling ball
Sent through the traveller's temples! He that finds
One drop of Heaven's sweet mercy in his cup,

800

Can dig, beg, rot, and perish, well content
So he may wrap himself in honest rags

At his last gasp; but could not for a world
Fish up his dirty and dependent bread
From pools and ditches of the commonwealth,
Sordid and sickening at his own success.
Ambition, avarice, penury incurred

By endless riot, vanity, the lust

Of pleasure and variety, despatch,

As duly as the swallows disappear,

The world of wandering knights and squires to town.

810

London ingulfs them all. The shark is there,
And the shark's prey; the spendthrift and the leech
That sucks him. There the sycophant, and he
Who, with bareheaded and obsequious bows,

Begs a warm office, doomed to a cold jail,

And groat per diem, if his patron frown.

The levee swarms, as if, in golden pomp,

Were charactered on every statesman's door,

“BATTERED AND BANKRUPT FORTUNES MENDED Here.
These are the charms that sully and eclipse

The charms of nature. 'Tis the cruel gripe

That lean hard-handed Poverty inflicts,

The hope of better things, the chance to win,
The wish to shine, the thirst to be amused,
That at the sound of Winter's hoary wing
Unpeople all our counties of such herds

Of fluttering, loitering, cringing, begging, loose
And wanton vagrants, as make London, vast
And boundless as it is, a crowded coop.

Oh thou, resort and mart of all the earth,
Chequered with all complexions of mankind,
And spotted with all crimes; in whom I see
Much that I love, and more that I admire,
And all that I abhor; thou freckled fair,
That pleasest and yet shockest me, I can laugh
And I can weep, can hope and can despond,
Feel wrath and pity, when I think on thee!
Ten righteous would have saved a city once,
And thou hast many righteous.-Well for thee!
That salt preserves thee; more corrupted else,
And therefore more obnoxious at this hour,
Than Sodom in her day had power to be,

For whom God heard His Abraham plead in vain.

820

830

840

BOOK IV.

THE WINTER EVENING.

ARGUMENT.-The post comes in-The newspaper is read-The world contemplated at a distanceAddress to winter-The rural amusements of a winter evening compared with the fashionable ones-Address to evening-A brown study-Fall of snow in the evening-The waggoner-A poor family piece-The rural thief-Public-houses-The multitude of them censured-The farmer's daughter; what she was; what she is-The simplicity of country manners almost lost-Causes of the change-Desertion of the country by the rich-Neglect of magistratesThe militia principally in fault-The new recruit and his transformation-Reflection on bodies corporate-The love of rural objects natural to all, and never to be totally extinguished.

HARK! 'tis the twanging horn! O'er yonder bridge,
That with its wearisome but needful length

Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon
Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright,

He comes, the herald of a noisy world,

With spattered boots, strapped waist, and frozen locks,
News from all nations lumbering at his back.
True to his charge, the close-packed load behind,
Yet careless what he brings, his one concern
Is to conduct it to the destined inn,

And having dropped the expected bag-pass on.
He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch,
Cold and yet cheerful messenger of grief
Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some,
To him indifferent whether grief or joy.
Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks,
Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet
With tears that trickled down the writer's cheeks
Fast as the periods from his fluent quill,

Or charged with amorous sighs of absent swains,
Or nymphs responsive, equally affect

20

His horse and him, unconscious of them all.
But oh the important budget! ushered in
With such heart-shaking music, who can say
What are its tidings? have our troops awaked?
Or do they still, as if with opium drugged,
Snore to the murmurs of the Atlantic wave?
Is India free? and does she wear her plumed
And jewelled turban with a smile of peace,
Or do we grind her still? The grand debate,
The popular harangue, the tart reply,
The logic, and the wisdom, and the wit,
And the loud laugh-I long to know them all;
I burn to set the imprisoned wranglers free,
And give them voice and utterance once again.
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And while the bubbling and loud hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.

30

40

Not such his evening, who with shining face
Sweats in the crowded theatre, and squeezed

And bored with elbow-points through both his sides,
Outscolds the ranting actor on the stage;

Nor his, who patient stands till his feet throb,

And his head thumps, to feed upon the breath

Of patriots bursting with heroic rage,

Or placemen all tranquillity and smiles.
This folio of four pages, happy work!
Which not even critics criticise; that holds
Inquisitive attention, while I read,

Fast bound in chains of silence, which the fair,
Though eloquent themselves, yet fear to break ;

50

What is it but a map of busy life,

At his heels,

Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns?
Here runs the mountainous and craggy ridge
That tempts ambition. On the summit, see,
The seals of office glitter in his eyes;
He climbs, he pants, he grasps them.
Close at his heels, a demagogue ascends,
And with a dexterous jerk soon twists him down,
And wins them, but to lose them in his turn.
Here rills of oily eloquence in soft
Meanders lubricate the course they take;
The modest speaker is ashamed and grieved
To engross a moment's notice, and yet begs,
Begs a propitious ear for his poor thoughts,
However trivial all that he conceives.

Sweet bashfulness! it claims, at least, this praise
The dearth of information and good sense
That it foretells us, always comes to pass.
Cataracts of declamation thunder here,
There forests of no meaning spread the page
In which all comprehension wanders lost;
While fields of pleasantry amuse us there
With merry descants on a nation's woes.
The rest appears a wilderness of strange
But gay confusion; roses for the cheeks

60

70

And lilies for the brows of faded age,

80

Teeth for the toothless, ringlets for the bald,

Heaven, earth, and ocean plundered of their sweets,

Nectareous essences, Olympian dews,

Sermons and city feasts, and favourite airs,

Æthereal journeys, submarine exploits,
And Katerfelto, with his hair on end

At his own wonders, wondering for his bread.
'Tis pleasant through the loopholes of retreat
To peep at such a world; to see the stir
Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd;
To hear the roar she sends through all her gates
At a safe distance, where the dying sound
Falls a soft murmur on the uninjured ear.
Thus sitting, and surveying thus at ease
The globe and its concerns, I seem advanced
To some secure and more than mortal height,
That liberates and exempts me from them all.
It turns submitted to my view, turns round
With all its generations; I behold

The tumult, and am still. The sound of war
Has lost its terrors ere it reaches ine;
Grieves, but alarms me not. I mourn the pride
And avarice that make man a wolf to man,
Hear the faint echo of those brazen throats,
By which he speaks the language of his heart,
And sigh, but never tremble at the sound.

90

100

He travels and expatiates, as the bee

From flower to flower, so he from land to land;
The manners, customs, policy of all

Pay contribution to the store he gleans;
He sucks intelligence in every clime,
And spreads the honey of his deep research
At his return, a rich repast for me.
He travels, and I too. I tread his deck,
Ascend his topmast, through his peering eyes
Discover countries, with a kindred heart
Suffer his woes, and share in his escapes;
While fancy, like the finger of a clock,
Runs the great circuit, and is still at home.
Q Winter! ruler of the inverted year,
Thy scattered hair with sleet like ashes filled,
Thy breath congealed upon thy lips, thy cheeks
Fringed with a beard made white with other snows
Than those of age, thy forehead wrapt in clouds,

A leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne

A sliding car, indebted to no wheels,

But urged by storms along its slippery way;

I love thee, all unlovely as thou seemest,

And dreaded as thou art. Thou holdest the sun

A prisoner in the yet undawning east,

130

Shortening his journey between morn and noon,
And hurrying him, impatient of his stay,
Down to the rosy west; but kindly still
Compensating his loss with added hours
Of social converse and instructive ease,
And gathering, at short notice, in one group
The family dispersed, and fixing thought,
Not less dispersed by daylight and its cares.
I crown thee King of intimate delights,
Fireside enjoyments, homeborn happiness,
And all the comforts that the lowly roof
Of undisturbed retirement, and the hours
Of long uninterrupted evening know.

No rattling wheels stop short before these gates;

140

Cough their own knell, while, heedless of the sound,

The silent circle fan themselves, and quake:

But here the needle plies its busy task,

150

The pattern grows, the well-depicted flower,

Wrought patiently into the snowy lawn,

Unfolds its bosom; buds, and leaves, and sprigs,

And curling tendrils, gracefully disposed,

Follow the nimble finger of the fair;

A wreath that cannot fade, of flowers that blow
With most success when all besides decay.

The poet's or historian's page, by one