Adorned profuse with other arts divine.
All beauty here below, to them compared,
Would, like a rose before the midday sun,
Shrink up its blossom-like a bubble break
The passing poor magnificence of kings.
For there the king of nature in full blaze
Calls every splendour forth, and there his court,
Amid ethereal powers and virtues holds-
Angel, archangel, tutelary gods,

Of cities, nations, empires, and of worlds.
But sacred be the veil that kindly clouds

A light too keen for mortals-wraps a view

Too softening fair, for those that here in dust
Must cheerful toil out their appointed years.
A sense of higher life would only damp
The schoolboy's task, and spoil his playful hours.
Nor could the child of reason, feeble man,
With vigour through this infant-being drudge,
Did brighter worlds, their unimagined bliss
Disclosing, dazzle and dissolve his mind.'

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THE CONTENTS OF PART IV

DIFFERENCE betwixt the Ancients and Moderns slightly touched upon, to verse 29. Description of the Dark Ages. The Goddess of Liberty, who during these is supposed to have left earth, returns, attended with Arts and Science, to verse 99. She first descends on Italy. Sculpture, Painting, and Architecture fix at Rome, to revive their several arts by the great models of antiquity there, which many barbarous invasions had not been able to destroy. The revival of these arts marked out. That sometimes arts may flourish for a while under despotic governments, though never the natural and genuine production of them, to verse 253. Learning begins to dawn The Muse and Science attend Liberty, who in her progress towards Great Britain raises several free states and cities. These enumerated, to verse 380. Author's exclamation of joy, upon seeing the

British seas and coasts rise in the Vision, which painted whatever the Goddess of Liberty said. She resumes her narration, the Genius of the Deep appears, and addressing Liberty, associates Great Britain into his dominion, to verse 450. Liberty received and congratulated by Britannia, and the native Genii or Virtues of the island. These described. Animated by the presence of Liberty, they begin their operations. Their beneficent influence contrasted with the works and delusions of opposing Demons, to verse 623. Concludes with an abstract of the English history, marking the several advances of Liberty, down to her complete establishment at the Revolution.

STRUCK with the rising scene, thus I amazed :

Ah, Goddess, what a change! is Earth the same? Of the same kind the ruthless race she feeds? And does the same fair sun and ether spread Round this vile spot their all-enlivening soul? Lo! beauty fails; lost in unlovely forms. Of little pomp, magnificence no more Exalts the mind, and bids the public smileWhile to rapacious interest Glory leaves Mankind, and every grace of life is gone.'

To this the power, whose vital radiance calls From the brute mass of man an ordered world:

10

Wait till the morning shines, and from the depth Of Gothic darkness springs another day.

True, genius droops; the tender ancient taste
Of Beauty, then fresh blooming in her prime,
But faintly trembles through the callous soul;
And Grandeur, or of morals or of life,
Sinks into safe pursuits and creeping cares.
Even cautious virtue seems to stoop her flight,
And aged life to deem the generous deeds

20

Of youth romantic. Yet in cooler thought
Well reasoned, in researches piercing deep
Through nature's works, in profitable arts,
And all that calm experience can disclose,
(Slow guide, but sure) behold the world anew
Exalted rise, with other honours crowned;
And, where my Spirit wakes the finer powers,
Athenian laurels still afresh shall bloom.

30

'Oblivious ages passed; while earth, forsook By her best genii, lay to demons foul And unchained furies an abandoned prey. Contention led the van; first small of size, But soon dilating to the skies she towers: Then, wide as air, the livid fury spread, And high her head above the stormy clouds She blazed in omens, swelled the groaning winds With wild surmises, battlings, sounds of warFrom land to land the maddening trumpet blew, And poured her venom through the heart of man. 40 Shook to the pole, the north obeyed her call. Forth rushed the bloody power of Gothic war, War against human kind: Rapine, that led Millions of raging robbers in his train : Unlistening, barbarous force, to whom the sword Is reason, honour, law: the foe of arts

By monsters followed, hideous to behold,

That claimed their place. Outrageous mixed with these

Another species of tyrannic rule;

Unknown before, whose cankerous shackles seized
The envenomed soul; a wilder Fury, she
Even o'er her Elder Sister tyrannized,
Or, if perchance agreed, inflamed her rage.
Dire was her train, and loud: the sable band,
Thundering "Submit, ye Laity! ye profane !

Earth is the Lord's, and therefore ours; let kings
Allow the common claim, and half be theirs ;
If not, behold! the sacred lightning flies!"
Scholastic Discord, with an hundred tongues,
For science uttering jangling words obscure,
Where frighted reason never yet could dwell.
Of peremptory feature, cleric pride,
Whose reddening cheek no contradiction bears;
And holy slander, his associate firm,

On whom the lying spirit still descends-
Mother of tortures! persecuting zeal,
High flashing in her hand the ready torch,
Or poniard bathed in unbelieving blood;
Hell's fiercest fiend! of saintly brow demure,
Assuming a celestial seraph's name,
While she beneath the blasphemous pretence
Of pleasing parent Heaven, the source of love!
Has wrought more horrors, more detested deeds
Than all the rest combined. Led on by her,
And wild of head to work her fell designs,
Came idiot Superstition; round with ears
Innumerous strowed, ten thousand monkish forms
With legends plied them, and with tenets, meant
To charm or scare the simple into slaves,
And poison reason; gross, she swallows all,
The most absurd believing ever most.
Broad o'er the whole her universal night,
The gloom still doubling, Ignorance diffused.
'Nought to be seen, but visionary monks
To councils strolling and embroiling creeds,
Banditti saints disturbing distant lands,
And unknown nations wandering for a home.
All lay reversed-the sacred arts of rule
Turned to flagitious leagues against mankind,
And arts of plunder more and more avowed;

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20

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Pure plain devotion to a solemn farce;
To holy dotage virtue, even to guile,
To murder, and a mockery of oaths;
Brave ancient freedom to the rage of slaves,
Proud of their state and fighting for their chains ;
Dishonoured courage to the bravo's trade,

To civil broil; and glory to romance.
Thus human life, unhinged, to ruin reeled,
And giddy reason tottered on her throne.

At last heaven's best inexplicable scheme,
Disclosing, bade new brightening eras smile.
The high command gone forth, Arts in my train,
And azure-mantled Science, swift we spread
A sounding pinion. Eager pity, mixed
With indignation, urged our downward flight.
On Latium first we stooped, for doubtful life
That panted, sunk beneath unnumbered woes.
Ah, poor Italia! what a bitter cup

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Of vengeance hast thou drained! Goths, Vandals,

Huns,

Lombards, barbarians broke from every land,
How many a ruffian form hast thou beheld!
What horrid jargons heard, where rage alone
Was all thy frighted ear could comprehend !
How frequent by the red inhuman hand,

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Yet warm with brother's, husband's, father's blood,
Hast thou thy matrons and thy virgins seen
To violation dragged, and mingled death!
What conflagrations, earthquakes, ravage, floods,
Have turned thy cities into stony wilds;
And succourless and bare the poor remains
Of wretches forth to nature's common cast!
Added to these the still continual waste
Of inbred foes that on thy vitals prey,
And, double tyrants, seize the very soul.

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