No conquest grac'd Darius' son,*
By his own numbers half undone :
Success attended Slander's pow'r;
She reap'd fresh laurels ev'ry hour.
Her troops a deeper scarlet wore
Than ever armies knew before..

No plea diverts the fury's rage,. The fury spares nor sex nor age. E'en Merit, with destructive charms, Provokes the vengeance of her arms.

Whene'er the tyrant sounds to war,
Her canker'd trump is heard afar.
Pride, with a heart unknown to yield,
Commands in chief, and guides the field;

* Xerxes, King of Persia, and son of Darius. He invaded Greece with an army consisting of more than a million of men (some say more than two millions); who, together with their cattle, perished, in a great measure through the inability of the countries to supply such a vast host with provision.

He stalks with vast gigantic stride,

And scatters fear and ruin wide:

So the impetuous torrents sweep
At once whole nations to the deep.

Revenge, that base Hesperian, known
And chief support of Slander's throne,
Amidst the bloody crowd is seen,

And treach'ry brooding in his mien ;
The monster often chang'd his gait,
But march'd resolv'd and fix'd as fate.
Thus the fell kite, whom hunger stings,
Now slowly moves his out-stretch'd wings;
Now swift as lightning bears away,
And darts upon his trembling prey.

Envy commands a sacred band, With sword and poison in her hand.

*Hesperia includes Italy as well as Spain; and the inhabitants of both are remarkable for their revengeful dispositions.

Around her haggard eye-balls roll;
A thousand fiends possess her soul.

The artful, unsuspected sprite,
With fatal aim, attacks by night.
Her troops advance with silent tread,
And stab the hero in his bed;

Or shoot the wing'd malignant lie,
And female honours pine and die.

So prowling wolves, when darkness reigns,
Intent on murder, scour the plains;
Approach the folds where lambs repose,
Whose guileless breasts suspect no foes;
The savage gluts his fierce desires, .
And bleating innocence expires.

Slander smil'd horribly, to view
How wide her conquests daily grew:
Around the crowded levees wait,
Like oriental slaves of state;
Of either sex whole armies prest,
But chiefly of the fair and best.

Is it a breach of friendship's law,

То say what female friends I saw ?

Slander assumes the idol's part,

And claims the tribute of the heart:

The best, in some unguarded hour,

Have bow'd the knee, and own'd her pow'r..

Then let the poet not reveal

What candour wishes to conceal..

If I beheld some faulty fair,

Much worse delinquents crowded there:

Prelates in sacred lawn I saw,

Grave physic, and loquacious law;

Courtiers, like summer flies, abound;

And hungry poets swarm around..
But now my partial story ends,
And makes my females full amends.

If Albion's isle such dreams fulfils,

"Tis Albion's isle which cures these ills,.

Fertile of ev'ry worth and grace

Which warm the heart and flush the face..

Fancy disclos'd a smiling train

Of British nymphs that tripp'd the plain. Good-nature first, a sylvan queen,

Attir'd in robes of cheerful green;

A fair and smiling virgin she!
With ev'ry charm that shines in thee.
Prudence assum'd the chief command,
And bore a mirror in her hand;
Grey was the matron's head by age,
Her mind by long experience sage;
Of ev'ry distant ill afraid,

And anxious for the simp'ring maid.
The Graces danc'd before the fair;
And white-rob'd Innocence was there.
The trees with golden fruits were crown'd,
And rising flow'rs adorn'd the ground;
The sun display'd each brighter ray,
And shone in all the pride of day:

When Slander sicken'd at the sight, And skulk'd away, to shun the light.