Or ploughed perhaps by British bark again.
But far beyond the reft, and with most cause,
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 shew thee here
With what superior 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
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 show)
I cannot think thee yet so dull of heart
And spiritless, 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 distant shore.
I see thee weep, and thine are honest tears,
A patriot's for his country: thou art sad
At thought of her forlorn and abject state,
From which no power of thine can raise her up.
Thus fancy paints thee, and though apt to err,
Perhaps errs little when she paints thee thus.
She tells me too that duly every morn
Thou climbest 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 last 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,
Difinterested 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 most, 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 sewer,
The dregs and feculence of every land.
In cities foul example on most minds
Begets its likeness. Rank abundance breeds
In grofs and pampered cities floth and luft,
And wantonnefs and gluttonous excess.
In cities vice is hidden with most ease,
Or feen with leaft reproach; and virtue, taught
By frequent lapfe, 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 size. Such London is, by tafte and wealth proclaimed The fairest 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 sees
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 style as much;
Each province of her art her equal care.
With nice incifion 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 loveliest forms.
Where finds philosophy 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, so drained, and so supplied,
As London-opulent, enlarged, and still
Increafing, London? Babylon of old
Not more the glory of the earth than she,
A more accomplished world's chief glory now.
She has her praise. Now mark a spot or two
That so much beauty would do well to purge;
And fhow this queen of cities, that so fair
May yet be foul; fo witty, yet not wife.
It is not seemly, nor of good report,
That she is flack in difcipline; more prompt
To avenge than to prevent the breach of law:
That he is rigid in denouncing death.
On petty robbers, and indulges life
And liberty, and oft-times honour too,
To peculators of the public gold;
That thieves at home muft hang; but he, that puts
Into his overgorged and bloated purse
The wealth of Indian provinces, escapes.
Nor is it well, nor can it come to good,
That, through profane and infidel contempt
Of holy writ, she has prefumed to annul
And abrogate, as roundly as the may,
The total ordinance and will of God;
Advancing fashion to the post of truth,
And centering all authority in modes
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