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COLIN.

THE FLOWER-FESTIVAL OF WALES AT SHEARINGTIME. SABRINA, OR THE SEVERN PERSONIFIED; THE FIVE STREAMS OF PLYNLYMMON.

But haste, begin the rites: see purple eve
-Stretches her shadows: all ye nymphs and swains!
Hither assemble. Pleased with honors due,
Sabrina, guardian of the crystal flood,

Shall bless our cares, when she by moonlight clear
Skims o'er the dales, and eyes our sleeping folds!
Or in hoar caves, around Plynlymmon's brow,
Where precious minerals dart their purple gleams,
Among her sisters she reclines; the loved
Vaga, profuse of graces, Ryddol rough,
Blithe Ystwith, and Clevedoc,' swift of foot;
And mingles various seeds of flowers and herbs,
In the divided torrents, ere they burst
Through the dark clouds, and down the mountain
Nor taint-worm shall infect the yeaning herds,
Nor penny-grass, nor spearwort's poisonous leaf.'
He said with light fantastic toe the nymphs
Thither assembled, thither every swain ;
And o'er the dimpled stream a thousand flowers,
Pale lilies, roses, violets, and pinks,

[roll.

Mixed with the greens of burnet, mint, and thyme,
And trefoil, sprinkled with their sportive arms.

Such custom holds along the irriguous vales
From Wreakin's brow to rocky Dolvoryn,2
Sabrina's early haunt, ere yet she fled
The search of Guendolen,3 her stepdame proud,
With envious hate enraged.

FEAST OF SHEEP-SHEARING; WIT AND JOLLITY; THE REPAST
DESCRIBED. THE SEVERN AND ITS TRADING CRAFT.

The jolly cheer,

Spread on a mossy bank, untouched abides,
Till cease the rites: and now the mossy bank
Is gayly circled, and the jolly cheer
Dispersed in copious measure: early fruits,
And those of frugal store, in husk or rind;
Steeped grain, and curdled milk with dulcet cream
Soft tempered, in full merriment they quaff,
And cast about their gibes: and some apace
Whistle to roundelays: their little ones
Look on delighted; while the mountain woods
And winding valleys with the various notes
Of pipe, sheep, kine, and birds, and liquid brooks,
Unite their echoes: near at hand the wide
Majestic wave of Severn slowly rolls
Along the deep-divided glebe: the flood
And trading bark, with low-contracted sail,
Linger among the reeds and copsy banks
To listen, and to view the joyous scene.

1 Vaga, Ryddol, Ystwith, and Clevedoc rivers; the springs of which rise in the sides of Plynlymmon.

Dolvoryn; a ruinous castle in Montgomeryshire, on the banks of the Severn.

The legend relates that King Locrine (son of Brute, and grandson of Anchises, of Troy) incurred the rage of his wife Guendolen, by an amour with Estrildis, a beautiful captive, by whom he had a daughter Sabrina. Guendolen warred with and killed Locrine, and persecuted Sabrina, so that she threw herself or was thrown into the Severn, of which she became goddess. The story is told in Geoffrey of Monmouth's history, book 2; and it is used by Milton, in his Comus, line 824 and onward.

BOOK II.

ARGUMENT.

Introduction. Recommendation of mercifulness to animals. Of the winding of wool. Diversity of wool in the fleece; skill in the assorting of it, particularly among the Dutch. The uses of each sort. Severe winters pernicious to the fleece. Directions to prevent their effects. Wool lightest in common-fields; inconveniences of common-fields. Vulgar errors concerning the wool of England; its real excellences, and directions in the choice. No good wool in cold or wet pastures; yet all pastures improvable ; exemplified in the drainage of Bedford Level. Britain in ancient times not esteemed for wool. Countries esteemed for wool, before the Argonautic expedition. Of that expedition, and its consequences. Countries afterwards esteemed for wool. The decay of arts and sciences in the barbarous ages; their revival, first at Venice. Countries noted for wool in the present times. Wool the best of all the various materials for clothing. The wool of our island peculiarly excellent is the combing wool. Methods to prevent its exportation. Apology of the author for treating this subject. Bishop Blaize, the inventor of wool-combing. Of the dyeing of wool. Few dyes the natural product of England. Necessity of trade for importing them. The advantages of trade, and its utility in the moral world; exemplified in the prosperity and ruin of the elder Tyre.

SUBJECT; WOOL. DEDICATION TO WRAY AND ROYSTON. Now of the severed lock begin the song With various numbers, through the simple theme To win attention: this, ye shepherd swains! This is a labor. Yet, O Wray! if thou Cease not with skilful hand to point her way, The lark-winged Muse above the grassy vale, And hills, and woods, shall, singing, soar aloft; And he whom learning, wisdom, candor, grace, Who glows with all the virtues of his sire, Royston approve, and patronize the strain.

USEFULNESS OF SHEEP; ANIMAL FOOD; CRUELTY AND KINDNESS.

Through all the brute creation none as sheep
To lordly man such ample tribute pay.
For him their udders yield nectareous streams;
For him their downy vestures they resign;
For him they spread the feast: ah! ne'er may he
Glory in wants which doom to pain and death
His blameless fellow-creatures. Let disease,
Let wasted hunger, by destroying live,
And the permission use with trembling thanks,
Meekly reluctant: 't is the brute beyond;
And gluttons ever murder when they kill.
Even to the reptile every cruel deed
Is high impiety. Howe'er not all,
Not of the sanguinary tribe are all ;

All are not savage. Come, ye gentle swains!
Like Brama's healthy sons on Indus' banks,
Whom the pure stream and garden fruits sustain ;
Ye are the sons of Nature; your mild hands
Are innocent: ye, when ye shear, relieve.

THE FLEECE; PICKING AND SORTING IT.

Come, gentle swains! the bright unsullied locks Collect; alternate songs shall soothe your cares, And warbling music break from every spray.

1 David Wray, Esq., one of the Deputy Tellers of the Exchequer, who procured Dyer the living of Belchfond, in 1751. 2 Viscount Royston, afterward Earl of Hardwicke.

Be faithful, and the genuine locks alone
Wrap round; nor alien flake, nor pitch enfold;
Stain not your stores with base desire to add
Fallacious weight; nor yet, to mimic those,
Minute and light, of sandy Urchinfield,1
Lessen, with subtle artifice, the fleece;
Equal the fraud; nor interpose delay,
Lest busy ether through the open wool
Debilitating pass, and every film
Ruffle and sully with the valley's dust.

THE MOTH; FLOCK BEDS.

Guard, too, from moisture, and the fretting moth
Pernicious she, in gloomy shade concealed,
Her labyrinth cuts, and mocks the comber's care:
But in loose locks of fells she most delights,
And feeble fleeces of distempered sheep,
Whither she hastens, by the morbid scent
Allured, as the swift eagle to the fields

Of slaughtering war or carnage: such apart
Keep for their proper use our ancestors
Selected such for hospitable beds

To rest the stranger, or the gory chief
From battle or the chase of wolves returned.

WOOL COLLECTORS AND MERCHANTS; OPERATIVES. LEEDS, ETC.

When many-colored evening sinks behind The purple woods and hills, and opposite Rises, full orbed, the silver harvest moon, To light the unwearied farmer, late afield His scattered sheaves collecting, then expect The artists, bent on speed, from populous Leeds, Norwich, or Froome; they traverse every plain And every dale where farm or cottage smokes : Reject them not; and let the season's price Win thy soft treasures: let the bulky wain Through dusty roads roll nodding; or the bark, That silently adown the cerule stream

Glides with white sails, dispense the downy freight
To copsy villages on either side,

And spiry towns, where ready diligence,
The grateful burden to receive, awaits,
Like strong Briareus, with his hundred hands.

THE ASSORTING OF THE WOOL; THE BELGIANS; EMPLOYMENT OF THE POOR AND CHILDREN.

In the same fleece diversity of wool Grows intermingled, and excites the care ⚫ Of curious skill to sort the several kinds. But in this subtle science none exceed

The industrious Belgians, to the work who guide Each feeble hand of want their spacious domes, With boundless hospitality, receive

Each nation's outcasts: there the tender eye
May view the maimed, the blind, the lame, em-
ployed,

And unrejected age: even childhood there
Its little fingers turning to the toil
Delighted nimbly, with habitual speed,

1 Urchinfield; the country about Ross, in Herefordshire.

They sever lock from lock, and long, and short, And soft, and rigid, pile in several heaps.

WOOLS FOR VARIOUS FABRICS; HATS, CLOTHS, HOSE; LONG STAPLE PRECARIOUS.

This the dusk hatter asks; another shines, Tempting the clothier; that the hosier seeks; The long bright lock is apt for airy stuffs; But often it deceives the artist's care, Breaking unuseful in the steely comb : For this long spongy wool no more increase Receives, while winter petrifies the fields : The growth of Autumn stops; and what though Succeeds with rosy finger, and spins on [Spring The texture? yet in vain she strives to link The silver twine to that of Autumn's hand.

HOW TO KEEP THE WOOL GROWING THROUGH WINTER; IMPORTANCE OF IT.

Be then the swain advised to shield his flocks From winter's deadening frosts and whelming snows: Let the loud tempest rattle on the roof,

While they, secure within, warm cribs enjoy,
And swell their fleeces, equal to the worth
Of clothed Apulian,' by soft warmth improved ;
Or let them inward heat and vigor find
By food of cole or turnip, hardy plants.
Besides, the lock of one continued growth
Imbibes a clearer and more equal dye.

COMMON-FIELDS, PERNICIOUS; NEGLECTED, OF COURSE; THE

PILFERER.

But lightest wool is theirs who poorly toil Through a dull round, in unimproving farms Of common-fields. Enclose, enclose, ye swains! Why will you joy in common-field, where pitch, Noxious to wool, must stain your motley flock, To mark your property? the mark dilates, Enters the flake depreciated, defiled, Unfit for beauteous tint. Besides, in fields Promiscuous held, all culture languishes : The glebe, exhausted, thin supply receives; Dull waters rest upon the rushy flats And barren furrows: none the rising grove There plants for late posterity, nor hedge To shield the flock, nor copse for cheering fire; And in the distant village every hearth Devours the grassy sward, the verdant food Of injured herds and flocks, or what the plough Should turn and moulder for the bearded grain : Pernicious habit! drawing gradual on Increasing beggary, and Nature's frowns. Add, too, the idle pilferer easier there Eludes detection, when a lamb or ewe From intermingled flocks he steals, or when, With loosened tether of his horse or cow, The milky stalk of the tall green-eared corn, The year's slow-ripening fruit, the anxious hope Of his laborious neighbor, he destroys.

1 The shepherds of Apulia, Tarentum, and Attica, used to clothe their sheep with skins, to preserve and improve their fleeces.

NON-BRITISH WOOLS; THE GOBELINS.

There are who overrate our spongy stores,
Who deem that nature grants no clime but ours
To spread upon its fields the dews of heaven,
And feed the silky fleece; that card nor comb
The hairy wool of Gaul can e'er subdue,
To form the thread, and mingle in the loom,
Unless a third from Britain swell the heap:
Illusion all; though of our sun and air
Not trivial is the virtue, nor their fruit
Upon our snowy flocks of small esteem:
The grain of brightest tincture none so well
Imbibes the wealthy Gobelins must to this
Bear witness, and the costliest of their looms.

PASTURES AFFECT THE COLOR OF WOOL.

And though with hue of crocus or of rose No power of subtle food, or air, or soil, Can dye the living fleece; yet 't will avail To note their influence in the tinging vase : Therefore from herbage of old pastured plains, Chief from the matted turf of azure marl Where grow the whitest locks, collect thy stores. Those fields regard not through whose recent turf The miry soil appears; nor ev'n the streams Of Yare or silver Stroud can purify Their frequent sullied fleece; nor what rough winds, Keen biting, on tempestuous hills, imbrown. IMPROVEMENT OF PASTURES; BEDFORD LEVEL, ITS FORMER AND PRESENT STATE; RUSSELL.

Yet much may be performed to check the force Of Nature's rigor the high heath, by trees Warm sheltered, may despise the rage of storms : Moors, bogs, and weeping fens, may learn to smile, And leave in dikes their soon-forgotten tears. Labor and Art will every aim achieve Of noble bosoms. Bedford Level,1 erst A dreary pathless waste, the coughing flock Was wont with hairy fleeces to deform, And, smiling with her lure of summer flowers, The heavy ox vain struggling to ingulf; Till one of that high honored, patriot name, Russell! arose, who drained the rushy fen, Confined the waves, bade groves and gardens bloom, And through his new creation led the Ouze And gentle Camus, silver-winding streams : God-like beneficence! from chaos drear To raise the garden and the shady grove.

THE BOGS OF IRELAND; THEIR RECLAIMING; DEEPING-FENS;
BOURN EFFECTS OF CULTURE; ART, TOIL, AND NATURE.
But see Ierne's 2 moors and hideous bogs,
Immeasurable tract! the traveller

Slow tries his mazy step on the yielding turf,
Shuddering with fear: ev'n such perfidious wilds,
By labor won, have yielded to the comb
The fairest length of wool. See Deeping-Fens
And the long lawns of Bourn. "Tis art and toil
Gives Nature value, multiplies her stores,
Varies, improves, creates: 't is art and toil
Teaches her woody hills with fruits to shine,
1 Bedford Level, in Cambridgeshire.

2 Ireland.

The pear and tasteful apple; decks with flowers
And foodful pulse the fields that often rise,
Admiring to behold their furrows wave
With yellow corn. What changes cannot toil,
With patient art, effect?

STATE OF ANCIENT BRITAIN; WILLOW WARE; SARUM; COTS-
WOLD.

There was a time When other regions were the swain's delight, And shepherdless Britannia's rushy vales, Inglorious, neither trade nor labor knew, But of rude baskets, homely rustic gear, Woven of the flexile willow; till, at length, The plains of Sarum opened to the hand Of patient culture, and o'er sinking woods High Cotswold showed her summits. Urchinfield, And Lemster's crofts, beneath the pheasant's brake Long lay unnoted. Toil new pasture gives, And in the regions oft of active Gaul O'er lessening vineyards spreads the growing turf. SYRIAN WOOL. -PALESTINE; TYRIAN DYES; COLCHIS;

PHRYXUS.

In eldest times, when kings and hardy chiefs In bleating sheepfolds met, for purest wool Phoenicia's hilly tracts were most renowned, And fertile Syria's and Judæa's land,

Hermon and Seir, and Hebron's brooky sides. Twice with the murex, crimson hue, they tinged The shining fleeces; hence their gorgeous wealth; And hence arose the walls of ancient Tyre.

Next busy Colchis, blessed with frequent rains
And lively verdure (who the lucid stream
Of Phasis boasted, and a portly race

Of fair inhabitants), improved the fleece,
When, o'er the deep by flying Phryxus brought,
The famed Thessalian ram enriched her plains.
STORY OF THE ARGONAUTS; JASON, CASTOR AND POLLUX,
ORPHEUS, HERCULES.

This rising Greece with indignation viewed,
And youthful Jason an attempt conceived
Lofty and bold: along Peneus' banks,
Around Olympus' brows, the Muses' haunts,
He roused the brave to re-demand the fleece.
Attend, ye British swains! the ancient song.
From every region of Ægea's shore
The brave assembled; those illustrious twins,
Castor and Pollux; Orpheus, tuneful bard;
Zetes and Calais, as the wind in speed;
Strong Hercules, and many a chief renowned.
On deep Iolcos' sandy shore they thronged,
Gleaming in armor, ardent of exploits ;
And soon the laurel cord and the huge stone
Uplifting to the deck, unmoored the bark,
Whose keel, of wondrous length, the skilful hand
Of Argus fashioned for the proud attempt;
And in the extended keel a lofty mast
Upraised, and sails full swelling; to the chiefs
Unwonted objects: now first, now they learned
Their bolder steerage over ocean wave,
Led by the golden stars, as Chiron's art
Had marked the sphere celestial. Wide abroad

Expands the purple deep; the cloudy isles,
Scyros, and Scopelos, and Icos, rise,

And Halonesos: soon huge Lemnos heaves
Her azure head above the level brine,

Shakes off her mists, and brightens all her cliffs;
While they, her flattering creeks and opening bowers
Cautious approaching, in Myrina's port

Cast out the cabled stone upon the strand.

Next to the Mysian shore they shape their course,
But with too eager haste in the white foam
His oar Alcides breaks; howe'er, not long
The chance detains; he springs upon the shore,
And rifting from the roots a tapering pine,
Renews his stroke. Between the threatening towers
Of Hellespont they ply the rugged surge,
To Hero's and Leander's ardent love
Fatal; then smooth Propontis' widening wave,
That like a glassy lake expands, with hills,
Hills above hills, and gloomy woods begirt:
And now the Thracian Bosphorus they dare,
Till the Symplegades, tremendous rocks!
Threaten approach; but they, unterrified, [floods
Through the sharp-pointed cliffs and thundering
Cleave their bold passage; nathless by the crags
And torrents sorely shattered as the strong
Eagle or vulture, in the entangling net [behind,
Involved, breaks through, yet leaves his plumes
Thus through the wide waves their slow way they
To Thynia's hospitable isle. The brave [force
Pass many perils, and to fame by such
Experience rise. Refreshed, again they speed
From cape to cape, and view unnumbered streams,
Halays, with hoary Lycus, and the mouths
Of Asparus and Glaucus, rolling swift
To the broad deep their tributary waves;
Till in the long-sought harbor they arrive
Of golden Phasis. Foremost on the strand
Jason advanced the deep, capacious bay,
The crumbling terrace of the marble port,
Wondering he viewed, and stately palace-domes,
Pavilions proud of luxury around,
In every glittering hall, within, without,
O'er all the timbrel-sounding squares and streets,
Nothing appeared but luxury, and crowds
Sunk deep in riot. To the public weal
Attentive none he found; for he, their chief
Of shepherds, proud Aêtes, by the name,
Sometimes, of king distinguished, 'gan to slight
The shepherd's trade, and turn to song and dance :
Ev'n Hydrus ceased to watch; Medea's songs
Of joy, and rosy youth, and beauty's charms,
With magic sweetness lulled his cares asleep,
Till the bold heroes grasped the Golden Fleece.
Nimbly they winged the bark, surrounded soon
By Neptune's friendly waves: secure they speed
O'er the known seas, by every guiding cape,
With prosperous return. The myrtle shores,
And glassy mirror of Iolcos' lake,

With loud acclaim received them. Every vale,
And every hillock, touched the tuneful stops
Of pipes unnumbered, for the Ram regained.

EFFECTS OF THE ARGONAUTIC EXPEDITION.

Thus Phasis lost his pride: his slighted nymphs
Along the withering dales and pastures mourned;
The trade-ship left his streams; the merchant
His desert borders; each ingenious art, [shunned
Trade, Liberty, and Affluence, all retired,
And left to Want and Servitude their seats;
Vile successors! and gloomy Ignorance,
Following like dreary Night, whose sable hand
Hangs on the purple skirts of flying Day.

ANCIENT WOOL COUNTRIES; ARCADIA, ATTICA, THESSALY,
ASIA MINOR, ITALY, ANDALUSIA, PORTUGAL; BRITISH TIN.
Sithence the fleeces of Arcadian plains,
And Attic and Thessalian, bore esteem;
And those in Grecian colonies dispersed,
Caria and Doris, and Iōnia's coast,
And famed Tarentum, where Galesus' tide,
Rolling by ruins hoar of ancient towns,
Through solitary valleys seeks the sea:
Or green Altinum, by an hundred Alps
Shield her low plains from the rough northern blast.
High-crowned, whose woods and snowy peaks aloft
Those too of Boetica's delicious fields,

With golden fruitage blessed of highest taste,
What need I name? the Turdetanian tract,
Or rich Coraxus, whose wide looms unrolled
The finest webs! where scarce a talent weighed
A ram's equivalent. Then only tin
To late-improved Britannia gave renown.

VICISSITUDES OF PROSPERITY.

Lo! the revolving course of mighty time,
Who loftiness abases, tumbles down
Olympus' brow, and lifts the lowly vale.
Where is the majesty of ancient Rome,
The throng of heroes in her splendid streets,
The snowy vest of peace, or purple robe,
Slow-trailed triumphal? where the Attic fleece,
And Tarentine, in warmest littered cots,
Or sunny meadows, clothed with costly care?
All in the solitude of ruin lost,
War's horrid carnage, vain Ambition's dust.

RISE OF VENICE.

Long lay the mournful realms of elder fame In gloomy desolation, till appeared Beauteous Venetia, first of all the nymphs Who from the melancholy waste emerged: In Adria's gulf her clotted locks she laved, And rose another Venus: each soft joy, Each aid of life, her busy wit restored; Science revived, with all the lovely arts, And all the graces. Restituted Trade To every virtue lent his helping stores, And cheered the vales around; again the pipe And bleating flocks awaked the cheerful lawn.

CASHMERE AND ITS WOOL LABORER, AGRA; ROE, THE PIONEER OF INDIA TRADE; WOOLS OF LYBIA, ATLAS, SPAIN.

The glossy fleeces now, of prime esteem, Soft Asia boasts, where lovely Cassimere,

Within a lofty mound of circling hills, [lakes,
Spreads her delicious stores; woods, rocks, caves,
Hills, lawns, and winding streams; a region termed
The paradise of Indus. Next the plains
Of Lahor, by that arbor stretched immense,
Through many a realm, to Agra, the proud throne
Of India's worshipped prince, whose lust is law :
Remote dominions, nor to ancient fame
Nor modern known, till public-hearted Roe,
Faithful, sagacious, active, patient, brave,
Led to their distant climes advent'rous trade.
WOOL OF LIBYA; ATLAS; SPAIN.

Add, too, the silky wool of Libyan lands,
Of Caza's bowery dales, and brooky Caus,
Where lofty Atlas spreads his verdant feet,
While in the clouds his hoary shoulders bend.
Next, proud Iberia glories in the growth
Of high Castile, and mild Segovian glades.
WOOL-GROWING DISTRICTS OF BRITAIN; W. ENGLAND, EPSOM,
BANSTEAD, ISLE OF WIGHT; SHROPSHIRE, CLUN, COTSWOLD.
-THE POET DRAYTON; LINCOLNSHIRE, LEICESTERSHIRE.

And beauteous Albion, since great Edgar chased The prowling wolf, with many a lock appears Of silky lustre ; chief, Siluria, thine; Thine, Vaga, favored stream; from sheep minute On Cambria bred: a pound o'erweighs a fleece : Gay Epsom's, too, and Banstead's, and what gleams On Vecta's isle, that shelters Albion's fleet With all its thunders; or Salopian stores, Those which are gathered in the fields of Clun : High Cotswold also 'mong the shepherd swains Is oft remembered, though the greedy plough Preys on its carpet. He, whose rustic Muse O'er heath and craggy holt her wing displayed, And sung the bosky bourns of Alfred's shires, Has favored Cotswold with luxuriant praise. Need we the levels green of Lincoln note, Or rich Leicestria's marly plains, for length Of whitest locks and magnitude of fleece Peculiar? envy of the neighboring realms ! But why recount our grassy lawns alone, While ev❜n the tillage of our cultured plains, With bossy turnip and luxuriant cole,

Learns through the circling year their flocks to feed? CLOTHING MATERIALS OF COMMERCE ; ASBESTOS, FLAX, CANE, SILK, BARK, GRASS, COTTON, GOAT'S HAIR, BEAVER;

WOOL THE BEST.

Ingenious trade, to clothe the naked world,
Her soft materials, not from sheep alone,
From various animals, reeds, trees, and stones,
Collects sagacious. In Euboea's isle

A wondrous rock 2 is found, of which are woven
Vests incombustible; Batavia, flax;
Siam's warm marish yields the fissile cane;
Soft Persia, silk; Balasor's shady hills,
Tough bark of trees; Peruvian Pito, grass;
And every sultry clime the snowy down
Of cotton, bursting from its stubborn shell
To gleam amid the verdure of the grove.

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With glossy hair of Tibet's shagged goat
Are light tiaras woven, that wreathe the head,
And airy float behind. The beaver's flix
Gives kindliest warmth to weak enervate limbs,
When the pale blood slow rises through the veins.
Still shall o'er all prevail the shepherd's stores,
For numerous uses known: none yield such warmth,
Such beauteous hues receive, so long endure;
So pliant to the loom, so various, none.

FAT-TAILED SHEEP OF ASIA MINOR; KANSAS AND LOUISIANA
SHEEP PERUVIAN SHEEP.

Wild rove the flocks, no burdening fleece they bear In fervid climes: Nature gives naught in vain. Carmanian wool on the broad tail alone Resplendent swells,, enormous in its growth: As the sleek ram from green to green removes, On aiding wheels his heavy pride he draws, And glad resigns it for the hatters' use.

[sands,

Ev'n in the new Columbian world appears
The woolly covering: Apacheria's glades,
And Canses',' echo to the pipes and flocks
Of foreign swains. While Time shakes down his
And works continual change, be none secure :
Quicken your labors, brace your slackening nerves,
Ye Britons! nor sleep careless on the lap
Of bounteous Nature; she is elsewhere kind.
See Mississippi lengthen on her lawns,
Propitious to the shepherds: see the sheep?
Of fertile Arica,3 like camels formed,
Which bear huge burdens to the sea-beat shore,
And shine with fleeces soft as feathery down.

SWEDISH WOOL; COVENTRY; NORWICH.
Coarse Bothnic locks are not devoid of use;
They clothe the mountain carl, or mariner
Laboring at the wet shrouds, or stubborn helm,
While the loud billows dash the groaning deck.
All may not Stroud's or Taunton's vestures wear,
Nor what, from fleece Rataan, mimic flowers
Of rich Damascus many a texture bright
Of that material in Prætorium 5 woven,
Or in Norvicum, cheats the curious eye.

BEST ENGLISH WOOL; JEALOUS MONOPOLY OF IT.

If any wool peculiar to our isle

Is given by Nature, 't is the comber's lock,
The soft, the snow-white, and the long-grown flake.
Hither be turned the public's wakeful eye,
This golden fleece to guard, with strictest watch,
From the dark hand of pilfering Avarice,
Who, like a spectre, haunts the midnight hour,
When Nature wide around him lies supine
And silent, in the tangles soft involved
Of death-like sleep he then the moment marks,
While the pale moon illumes the trembling tide,
Speedy to lift the canvas, bend the oar,
And waft his thefts to the perfidious foe.

1 Apacheria and Canses [Kansas], provinces in Louisiana, on the western side of the Mississippi. [The United States produced, in 1850, fifty-two and a half million pounds of wool. -J.J 2 These sheep are called Guanapos.

3 Arica, a province of Peru.

4 Rataan fleeces, the fleeces of Leicestershire. Coventry.

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