TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS FREDERICK, PRINCE OF WALES.

SIR, -When I reflect upon that ready condescension, that preventing generosity, with which your Royal Highness received the following poem under your protection; I can alone ascribe it to the recommendation and influence of the subject. In you the cause and concerns of Liberty have so zealous a patron, as entitles whatever may have the least tendency to promote them, to the distinction of your favour. And who can entertain this delightful reflection, without feeling a pleasure far superior to that of the fondest author; and of which all true lovers of their country must participate? To behold the noblest dispositions of the prince, and of the patriot, united: an overflowing benevolence, generosity, and candour of heart, joined to an enlightened zeal for Liberty, an intimate persuasion that on it depends the happiness and glory both of kings and people to see these shining out in public virtues, as they have hitherto smiled in all the social lights and private accomplishments of life, is a prospect that cannot but inspire a general sentiment of satisfaction and gladness, more easy to be felt than expressed.

If the following attempt to trace Liberty, from the first ages down to her excellent establishment in Great Britain, can at all merit your approbation, and prove an entertainment to your Royal Highness; if it can in any degree answer the dignity of the subject, and of the name under which I presume to shelter it; I have my best reward: particularly as it affords me an opportunity of

declaring that I am, with the greatest zeal and respect, Sir, your Royal Highness's most obedient and most devoted servant,

PART I.

JAMES THOMSON.

ANCIENT AND MODERN ITALY COMPARED.

CONTENTS.—The following Poem is thrown into the form of a Poetical Vision-Its scene, the ruins of ancient Rome-The Goddess of Liberty, who is supposed to speak through the whole, appears, characterized as British Liberty-Gives a view of ancient Italy, and particularly of Republican Rome, in all her magnificence and glory-This contrasted by modern Italy; its valleys, mountains, culture, cities, people: the difference appearing strongest in the capital city Rome—The ruins of the great works of Liberty more magnificent than the borrowed pomp of Oppression ; and from them revived, Sculpture, Painting, and Architecture-The old Romans apostrophized, with regard to the several melancholy changes in Italy: Horace, Tully, and Virgil, with regard to their Tibur, Tusculum, and Naples-That once finest and most ornamented part of Italy, all along the coast of Baix, how changed—This desolation of Italy applied to Britain-Address to the Goddess of Liberty, that she would deduce from the first ages, her chief establishments, the description of which constitute the subject of the following parts of this Poem-She assents, and commands what she says to be sung in Britain; whose happiness, arising from freedom, and a limited monarchy, she marks —An immediate Vision attends, and paints her words—Invocation.

O My lamented Talbot!1 while with thee

The Muse gay roved the glad Hesperian round,
And drew the inspiring breath of ancient arts ;
Ah! little thought she her returning verse

1 Charles Richard Talbot, Esq., died in his twenty-fifth year, on the 27th September, 1733, two months before his father was appointed Lord Chancellor.

Should sing our darling subject to thy Shade.
And does the mystic veil, from mortal beam,
Involve those eyes where every virtue smiled,
And all thy Father's candid spirit shone?
The light of reason, pure, without a cloud;
Full of the generous heart, the mild regard;
Honour disdaining blemish, cordial faith,
And limpid truth, that looks the very soul.
But to the death of mighty nations turn
My strain; be there absorbed the private tear.1

1 In the first draught of this tribute to the memory of Mr. Talbot, the subject was extended by general reflections on death and a future state, which Thomson finally rejected. The original lines have been preserved in a letter from Thomson to his friend Dr. Cranston, dated 20th October, 1733. They are thus introduced : "I will conclude these thoughts by giving you some lines of a copy of verses I wrote on my friend Mr. Talbot's death, and designed at first to be prefixed to Liberty, but afterwards reduced to those you see stand there. Perhaps some time or other I may publish the whole :

'Be then the starting tear,

Or selfish, or mistaken, wiped away.

By death the good, from reptile matter raised,
And upward soaring to superior day,
With pity hear our plaints, with pity see
Our ignorance of tears; if e'er, indeed,
Amid the woes of life, they quench our joys.
Why should we cloud a friend's exalted state
With idle grief, tenaciously prolonged
Beyond the lonely drops that frailty sheds
Surprised? No; rather thence less fond of life,
Yet still the lot enjoying heaven allows,
Attend we, cheerful, the rejoining hour.
Children of nature! let us not reject,

Forward, the good we have for what we want.

Musing, I lay; warm from the sacred walks,
Where at each step imagination burns:
While scattered wide around, awful, and hoar,
Lies, a vast monument, once glorious Rome,
The tomb of empire! Ruins! that efface
Whate'er, of finished, modern pomp can boast.
Snatched by these wonders to that world where thought
Unfettered ranges, Fancy's magic hand

Led me anew o'er all the solemn scene,

Still in the mind's pure eye more solemn dressed:
When straight, methought, the fair majestic Power
Of Liberty appeared. Not, as of old,
Extended in her hand the cap, and rod,

Whose slave-enlarging touch gave double life : 2

Since all by turns must spread the sable sail,
Driven to the coast that never makes return,
But where we happy hope to meet again;
Sooner or later, a few anxious years,
Still fluttering on the wing, not much imports.
Eternal Goodness reigns: be this our stay;
A subject, for the past, of grateful song,

And, for the future, of undrooping hope.'"

2 The ceremony of enfranchising a slave is thus described by Dr. Smith, Rom. Antiq. :-" The lictor of the magistratus laid a rod festuca) on the head of the slave, accompanied with certain formal words, in which he declared that he was a free man, ex jure Quiritium; that is, vindicavit in libertatem. The master in the meantime held the slave, and after he had pronounced the words hunc hominem liberum volo, he turned him round (momento turbinis exit Marcus Dama, PERSIUS, Sat. v. 78) and let him go (emisit ex manu), whence the general name of the act of manumission." The cap alluded to in the text was the Phrygian cap, which the manumitted slave put on as the symbol of his freedom.

But her bright temples bound with British oak,
And naval honours nodded on her brow.
Sublime of port: loose o'er her shoulder flowed
Her sea-green robe, with constellations gay.
An island-goddess now; and her high care
The Queen of Isles, the mistress of the main.
My heart beat filial transport at the sight;
And, as she moved to speak, the awakened muse
Listened intense. Awhile she looked around,
With mournful eye the well-known ruins marked,
And then, her sighs repressing, thus began:

"Mine are these wonders, all thou seest is mine; But ah, how changed! the falling, poor remains Of what exalted once the Ausonian shore.

Look back through time: and, rising from the gloom,
Mark the dread scene, that paints whate'er I say.
"The great Republic see! that glowed, sublime,

With the mixed freedom of a thousand states;
Raised on the thrones of kings her curule chair,
And by her fasces awed the subject world.
See busy millions quickening all the land,
With cities thronged, and teeming culture high :
For nature then smiled on her free-born sons,
And poured the plenty that belongs to men.
Behold, the country cheering, villas rise,

In lively prospect; by the secret lapse

Of brooks now lost, and streams renowned in song;

In Umbria's closing vales, or on the brow

Of her brown hills that breathe the scented gale;

On Baia's viny coast, where peaceful seas,