Here stands in comely order on the plain,
'Mid clustered sheafs, the king of golden corn,
Unbearded wheat, support of human life;
There rises in round heaps the maltster's hope,
Grain which the reaper's care solicits best
By tempting promises of potent beer,
The joy, the meed of thirst-creating toil;
The poor man's clammy fare1 the sickle reaps;
The steed's light provender obeys the scythe.
Labor and mirth united, glow beneath

The mid-day sun: the laughing hinds rejoice:
Their master's heart is opened, and his eye
Looks with indulgence on the gleaning poor.
At length, adorned with boughs and garlands gay,
Nods the last load along the shouting field.
Now to the God of harvest, in a song,
The grateful farmer pays accepted thanks,
With joy unfeigned: while to his ravished ear
The gratulations of assisting swains
Are music. His exulting soul expands :
He presses every aiding hand; he bids

The plenteous feast, beneath some spreading tree,
Load the large board; and circulates the bowl,
The copious bowl, unmeasured, unrestrained,
A free libation to the immortal gods,2
Who crown with plenty the prolific soil.

APOSTROPHE TO GREAT BRITAIN; HER PRODUCTS; APPLES;
J. PHILIPS; KENT; HOPS; HEMP; FLAX; PAPER.
Hail, favored island! happy region, hail!
Whose temperate skies, mild air, and genial dews,
Enrich the fertile glebe; blessing thy sons
With various products, to the life of man
Indulgent. Thine Pomona's choicest gift,
The tasteful apple, rich with racy juice,
Theme of thy envied song, Silurian bard;
Affording to the swains, in sparkling cups,
Delicious beverage. Thine, on Cantium's hills,
The flowery hop, whose tendrils climbing round
The tall aspiring pole, bear their light heads
Aloft, in pendent clusters; which in malt's
Fermenting tuns infused, to mellow age
Preserves the potent draught. Thine too the plant,
To whose tough, stringy stalks thy numerous fleets
Owe their strong cordage: with her sister stem,
Her fairer sister, whence Minerva's3 tribe,
To enfold in softness beauty's lovely limbs,
Present their woven texture and from whence,
A second birth, grows the papyrean leaf,
A tablet firm, on which the painter bard

4

1 Rye, of which is made a coarse, clammy kind of bread, used by the poorer people in many parts of England, on account of its cheapness. It is a favorite bread with many in the United States.

2 The author acknowledges the God of the Harvest, a few lines above, and should not here restore an usurped domin ion to the immortal gods,' long since happily deceased; his bowl,' likewise, is too unmeasured' and unrestrained' even for a heathen taste; as Epicurus taught at the end of the previous canto.-J.

3 Minerva is said to have invented the art of weaving. 4 The pellicle of the Egyptian plant, papyrus, was anciently used for writing upon; whence the name of paper.

Delineates thought, and to the wondering eye
Embodies vocal air, and groups the sound.

THE BRITISH MINES; COAL, FULLER'S EARTH, BUILDING-STONE,
LIME, LEAD, IRON; SMELTING OF IRON ORE.
With various blessings teems thy fruitful womb.
Lo! from the depth of many a yawning mine,
Thy fossil treasures rise. Thy blazing hearths
From deep sulphureous pits, consumeless stores
Of fuel boast. The oil-imbibing earth,1
The fuller's mill assisting, safe defies
All foreign rivals in the clothier's art.

The builder's stone thy numerous quarries hide;
With lime, its close concomitant. The hills,
The barren hills of Derby's wildest peak,
In lead abound; soft, fusile, malleable;
Whose ample sheets thy venerable domes,
From rough inclement storms of wind and rain,
In safety clothe. Devona's ancient mines,
Whose treasures tempted first Phoenicia's sons
To court thy commerce, still exhaustless, yield
The valued ore, from whence, Britannia, thou
Thine honored 2 name deriv'st. Nor want'st thou
Of that all-useful metal, the support
[store

Of every art mechanic. Hence arise

In Dean's large forest numerous glowing kilns,
The rough rude ore calcining; whence conveyed
To the fierce furnace, its intenser heat
Melts the hard mass, which flows an iron stream,
On sandy beds below and stiffening there,
A ponderous lump, but to the hammer tamed,
Takes from the forge, in bars, its final form.
FISHERIES OF BRITAIN; BIRDS, CATTLE; FLOWERS AND FRUITS;
DYE-STUFFS, WIELD, WOAD, MADDER.

But the glad muse, from subterranean caves
Emerging, views with wonder and delight
What numerous products still remain unsung.
With fish abound thy streams; thy sheltering woods
To fowl give friendly covert; and thy plains
The cloven-footed race, in various herds,
Range undisturbed. Fair Flora's sweetest buds
Blow on thy beauteous bosom; and her fruits

Pomona pours in plenty on thy lap.

Thou to the dyer's tinging cauldron giv'st The yellow-staining weed, luteola 3; The glastum brown, with which thy naked sons In ancient time their hardy limbs distained; Nor the rich rubia 5 does thine hand withhold.

1 Fuller's earth is found in no other country; and as it is of so great use in the manufacturing of cloth, the exportation of it is prohibited. Dr. Woodward says this fossil is of more value to England than the mines of Peru would be.

2 The learned antiquary, Bochart, is of opinion that the Phoenicians, coming to buy tin in the island of Albion, gave it the name of Barat-Anac; that is, the land or country of Tin; which, being softened by the Greeks into Britannia, was adopted by the Romans. This etymology seems to be confirmed by the Grecians calling the isles of Scilly, Cassiterides, which signifies in Greek the same as Barat-Anac in Phoenician. - RAPIN.

3 Wield, commonly called dyer's wood.

4 Woad.

5 Madder, which is used by the dyers for making the most solid and richest red; and, as Mortimer observes, was thought so valuable in King Charles the First's time, that it was made a patent commodity.

ESCULENT PRODUCTS OF BRITAIN.

Grateful and salutary spring the plants Which crown thy numerous gardens, and invite To health and temperance, in the simple meal, Unstained with murder, undefiled with blood, Unpoisoned with rich sauces, to provoke The unwilling appetite to gluttony. For this the bulbous esculents their roots With sweetness fill; for this, with cooling juice The green herb spreads its leaves; and opening buds, And flowers and seeds, with various flavors tempt The ensanguined palate from its savage feast.

THE MEDICINAL PLANTS OF BRITAIN; SAGE, LAVENDER, MINT,
VALERIAN, ANGELICA, CAMOMILE, WORMWOOD, CENTAURY.
Nor hath the god of physic and of day
Forgot to shed kind influence on thy plants
Medicinal. Lo! from his beaming rays
Their various energies to every herb
Imparted flow. He the salubrious leaf
Of cordial sage, the purple-flowering head
Of fragrant lavender, enlivening mint,
Valerian's fetid smell, endows benign
With their cephalic virtues. He the root
Of broad angelica, and tufted flower
Of creeping camomile, impregnates deep
With powers carminative. In every brake
Wormwood and centaury their bitter juice,
To aid digestion's sickly powers, refine.

MEDICINAL QUALITIES OF BRITISH PLANTS; MARSH-MALLOWS, ERYNGO, HYPERICUM, LIQUORICE, POPPY, BAUM, SAFFRON, THISTLE, ROSE, VIOLET.

The smooth althæa1 its balsamic wave Indulgent pours. Eryngo's strengthening root Surrounds thy sea-girt isle, restorative, Fair Queen of Love, to thy enfeebled sons. Hypericum,2 beneath each sheltering bush, Its healing virtue modestly conceals. Thy friendly soil to liquorice imparts Its dulcet moisture, whence the laboring lungs Of panting asthma find a sure relief. The scarlet poppy, on thy painted fields, Bows his somniferous head, inviting soon To peaceful slumber the disordered mind: Lo! from the balm's exhilarating leaf, The moping fiend, black melancholy, flies; And burning febris, with its lenient flood, Cools her hot entrails; or embathes her limbs In sudorific streams, that cleansing flow From saffron's friendly spring. Thou too canst boast The blessed thistle, whose rejective power Relieves the loaded viscera; and to thee The rose, the violet, their emollient leaves On every bush, on every bank, display.

EULOGY OF BRITAIN, HER PRODUCTS AND LIBERTIES. These are thy products, fair Britannia, these The copious blessings, which thy envied sons, Divided and distinguished from the world, Secure and free, beneath just laws, enjoy, Nor dread the ravage of destructive war ; Nor black contagion's pestilential breath; [towns, Nor rending earth's convulsions, - fields, flocks, Swallowed abrupt, in ruin's frightful jaws; Nor worse, far worse than all, the iron hand Of lawless power, stretched o'er precarious wealth,Lands, liberty, and life, the wanton prey Of its enormous, unresisted gripe.

But further now in vegetation's paths, [crops, Through cultured fields, and woods, and waving The wearied muse forbears to wind her walk. To flocks and herds her future strains aspire, And let the listening hinds instructed hear The closing precepts of her labored song.

THE SHEPHERDS AND SHEEP OF BRITAIN; CARE OF SHEEP.

Lo! on the other side yon slanting hill, Beneath a spreading oak's broad foliage, sits The shepherd swain, and patient by his side His watchful dog; while round the nibbling flocks Spread their white fleeces o'er the verdant slope, A landscape pleasing to the painter's eye. Mark his maternal care. The tender race, Of heat impatient, as of pinching cold Afraid, he shelters from the rising sun, Beneath the mountain's western side; and when The evening beam shoots eastward, turning seeks The alternate umbrage. Now to the sweetest food Of fallowed fields he leads, and nightly folds, To enrich the exhausted soil: defending safe From murderous thieves, and from the prowling fox, Their helpless innocence.

DISEASES OF SHEEP; MANGE CURED WITH TOBACCO ; VERMIN CURED WITH LIME.

His skilful eye

Studious explores the latent ills which prey
Upon the bleating nation. The foul mange
Infectious, their impatient foot, by oft
Repeated scratchings, will betray. This calls
For his immediate aid, the spreading taint
To stop. Tobacco, in the briny wave
Infused, affords a wash of sovereign use
To heal the dire disease. The wriggling tail
Sure indication gives, that, bred beneath,
Devouring vermin lurk these, or with dust
Or deadened lime besprinkled thick, fall off
In smothered crowds.

THE MURRAIN IN SHEEP; ITS SYMPTOMS AND CURE. Diseases numerous Assault the harmless race: but the chief fiend, Which taints with rottenness their inward frame, And sweeps them from the plain in putrid heaps, A nuisance to the smell,- this, this demands

His watchful care. If he perceives the fleece
In patches lost; if the dejected eye
Looks pale and languid; if the rosy gums
Change to a yellow foulness; and the breath,
Panting and short, emits a sickly stench;
Warned by the fatal symptoms, he removes
To rising grounds and dry the tainted flock;
The best expedient to restore that health
Which the full pasture, or the low damp moor
Endangered. But if bare and barren hills,
Or dry and sandy plains, too far removed,
Deny their aid he speedily prepares

Rue's bitter juice, with brine and brimstone mixed,
A powerful remedy; which from an horn
Injected, stops the dangerous malady.

THE SHEEP WASHING AND SHEARING.

Refulgent Summer now his hot domain
Hath carried to the tropic, and begins
His backward journey. Now beneath the sun
Mellowing their fleeces for the impending shears,
The woolly people in full clothing sweat :
When the smooth current of a limpid brook
The shepherd seeks, and plunging in its waves
The frighted innocents, their whitening robes
In the clear stream grow pure. Emerging hence,
On littered straw the bleating flocks recline
Till glowing heat shall dry, and breathing dews
Perspiring soft, again through all the fleece
Diffuse their oily fatness. Then the swain

Prepares the elastic shears, and gently down
The patient creature lays; divesting soon
Its lightened limbs of their encumbering load.

BRITISH WOOL, THE ORIGIN OF BRITISH COMMERCE.

O more than mines of gold, than diamonds far More precious, more important is the fleece ! This, this the solid base on which the sons Of commerce build, exalted to the sky, The structure of their grandeur, wealth, and power. Hence in the earliest childhood of her state, Ere yet her merchants spread the British sail, To earth descending in a radiant cloud, Britannia seized the invaluable spoil. To ocean's verge exulting swift she flew ; There, on the bosom of the bounding wave, Raised on her pearly car, fair commerce rode Sublime, the goddess of the watery world, On every coast, in every clime adored. High waving in her hand the woolly prize, Britannia hailed and beckoned to her shore The power benign. Invited by the fleece, From whence her penetrating eyes foresaw What mighty honors to her name should rise, She beamed a gracious smile. The obedient winds, Reined by her hand, conducted to the beach Her sumptuous car. But more convenient place The muse shall find, to sing the friendly league, Which, here commenced, to time's remotest age Shall bear the glory of the British sail.

BEST TIME TO BREED SHEEP AT MICHAELMAS.

Cautious and fearful, some in early Spring Recruit their flocks; as when the wintry storms The tender frame hath proved. But he whose aim Ambitious should aspire to mend the breed, In fruitful autumn stocks the bleating field With buxom ewes, that, to their soft desires Indulgent, he may give the noblest rams. Yet not too early in the genial sport Invite the modest ewe; let Michael's feast Commemorate the deed; lest the cold hand Of Winter pinch too hard the new-yeaned lamb.

HOW TO CHOOSE A RAM; GOOD POINTS; FIGHT.

How nice, how delicate appears his choice,
When fixing on the sire to raise his flock!
His shape, his marks, how curious he surveys!
His body large and deep, his buttocks broad,
Give indication of internal strength;

Be short his leg, yet active; small his head ;
So shall Lucina's pains less pungent prove,
And less the hazard of the teeming ewe!
Long be his tail, and large his wool-grown ear;
Thick, shining, white, his fleece; his hazel eye
Large, bold, and cheerful; and his horns, if horns
You choose, not straight, but curving round and
round

On either side his head. These the sole arms
His inoffensive mildness bears; not made
For shedding blood, nor hostile war; yet these,
When love, all-powerful, swells his breast, and
Into his heart new courage, these he aims, [pours
With meditated fury, at his foe.

In glowing colors, here the tempted muse
Might paint the rushing conflict, when, provoked,
The rival rams, opposing front to front,
Spring forth with desperate madness to the fight:
But as deterred by the superior bard,
Whose steps, at awful distance, I revere,
Nor dare to tread; so by the thundering strife

Of his majestic fathers of the herd,

My feebler combatants appalled retreat.

MILCH COWS; MILKING.

At leisure now, O let me once again,
Once, ere I leave the cultivated fields,
My favorite Patty, in her dairy's pride,
Revisit; and the generous steeds which grace
The pastures of her swain, well pleased, survey.
The lowing kine, see, at their 'customed hour,
Wait the returning pail. The rosy maids,
Crouching beneath their sides, in copious streams
Exhaust the swelling udder. Vessels large
And broad, by the sweet hand of neatness cleaned,
Meanwhile, in decent order ranged, appear,
The milky treasure, strained through filtering lawn,
Intended to receive.

DAIRY WORK DESCRIBED; PATTY MAKING BUTTER.
At early day,
Sweet slumber shaken from her opening lids,
My lovely Patty to her dairy hies:

There from the surface of expanded bowls
She skims the floating cream, and to her churn
Commits the rich consistence; nor disdains,
Though soft her hand, though delicate her frame,
To urge the rural toil; fond to obtain
The country housewife's name and praise.
Continued agitation sep'rates soon

The unctuous particles; with gentler strokes,
And artful, soon they coalesce; at length,
Cool water pouring from the limpid spring
Into a smooth-glazed vessel, deep and wide,
She gathers the loose fragments to an heap;
Which in the cleansing wave well wrought, and
To one consistent golden mass, receives [pressed
The sprinkled seasoning, and of parts, or pounds,
The fair impression, the neat shape assumes.

CHEESE-MAKING.

Is cheese her care? Warm from the teat she The milky flood. An acid juice infused, [pours From the dried stomach drawn of suckling calf,' Coagulates the whole. Immediate now

Her spreading hands bear down the gathering curd,
Which hard and harder grows; till, clear and thin,
The green whey rises separate. Happy swains!
O, how I envy ye the luscious draught,
The soft salubrious beverage! To a vat,
The size and fashion which her taste approves,
She bears the snow-white heaps, her future cheese;
And the strong press establishes its form.

THE HAPPY HOUSEWIFE AND HER HUSBAND; CREAM; SYLLA-
BUBS; THYRSIS, THE HERDSMAN HIS FAMILY AND HOME.
But nicer cates, her dairy's boasted fare,
The jellied cream, or custard, daintiest food,
Or cheese-cake, or the cooling syllabub,
For Thyrsis she prepares; who from the field,
Returning, with the kiss of love sincere,
Salutes her rosy lip. A tender look,
Meantime, and cheerful smiles his welcome speak:
Down to their frugal board contentment sits,
And calls it feasting. Prattling infants dear
Engage their fond regard, and closer tie
The band of nuptial love. They, happy, feel
Each other's bliss, and, both in different spheres
Employed, nor seek nor wish that cheating charm,
Variety, which idlers to their aid

Call in, to make the length of lazy life
Drag on less heavily. Domestic cares,
Her children and her dairy, well divide
The appropriated hours, and duty makes
Employment pleasure. He, delighted, gives
Each busy season of the rolling year,

To raise, to feed, to improve the generous horse;
And fit for various use his strength or speed.

HORSE-BREEDING; THE LONDON DRAY-HORSE; CRUEL DRIVING
REPROVED; THE ROADSTER.

Dull, patient, heavy, of large limbs, robust,
Whom neither beauty marks, nor spirits fire:
Him, to the servile toil of dragging slow
The burdened carriage; or to drudge beneath

A ponderous load imposed, his justice dooms.
Yet, straining in the enormous cars which crowd
Thy bustling streets, Augusta, queen of trade,
What noble beasts are seen! sweating beneath
Their toil, they tremble at the driver's whip,
Urged with malicious fury on the parts
Where feeling lives most sensible of pain.
Fell tyrants, hold! forbear your hell-born rage!
See
ye not every sinew, every nerve,
Stretched e'en to bursting? Villains!-but the
Quick from the savage ruffians turns her eye, [muse
Frowning indignant. Steeds of hardier kind,
And cool though sprightly, to the travelled road
He destines; sure of foot, of steady pace,
Active, and persevering, uncompelled,
The tedious length of many a beaten mile.

VARIOUS BREEDS OF HORSES; THE HUNTER; THE CHASE.
But not alone to these inferior tribes
The ambitious swain confines his generous breed.
Hark! in his fields, when now the distant sounds
Of winding horns, and dogs, and huntmen's shout,
Awake the sense, his kindling hunter neighs;
Quick start his ears erect, his beating heart
Exults, his light limbs bound, he bears aloft,
Raised by tumultuous joy, his tossing head;
And all-impatient for the well-known sport,
Leaps the tall fence, and, listening to the cry,
Pursues with voluntary speed the chase.
See! o'er the plain he sweeps, nor hedge nor ditch
Obstructs his eager flight; nor straining hills,
Nor headlong steeps deter the vig'rous steed:
Till joined at length, associate of the sport,
He mingles with the train, stops as they stop,
Pursues as they pursue, and all the wild,
Enlivening raptures of the field enjoys.

THE RACE-HORSE AND RACE DESCRIBED.

Easy in motion, perfect in his form,
His boasted lineage drawn from steeds of blood,
He the fleet courser, too, exulting shows,
And points with pride his beauties. Neatly set
His lively head, and glowing in his eye
True spirit lives. His nostril wide inhales
With ease the ambient air. His body firm
And round; upright his joints; his horny hoofs
Small, shining, light; and large his ample reach.
His limbs, though slender, braced with sinewy
strength,

Declare his wingéd speed. His temper mild,
Yet high his mettled heart. Hence in the race
All emulous, he hears the clashing whips;
He feels the animating shouts; exerts
With eagerness his utmost powers; and strains.
And springs, and flies, to reach the destined goal.

THE CHARGER, OR WAR-HORSE, DESCRIBED.

But, lo! the boast, the glory of his stalls,
His warrior steed appears. What comely pride,
What dignity, what grace, attend on all
His motions! See! exulting in his strength,