1.3 The monstrous triumph soothes Go, to the couch of sleep, And when the nightly darkness hovers round, A voice, a searching voice, Shall strike in thunder on thy inmost heart; Hark! whence those harrowing groans? The cold dew fearful starts- And he that sprinkled Jaffa's tow'rs with gore, That shook chill poisons from th' insidious bowl, Or have the furies arm'd With icy mail that breast impregnable? Then rise, the trumpets clang résounds to arms, GR BEN Grunde And now thy whithing sails gonokory Embrace the winds; and now thy backward glance Views the receding shore! the harbouring strand 11 To which is no return! And dar'st thou arrogant Hope to return? He lives whose val'rous arm * Drove back thy chosen myriads from the breach, my. He lives, whose thunders shook +Th' ensanguin'd base of Egypt's arid shores, Nor sleep the dreadless band, Who, mindful of their brave forefathers name, The fall'n Invincible! At St. Jean d'Acre. + Explosion of the L'Orient, Those Those whom thine eyes behold In opposite array, are Father's, Sons, Brethren, and Freemen! Patriots! Warriors tried! And Servants of their God! Come, thou Blasphemer! come, Plant thy firm foot upon the Christian isle! REFLECTIONS On the English and French NATIONAL CHARACTER; principally extracted from the Writings of the late Right Hon. EDMUND BURKE, FOUR hundred years have gone over us; but I believe we are not materially changed since that period. Thanks to our sullen resistance to innovation, thanks to the cold sluggishness of our national character, we still bear the stamp of our forefathers. We have not (as I conceive) lost the generosity and dignity of thinking of the fourteenth century; nor as yet have we subtilized ourselves into savages. We are not the converts of Rousseau, we are not the disciples of Voltaire; Helvetius has made no progress amongst us. Atheists, are not our preachers; madmen are not our lawgivers. We know that we have made no discoveries; and we think that no discoveries are to be made in morality; nor many in the great principles of government, nor in the ideas of liberty, which were understood long before we were born.-In England we have not yet been completely embowel ed of our natural entrails; we still feel within us, and we cherish and cultivate those inbred sentiments which are the faithful guardians, the active monitors of duty, the true supporters of all liberal and manly morals. We have not been drawn and trussed, in order that we may be filled, like stuffed birds in a Museum.-We preserve the whole of our feelings still native and entire, unsoWe have real hearts of flesh and blood phisticated by pedantry and infidelity. beating in our bosoms. We fear God! we look up with awe to kings; with affection to parliaments; with duty to magistrates with reverence to our church; and with respect to nobility. Because when such ideas are brought before our minds, it is natural to be affected: because all other feelings are false and spurious, and tend to corrupt our minds, to vitiate our primary morals, to render us unfit for rational liberty; and by teaching us a servile, licentious and abandoned insolence, to be our low sport for a few holidays, to make us perfectly fit for, and justly deserving of slavery, through the whole course of our lives. We e are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason; because we suspect that this stock in each man is small, and that the individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations, and of ages.-This may be called prejudice: but prejudice is of ready application in the emergency; it previously engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue, and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision, sceptical, puzzled, and unresolved. Prejudice renders renders a man's virtue his habit; and not a series of unconnected acts.-The example of France may be brought as a signal instance of the fatal effects of an unwise departure from these general principles; what has she obtained by the extravagant and presumptuous speculations which have taught her leaders to despise all their predecessors, and all their cotemporaries, and even to despise themselves, until the mom in which they became truly despicable. By following those false lights, France has bought undisguised calamities at a higher rate than any nation has purchased the most unequivocal Blessings !-France has bought Poverty by Crime! France has not sacrificed her virtue to her interest; but she has abandoned her interest, that she might prostitute her virtue!, France, by the perfidy of her leaders, has utterly disgraced the tone of lenient council in the cabinets of Princes, and disarmed it of its most potent topics. She has sanctified the dark suspicious maxims of tyrannous distrust; and taught Kings to tremble at (what will hereafter be called) the delusive plausibilities of moral politicians.-This alone, (if there were nothing else) is an irreparable calamity to you and to mankind. Remember that your Parliament' of Paris told your King, that in calling the Estates together, he had nothing to fear but the prodigal excess of their zeal in providing for the support of the throne. It is right that these men should hide their heads. It is right that they should bear their part in the ruin which their cause has brought on their Sovereign and their Country.They have seen the French rebel against a mild and lawful Monarch, with more fary, outrage, and insul, than ever any people have been known to use against the MOST ILLEGAL USURPER, or the MOST SANGUINARY TYRANT! Their resistance was made to conces sion! Their revolt was from protection! Their blow was aimed at a hand holding out Graces! Favours! and Immunities!!! They have found their punishment in their success. Laws overturned! Tribunals subverted! Industry, without vigour! Commerce expiring! The revenue impaired, yet the people impove rished! A Church pillaged, and a Statenot relieved! Civil and military anarchy made the constitution of the kingdom! Every thing human and divine sacrificed to the idol of public credit, and national bankruptcy the consequence! The paper securities of impoverished fraud, and beggared rapine, held out as a currency for the support of an Empire! An Empire of extensive power, but whose energies are prostituted at the beck of A STRANGE uncouth THING! a theatrical figure of the Opera! his head shaded with tri-coloured plumes his body fantastically habited---strutting from behind the scenes; and after a short speech, in the mock heroic of stupid tragedy, ordering his satellites to kindle up the flames of war between nations! I stand astonished at those powers who do not feel a resentment, not more natural than politic, at the ATROCIOUS INSULTS that this MONSTROUS COMPOUND offers to the dignity of evèry nation, and who are not alarmed with, what it threatens to their safety ! The punishment of REAL TYRANTS is a noble and awful act of justice; and it has with truth been said to be con solatory to the human mind. B. THE THE TUB OF DIOGENES. and injustice; but to convince you that will never be secure from him, until hes the property and liberty of mankinda "-meets with some effectual opposition. E First, then, Athenians! be firmly persuaded of this, that Philip is con really violated the peace; that he has the most implacable enmity to this whole city; to the ground on which this city stands; to the very Gods of this city; (may their vengeance fall upon him!) but, against OUR CONSTITUTION is his force principally directed; the destruction of this is, of all ́ other things, the most immediate object of his secret schemes and machinations. And there is, in some sort, a necessity that it should be so. Consider, He IT is the duty of every one at this momentous crisis, not only, not to be idle, but to be active and on the alert. When the King of Macedonia designed to attack Corinth, all the inhabitantsmitting hostilities against us, and has worked laboriously upon the fortifications of the town. Diogenes seeing this, and being, according to Lucien, unwilling to be the only one that should be idle, began very busily to roll about his tub. If I can do no better (for you well know how very old I am!) let me in these stirring times be allowed at least to roll my tub, and with its rumbling to excite the spirits of the land against these shameless French; never, perhaps, so shameless as now, but always shameless, as we learn, even “in the oldest time." From Boethius, says Warton, in his Hist. Poet. the French had the remnant of Richard de Lisle, in which Modesty fighting with Lust is thrown into the river Seine, at Paris; which gives occasion to this conclusion: -Dont vien que plus n'y a HONTE dans Paris. What will at present proceed from my tub is a further selection from the Grecian Orator, whose admonitory Joice being too much neglected, the daring invader, by a subtle scheme, gained a passage into Attica, and the liberties of Greece were lost for ever! tit AIMS AT UNIVERSAL POWER; and you he regards as the only persons to dispute his pretensions. He has long injured you; and of this he himself is that he entertains designs against you, fully conscious. He is then sensible and that you perceive them; and as he thinks highly of your wisdom, he judges you hold him in the abhorrence he deserves. To these things (and these of such importance) add, that he is perfectly convinced, that although he were master of all other places, yet i is impossible for him to be secure, while your popular Government subsists; but that if any accident should happen tʊ him (and every man is subject to many) all those who now submit to force, would seize the opportunity, and fly to you for protection; for you are not naturally disposed to grasp at power, or to usurp dominion; but to prevent usurpation, to wrest their unjust acquisitions from the hands of others; to curb the violence of ambition, and to preserve the liberty of mankind, is your peculiar excellence. * Bonaparte's. "And They who have lived with him assure us, that his ambition is so insatiable, that he will have the glory of every exploit ascribed wholly to himself; and is much more incensed against such Commanders as have performed any thing worthy of honour, than against those whose misconduct has ruined his enterprises. But, if this be the case, how is it that they have persevered so long in their attachment to his cause? It is for this reason, Athenians! because success throws a shade on all his odious qualities; (for nothing veils men's faults from observation so effectually as success;) but let any accident happen, and they will all be perfectly dis covered." There is no medium! Nor is your danger the same with that of other states. Philip's design is not to enslave, but to extirpate Athens. He knows that a state like yours, accustomed to command, will not, or, if it were inclined, CANNOT SUBMIT TO SLAVERY; he knows, that, if you have an opportunity, you can give him more disturbance than any other people; and, therefore, IF EVER HE CONQUERS US, WE MAY BE SURE OF FINDING NO DEGREE OF MERCY. British Press. ADVICE SUGGESTED BY THE STATE OF THE TIMĖS, By WILLIAM WILBERFORCE, Esq. Member of Parliament for the County, of York. IT has been maintained, and will not‹ › be disputed by any sound or experi enced politician, that they who really deserve the appellation of TRUE CHRISTIANS are always most important mem bers of the community. But we may boldly assert, that there never was a period wherein, more justly than in the present, this could be affirmed of them, whether the situation, in all its circumstances, of our own country be atten tively considered, or the general state of society in Europe. Let them on their part seriously weigh the important sta+ tion which they fill, and the various duties which it now peculiarly enforces › on them. If we consult the most in telligent accounts of foreign countries, which have been recently published, and compare them with the reports of former travellers, we must be cons? vinced, that Religion and the standards of morals are every where declining, abroad even more rapidly than in ouro own country. But still, the progress of irreligion, and the decay of morals at home, is such as to alarm every con- i siderate mind, and to forebode the worst consequences, unless some remedy can. be applied to the growing evil. We can depeud only upon true Christians for effecting, in any degree, this im portant service. Zeal is required in the cause of Religion; they only can feel it. The charge of singularity must be incurred; they only will dare to encounter it. Uniformity of conduct, i and perseverance in exertion, will be requisite; among no others can we look for those qualities. |