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"Ruin seize thee, ruthless King!

Confusion on thy banners wait,

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Though fanned by Conquest's crimson Far, far aloof the affrighted ravens sail;

wing

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They mock the air with idle state.
Helm, nor hauberk's twisted mail,
Nor even thy virtues, Tyrant, shall avail
To save thy secret soul from nightly
fears,

From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's
tears!"

Such were the sounds, that o'er the crested pride

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The famished eagle screams, and passes by.
Dear lost companions of my tuneful art,
Dear, as the light that visits these sad

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Dear, as the ruddy drops that warm my heart,

Ye died amidst your dying country's cries

No more I weep. They do not sleep. On yonder cliffs, a griesly band,

Of the first Edward scattered wild dis- I see them sit, they linger yet,

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Avengers of their native land:
With me in dreadful harmony they join,
And weave with bloody hands the tissue of
thy line:-

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Shrieks of an agonising king! She-Wolf of France, with unrelenting fangs,

That tear'st the bowels of thy mangled mate,

From thee be born, who o'er thy country hangs

And through the kindred squadrons mow their way.

Ye Towers of Julius, London's lasting shame,

With many a foul and midnight murther fed,

Revere his consort's faith, his father's fame,

And spare the meek usurper's holy head.90
Above, below, the rose of snow,
Twined with her blushing foe, we spread:
The bristled Boar in infant-gore
Wallows beneath the thorny shade.

The scourge of Heaven. What terrors Now, brothers, bending o'er the accursed

round him wait!

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of which rolls a torrent, that sometimes tumbling among the fragments of stone that have fallen from on high, and sometimes precipitating itself down vast descents with a noise like thunder, which is still made greater by the echo from the mountains on each side, concurs to form one of the most solemn, the most roman60 tic, and the most astonishing scenes I ever beheld.

SKETCH OF HIS OWN CHARACTER

Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune;

He had not the method of making a fortune;

Could love, and could hate, so was thought somewhat odd;

No very great wit, he believed in a God. A place or a pension he did not desire, 5 But left church and state to Charles Townshend and Squire.

LETTERS

To MRS. DOROTHY GRAY

LYONS, October 13, 1739.

It is a fortnight since we set out from hence upon a little excursion to Geneva. We took the longest road, which lies through Savoy, on purpose to see a famous monastery, called the Grand Chartreuse, and had no reason to think our time lost. After having travelled seven days very slow (for we did not change horses, it being impossible for a chaise to go post in these roads) we [10 arrived at a little village, among the mountains of Savoy, called Echelles; from thence we proceeded on horses, who are used to the way, to the mountain of the Chartreuse. It is six miles to the top; the road runs winding up it, commonly not six feet broad; on one hand is the rock, with woods of pine-trees hanging overhead; on the other, a monstrous precipice, almost perpendicular, at the bottom [20

To MRS. DOROTHY GRAY

TURIN, November 7, 1739.

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I am this night arrived here, and have just set down to rest me after eight days' tiresome journey. For the first three we had the same road we before passed through to go to Geneva; the fourth we turned out of it, and for that day and the next travelled rather among than upon the Alps; the way commonly running through a deep valley by the side of the river Arve, which works itself a pas- [10 sage, with great difficulty and a mighty noise, among vast quantities of rocks, that have rolled down from the mountaintops. The winter was so far advanced as in great measure to spoil the beauty of the prospect; however, there was still somewhat fine remaining amidst the savageness and horror of the place: the sixth we began to go up several of these mountains; and as we were passing [20 one, met with an odd accident enough: Mr. Walpole had a little fat black spaniel, that he was very fond of, which he sometimes used to set down, and let it run by the chaise side. We were at that time in a very rough road, not two yards broad at most; on one side was a great wood of pines, and on the other a vast precipice; it was noonday, and the sun shone bright, when all of a sudden, from the wood- [30 side (which was as steep upwards as the other part was downwards), out rushed a great wolf, came close to the head of the horses, seized the dog by the throat, and rushed up the hill again with him in his mouth. This was done in less than a quarter of a minute; we all saw it, and yet the servants had not time to draw their pistols, or do anything to save the dog. If he had not been there, and [40 the creature had thought fit to lay hold

of one of the horses, chaise, and we, and all must inevitably have tumbled about fifty fathoms perpendicular down the precipice. The seventh we came to Lanebourg, the last town in Savoy; it lies at the foot of the famous Mount Cenis, which is so situated as to allow no room for any way but over the very top of it. Here the chaise was forced to be pulled to [50 pieces, and the baggage and that to be carried by mules. We ourselves were wrapped up in our furs, and seated upon a sort of matted chair without legs, which is carried upon poles in the manner of a bier, and so begun to ascend by the help of eight men. It was six miles to the top, where a plain opens itself about as many more in breadth, covered perpetually with very deep snow, and in the midst [60 of that a great lake of unfathomable depth, from whence a river takes its rise, and tumbles over monstrous rocks quite down the other side of the mountain. The descent is six miles more, but infinitely more steep than the going up; and, here the men perfectly fly down with you, stepping from stone to stone with incredible swiftness in places where none but they could go three paces without [70 falling. The immensity of the precipices, the roaring of the river and torrents that run into it, the huge crags covered with ice and snow, and the clouds below you and about you, are objects it is impossible to conceive without seeing them; and though we had heard many strange descriptions of the scene, none of them at all came up to it. ...

TO RICHARD WEST

TURIN, November 16, 1739. I have not, as yet, anywhere met with those grand and simple works of Art, that are to amaze one, and whose sight one is to be the better for: but those of Nature have astonished me beyond expression. In our little journey up to the Grande Chartreuse, I do not remember to have gone ten paces without an exclamation that there was no restraining. Not a precipice, not a torrent, not a cliff, [10 but is pregnant with religion and poetry. There are certain scenes that would awe an atheist into belief, without the help of

other argument. One need not have a very fantastic imagination to see spirits. there at noonday; you have Death perpetually before your eyes, only so far removed, as to compose the mind without frighting it. I am well persuaded St. Bruno was a man of no common genius, [20 to choose such a situation for his retirement; and perhaps should have been a disciple of his, had I been born in his time.

TO HORACE WALPOLE

CAMBRIDGE, February 11, 1751.

As you have brought me into a little sort of distress, you must assist me, I believe, to get out of it as well as I can. Yesterday I had the misfortune of receiving a letter from certain gentlemen (as their bookseller expresses it), who have taken the Magazine of Magazines into their hands. They tell me that an ingenious poem, called reflections in a Country Church-yard, has been com- [10 municated to them, which they are printing forthwith; that they are informed that the excellent author of it is I by name, and that they beg not only his indulgence, but the honor of his correspondence, etc. As I am not at all disposed to be either so indulgent, or so correspondent, as they desire, I have but one bad way left to escape the honor they would inflict upon me; and therefore am obliged to desire [20 you would make Dodsley print it immediately (which may be done in less than a week's time) from your copy, but without my name, in what form is most convenient to him, but on his best paper and character; he must correct the press himself, and print it without any interval between the stanzas, because the sense is in some places continued beyond them; and the title must be, Elegy, writ- [30 ten in a Country Church-yard. If he would add a line or two to say it came into his hands by accident, I should like it better. If you behold the Magazine of Magazines in the light that I do, you will not refuse to give yourself this trouble on my account, which you have taken of your own accord before now. If Dodsley do not do this immediately, he may as well let it alone.

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