When, lo! a giant form before me strode,
And Pallas hail'd me in her own abode!

Yes, 'twas Minerva's self; but, ah, how changed

Since o'er the Dardan field in arms she ranged!
Not such as erst, by her divine command,
Her form appear'd from Phidias' plastic hand:
Gone were the terrors of her awful brow,
Her idle ægis bore no Gorgon now;
Her helm was dinted, and the broken lance
Seem'd weak and shaftless e'en to mortal glance;
The olive branch, which still she deign'd to clasp,
Shrunk from her touch, and wither'd in her
grasp;

And, ah, though still the brightest of the sky, Celestial tears bedimm'd her large blue eye; Round the rent casque her owlet circled slow, And mourn'd his mistress with a shriek of woe! "Mortal!"-'twas thus she spake—" that blush of shame

Proclaims thee Briton, once a noble name:
First of the mighty, foremost of the free,
Now honour'd less by all, and least by me:
Chief of thy foes shall Pallas still be found.
Seek'st thou the cause of loathing?-look around,
Lo! here, despite of war and wasting fire,
I saw successive tyrannies expire.

'Scaped from the ravage of the Turk and Goth, Thy country sends a spoiler worse than both. Survey this vacant, violated fane;

Recount the relics torn that yet remain :
These Cecrops placed, this Pericles adorn'd,
That Adrian rear'd when drooping Science

mourn'd.

What more I owe, let gratitude attest-
Know Alaric and Elgin did the rest.

That all may learn from whence the plunderer came,

The insulted wall sustains his hated name:
For Elgin's fame thus grateful Pallas pleads,
Below, his name-above, behold his deeds!
Be ever hail'd with equal honour here
The Gothic monarch and the Pictish peer:
Arms gave the first his right, the last had none,
But basely stole what less barbarians won.
So when the lion quits his fell repast,
Next prowls the wolf, the filthy jackal last:
Flesh, limbs, and blood the former make their
own,

The last poor brute securely gnaws the bone. Yet still the gods are just, and crimes are cross'd:

See here what Elgin won, and what he lost! Another name with his pollutes my shrine: Behold where Dian's beams disdain to shine! Some retribution still might Pallas.claim, When Venus half avenged Minerva's shame."

She ceased awhile, and thus I dared reply, To soothe the vengeance kindling in her eye: "Daughter of Jove! in Britain's injured name, A true-born Briton may the deed disclaim. Frown not on England; England owns him not: Athena, no! thy plunderer was a Scot. Ask'st thou the difference? From fair Phyle's

towers

Survey Boeotia ;-Caledonia's ours.

And well I know within that bastard land*

"Irish bastards," according to Sir Callaghan O'Bralaghan.

Hath Wisdom's goddess never held command;
A barren soil, where Nature's germs, confined
To stern sterility, can stint the mind;
Whose thistle well betrays the niggard earth,
Each genial influence nurtured to resist ;
Emblem of all to whom the land gives birth;
A land of meanness, sophistry, and mist.
Each breeze from foggy mount and marshy plain
Dilutes with drivel every drizzly brain,
Till, burst at length, each watery head o'erflows,
Then thousand schemes of petulance and pride
Foul as their soil, and frigid as their snows.
Despatch her scheming children far and wide:
Some east, some west: some everywhere but
north,

In quest of lawless gain, they issue forth.
And thus-accursèd be the day and year!--
She sent a Pict to play the felon here.
Yet Caledonia claims some native worth,
As dull Boeotia gave a Pindar birth.
So may her few, the letter'd and the brave,
Bound to no clime, and victors of the grave,
Shake off the sordid dust of such a land,
And shine like children of a happier strand;
As once of yore in some obnoxious place,
Ten names (if found) had saved a wretched race."
"Mortal!" the blue-eyed maid resumed,
"once more

Bear back my mandate to thy native shore.

Though fallen, alas, this vengeance yet is mine, To turn my counsels far from lands like thine. Hear then in silence Pallas' stern behest ;

Hear and believe, for Time will tell the rest.

"First on the head of him who did this deed My curse shall light, on him and all his seed; Without one spark of intellectual fire, Be all the sons as senseless as the sire; If one with wit the parent brood disgrace, Believe him bastard of a brighter race: Still with his hireling artists let him prate, And Folly's praise repay for Wisdom's hate; Long of their patron's gusto let them tell, Whose noblest, native gusto is-to sell: To sell, and make-may shame record the day!

The state receiver of his pilfer'd prey. Meantime, the flattering, feeble dotard, West, Europe's worst dauber, and poor Britain's best, With palsied hand shall turn each model o'er, And own himself an infant of fourscore.

Be all the bruisers cull'd from all St Giles', That art and nature may compare their styles; While brawny brutes in stupid wonder stare, And marvel at his Lordship's 'stone shop' there. Round the throng'd gates shall sauntering cox

combs creep,

To lounge and lucubrate, to prate and peep;
While many a languid maid, with longing sigh,
On giant statues casts the curious eye;
The room with transient glance appears to skim,
Yet marks the mighty back and length of limb;
Mourns o'er the difference of now and then;
Exclaims, These Greeks indeed were proper
men!'

Draws sly comparisons of these and those,

And envies Laïs all her Attic beaux.

When shall a modern maid have swains like these?

Alas, Sir Harry is no Hercules!

And last of all amidst the gaping crew,

Some calm spectator, as he takes his view,
In silent indignation mix'd with grief,
Admires the plunder, but abhors the thief.
Oh, loath'd in life, nor pardon'd in the dust,
May hate pursue his sacrilegious lust!
Link'd with the fool that fired the Ephesian
dome,

Shall vengeance follow far beyond the tomb,
And Eratostratos* and Elgin shine

In many a branding page and burning line;
Alike reserved for aye to stand accursed,
Perchance the second blacker than the first.

"So let him stand through ages yet unborn,
Fix'd statue on the pedestal of scorn;
Though not for him alone revenge shall wait,
But fits thy country for her coming fate.
Hers were the deeds that taught her lawless son
To do what oft Britannia's self had done.
Look to the Baltic-blazing from afar,
Your old ally yet mourns perfidious war.
Not to such deeds did Pallas lend her aid,
Or break the compact which herself had made:
Far from such councils, from the faithless field
She fled, but left behind her Gorgon shield;
A fatal gift, that turn'd your friends to stone,
And left lost Albion hated and alone.

"Look to the east, where Ganges' swarthy race Shall shake your tyrant empire to its base; Lo! there Rebellion rears her ghastly head, And glares the Nemesis of native dead; Till Indus rolls a deep purpureal flood, And claims his long arrear of northern blood. So may ye perish!-Pallas, when she gave Your freeborn rights, forbade ye to enslave.

"Look on your Spain !-she clasps the hand she hates,

But boldly clasps, and thrusts you from her gates.

Bear witness, bright Barossa! thou canst tell Whose were the sons that bravely fought and

fell.

But Lusitania, kind and dear ally,

Can spare a few to fight, and sometimes fly. Oh, glorious field! by Famine fiercely won, The Gaul retires for once, and all is done! But when did Pallas teach, that one retreat Retrieved three long Olympiads of defeat! "Look last at home-you love not to look there,

On the grim smile of comfortless despair: Your city saddens : loud though Revel howls, Here famine faints, and yonder rapine prowls.

See all alike, of more or less bereft ;

No misers tremble when there's nothing left.
Biest paper credit,' who shall dare to sing?
It clogs like lead Corruption's weary wing.
Yet Pallas pluck'd each premier by the ear,
Who gods and men alike disdain'd to hear;
But one, repentant o'er a bankrupt state,
On Pallas calls,-but calls, alas, too late:
Then raves for . . . to that mentor bends,

* Eratostratos, who, in order to make his name remembered, set fire to the Temple of Diana at Ephesus.

Blest paper credit! last and best supply,
That lends Corruption lighter wings to fly."
РОРЕ.

Though he and Pallas never yet were friends.
Him senates hear, whom never yet they heard
Contemptuous once, and now no less absurd.
So, once of yore, each reasonable frog
Swore faith and fealty to his sovereign 'log.'
Thus hail'd your rulers their patrician clod,
As Egypt chose an onion for a god.

"Now fare ye well! enjoy your little hour; Go, grasp the shadow of your vanish'd Gloss o'er the failure of each fondest scheme; Your strength a name, your bloated wealth a dream.

weight.

Vain is each voice where tones could once command;

E'en factions cease to charm a factious land:
Yet jarring sects convulse a sister isle,
And light with maddening hands the mutual pile.

""Tis done, tis past, since Pallas warns in vain; The Furies seize her abdicated reign: Wide o'er the realm they wave their kindling brands,

And wring her vitals with their fiery hands.
But one convulsive struggle still remains,
And Gaul shall weep ere Albion wear the chains.
The banner'd pomp of war, the glittering files,
O'er whose gay trappings stern Bellona smiles;
The brazen trump, the spirit-stirring drum,
That bid the foe defiance ere they come ;
The hero bounding at his country's call,
The glorious death that consecrates his fall,
Swell the young heart with visionary charms,
And bid it antedate the joys of arms.
But know, a lesson you may yet be taught,
With death alone are laurels cheaply bought:
Not in the conflict Havoc seeks delight,
His day of mercy is the day of fight.
But when the field is fought, the battle won,
Though drench'd with gore, his woes are but
begun:

His deeper deeds as yet ye know by name ;

The slaughter'd peasant and the ravish'd dame,
The rifled mansion and the foe-reap'd field,
Ill suit with souls at home, untaught to yield.
Say with what eye along the distant down
Would flying burghers mark the blazing town?
How view the column of ascending flames
Shake his red shadow o'er the startled Thames.
Nay, frown not, Albion ! for the torch was thine
That lit such pyres from Tagus to the Rhine:
Now should they burst on thy devoted coast,
Go, ask thy bosom who deserves them most.
The law of heaven and earth is life for life,
And she who raised, in vain regrets, the strife."

*The Deal and Dover traffickers in specie.