faces

Might strike them as more full of

reason,

But all your common people gorgons! Of course, if any knave but hinted

That the King's nose was turned awry, Or that the Queen (God save us!) squinted

The judges doomed that knave to die.

But rarely things like this occurred; The people to their King were duteous,

And took it, on his royal word,

That they were frights and he was beauteous.

The cause whereof, among all classes, Was simply this :-These island elves Had never yet seen looking-glasses,

And therefore did not know themselves.

More fresh than those in certain placesBut, Lord! the very thought was treason!

Besides, howe'er we love our neighbour, And take his face's part, 'tis known We never half so earnest labour,

As when the face attacked's our own.

So on they went-the crowd believing (As crowds well governed always do); Their rulers, too, themselves deceiving

So old the joke they thought it true.

But jokes, we know, if they too far go, Must have an end; and so, one day, Upon that coast there was a cargo

Of looking-glasses cast away. 'Twas said some Radicals, somewhere,

Had laid their wicked heads together, And forced that ship to founder thereWhile some believe it was the weather. However this might be, the freight

Was landed without fees or duties; And from that hour historians date The downfall of the race of beauties.

The looking-glasses got about,

And grew so common through the land, That scarce a tinker could walk out

Without a mirror in his hand.

Comparing faces, morning, noon,
And night, their constant occupa-
tion-

By dint of looking-glasses, soon
They grew a most reflecting nation.
In vain the Court, aware of errors
In all the old established mazards,
Prohibited the use of mirrors,

And tried to break them at all hazards: In vain their laws might just as well

Have been waste paper on the shelves; That fatal freight had broke the spell; People had looked-and knew them. selves.

When the fleet youths, in long array, Passed the bright torch triumphant

on.

I saw the expectant nations stand,

To catch the coming flame in turn;I saw, from ready hand to hand,

The clear, though struggling, glory burn.

And oh, their joy, as it came ncar,

'Twas in itself a joy to see;— While Fancy whispered in my ear,

That torch they pass is Liberty!' And each, as she received the flame, Lighted her altar with its ray; Then, smiling to the next who came, Speeded it on its sparkling way. From Albion first, whose ancient shrine Was furnished with the fire already, Columbia caught the boon divine, And lit a flame, like Albion's, steady. The splendid gift then Gallia took, The brand aloft, its sparkles shook, And, like a wild Bacchante, raising As she would set the world a-blazing! And when she fired her altar high,

It flashed into the reddening air So fierce, that Albion, who stood nigh, Shrunk, almost blinded by the glare! Next, Spain, so new was light to her. Leaped at the torch-but, ere the spark

That fell upon her shrine could stir, 'Twas quenched-and all again was dark.

Yet, no--not quenched-a treasure, worth

So much to mortals, rarely dies: Again her living light looked forth,

And shone, a beacon, in all eyes.

Who next received the flame? alas,

Unworthy Naples-shame of shames, That ever through such hands should pass

That brightest of all earthly flames! Scarce had her fingers touched the torch, When, frighted by the sparks it shed, Nor waiting even to feel the scorch, She dropped it to the earth-and fled.

If, as in some few royal cases,
Small minds are born into such places-
If they are there by right Divine,
Or any such sufficient reason,

Sir Robert Filmer says—and he,

Of course, knew all about the matterBoth men and beasts love monarchy;' Which proves how rational — the latter.

Sidney, indeed, we know, had quite
A different notion from the knight;
Nay, hints a King may lose his head

By slipping awkwardly his bridle :
But this is Jacobin, ill-bred,
And (now-a-days, when Kings are led
In patent snaffles) downright idle.

No, no-it isn't foolish Kings (Those fixed, inevitable thingsBores paramount, by right of birth) That move my wrath, but your pretenders,

Your mushroom rulers, sons of earth, Who, not like t'others, crowned offenders

(Regular gratia Dei blockheads,
Born with three kingdoms in their
pockets),

Nor leaving, on the scale of mind,
These royal Zeros far behind,
Yet, with a brass that nothing stops,

Push up into the loftiest stations, And, though too dull to manage shops, Presume, the dolts, to manage nations!

This class it is that moves my gall,
And stirs up spleen, and bile, and all.
While other senseless things appear
To know the limits of their sphere-
While not a cow on earth romances
So much as to conceit she dances-
While the most jumping Frog we
know of,

Would scarce at Astley's hope to show off

Yours and ―s dare,

Pigmy as are their minds, to set them To any business, any where,

At any time that fools will let them. But leave we here these upstart things

pine!

To wish it otherwise were treason;

To whom, and to their right-line glory, I dedicate the following story:

He saw a brisk blue-bottle Fly on an altar,1

Made much of, and worshipped as something divine; While a large handsome Bullock, led there in an halter,

Before it lay stabbed at the foot of the shrine.

Surprised at such doings, he whispered his teacher

'If 'tisn't impertinent, may I ask why Should a Bullock, that useful and powerful creature,

Be thus offered up to a blue-bottle fly?

'No wonder,' said t'other, 'you stare at the sight,

But we as a symbol of monarchy view

it:

That Fly on the shrine is Legitimate Right,

And that Bullock the people that's sacrificed to it.'

FABLE V.

CHURCH AND STATE.

Proem.

"The moment any religion becomes national, because it is then impossible to keep it uncon or established, its purity must certainly be lost, nected with men's interests; and, if connected, it must evidently be perverted by them.'-Soame Jenyns.

THUS did Soame Jenyns- though a Tory,

A Lord of Trade and the Plantations-

Feel how Religion's simple glory

Is stained by State associations. When Catherine, after murdering Poles, Appealed to the benign Divinity, Made fractions of their very souls2Then cut them up in protocols,

All in the name of the blessed Trinity; Or when her grandson, Alexander, That mighty northern salamander Whose icy touch, felt all about, Puts every fire of Freedom outWhen he, too, winds up his Ukases With God and the Panagia's praises When he, of royal saints the type,

In holy water dips the sponge, With which, at one imperial wipe, He would all human rights expunge! When (whom, as King and eater, Some name and some

3

Calls down 'Saint Louis' God' to -)4

witness

The right, humanity, and fitness
Of sending eighty thousand Solons-

Sages with muskets and laced coatsTo cram instruction, nolens volens,

Down the poor struggling Spaniards' throats

4 An allusion to a play on the sound of words made at the time in France, by which Louis dix-huit (18th) was called des huitres (of the oysters), in ridicule of his taste for the pleasures of the table.