The idle merchant on the useless

quay, Droops o'er the bales no bark may bear away; Or back returning sees rejected stores

Rot piecemeal on his own encumber'd shores:
The starv'd mechanic breaks his rusting loom,
And desperate mans him 'gainst the common doom.
Then in the senate of your sinking state,
Shew me the man whose counsels may have weight.
Vain is each voice whose tones could once command;
E'en factions cease to charm a factious land;
While jarring sects convulse a sister isle,

And light with maddening hands the mutual pile.

<<'T is done, 't is 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 her 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 decorates 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 ye yet know but 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 Heav'n and earth is life for life,
And she who raised in vain regrets the strife. >>

NOTES TO THE CURSE OF MINERVA.

Note 1, page 80, line 4.

That closed their murder'd sage's latest day!

Socrates drank the hemlock a short time before sun-set (the hour of execution), notwithstanding the entreaties of his disciples to wait till the sun went down.

Note 2, page 80, line 16.

The queen of night asserts her silent reign, etc.

The twilight in Greece is much shorter than in our country; the days in winter are longer, but in summer of less duration.

Note 3, page 80, line 26.

The gleaming turret of the gay kiosk, etc.

The kiosk is a Turkish summer-house; the palm is without the present walls of Athens, not far from the temple of Theseus, between which and the tree the wall intervenes. Cephisus' stream is indeed scanty, and Ilissus has no stream at all.

Note 4, page 82, line 19.

These Cecrops placed,—this Pericles adorned

This is spoken of the city in general, and not of the Acropolis in particular the temple of Jupiter Olympius, by some supposed the

Pantheon, was finished by Hadrian: sixteen columns are standing of the most beautiful marble and style of architecture.

Note 5, page 82, line 24.

The insulted wall sustains his hated name.

It is related, by a late oriental traveller, that when the wholesale spoliator visited Athens, he caused his own name, with that of his wife, to be inscribed on a pillar of one of the principal temples. This inscription was executed in a very conspicuous manner, and deeply engraved in the marble, at a very considerable elevation. Notwithstanding which precautions, some person, (doubtless inspired by the patron-goddess) has been at the pains to get himself raised up to the requisite height, and has obliterated the name of the laird, but left that of the lady untouched. The traveller in question accompanied this story by a remark, that it must have cost some labour and contrivance to get at the place, and could only have been effected by much zeal and determination.

Note 6, page 83, line 10.

When Venus half avenged Minerva's shame.»

His lordship's name and that of one who no longer bears it, are carved conspicuously on the Parthenon above; in a part not far distant are the torn remnants of the basso-relievos, destroyed in a vain attempt to remove them.

The plaster wall on the west side of the temple of Minerva Polias bears the following inscription, cut in very deep characters:

Quod non fecerunt Goti

Hoc fecerunt Scoti.

HOBHOUSE'S Travels in Greece, etc. p. 345.

Note 8, page 83,

line 19.

And well I know within that bastard land, etc.

Irish bastards according to Sir Callaghan O'Brallaghan.