As, where the lightning runs along the ground,
No husbandry can heal the blasting wound;
Nor bladed grass, nor bearded corn fucceeds,
But scales of scurf and putrefaction breeds :
Such wars, fuch waste, such fiery tracks of dearth
Their zeal has left, and fuch a teemless earth.
But, as the poisons of the deadliest kind
Are to their own unhappy coafts confin'd;
As only Indian shades of fight deprive,
And magic plants will but in Colchos thrive;
So prefbytery and pestilential zeal
Can only flourish in a commonweal.
From Celtic woods is chas'd the wolfish crew ;
But ah! fome pity e'en to brutes is due :
Their native walks methinks they might enjoy,
Curb'd of their native malice to destroy.
Of all the tyrannies on human-kind,
The worst is that which perfecutes the mind.
Let us but weigh at what offence we strike,
'Tis but because we cannot think alike.
In punishing of this, we overthrow
The laws of nations and of nature too,
Beasts are the subjects of tyrannic sway,
Where still the stronger on the weaker prey.
Man only of a softer mold is made,
Not for his fellow's ruin, but their aid;
Created kind, beneficent and free,
The noble image of the Deity.
One portion of informing fire was given
To brutes, th'inferior family of heaven:
The smith divine, as with a careless beat,
Struck out the mute creation at a heat:
But when arriv'd at last to human race,
The Godhead took a deep confidering space;
And to diftinguish man from all the rest,
Unlock'd the facred treasures of his breast;
And mercy mixt with reason did impart,
One to his head, the other to his heart:
Reason to rule, but mercy to forgive :
The first is law, the last prerogative.
And like his mind his outward form ap-
When, issuing naked, to the wondering herd, He charm'd their eyes; and, for they lov'd, they
Not arm'd with horns of arbitrary might,
Or claws to feize their furry spoils in fight,
Or with increase of feet t'o'ertake them in their
Of easy shape, and pliant every way;
Confeffing still the softness of his clay,
And kind as kings upon their coronation day :
With open hands, and with extended space
Of arms, to fatisfy a large embrace.
Thus kneaded up with milk, the new-made man
His kingdom o'er his kindred world began :
Till knowlege misapply'd, misunderstood,
And pride of empire four'd his balmy blood.
Then, first rebelling, his own stamp he coins;
The murderer Cain was latent in his loins:
And blood began its first and loudest cry,
For differing worship of the Deity.
Thus perfecution rose, and farther space
Produc'd the mighty hunter of his race.
Not so the blessed Pan his flock increas'd,
Content to fold them from the famish'd beast :
Mild were his laws; the sheep and harmless hind
Were never of the perfecuting kind.
Such pity now the pious pastor shows,
Such mercy from the British lion flows,
That both provide protection from their foes.
Oh happy regions, Italy and Spain,
Which never did those monsters entertain!
The wolf, the bear, the boar, can there advance
No native claim of just inheritance.
And felf-preferving laws, severe in show,
May guard their fences from th'invading foe.
Where birth has plac'd them, let them fafely share
The common benefit of vital air.
Themselves unharmful, let them live unharm'd;
Their jaws disabled, and their claws disarm'd:
Here, only in nocturnal howlings bold,
They dare not feize the Hind, nor leap the fold.
More powerful, and as vigilant as they,
The lion awfully forbids the prey.
Their rage reprefs'd, tho pinch'd with famine fore,
They stand aloof, and tremble at his roar :
Much is their hunger, but their fear is more.
These are the chief: to number o'er the rest,
And stand, like Adam, naming every beast,
Were weary work; nor will the muse defcribe
A flimy-born and fun-begotten tribe;
Who, far from steeples and their facred found,
In fields their fullen conventicles found.
These gross, half-animated, lumps I leave;
Nor can I think what thoughts they can conceive.
But if they think at all, 'tis sure no higher
Than matter, put in motion, may afpire :
Souls that can scarce ferment their mass of clay:
So droffy, fo divisible are they,
As would but ferve pure bodies for allay :
Such fouls as shards produce, fuch beetle things
As only buz to heaven with evening wings;
Strike in the dark, offending but by chance,
Such are the blindfold blows of ignorance.
They know not beings, and but hate a name;
To them the Hind and Panther are the fame.
The Panther sure the noblest, next the Hind,
And fairest creature of the spotted kind;
Oh, could her in-born stains be wash'd away,
She were too good to be a beast of prey !
How can I praise, or blame, and not offend,
Or how divide the frailty from the friend?
Her faults and virtues lie so mix'd, that she
Nor wholly stands condemn'd, nor wholly free.
Then, like her injur'd lion, let me speak;
He cannot bend her, and he would not break.
Unkind already, and estrang'd in part,
The wolf begins to share her wandring heart,
Tho unpolluted yet with actual ill,
She half commits who fins but in her will.
If, as our dreaming platonists report,
There could be spirits of a middle fort,
Too black for heaven, and yet too white for hell,
Who just dropt half way down, nor lower fell;
So pois'd, so gently she descends from high,
It seems a soft dismission from the sky.
Her house not ancient, whatsoe'er pretence
Her clergy heralds make in her defence.
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