And fungous fruits of earth, regales the fenfe
With luxury of unexpected fweets.

There often wanders one, whom better days Saw better clad, in cloak of fattin trimm'd With lace, and hat with fplendid ribband bound. A ferving-maid was fhe, and fell in love

With one who left her, went to fea and died.

Her fancy followed him through foaming waves
To distant fhores, and fhe would fit and weep
At what a failor fuffers; fancy too

Delusive moft where warmeft wishes are,
Would oft anticipate his glad return,
And dream of transports she was not to know.
She heard the doleful tidings of his death,
And never fmil'd again. And now the roams
The dreary wafte; there fpends the livelong day,
And there, unless when charity forbids,

The livelong night. A tatter'd apron hides,
Worn as a cloak, and hardly hides a gown

More

More tatter'd ftill; and both but ill conceal
A bofom heaved with never-ceafing fighs.
She begs an idle pin of all the meets,

And hoards them in her fleeve; but needful food,
Though prefs'd with hunger oft, or comelier cloaths,
Though pinch'd with cold, afks never. Kate is craz'd.

I fee a column of flow-rising smoke O'ertop the lofty wood that skirts the wild. A vagabond and useless tribe there eat Their miferable meal. A kettle flung Between two poles upon a stick transverse, Receives the morfel; flesh obfcene of dog, Or vermin, or at beft, of cock purloin'd From his accuftom'd perch. Hard-faring race! They pick their fuel out of ev'ry hedge, Which kindled with dry leaves, juft faves unquench'd The fpark of life. The sportive wind blows wide Their flutt'ring rags, and fhows a tawny skin, The vellum of the pedigree they claim.

Great

1

Great skill have they in palmistry, and more
To conjure clean away the gold they touch,
Conveying worthlefs drofs into its place.
Loud when they beg, dumb only when they fteal.
Strange! that a creature rational, and caft

In human mould, fhould brutalize by choice
His nature, and though capable of arts
By which the world might profit and himself,
Self-banish'd from fociety, prefer

Such fqualid floth to honorable toil.

Yet even thefe, though feigning fickness oft
They swathe the forehead, drag the limping limb
And vex their flesh with artificial fores,

Can change their whine into a mirthful note

When fafe occafion offers, and with dance

And mufic of the bladder and the bag
Beguile their woes and make the woods refound.
Such health and gaiety of heart enjoy

The houseless rovers of the fylvan world;

And breathing wholefume air, and wand'ring much,

Need

Need other phyfic none to heal th' effects
Of loathsome diet, penury, and cold.

Bleft he, though undistinguish'd from the crowd By wealth or dignity, who dwells fecure Where man, by nature fierce, has laid afide His fierceness, having learnt, though flow to learn, The manners and the arts of civil life. His wants, indeed, are many; but fupply Is obvious; placed within the easy reach Of temp'rate wishes and industrious hands. Here virtue thrives as in her proper foil; Not rude and furly, and befet with thorns, And terrible to fight, as when the fprings, (If e'er fhe spring spontaneous) in remote And barb'rous climes, where violence prevails, And strength is lord of all; but gentle, kind, By culture tam'd, by liberty refresh'd, And all her fruits by radiant truth matur'd. War and the chace engrofs the favage whole,

War

War follow'd for revenge, or to fupplant
The envied tenants of fome happier spot,
The chace for fuftenance, precarious trust!
His hard condition with fevere constraint
Binds all his faculties, forbids all growth
Of wisdom, proves a school in which he learns
Sly circumvention, unrelenting hate,
Mean felf-attachment, and fcarce aught befide.
Thus fare the shiv'ring natives of the north,
And thus the rangers of the western world
Where it advances far into the deep,

Ev'n the favor'd ifles

Towards th' Antarctic.
So lately found, although the constant fun
Cheer all their feasons with a grateful fmile,
Can boast but little virtue; and inert

Through plenty, lofe in morals, what they gain
In manners, victims of luxurious eafe.

These therefore I can pity, placed remote
From all that science traces, art invents,
Or inspiration teaches; and inclosed