Britain, by thee we fell, ungrateful ifle !
Not by thy valour, but fuperior guile :
Britain, with fhame, confess this land of, mine
First taught thee human knowledge and divine *;
My prelates and my students, fent from hence,
Made your
fons converts both to God and fenfe :
Not like the paftors of thy ravenous breed,
Who come to fleece the flocks, and not to feed.
Wretched Ierne! with what grief I fee
The fatal changes Time hath made in thee !
The Chriftian rites I introduc'd in vain :
Lo! infidelity return'd again !
Freedom and virtue in thy fons I found,
Who now in vice and flavery are drown'd.
By faith and prayer, this crofier in my hand,
I drove the venom'd ferpent from thy land;
The fhepherd in his bower might fleep or fing t,
Nor dread the adder's tooth, nor fcorpion's fting.
*St. Patrick arrived in Ireland in the year 431, and compleated the converfion of the natives, which had been begun by Palladius and others. And, as bifhop Nicholson obferves, Ireland foon became the fountain of learning, to which all the Western Christians, as well as the English, had recourfe, not only for inftructions in the principles of religion, but in all forts of literature, viz. Legendi et Scholafticæ eruditionis gratia. IRISH ED.
+ There are no fnakes, vipers, or toads, in Freland; and even frogs were not known here until about the year 1700. The magpyes came a fhort time before; and the Norway rats fince, IRISH Ed.
With omens oft' I ftrove to warn thy swains,
Omens, the types of thy impending chains.
I fent the magpye from the British foil,
With restless beak thy blooming fruit to spoil;.
To din thine ears with unharmonious clack,
And haunt thy holy walls in white and black..
What elfe are thofe thou feest in bishops' geer,.
Who crop
the nurseries of learning here;
Afpiring, greedy, full of senseless prate,
Devour the church, and chatter to the state?
As you grew more degenerate and base,
I fent you millions of the croaking race;
Emblems of infects vile, who fpread their spawn.
Through all thy land, in armour, fur, and lawn;
A naufeous brood, that fills your fenate walls,.
And in the chambers of your viceroy crawls !
Sec, where that new-devouring vermin runs,
Sent in my anger from the land of Huns!
With harpy-claws it undermines the ground,.
And sudden fpreads a numerous offspring round.
Th' amphibious tyrant, with his ravenous band,
Drains all thy lakes of fish, of fruits thy land.
Where is the holy well that bore my name?
Fled to the fountain back, from whence it came!
Fair Freedom's emblem once, which fmoothly flows
And bleffings equally on all beftows.
Here, from the neighbouring nursery of arts,
The students, drinking, rais'd their wit and parts;
* The university of Dublin, called Trinity College,, was founded by queen. Elizabeth in 1591... IRISH ED.
Here, for an age and more, improv'd their vein,
Their Phoebus I, my fpring their Hippocrene.
Difcourag'd youths! now all their hopes must fail,
Condemn'd to country cottages and ale;
To foreign prelates make a flavish court,
And by their fweat procure a mean support;
Or, for the clafficks, read "Th' Attorney's Guide ;”
Collect excife, or wait upon the tide.
Oh! had I been apoftle to the Swifs,
Or hardy Scot, or any land but this;
Combin'd in arms, they had their foes defied,
And kept their liberty, or bravely died.
Thou ftill with tyrants in fucceffion curst,
The last invaders trampling on the first :
Nor fondly hope for fome reverse of fate,
Virtue herself would now return too late.
Not half thy courfe of mifery is run,
Thy greatest evils yet are scarce begun.
Soon fhall thy fons (the time is jutt at hand)
Be all made captives in their native land;
When, for the use of no Hibernian born,
Shall rife one blade of grafs, one ear of corn;
When fhells and leather shall for money pass,
Nor thy oppreffing lords afford thee brass *.
But all turn leafers to that + mongrel breed,
Who, from thee sprung, yet on thy vitals feed;
* Wood's ruinous project in 1724. IRISH ED.
+ The abfentees, who spent the income of their Irish eftates, places, and penfions, in England. IRISH ED.
Who to yon ravenous isle thy treasures bear,
And waste in luxury thy harvests there;
For pride and ignorance a proverb grown,
The jeft of wits, and to the court unknown.
I fcorn thy fpurious and degenerate line,
And from this hour my patronage resign.
ON READING DR. YOUNG'S SATIRES
F there be truth in what you fing,
Such god-like virtues in the king;
A minifter fo fill'd with zeal
And wisdom for the common-weal:
If he + who in the chair prefides
So fteadily the fenate guides:
If others, whom you make your theme,
Are feconds in the glorious scheme:
If every peer, whom you commend,
To worth and learning be a friend:
If this be truth, as you attest,
What land was ever half fo bleft?
*Sir Robert Walpole, afterwards earl of Orford.
+ Sir Spencer Compton, then fpeaker, afterwards earl of Wilmington.
No falfehood now among the great,
And tradesmen now no longer cheat;
Now on the bench fair Justice shines ;
Her scale to neither fide inclines :
Now Pride and Cruelty are flown,
And Mercy here exalts her throne :
For fuch is good-example's power,
It does its office every hour,
Where governors are good and wife;
Or else the trueft maxim lyes :
For fo we find all ancient fages
Decree, that, ad exemplum regis,
Through all the realm his virtues run,
Ripening-and kindling like the fun.
If this be true, then how much more
When you have nam'd at least a score
Of courtiers, each in their degree,
If poffible, as good as he?
Or take it in a different view.
I ask (if what you fay be true)
If you
Deserves your fatire's keeneft-r
t-raget:
affirm the prefent age
If that fame univerfal paffion
With every vice hath fill'd the nation :
If virtue dares not venture down
A fingle step beneath the crown:
If clergymen, to fhew their wit,
Praife clafficks more than holy writ:
If bankrupts, when they are undone,
Into the fenate-house can run,
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