Nature's great ancestor! Day's elder-born! And fated to survive the transient sun! By mortals and immortals seen with awe. A starry crown thy raven brow adorns ; An azure zone thy waist; clouds, in heaven's loom Thy flowing mantle form, and, heaven throughout, Thy gloomy grandeurs-Nature's most august, And, like a sable curtain starr'd with gold, Drawn o'er my labours past, shall clothe the scene. Young. PARTIAL JUSTICE. THER 'HERE is a village (no matter where) in which the inhabitants, on one day in the year, sit down to a dinner prepared at the common expense by an extraordinary piece of tyranny, (which Lord Hawkesbury would call the wisdom of the village ancestors,) the inhabitants of three of the streets, about a hundred years ago, seized upon the inhabitants of the fourth street, bound them hand and foot, laid them upon their backs, and compelled them to look on while the rest were stuffing themselves with beef and beer: the next year, the inhabitants of the persecuted street (though they contributed an equal quota of the expense) were treated precisely in the same manner. The tyranny grew into a custom; and (as the manner of our nature is) it was considered as the most sacred of all duties to keep these poor fellows without their annual dinner: the village was so tenacious of this practice, that nothing could induce them to resign it; every enemy to it was looked upon as a disbeliever in Divine Providence, and any nefarious churchwarden who wished to succeed in his election, had nothing to do but to represent his antagonist as an aboli tionist, in order to frustrate his ambition, endanger his life, and throw the village into a state of the most dreadful commotion. By degrees, however, the obnoxious street grew to be so well peopled, and its inhabitants so firmly united, that their oppressors, more afraid of injustice, were more disposed to be just. At the next dinner they are unbound, the year after allowed to sit upright, then a bit of bread and a glass of water; till at last, after a long series of concessions, they are emboldened to ask, in pretty plain terms, that they may be allowed to sit down at the bottom of the table, and to fill their bellies as well as the rest. Forthwith a general cry of shame and scandal. "Ten years ago, were you not laid upon your backs? Don't you remember what a great thing you thought it to get a piece of bread? How thankful you were for cheese-parings? Have you forgotten that memorable era, when the lord of the manor interfered to obtain for you a slice of the public pudding? And now, with an audacity only equalled by your ingratitude, you have the impudence to ask for knives and forks, and to request, in terms too plain to be mistaken, that you may sit down to table with the rest, and be indulged even with beef and beer there are not more than half-a-dozen dishes which we have reserved for ourselves: the rest has been thrown open to you in the utmost profusion; you have potatoes and carrots, suet dumplings, sops in the pan, and delicious toast and water, in incredible quantities. Beef, mutton, lamb, pork, and veal are ours; and if you were not the most restless and dissatisfied of human beings, you would never think of aspiring to enjoy them." Is not this, my dainty Abraham, the very nonsense, and the very insult which is talked to and practised upon the Catholics? You are surprised that men who have tasted of partial justice should ask for perfect justice; that he who has been robbed of coat and cloak will not be contented with the restitution of one of his garments. He would be a very lazy blockhead if he were content; and I (who, though an inhabitant of the village, have preserved, thank God, some sense of justice) most earnestly counsel these half-fed claimants to persevere in their just demands till they are admitted to a more complete share of a dinner for which they pay as much as the others; and if they see a little attenuated lawyer squabbling at the head of their opponents, let them desire him to empty his pockets, and to pull out all the pieces of duck, fowl, and pudding which he has filched from the public feast, to carry home to his wife and children. SONG OF SELMA. FRATH, son of Odgal, repined; his brother had been slain by Armar. He came disguised like a son of the sea; fair was his skiff on the wave; white his locks of age; calm his serious brow. Fairest of women, he said, loveliest daughter of Armin! a rock not distant in the sea bears a tree on its side; red shines the fruit afar! There Armar waits for Daura. I come to carry his love! She went, she called on Armar. Nought answered, but the son of the rock, Armar, my love! why tormentest thou me with fear hear, son of Arnart, hear; it is Daura, who calleth thee! Erath the traitor fled laughing to the land. She lifted up her voice; she called for her brother and her father. Arindal! Armin! none to relieve your Daura ! Her voice came over the sea. Arindal my son descended from the hill; rough in spoils of the chase. His arrows rattled by his side; his bow was in his hand; five dark gray dogs attend his steps. He saw fierce Erath on the shore; he seized and bound him to an oak. Thick wind the thongs of the hide around his limbs; he loads the wind with his groans. Arindal ascends the deep in his boat, to bring Daura to land. Armar came in his wrath, and let fly the gray-feathered shaft. It sunk, it sunk in thy heart, O Arindal my son; for Erath the traitor thou diedst. The oar is stopped at once; he panted on the rock and expired. What is thy grief, O Daura, when round thy feet is poured thy brother's blood! The boat is broken in twain. Armar plunges into the sea, to rescue his Daura, or die. Sudden a blast from the hill came over the waves. He sunk, and he rose no more. Alone, on the sea-beat rock, my daughter was heard to complain. All night I heard her cries, loud was the wind, the rain beat hard on the hill. Before morning appeared, her voice was weak. It died away, like the evening breeze among the grass of the rocks. Spent with grief she expired; and left thee Armin alone. Often by the setting moon I see the ghosts of my children. Half viewless they walk in mournful conference together. Will none of you speak in pity? They do not regard their father. I am sad, O Carmor, nor small is my cause of woe! Ossian. And over the hill, and over the dale, He walk'd, and over the plain; And backwards and forwards he switch'd his long tail, And pray how was the Devil drest? Oh! he was in his Sunday's best; His coat was red, and his breeches were blue, With a hole behind, where his tail came through. |