When cracked, like Rupert's drop, it mocks controul,
Snap but the point, and you destroy the whole.

In such mild climes, if true to Freedom's cause,
The people's virtue will support the laws;
And Publick Spirit crush, with arm elate,

The fiend, who dares "to clog the wheels of state."

In France, whose motley breed extremes delight, Who grin like monkeys, or like tygers fight, Autun's meek priest, whose conscience knows no qualm, Except the cravings of an itching palm;

Who, born a miser, and a prelate reared,

His flock deserted, when their fleece was sheared.
The ancient patriots from their niches jostles,
And calls French pirates, Liberty's apostles!

This, though the bishop spoke it, is no brag,

For he's the Judas, and still bears the bag!

But, thanks to heaven, who propped our wavering state,

And saved its glory from Venetian fate,

This silk-worm knave in vain has wound his maze,

In vain his basilisk eye has fixed its gaze;

In vain the holy pimp his toils has spread,

And smoothed Delilah's lap for Sampson's head.

Led to the altar, by his wiles ensnared,

Columbia stood, for sacrifice prepared;

High flamed the pyre; her struggling arms were bound; The steel was lifted for the fatal wound;

When, like the angel, who, by God's command,

The filial off'ring saved from Abraham's hand,

Our guardian, Adams, robed in light divine,

Burst through the clouds which veiled the impious shrine;

The dagger seized, the felon chords released,

And snatched the victim from the apostate priest!

France stood aghast; the palsying wonder ran;
The five kings trembled in their dark divan!
Compelled new schemes of vengeance to devise,
They changed the lion's for the hyæna's cries.
No more their menanced wrath assailed our ears;
In sooth they seemed, "like Niobe, all tears!"

As some old Bawd, who all her life hath been
A fungus, sprouting from the filth of sin;
Whose dry trunk seasons in the frost of Vice,
Like radish, saved from rotting by the ice;
When threatening bailiffs first her conscience awe,
Not with the fear of shame, but fear of law,
Sets out at sixty, in contrition's search,
Rubs garlick on her eyes, and goes to church!

Thus Europe's courtezan, well versed in wiles,
Whose kisses poison, while the harlot smiles,
With pious sorrow hears our cannon roar,
And swears devoutly, that she'll sin no more!

Our rescued nation long will bless the day,
Which hailed their Adams cloathed in civick sway;
Which saw again our eagle's pinions reared,
His olive courted, and his arrows feared.

Long shall the fame of our illustrious Sage,

The peerless statesman of a peerless age,

With quenchless splendour beam through many a clime, And light the darkling avenues of Time.

His deeds, on Glory's marble page engraved,

Shall live coeval with the realm, he saved;

And when, in Heaven beloved, as honoured here,

He shines the regent of some brighter sphere,
Nations shall mark the epoch of his birth,
With festal gratitude, and sainted mirth;
And ages, yet unborn, with grateful breast,
Shall rise, and call the shade of Adams blest!

ADDRESS,

Delivered on the occasion of Master John H. Payne's first appearance on the Boston Stage, in the character of Young Norval.

FRIENDS of the mimick world! our scenes this night

An age of fame has sanctioned to delight!

Oft to their aid the Fabling Muse has come,

And called up Roscius, from his shroud at Rome!
We, loath to wake again the classick ghost,

A native Roscius on our boards can boast.

A shepherd boy, in Celtick fiction drest,
The fire of Nature struggling in his breast,
Forsook his cottage to atchieve a name,

And found a mother, where he sought for Fame!
Proud from her hand, the laurel he receives,

While tears of rapture glitter on its leaves !

This night, a brother champion will advance,
In Thespian tournament to break the lance!
He throws no gauntlet at a critick age,
Nor dares with wits a rude encounter wage;
Yet, like the Norval of a sterner clime,

He hopes a boy's ambition is no crime !

Like him, he dares aspire to earn a name,

Your heart, his mother, your applause, his fame!

Blest, if your eyes with beams of Pleasure burn;
And humbly proud, if they correct, to learn!

Thus, would he preface, with ingenuous tongue,
That manly worth, which should not pass unsung.
Though o'er his head Life's spring has scarcely smiled,
A classick actor cannot be a child!

The rays of Fancy youthful bosoms warm,
Learning and Life, maturer minds inform!
Yet here, in manhood's dawn, he dares to raise
The torch of Science, to the shrine of Praise !
By Genius fired, he yields to Passion's glow;
Nor rules by verse the prosody of woe!
The tear of feeling Art can ne'er supply;
The heart must moisten, e'er it melts the eye!

His caves of voice no measured thunders roll;
He speaks from nature, and he looks from soul!
In all the Drama's technick lore untaught,
He reads by sentiment, and moves by thought.
When love-lorn Pathos pours its melting moan,
Truth's fibre trembles at his touching tone!
When o'er the scene contending Passions fly,
He groups the shadows with a Poet's eye.
And when his brows the hero's plumes erect,
"The blood of Douglas, can itself protect;"

Through Fiction's range, he gives, with skill profound,
Genius to Grace, and eloquence to Sound!

The tragick code of artificial speech
Taste may reject, or discipline may teach;

But, as the eye the trackless ridge explores,

Genius o'erleaps the cliff, where Labour never soars!