Now having faith implicit that he can't err,
Hoping his hopes, alarm'd with his alarms;
And now believing him a sly inchanter,

Yet still afraid to break his brittle charms,

Lest some mad Devil suddenly unhamp'ring,
Slap-dash the imp should fly off with the steeple,
On revolutionary broom-stick scampering.-
O ye soft-headed and soft-hearted people,

If you can stay so long from slumber free,

My muse shall make an effort to salute 'e:

For lo! a very dainty simile

Flash'd sudden through my brain, and 'twill just suit 'e!

You know that water-fowl that cries, Quack! quack!? Full often have I seen a waggish crew

Fasten the Bird of Wisdom on it's back,

The ivy-haunting bird, that cries, Tu-whoo!

Both plunged together in the deep mill-stream, (Mill-stream, or farm-yard pond, or mountain-lake,) Shrill, as a Church and Constitution scream,

TU-WHOO! quoth BROAD-FACE, and down dives the

Drake!

The green-neck'd Drake once more pops up to view,
Stares round, cries Quack! and makes an angry pother;
Then shriller screams the bird with eye-lids blue,
The broad-faced bird! and deeper dives the other.
Ye quacking Statesmen! 'tis even so with you—
One peasecod is not liker to another.

Even so on Loyalty's Decoy-pond, each

Pops up his head, as fir'd with British blood, Hears once again the Ministerial screech,

And once more seeks the bottom's blackest mud!

1794.

{

Fire, Famine, and Slaughter.

A WAR-ECLOGUE.

WITH

AN APOLOGETIC PREFACE.

ME DOLOR INCANTUM, ME LUBRICA DUXERIT ETAS,
ME TUMOR IMPULERIT, ME DEVIUS EGERIT ARDOR:
TE TAMEN HAUD DECUIT PARIBUS CONCURRERE TELIS.
EN ADSUM: RENIAM, CONFESSUS CRIMINA, POSCO.

CLAUD. Epist. ad Had.

THERE IS ONE THAT SLIPPETH IN HIS SPEECH, BUT NOT

FROM HIS HEART; AND WHO IS HE THAT HATH NOT OFFENDED

WITH HIS TONGUE?

Ecclesiasticus, xix. 16.

1