Indignant stalk'd; sorrow and rage
Blank'd their pale cheeks; in his own age
The prop of Freedom, Hampden there
Felt after death the generous care;
Sidney, by grief, from heaven was kept,
And for his brother patriot wept:
All friends of Liberty, when Fate
Prepared to shorten Wilkes's date,
Heaved, deeply hurt, the heart-felt groan,
And knew that wound to be their own.
Hail, Liberty! a glorious word,

In other countries scarcely heard,
Or heard but as a thing of

course,

Without or energy or force:
Here felt, enjoy'd, adored, she springs,
Far, far beyond the reach of kings;

Fresh blooming from our mother Earth,
With pride and joy she owns her birth
Derived from us, and in return
Bids in our breasts her genius burn;

Bids us with all those blessings live
Which Liberty alone can give,

185

Or nobly with that spirit die

Which makes death more than victory.

Hail those old patriots, on whose tongue
Persuasion in the senate hung,

Whilst they the sacred cause maintain❜d!
Hail those old chiefs, to honour train'd,
Who spread, when other methods fail'd,
War's bloody banner, and prevail'd!

19

Shall men like these unmention'd sleep
Promiscuous with the common heap,
And (Gratitude forbid the crime!)
Be carried down the stream of time
In shoals, unnoticed and forgot,
On Lethe's stream, like flags, to rot?

No-they shall live, and each fair name,
Recorded in the book of Fame,

195

200

Founded on honour's basis, fast

As the round earth to ages last.

Some virtues vanish with our breath;

Virtue like this lives after death.

Old Time himself, his scythe thrown by,
Himself lost in eternity,

An everlasting crown shall twine

205

To make a Wilkes and Sidney join.

210

But should some slave-got villain dare

Chains for his country to prepare,
And, by his birth to slavery broke,
Make her, too, feel the galling yoke,

May he be evermore accurst,
Amongst bad men be rank'd the worst;
May he be still himself, and still

Go on in vice, and perfect ill;

May his broad crimes each day increase,
Till he can't live nor die in peace;
May he be plung'd so deep in shame,
That Satan mayn't endure his name,
And hear, scarce crawling on the earth,
His children curse him for their birth;

215

220

May Liberty, beyond the grave,

Ordain him to be still a slave,

Grant him what here he most requires,

And damn him with his own desires!

But should some villain, in support
And zeal for a despairing court,
Placing in craft his confidence,
And making honour a pretence
To do a deed of deepest shame,
Whilst filthy lucre is his aim;

Should such a wretch, with sword or knife
Contrive to practise 'gainst the life
Of one who, honour'd through the land,
For Freedom made a glorious stand,
Whose chief, perhaps his only, crime
Is, (if plain Truth at such a time
May dare her sentiments to tell)
That he his country loves too well:
May he-but words are all too weak
The feelings of my heart to speak-
May he-O for a noble curse

Which might his very marrow pierce-
The general contempt engage,
And be the Martin of his age.

225

230

235

240

245

THE DUELLIST.

BOOK II.

DEEP in the bosom of a wood,

Out of the road, a temple stood;
Ancient, and much the worse for wear,
It called aloud for quick repair,
And, tottering from side to side,
Menaced destruction far and wide,
Nor able seem'd, unless made stronger,
To hold out four or five years longer.
Four hundred pillars, from the ground
Rising in order, most unsound;
Some rotten to the heart, aloof,
Seemed to support the tottering roof,
But to inspection nearer laid,

Instead of giving, wanted aid.

The structure, rare and curious, made

By men most famous in their trade,
A work of years, admired by all,
Was suffer'd into dust to fall,

5

10

15

2 Churchill, according to the approved model of patriotic zeal, under this metaphorical picture of the ancient British Constitution, deplores the state of corruption and decay to which it was in his time reduced, and expatiates in glowing verse on its former benefits and blessings. This has with each succeeding generation been a favourite topic of declamation, though the perpetual recurrence of the same complaint, in the same comparative terms, demonstrates its fallacy.

Or, just to make it hang together,

And keep off the effects of weather,

Was patch'd and patch'd from time to time
By wretches, whom it were a crime,
A crime, which Art would treason hold
To mention with those names of old.

Builders, who had the pile survey'd,
And those not Flitcrofts in their trade,
Doubted (the wise hand in a doubt
Merely sometimes to hand her out)
Whether (like churches in a brief,
Taught wisely to obtain relief

26 Henry Flitcroft, an architect of some eminence, was in 1738 appointed comptroller and afterwards Master Mason to the Board of Works. He was one of the numerous school to which the genius of Sir Christopher Wren gave rise; but without possessing the invention or skill of the master, or the originality and daring of Vanbrugh, Hawksmore, or Archer, who were his contemporaries. He was contented to follow in the quiet stream of the school, without the boldness to think for himself or to choose for his prototypes the more elevated productions of the nobler periods of the art. Consequently, his church of St. Giles in the Fields, London, and of St. Olaves, Southwark, although they may not err against the elementary canons of the art, are alike deficient in originality, is in appropriate and impressive effect.

He died at Teddington, Middlesex, in 1769, and was buried in the church there.

29 The system of obtaining eleemosynary contributions by reading briefs in churches, chiefly for the repair and rebuilding of churches and colleges, and other public purposes, but occasionally for the relief of individuals suffering by fire, tempest, and other casualties, was abolished in the year 1828 by act of 9 Geo. IV. c. 42. When the practice commenced is uncertain, but probably in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; for in