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While all is calm, his arguments prevail;
The people's voice expands his paper-fail;
Till power, discharging all her stormy bags,
Flutters the feeble pamphlet into rags.

The nation fear'd, the author doom'd to death,
Who fondly put his truft in popular breath.
A larger facrifice in vain you vow ;

There's not a power above will help you now:
A nation thus, who oft' Heaven's call neglects,
In vain from injur'd Heaven relief expects.

"Twill not avail, when thy ftrong fides are broke,
That thy descent is from the British oak;
Or, when your name and family you boast,
From fleets triumphant o'er the Gallic coaft,
Such was Ierne's claim, as juft as thine,
Her fons defcended from the British line;
Her matchless fons, whofe valour still remains
On French records for twenty long campaigns:
Yet, from an emprefs now a captive grown,
She fav'd Britannia's rights, and loft her own.
In fhips decay'd no mariner confides,
Lur'd by the gilded ftern and painted fides:
Yet at a ball unthinking fools delight
In the gay trappings of a birth-day night:
They on the gold brocades and fattins rav'd,
And quite forgot their country was enflav'd.
Dear veffel, still be to thy fteerage just,
Nor change thy course with every sudden guft;
Like fupple patriots of the modern fort,
Who turn with every gale that blows from court.
Weary and fea-fick when in thee confin'd,
Now for thy fafety cares distract my mind;

As

As those who long have ftood the ftorms of state,
Retire, yet ftill bemoan their country's fate.
Beware, and when you hear the furges roar,
Avoid the rocks on Britain's angry shore.
They lie, alas! too eafy to be found;
For thee alone they lie the island round.

VERSES ON THE SUDDEN DRYING-UP OF

ST. PATRICK'S-WELL,

NEAR TRINITY-COLLEGE, DUBLIN, 1726.

Y holy zeal infpir'd, and led by fame,

BY

To thee, once favourite ifle, with joy I came; What time the Goth, the Vandal, and the Hun, Had my own native Italy* o'er-run.

Ierne, to the world's remoteft parts,

Renown'd for valour, policy, and arts.

Hither from Colchos †, with the fleecy ore,
Jason arriv'd two thousand years before.
Thee, happy island, Pallas call'd her own,
When haughty Britain was a land unknown ‡:

• Italy was not properly the native place of St. Patrick, but the place of his education, and where he received his miffion; and because he had his new birth there, hence, by poetical licence, and by fcripture-figure, our author calls that country his native Italy.

+ Orpheus, or the ancient author of the Greek poem on the Argonautic expedition, whoever he be, fays, that Jafon, who manned the ship Argos at Theffaly, failed to Ireland.

Tacitus, in the life of Julius Agricola, fays, that the harbours of Ireland, on account of their commerce, were better known to the world than thofe of Britain.

From thee, with pride, the Caledonians trace
The glorious founder of their kingly race:
Thy martial fons, whom now they dare despise,
Did once their land fubdue and civilize :

Their dress, their language, and the Scottish name,
Confefs the foil from whence the victors came.
Well may they boast that ancient blood, which runs
Within their veins, who are thy younger fons,
A conqueft and a colony from thee:

The mother-kingdom left her children free;
From thee no mark of flavery they felt :
Not so with thee thy base invaders dealt;
Invited here to vengeful Morrough's aid*,
Those whom they could not conquer, they betray'd.
Britain, by thee we fell, ungrateful ifle!
Not by thy valour, but fuperior guile :
Britain, with fhame, confefs this land of mine
First taught thee human knowledge and divine t;
My prelates and my ftudents, fent from hence,
Made your fons converts both to God and fenfe :
Not like the pastors of thy ravenous breed,
Who come to fleece the flocks, and not to feed.

In the reign of Henry II., Dermot M'Morrough, king of Leinfter, being deprived of his kingdom by Roderick O'Connor, king of Connaught, he invited the English over as auxiliaries, and promifed Richard Strongbow earl of Pembroke his daughter and all his dominions as a portion. By this affiitance, M'Morrough recovered his crown, and Strongbow became poffeffed of all Leinster.

+ St. Patrick arrived in Ireland in the year 431, and completed the converfion of the natives, which had been begun by Palladius and others And, as bifhop Nicholfon obferves, Ireland foon became the fountain of learning, to which all the Western Christians, as well as the English, had recourse, not only for inftructions in the principles of religion, but in all forts of literature, viz, Legendi et Scholaftica eruditionis gratia.

Wretched

Wretched Ierne! with what grief I fee
The fatal changes Time has 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*
Nor dread the adder's tooth, nor fcorpion's fting.
With omens oft' I ftrove to warn thy fwains,
Omens, the types of thy impending chains,
I sent the magpie 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 else are those thou seest in bishop's geer,
Who the nurseries of learning here;

crop

Afpiring, greedy, full of fenfelefs prate,
Devour the church, and chatter to the state?
As you grew more degenerate and bafe,
I fent you millions of the croaking race;
Emblems of infects vile, who spread 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!
See, where that new-devouring vermin runs,
Sent in my anger from the land of Huns!

There are no frakes, vipers, or toads, in Ireland; and even frogs were not known here until about the year 1700. The magpies came a fhort time before; and the Norway rats fince.

With

With harpy-claws it undermines the ground, And fudden spreads 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 smoothly flows, And bleffings equally on all bestows.

Here, from the neighbouring nursery of arts,
The students, drinking, rais'd their wit and parts;
Here, for an age and more, improv'd their vein,
Their Phœbus I, my spring 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 sweat 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 Swiss,

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 still with tyrants in fucceffion curst,
The laft invaders trampling on the firft:
Nor fondly hope for fome reverse of fate,
Virtue herself would now return too late.
Not half thy course of mifery is run,
Thy greatest evils yet are scarce begun.
Soon fhall thy fons (the time is just at hand)
Be all made captives in their native land;

The university of Dublin, called Trinity College, was founded

by queen Elizabeth in 1591.

When,

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