Who, foes to power despotic, dare defy
The King of Kings, that bugbear of the sky;
Dreading for present crimes no future rod,
Self-praise your worship, vanity your God;
Oh how my eyes with tears ecstatic fill,
What new felt transports through my bosom thrill,
When I behold you with gigantic blow
The pigmy pride of Royalty lay low,
With pikes and guns this moral dogma teach→
Virtue consists in nudity of breech!
Soon shall we view no more the glittering things
"Bestarr'd, begarter'd, and befool'd by kings;"
The pretty twinklers that so sweetly shone,
And deem'd their lovely lustre all their own!
No more the despot view, whose mighty nods
Shook nature, and proclaim'd him God of Gods;
Drunk with applause who rais'd his rolling eyes,
And seem'd, whene'er he mov'd, to tread the skies!
Despis'd, detested, all shall wing their flight,
And sink, no more to rise, in endless night!
Arm'd with a bristled end and glittering awl,
Behold a minor Monarch in his stall!
No circling gold his royal brow surrounds,
A yard of room his sphere of action bounds;
His sole ambition and his prime pursuit,
With skill a shoe to patch, to stitch a boot!
Nor deem his fate severe! The time may come
When many a pious King in Christendom,
Dash'd from his throne, and made dame Fortune's fool,
Shall envy little Capet's cobbling stool!
Mark with the Peer and Prince the canting priest, Forbidden on his country's fat to feast,
"It is a law of human nature, the less of ecclesiastical in Auence, the less of deadly animosity among men."---“ It is rea
While peace looks down sweet smiling on the swains,
And untax'd Plenty crowns the fruitful plains!
No more that lazy lubbard shall we pay,
With phiz so farcical to preach and pray;
No more behold that harpy of the land
Lay on our largest sheaves his greedy hand;
With Bigotry's black banner wide unfurl'd,
Fright into gothic ignorance the world:
But truth and light shall come, with hostile rage,
"To drive the holy Vandal off the stage."
See tythes expire, and ancient slavery fail;
Proud Superstition turn her vanquish'd tail;
No zealous Minister the Church befriend,
But all her sorceries with the Beldame end:
sonable to presume that the majority of French Priests in England partake of the spirit of their brethren; and to a large portion of the popish priesthood, Christianity is believed, upon good grounds, to be as much foolishness as it was to the Greeks. Their faith in the advantages of the immense emoluments which those Reverend Robbers, their predecessors, had extorted from superstitious Barbarians, never suffered any abatement; hence probably that conduct to which their sufferings are to be imputed."-"Through all the calumny that has been vomited forth against the French, the most injured and most enlightened people upon earth, it is easy to discern some advantages which the nation owes to Liberty-Tythes, the accursed relic of Popery, have been abolished.-France is purged not only from Ecclesiastical Drones, which consumed the sweetest honey of the hive, but also from the monstrous debauchery of the richer, and the beggarly insolence of the poorer Noblesse."-Dr. Beddoes's admirable Reasons for believing the Friends of Liberty in France not to be the Authors and Abettors of the crimes committed in that country; humbly addressed to those who from time to time constitute themselves Judges and Jury upon affairs public and private, and, without admitting any testimony but the gross lies of Beldame Rumour, damn their neighbours individually, and the rest of the world by the lump; the celebrated hand-bill circulated in Shropshire, which eventually occasioned his resignation of the Chemical Chair in the University of Oxford.
Lo! Babylon is fallen! That mystic
That sink of wickedness, is now no more!
Great Babylon is fallen!, Shout, shout, ye meads!
And, oh! ye corn-fields, wave your happy heads!
Ye lovely lambkins, strain your feeble voice,
And with your dams in loudest Baas rejoice!
Calves, join your notes to swell the gladdening sound!
Cows, let your lowings from the skies rebound!
Prolific ducks, quack mid the mighty noise!
Hens, more prolific, cackle out your joys!
And ye, oh! swine, lift up your little eyes,
With rapture riot round your rotten styes!
Stretch your triumphant throats, and strive to make
The frighten'd welkin with your gruntings shake!
Written in a LADY'S POCKET-Book, 1761.
WHILST hour to hour and day succeeds to day,
And weeks, and months, and longer years decay;
May'st thou, my favourite, and my friend, employ
Each hour in happiness, each day in joy!
May weeks, and months, and years those joys increase
With health, (best blessing) and domestic peace!
Whilst here thy actions mark'd on every page
Shall teach employment to a future age.
Here every page shall amiably declare
Thy mind, thy manners, like thy person fair.
On the Death of Lieutenant Colonel Buller, killed in Flanders in 1795.
WRITTEN BY MR. SHERIDAN, AT THE REQUEST OF HIS PRESENT LADY.
SCARCE hush'd the sigh, scarce dried the ling'ring tear,
Affection pour'd upon a brother's bier *;
Another loss bids Laura's sorrows flow,
As keen in anguish as a sister's woe.
Unknown to me the object of her grief
I dare not counsel, did she ask relief;
Yet may the wish no vain intrusion prove,
To share her grief, for all who shar'd her love.
Yes, gallant victim! in this hateful strife,
Which pride maintains 'gainst man's and freedom's life,
If quick and sensible to Laura's worth,
Thy heart's first comment was affection's birth;
If thy soul's day rose only in her sight,
And absence was thy clouded spirit's night,
If 'mid whatever busy tumults thrown
Thy silent thoughts still turn'd to her alone;
If, while ambition seem'd each art to move,
Thy secret hope was Laura, peace, and love;
If such thy feelings, and thy dying prayer,
To wish that happiness thou could'st not share;
Let me with kindred claim thy name revere,
And give thy memory a brother's tear!
* Mrs. Sheridan had just lost a brother.
But, ah! not tears alone fill Laura's eyes,
Resentment kindles with affliction's sighs;
Insulted patience borrows passion's breath,
To curse the plotters of these scenes of death!
Yet sooth'd to peace, sweet mourner, tranquil be,
And every harsh emotion leave to me!
Remembrance, sad and soft regret be thine,
The wrath of hate, the blow of vengeance mine.
And oh, by Heav'n! that hour shall surely come,
When, fell destroyers! ye shall meet your doom!
Yes, miscreant statesmen! by the proud disdain
Which honour feels at base corruption's reign,
By the loud clamours of a nation's woes,
By the still pang domestic sorrow knows,
By all that hope has lost or terror fears;
By England's injuries, and Laura's tears;
The hour shall come, when, fraud's short triumphs past,
A people's vengeance shall strike home at last!
Then, then shall fell remorse, the dastard fiend,
Who ne'er pollutes the noble soldier's end,
And dark despair around the scaffold wait,
And not one look deplore the traitor's fate!
But while remembrance shakes his coward frame,
And starts of pride contend with inward shame;
The mute reproach, or execration loud,
Of sober justice, or the scoffing crowd,
Alike shall hail the blow that seals his doom,
And gives to infamy his memory and his tomb.
Turn from the hateful scene, dear Laura, turn,
And thy lov'd friend with milder sorrow mourn!
Still dwell upon his fate; for still thou'lt find
The contrast lovely, and 'twill soothe thy mind!
Fall'n with the brave, ere number'd with the slain-
His mind unwounded calms his body's pain!
Half rais'd he leans. See Friendship bending o'er,
Her sigh suppress'd, as to his view she bore
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