But here fhall Fancy heave the pensive sigh,

And moral drops shall gather in her eye;

As 'mid her day-dreams distant ages rise,
Glowing with nature's many-colour'd dies :
Refound the rattling car, th' innumerous feet,
And all the tumult of the breathing street;

The murmur of the busy, idle throng;

The flow of converse, and the charm of fong 4 :—

Starting fhe wakes, and weeps as naught she sees

Save tracklefs marshes and entangled trees :

As naught she hears, fave where the deathful brake

Ruftling betrays the terrors of the snake;

Save, of the casual traveller afraid,

Where the owl screaming seeks a dunner shade;

4 Sir BROOK BOOTHBY in his Answer to BURKE, speaking of the reflections that will suggest themselves upon the view of Versailles in its prefent condition, has the following fine paffage: "The filence "will be disturbed by founds, that are no longer heard; and the "folitude peopled by the brilliant forms, that shall no longer glide "over its polifhed floors."

Save where, as o'er th' unsteadfast fen fhe roves,
The hollow bittern shakes th' encircling groves.

Hear then, proud Rome, and tremble at thy fate! The hour will come, nor diftant is its date (If right was caught the prophet's mystic strain, Which aw-ftruck Patmos echoed o'er the main) The hour, which holy arts in vain would stay, That prone on earth thy gorgeous fpires shall lay; And, with their vain magnificence, destroy

Thy long illufion of imperial joy.

And thou, Augufta, hear " in this thy day;" For once, like thee, loft BABYLON was gay: With thee wealth's taint has feiz'd the vital part, As once with her, and gangrenes at the heart. Profufion, Avarice, flying hand in hand,

Scatter prolific poisons o'er the land;

The teeming land with noxious life grows warm,

And reptile mischiefs on its surface swarm :

Like hers, or deaf or faithless to the vow

Of honeft paffion are thy daughters now:

With well-feign'd flame th' obedient maidens wed,

If wealth or birth adorn the venal bed 5;

5-"I understand that in this island of Great Britain, at the time "I am now writing, BIRTH is the first virtue and MONEY the "fecond: Some indeed may difpute the precedence; but all will "allow that one or both are fine quâ nons, without which virtue is "not." HERMSPRONG, II. p. 205.

The novel whence this defcription of female interestedness is taken, exhibiting Man as he is not, proceeds from the fame pen which about four years ago produced Man as he is: They are both works of extraordinary merit. In this character even their " twenty thousand fair readers" (notwithstanding the above extract) will, I doubt not, feel themselves difpofed by the innocent bribery of a more conciliating quotation to concur very cordially:

"We are, like unhallowed fatirifts, involving in one promifcuous "cenfure all the fair daughters of men. Let us be more juft. They "are our equals in understanding, our fuperiors in virtue: They "have foibles, where men have faults; and faults, where men have "crimes: In the gaiety of converfation it may be allowed (and"the author might have added—in the fervour of poetry, of which "Synecdoche is a principal figure) at least it will be affumed, to put "the whole for a part, perhaps a small part; but it would be wife in "man, when he makes the errors of woman his contemplation, not "to forget his own." II. p. 175.

Then-ere a fecond moon, more fix'd than they,

With changing beam the jointur'd brides furvey

Madly they fly where appetite inspires,

Dart the unhallow'd glance and burn with real fires.
Thy fons like hers, a fickle fluttering train,

Th' illuftrious honours of their name profane;
Stake half a province on the doubtful die,

And mark the fatal cast without a figh:

For the fubjoined fonnet on THE CORRUPTION OF MANNERS, which seems not inappofite to this place, I am indebted to the friendship of C. MARSH, Elq. of the Temple.

TYRANT of pomp, and pride! Chill'd by whose sway
Youth's bloffoms fade; and all that fancy wrought-
The towering fabric of exalted thought;

And human mind, that cleaves to heaven its way:

Thou smil'st, that Britain's nervous race decay;

Tho' once in virtue's brightest fields they fought,
Tho' once their blood a nation's bleffings bought:
Now, the frail infects of a summer day,

They fly regardless of the coming ftorms;

Those storms shall come ! Nurs'd in yon lurid sky
Soon fhall they fweep away the fickly forms,
That now diffolv'd in perfum'd flumbers lie:
Heedlefs alas! that, while the fun-beam warms,

The blast that chills their little lives is nigh.

Their heavier hours th' intemperate bowl beguiles,

Wakes the dull blood and lights lascivious smiles; Then in the stews they court th' impure embrace, Drink deep disease and mar the future race.

Far other BRITONS antient Gallia view'd, When her dead chiefs the plains of Crecy ftrew'd; Proud of fuch heroes, and by fuch rever'd,

In that bleft age far other dames appear'd:

Bleft age, return; thy fternness soften'd down,

Charm with our better features and thine own!.

Come; but refign those glories of the field,

The gleaming falchion and the storied shield:
Renounce the towery menace of thy brow,

Which frown'd despair on vaffal crowds below;

And true to order, and of all the friend,

To varied rank unvarying law extend.

Ah! In the fnowy robe of Peace array'd,

Led by the Virtues of the rural shade,