Ah! who has seen the mailed lobster rise,

Clap her broad wings, and soaring claim the skies?

45

When did the owl, descending from her bower,
Crop, 'midst the fleecy flocks, the tender flower;
Or the young heifer plunge, with pliant limb,
In the salt wave, and fish-like strive to swim?

The same with plants-potatoes 'tatoes breed―

50

Uncostly cabbage springs from cabbage seed;

Lettuce to lettuce, leeks to leeks succeed;
Nor e'er did cooling cucumbers presume
To flower like myrtle, or like violets bloom.
-Man only,―rash, refined, presumptuous Man,
Starts from his rank, and mars Creation's plan!
Born the free heir of nature's wide domain,

To art's strict limits bounds his narrow'd reign;

55

Ver. 45-49. Every animal contented with the lot which it has drawn in life. A fine contrast to man, who is always discontented.

Ver. 49. Salt wave-wave of the sea-" briny wave."-Poetæ passim.

Ver. 50. A still stronger contrast, and a greater shame to man, is found in plants; -they are contented—he restless and changing. Mens agitat mihi, nec placidâ contenta quiete est.

Ver. 50. Potatoes 'tatoes breed. Elision for the sake of verse, not meant to imply that the root degenerates.-Not so with Man

Mox daturus

Progeniem vitiosiorem.

Resigns his native rights for meaner things,

For Faith and Fetters-Laws, and Priests, and Kings.

(To be continued.)

60

We are sorry to be obliged to break off here.—The remainder of this admirable and instructive Poem is in the press, and will be continued the first opportunity.

THE EDITOR.

No. XVI.

66

February 26.

THE Specimen of the Poem on the " Progress of Man," with which we favoured our Readers in our last Number, has occasioned a variety of letters, which we confess have not a little surprised us, from the unfounded, and even contradictory charges they contain. In one, we are accused of malevolence, in bringing back to notice a work that had been quietly consigned to oblivion ;-in another, of plagiarism, in copying its most beautiful passages;-in a third, of vanity, in striving to imitate what was in itself inimitable, &c. &c. But why this alarm? has the author of the Progress of Civil Society an exclusive patent for fabricating Didactic poems? or can we not write against order and government, without incurring the guilt of imitation? We trust we were not so ignorant of the nature of a didactic poem (so called from didaskein, to teach, and poema, a poem; because it teaches nothing, and is not poetical) even before the Progress of Civil Society appeared, but that we were capable of such an undertaking.

We shall only say farther, that we do not intend to proceed regularly with our poem; but having the remaining thirty-nine Cantos by us, shall content ourselves with giving, from time to time, such extracts as may happen to suit our purpose.

The following passage, which, as the Reader will see by turning to the Contents prefixed to the head of the Poem, is part of the First Canto, contains so happy a deduction of Man's present state of depravity, from the first slips and failings of his original state, and inculcates so forcibly the mischievous consequences of social or civilized, as opposed to natural society, that no dread of imputed imitation can prevent us from giving it to our Readers.

PROGRESS OF MAN.

Lo! the rude savage, free from civil strife,
Keeps the smooth tenour of his guiltless life;

Restrain❜d by none, save Nature's lenient laws,
Quaffs the clear stream, and feeds on hips and haws.
Light to his daily sports behold him rise;

65

The bloodless banquet health and strength supplies.
Bloodless not long-one morn he haps to stray

Through the lone wood—and close beside the way

Sees the gaunt tiger tear his trembling prey;

Ver. 61-66. Simple state of savage life-previous to the pastoral, or even the

hunter-state.

Ver. 66. First savages disciples of Pythagoras.

Ver. 67, &c. Desire of animal food natural only to beasts, or to man in a state

of civilized society. First suggested by the circumstance here related.

Beneath whose gory fangs a leveret bleeds,

Or pig-such pig as fertile China breeds.

Struck with the sight, the wond'ring Savage stands, Rolls his broad eyes, and clasps his lifted hands; Then restless roams-and loaths his wonted food; Shuns the salubrious stream, and thirsts for blood.

70

75

By thought matured, and quickened by desire,
New arts, new arms, his wayward wants require.
From the tough yew a slender branch he tears,
With self-taught skill the twisted grass prepares;
The unfashion'd bow with labouring efforts bends
In circling form, and joins the unwilling ends.
Next some tall reed he seeks—with sharp-edged stone
Shapes the fell dart, and points with whiten'd bone.

Then forth he fares. Around in careless play, Kids, pigs, and lambkins, unsuspecting, stray.

Ver. 71. Pigs of the Chinese breed most in request.

80

85

Ver. 76. First formation of a bow. Introduction to the science of archery. Ver. 79. Grass twisted, used for a string, owing to the want of other materials not yet invented.

Ver. 83. Bone-fish's bone found on the sea-shore, sharks' teeth, &c. &c.