How Lybian tigers' chawdrons love assails,

And warms, midst seas of ice, the melting whales;
Cools the crimpt cod, fierce pangs to perch imparts,
Shrinks shrivell'd shrimps, but opens oysters' hearts;-
Then say, how all these things together tend 30
To one great truth, prime object, and good end?
First-to each living thing, whate`er its kind,
Some lot, some part, some station is assign'd.
The feather'd race with pinions skim the air—
Not so the mackarel, and still less the bear:
This roams the wood, carniv'rous, for his prey;
That with soft roe, pursues his watery way :-
This slain by hunters yields his shaggy hide?
That, caught by fishers, is on Sundays cried.—

But each contented with his humble sphere,
Moves unambitious through the circling year;

Ver. 26. "Add thereto a tiger's chawdron."-Macbeth.
Ver. 26, 27. "In softer notes bids Lybian lions roar,
"And warms the whale on Zembla's frozen shore."

35

40

Progress of Civil Society, Book I. ver. 98. Ver. 29. "An oyster may be cross'd in love."-Mr. Sheridan's Critic.

Ver. 34. Birds fly.

Ver. 35. But neither fish, nor beasts-particularly as here exemplified.

Ver. 36. The bear.

Ver. 37. The mackarel-There are also hard-roed mackarel. Sed de his alio loco.

Ver. 38. Bear's grease, or fat, is also in great request; being supposed to have a criniparous, or hair-producing quality.

Ver. 39. There is a special Act of Parliament which permits mackarel to be cried on Sundays.

Nor e'er forgets the fortune of his race,

Nor pines to quit, or strives to change his place.
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 bow'r,
Crop, 'midst the fleecy flocks, the tender flow'r;
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 flow'r like myrtle, or like violets bloom. -Man, only,―rash, refined presumptuous Man, Starts from his rank, and mar's creation's plan.

55

Ver. 45 to 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.

Born the free heir of nature's wide domain,
To art's strict limits bounds his narrow'd reign;
Resigns his native rights for meaner things,
For Faith and Fetters-Laws, and Priests, and Kings.
(To be continued.)

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.

Feb. 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 far ther, that we do not intend to proceed regularly with our poem; but having the remaining thirty-nine Cantos by us, shall content our

selves 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,
Quaff's the clear stream, and feeds on hips and haws.
Light to his daily sports behold him rise!
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;

65

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,