Yet, from an empress now a captive grown,
She sav'd Britannia's rights, and lost her own.
In ships decay'd no mariner confides,
Lur'd by the gilded stern and painted sides:
Yet at a ball unthinking fools delight
In the gay trappings of a birthday night:
They on the gold brocades and satins rav'd,
And quite forgot their country was enslav'd.
Dear vessel, still be to thy steerage just,
Nor change thy course with every
sudden gust;
Like supple patriots of the modern sort,
Who turn with every gale that blows from court.
Weary and seasick when in thee confin'd,
Now for thy safety cares distract my mind;
As those who long have stood the storms of state,
Retire, yet still bemoan their country's fate.
Beware, and when you hear the surges roar,
Avoid the rocks on Britain's angry shore.
They lie, alas! too easy 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.

BY holy zeal inspir'd, and led by fame,
To thee, once favourite isle, with joy I came;
What time the Goth, the Vandal, and the Hun,
Had my own native Italy * o'errun.

Ierne,

*Italy was not properly the native place of St. Patrick, but the place of his education, and where he received his mission; and

Ierne, to the world's remotest 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:† From thee, with pride, the Caledonians trace The glorious founder of their kingly race: Thy martial sons, whom now they dare despise, Did once their land subdue and civilize: Their dress, their language, and the Scottish

name,

Confess the soil from whence the victors came.‡ Well may they boast that ancient blood, which

runs

Within their veins, who are thy younger sons.

A conquest and a colony from thee,

The mother-kingdom left her children free;
From thee no mark of slavery they felt:
Not so with thee thy base invaders dealt;

and because he had his new birth there; hence by poetical licence, and by scripture figure, our author calls that country his native Italy. IRISH ED.

* Orpheus, or the ancient author of the Greek poem on the Argonautic expedition, whoever he be, says, that Jason, who manned the ship Argos at Thessaly, sailed to Ireland. IRISH ED.

†Tacitus, in the life of Julius Agricola, says, that the harbours of Ireland, on account of their commerce, were better known to the world than those of Britain. IRISH ED.

The argument here turns on, what the author of course took for granted, the present Scots being the descendants of Irish emigrants. ANDERSON.

§ On the authority of Buchanan and his predecessors, the historical part of this poem seems founded, as well as the notes signed IRISH ED.; some of which, it is supposed, were written by the Dean himself, ANDERSON.

Invited

Invited here to vengeful Morrough's aid,*
Those whom they could not conquer, they betray'd.
Britain, by thee we fell, ungrateful isle!
Not by thy valour, but superior guile :
Britain, with shame, confess this land of mine
First taught thee human knowledge and divine;†
My prelates and my students, sent from hence,
Made your sons converts both to God and sense :
Not like the pastors of thy ravenous breed,
Who come to fleece the flocks, and not to feed.
Wretched Ierne! with what grief I see

The fatal changes Time has made in thee!
The Christian rites I introduc'd in vain :
Lo infidelity return'd again!

Freedom and virtue in thy sons I found,
Who now in vice and slavery are drown'd.

By faith and prayer, this crosier in my hand,
I drove the venom'd serpent from thy land:
The shepherd in his bower might sleep or sing,‡
Nor dread the adder's tooth, nor scorpion's sting.

With

* In the reign of Henry II, Dermot M'Morrough, king of Leinster, being deprived of his kingdom by Roderic O'Connor, king of Connaught, he invited the English over as auxiliaries, and promised Richard Strongbow, earl of Pembroke, his daughter and all his dominions as a portion. By this assistance, M'Morrough recovered his crown, and Strongbow became possessed of all Leinster. IRISH ED.

+ St Patrick arrived in Ireland in the year 431, and completed the conversion of the natives, which had been begun by Palladius and others. And, as bishop Nicholson observes, Ireland soon became the fountain of learning, to which all the Western Christians, as well as the English, had recourse, not only for instructions in the principles of religion, but in all sorts of literature, viz. legendi et scholasticæ eruditionis gratiâ. IRISH ED.

There are no snakes, vipers, or toads, in Ireland; and even frogs were not known here till about the year 1700. The mag

With omens oft I strove to warn thy swains, Omens, the types of thy impending chains, I sent the magpie from the British soil, 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 crop the nurseries of learning here; Aspiring, greedy, full of senseless prate, Devour the church, and chatter to the state? As you grew more degenerate and base, I sent you millions of the croaking race; Emblems of insects vile, who spread their spawn Through all thy land, in armour, fur, and lawn; A nauseous brood, that fills your senate 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! With harpy-claws it undermines the ground, And sudden 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 blessings equally on all bestows.

Here, from the neighbouring nursery of arts," The students, drinking, rais'd their wit and parts;

pies came a short time before; and the Norway rats since. IRISH ED.

* The university of Dublin, called Trinity College, was founded by queen Elizabeth in 1591. IRISH ED.

Here

1

Here, for an age and more, improv'd their vein,
Their Phoebus I, my spring their Hippocrene.
Discourag'd youths! now all their hopes must fail,
Condemn'd to country cottages and ale;
To foreign prelates make a slavish court,
And by their sweat procure a mean support;
Or, for the classics, read "Th' Attorney's Guide;"
Collect excise, or wait upon the tide.

O! had I been apostle 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 succession curst,
The last invaders trampling on the first:
Nor fondly hope for some reverse of fate,
Virtue herself would now return too late.
Not half thy course of misery is run,
Thy greatest evils yet are scarce begun.
Soon shall thy sons (the time is just at hand)
Be all made captives in their native land;
When, for the use of no Hibernian born,
Shall rise one blade of grass, one ear of corn;
When shells and leather shall for money pass,
Nor thy oppressing lords afford thee brass.*
But all turn leasers to that mongrel breed.†
Who, from thee sprung, yet on thy vitals feed;
Who to yon ravenous isle thy treasures bear,
And waste in luxury thy harvest there;

For pride and ignorance a proverb grown,
The jest of wits, and to the court unknown.

* Wood's project in 1724. IRISH ED.

+ The absentees, who spent the income of their Irish estates, places, and pensions, in England. IRISH ED.

I scorn