Will this vain scheme bid restless factions cease?
Check foreign wars or fix internal peace?
Call public credit from her grave to rise?
Or gain in grandeur what they lose in size?
In this weak realm can countless kingdoms start
Strong with new force in each divided part?
While empire's head, divided into four,
Gains life by severance of diminish'd power?
So when the philosophic hand divides
The full grown polypus in genial tides,
Each sever'd part, inform'd with latent life,
Acquires new vigor from the friendly knife,
O'er peopled sands the puny insects creep,
Till the next wave absorbs them in the deep.
What then remains? must pilgrim freedom fly
From these loved regions to her native sky?
When the fair fugitive the orient chased,
She fix'd her seat beyond the watry waste;
Her docile sons (enough of power resign'd,
And natural rites in social leagues combined,)
In virtue firm, though jealous in her cause,
Gave senates force and energy to laws,
From ancient habit local powers obey,
Yet feel no reverence for one general sway,
For breach of faith no keen compulsion feel,
And feel no interest in the federal weal.
But know, ye favored race, one potent head,
Must rule your states, and strike your foes with dread,
The finance regulate, the trade control,
Live through the empire, and accord the whole.
Ere death invades, and night's deep curtain falls, Through ruin'd realms the voice of Union calls; Loud as the trump of heaven through darkness roars, When gyral gusts entomb Caribbean towers, When nature trembles through the deeps convulsed, And ocean foams from craggy cliffs repulsed, On you she calls! attend the warning cry, "Ye live united, or divided die."
ON A PATIENT KILLED BY A CANCER QUACK.
HERE lies a fool flat on his back,
The victim of a cancer quack;
Who lost his money and his life,
By plaister, caustic, and by knife.
24*
The case was this-a pimple rose,
South-east a little of his nose;
Which daily redden'd and grew bigger,
As too much drinking gave it vigor;
A score of gossips soon ensure
Full threescore different modes of cure;
But yet the full-fed pimple still
Defied all peticoated skill;
When fortune led him to peruse
A hand-bill in the weekly news;
Sign'd by six fools of different sorts,
All cured of cancers made of warts;
Who recommend, with due submission,
This cancer-monger as magician;
Fear wing'd his flight to find the quack,
And prove his cancer-curing knack;
But on his way he found another,—
A second advertising brother:
But as much like him as an owl
Is unlike every handsome fowl;
Whose fame had raised as broad a fog,
And of the two the greater hog:
Who used a still more magic plaister,
That sweat forsooth, and cured the faster.
This doctor view'd, with moony eyes
And scowl'd-up face, the pimple's size;
Then christen'd it in solemn answer,
And cried, "this pimple 's name is cancer.
But courage, friend, I see your 're pale,
My sweating plaisters never fail ;
I've sweated hundreds out with ease,
With roots as long as maple trees;
And never fail'd in all my trials—
Behold these samples here in vials!
Preserved to show my wondrous merits,
Just as my liver is-in spirits.
For twenty joes the cure is done-”
The bargain struck, the plaister on,
Which gnaw'd the cancer at its leisure,
And pain'd his face above all measure.
But still the pimple spread the faster,
And swell'd, like toad that meets disaster.
Thus foil'd, the doctor gravely swore,
It was a right-rose cancer sore;
Then stuck his probe beneath the beard,
And show'd him where the leaves appear'd ;
And raised the patient's drooping spirits,
By praising up the plaister's merits.—
Quoth he, "The roots now scarcely stick—
I'll fetch her out like crab or tick;
And make it rendezvous, next trial,
With six more plagues, in my old vial."
Then purged him pale with jalap drastic,
And next applied the infernal caustic.
But yet, this semblance bright of hell
Served but to make the patient yell;
And, gnawing on with fiery pace,
Devour'd one broadside of his face-
Courage, 'tis done," the doctor cried,
And quick the incision knife applied :
That with three cuts made such a hole,
Out flew the patient's tortured soul!
Go, readers, gentle, eke and simple,
If you have wart, or corn, or pimple;
To quack infallible apply;
Here's room enough for you to lie.
His skill triumphant still prevails,
For death 's a cure that never fails.
BLEST is the man, who from the womb,
To saintship him betakes,
And when too soon his child shall come,
A long confession makes,
When next in Broad Church-alley, he
Shall take his former place,
Relates his past iniquity,
And consequential grace;
Declares how long by Satan vex'd,
From truth he did depart,
And tells the time, and tells the text,
That smote his flinty heart.
He stands in half-way-covenant sure;
Full five long years or more,
One foot in church's pale secure,
The other out of door.
Then riper grown in gifts and grace,
With every rite complies,
And deeper lengthens down his face,
And higher rolls his eyes.
He tones like Pharisee sublime,
Two lengthy prayers a day,
The same that he from early prime,
Has heard his father say.
Each Sunday perch'd on bench of pew,
To passing priest he bows,
Then loudly 'mid the quavering crew,
Attunes his vocal nose.
With awful look then rises slow,
And prayerful visage sour,
More fit to fright the apostate foe,
Then seek a pardoning power.
Then nodding hears the sermon next,
From priest haranguing loud;
And doubles down each quoted text,
From Genesis to Jude.
And when the priest holds forth address,
To old ones born anew,
With holy pride and wrinkled face,
He rises in his pew.
Good works he careth nought about,
But faith alone will seek,
While Sunday's pieties blot out
The knaveries of the week.
He makes the poor his daily prayer,
Yet drives them from his board:
And though to his own good he swear,
Through habit breaks his word.
This man advancing fresh and fair,
Shall all his race complete;
And wave at last his hoary hair,
Arrived in deacon's seat.
There shall he all church honors have,
By joyous brethren given-
Till priest in funeral sermon grave,
Shall send him straight to heaven.
MR FRENEAU is, we believe, a descendant of the French protestants who came to this country upon the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Of the precise period and place of his birth we are ignorant. He received his education at Princeton College, in New Jersey, where he was graduated in 1771, and was associated with Hopkinson in certain political writings published in Philadelphia during the revolution. After the federal government was established, he occupied a station in the Secretary of State's office, and also conducted a newspaper in Philadelphia for several years. These employments he finally relinquished for commercial pursuits, in the course of which, he made voyages to several parts of the world.
We had always been accustomed to hear this gentleman spoken of as deceased, and a late writer in one of our most distinguished literary journals has classed him among the departed poets. But on making inquiries respecting him a few months since, we learned that he was still living near Middletown Point in New Jersey. We hope he regrets the very splenetic tone of the letter which he took the trouble to write about us on the occasion.
The principal part of Mr Freneau's poetical effusions were published in a large volume in 1795. This book contains a greater variety than any volume of poetry by a single hand which we have ever seen. Many of the pieces have uncommon merit, and exhibit a degree of talent which would have enabled the author to take a high rank among our native bards. Mr Freneau's poetry however, has been neglected. Had he published less, he would have found more readers. His volume presented a miscellany of about three hundred different pieces, and a miscellany of such a size is apt to discourage a common reader. He has not managed all the subjects he has undertaken with an equal degree of success, but he writes in general with an unaffected ease and sprightliness, and displays a truly poetical warmth and exuberance of fancy.
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