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Oh! had I come one moment fooner!-it bleeds to death his gentle heart bleeds with it.

PEACE to thee, generous fwain! I fee thou walkeft off with anguifh-but thy joys fhall balance it; for happy is thy cottage, and happy is the fharer of it, and happy are the lambs which sport about you.. STERNE

CHAP. II.

LIBERTY AND SLAVERY.

DISGUISE thyfelf as thou wilt, ftill, SLAVERY! ftill thou art a bitter draught; and though thoufands in all ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no lefs bitter on that account. It is thou, LIBERTY! thrice fweet and gracious goddefs, whom all in public or in privateworship, whose tafte is grateful, and ever will be so, till Nature herfelf fhall change no tint of words can spot thy fnowy mantle, or chymic power turn thy fceptre into iron- with thee to fmile upon him as he eats his cruft, the fwain is happier than his monarch, from whofe court thou art exiled. Gracious Heaven! grant me but health, thou great Beftower of it, and give me but this fair goddess as my companion; and fhower down thy mitres, if it seems good unto thy divine providence, upon those heads which are aching for them.

PURSUING thefe ideas, I sat down close by my table, and leaning my head upon my hand, I began to figure to myfelf the miseries of confinement. I was in a right frame for it, and fo I gave full fcope to my imagination.

I was going to begin with the millions of my fellow. creatures born to no inheritance but flavery; but finding, however affecting the picture was, that I could not bring it nearer me, and that the multitude of fad groups in it did but distract me

I Took a fingle captive, and having firft fhut him up

in

in his dungeon, I then looked through the twilight of his grated door to take his picture..

I BEHELD his body half wafted away with long expectation and confinement, and felt what kind of fickness of the heart it was which arifes from hope deferred. Upon looking nearer, I faw him pale and feverish: in thirty years the western breeze had not once fanned his blood-he had feen no fun, no moon, in all that time-nor had the voice of friend or kinfinan breathed through his lattice. His children

Bur here my heart began to bleed-and I was forced to go on with another part of the portrait.

He was fitting upon the ground upon a little ftraw, in "the furtheft corner of his dungeon, which was alternately his chair and bed: a little calendar of small sticks was laid at the head, notched all over with the difinal days and. nights he had paffed there--he had one of these little sticks in his hand, and with a rufty nail he was etching another day of mifery to add to the heap. As I darkened the little light he had, he lifted up a hopelefs eye towards the door, then caft it down-fhook his head, and went on with his work of affliction. I heard his chains upon his legs as he turned his body to lay his little stick upon the bundle-He gave a deep figh-I faw the iron enter into his foul-I burst into tears-I could not sustain the picture of confinement which my fancy had drawn. STERNE,

CHAP. III.

CORPORAL TRIM'S ELOQUENCE.

-My young mafter in London is dead, faid Obaş

diah

-HERE is fad news, Trim, cried Sufannah, wiping her eyes as Trim ftepped into the kitchen-mafter Bobby is dead.

I LAMENT for him from my heart and my foul, faid
Trim,

L 6

Trim, fetching a figh-poor creature!-poor boy!-poor gentleman!

He was alive laft Whitfuntide, faid the coachman.. Whitfuntide! alas! cried Trim, extending his right arm, and falling inftantly into the fame attitude in which he read the fermon,-what is Whitfuntide, Jonathan, (for that was the coachman's name,) or Shrovetide, or any tide or time paft, to this? Are we not here now, continued the corporal (ftriking the end of his flick perpendicularly upon the floor, fo as to give an idea of health and stability), and are we not (dropping his hat upon the ground) gone! in a moment!—It was infinitely ftriking! Safannah burst into a flood of tears-We are not stocks and stones-Jonathan, Obadiah, the cook-maid, all melted. The foolish fat fcullion herfelf, who was fcouring a fifh kettle upon her knees, was roufed with it.-The whole kitchen crowded about the corporal.

your

"Are we not here now, and gone in a moment?” There was nothing in the fentence-it was one of felf-evident truths we have the advantage of hearing every day; and if Trim had not trusted more to his hat than his head, he had made nothing at all of it..

66

"Are we not here now, continued the corporal, and are we not" (dropping his hat plump upon the ground-and paufing before he pronounced the word) gone! in a mcment?" The defoent of the hat was as if a heavy lump of elay had been kneaded into the crown of it.-Nothing could have expreffed the fentiment of mortality, of which it was the type and forerunner, like it; his hand seemed to vanish from under it, it fell dead, the corporal's eye fixed. upon it as upon a corpfe,-and Sufannah burft into a flood STERNE..

of tears.

-

ALL

CHAP. IV.

THE MAN OF ROSS..

LL our praises why fhould Lords engros? Rife, honeft Mufe! and fing the MAN OF Ross:

Pleas'd

Pleas'd Vaga echoes through her winding bounds,
And rapid Severn hoarse applause resounds.

Who hung with woods yon mountain's fultry brow?
From the dry rock who bade the waters flow?
Not to the skies in ufelefs columns toft,
Or in proùd falls magnificently loft,

But clear and artlefs, pouring through the plain
Health to the fick, and folace to the swain.
Whofe caufeway parts the vale with fhady rows?
Whofe feats the weary traveller repose?

Who taught that Heav'n-directed fpire to rife?
"The MAN of Ross," each lifping babe replies.
Behold the market-place with poor o'erspread!
The MAN of Ross divides the weekly bread:
He feeds yon almfhouse, neat, but void of ftate,'
Where age and want fit fmiling at the gate:
Him portion'd maids, apprentic'd orphans blefs,
The young who labour, and the old who reft.
Is any fick The MAN of Ross relieves,
Prescribes, attends, the med'cine makes, and gives.
Is there a variance? Enter but his door,
Balk'd are the courts, and contest is no more.
Defpairing quacks with curfes fled the place,
And vile attornies, now a useless race.
Thrice happy man! enabled to pursue
What all fo wish, but want the power to do!
O fay! what fums that gen'rous hand supply?
What mines, to fwell that boundless charity?

Of debts and taxes, wife and children clear, This man poffefs'd-five hundred pounds a year. Blush Grandeur, blufh! proud Courts withdraw your blaze! Ye little ftars! hide your diminish'd rays.

And what! no monument, infcription, stone? His race, his form, his name almost unknown!

Who

Who builds a Church to God, and not to Fame,
Will never mark the marble with his Name:
Go fearch it there, where to be born and die,
Of rich and poor makes all the hiftory;
Enough, that virtue fill'd the space between ;
Prov'd, by the ends of being, to have been.

CHAP. V.

THE COUNTRY CLERGYMAN.

POPE.

NEAR yonder copfe, where once the garden smil'd,
And still where many a garden flow'r grows wild;
There, where a few torn fhrubs the place disclose,
The village preacher's modeft mansion rofe.
A man he was, to all the country dear,
And paffing rich with forty pounds a year;
Remote from towns he ran his godly race,
Nor e'er had chang'd, nor wifh'd to change his place;
Unpractis'd he to fawn, or feek for pow'r,
By doctrines fashion'd to the varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had learn'd to prize,
More skill'd to raife the wretched than to rise.
His houfe was known to all the

vagrant train,
He chid their wand'rings, but reliev'd their pain;
The long remember'd beggar was his gueft,
Whose beard defcending swept his aged breaft:
The ruin'd fpendthrift, now no longer proud,

Claim'd kindred there, and had his claims allow'd:
The broken foldier, kindly bade to ftay,

Sate by his fire, and talk'd the night away ;.

Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of forrow done,

Shoulder'd his crutch, and fhow'd how fields were won.
Pleas'd with his guefts,. the good man learn'd to glow,
And quite forgot their vices in their woe;

Careless their merits, or their faults to fcan,
His pity gave ere charity began.

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