And glutinous materials: the Chinese
Their procelain, Japan its varnish boasts.
Some fair peculiar graces every realm,

And each from each a share of wealth acquires.
But chief by numbers of industrious hands
A nation's wealth is counted: numbers raise
Warm emulation: where that virtue dwells,
There will be traffic's seat; there will she build
Her rich emporium. Hence, ye happy swains,
With hospitality inflame your breast,

And emulation: the whole world receive,
And with their arts, their virtues, deck your isle.
Each clime, each sea, the spacious orb of each,
Shall join their various stores, and amply feed
The mighty brotherhood; while ye proceed,
Active and enterprising, or to teach
The stream a naval course, or till the wild,
Or drain the fen, or stretch the long canal,
Or plough the fertile billows of the deep.
Why to the narrow circle of our coast
Should we submit our limits, while each wind
Assists the stream and sail, and the wide main
Woos us in every port? See Belgium build,
Upon the foodful brine, her envied power;
And, half her people floating on the wave,
Expand ner fishy regions. Thus our isle,
Thus only may Britannia be enlarged.—
But whither, by the visions of the theme
Smit with sublime delight, but whither strays
The raptured Muse, forgetful of her task?

No common pleasure warms the generous mind,
When it beholds the labours of the loom;
How widely round the globe they are dispersed,
From little tenements by wood or croft,

526

540

550

Through many a slender path, how sedulous,
As rills to rivers broad, they speed their way
To public roads, to Fosse, or Watling-street,
Or Armine, ancient works; and thence explore,
Through every navigable wave, the sea

560

That laps the green earth round: through Tyne, and
Tees,

Through Weare, and Lune, and merchandising Hull,
And Swale, and Aire whose crystal waves reflect
The various colours of the tinctured web;
Through Ken, swift rolling down his rocky dale,
Like giddy youth impetuous, then at Wick
Curbing his train, and, with the sober pace
Of cautious eld, meandering to the deep;

570

Through Dart, and sullen Exe, whose murmuring

wave

580

Envies the Dune and Rother, who have won
The serge and kersey to their blanching streams;
Through Towy, winding under Merlin's towers,
And Usk, that frequent, among hoary rocks,
On her deep waters paints th' impending scene,
Wild torrents, crags, and woods, and mountain snows.
The northern Cambrians, an industrious tribe,
Carry their labours on pigmean steeds,
Of size exceeding not Leicestrian sheep,
Yet strong and sprightly: over hill and dale
They travel unfatigued, and lay their bales
In Salop's streets, beneath whose lofty walls
Pearly Sabrina waits them with her barks,
And spreads the swelling sheet. For nowhere far
From some transparent river's naval course
Arise and fall our various hills and vales,
Nowhere far distant from the masted wharf.
We need not vex the strong laborious hand

With toil enormous, as the Egyptian king,
Who joined the sable waters of the Nile,
From Memphis' towers to the Erythræan gulf:
Or as the monarch of enfeebled Gaul,

Whose will imperious forced an hundred streams,
Through many a forest, many a spacious wild,
To stretch their scanty trains from sea to sea,
That some unprofitable skiff might float
Across irriguous dales, and hollowed rocks.

592

600

Far easier pains may swell our gentler floods, And through the centre of the isle conduct To naval union. Trent and Severn's wave, By plains alone disparted, woo to join Majestic Thamis. With their silver urns The nimble-footed Naiads of the springs Await upon the dewy lawn, to speed And celebrate the union: and the light Wood-nymphs; and those who o'er the grots preside, Whose stores bituminous, with sparkling fires, In summer's tedious absence, cheer the swains, Long sitting at the loom; and those besides, Who crown, with yellow sheaves, the farmer's hopes; And all the genii of commercial toil:

610

These on the dewy lawns await, to speed
And celebrate the union, that the fleece,
And glossy web, to every port around
May lightly glide along. Even now behold,
Adown a thousand floods, the burdened barks,
With white sails glistening, through the gloomy woods
Haste to their harbours. See the silver maze
Of stately Thamis, ever chequered o'er
With deeply-laden barges, gliding smooth
And constant as his stream: in growing pomp,
By Neptune still attended, slow he rolls

621

626

To great Augusta's mart, where lofty trade.
Amid a thousand golden spires enthroned,
Gives audience to the world: the strand around
Close swarms with busy crowds of many a realm.
What bales, what wealth, what industry, what fleets!
Lo, from the simple fleece, how much proceeds.

BOOK IV.

THE ARGUMENT.

Our manufactures exported. Voyage through the Channel, and by the coast of Spain. View of the Mediterranean. Decay of the Turkey trade. Address to the factors there. Voyage through the Baltic. The mart of Petersburg. The ancient channels of commerce to the Indies. The modern course thither. Shores of Africa. Reflections on the slave-trade. The Cape of Good Hope, and the eastern part of Africa. Trade to Persia and Hind stan, precarious through tyranny and frequent insurrections. Disputes between the French and English, on the coast of Cormandel, censured. A prospect of the Spice-islands, and of China Traffic at Canton. Our woollen manufactures known at Pekin, by the caravans from Russia. Description of that journey. Transition to the western hemisphere. Voyage of Raleigh. The state and advantages of our North American colonies. Severe winters in those climates: hence the passage through Hudson's bay impracticable. Inquiries for an easier passage into the Pacific Ocean. View of the coasts of South America, and of those tempestuous seas. Lord Anson's expedition, and success against the Spaniards. The naval power of Britain consistent with the welfare of all nations. View of our probable improvements in traffic, and the distribution of our woollen manufactures over the whole globe.

Now, with our woolly treasures amply stored,
Glide the tall fleets into the widening main,
A floating forest: every sail, unfurled,
Swells to the wind, and gilds the azure sky.
Meantime, in pleasing care, the pilot steers
Steady; with eye intent upon the steel,
Steady, before the breeze, the pilot steers:
While gaily o'er the waves the mounting prows
Dance, like a shoal of dolphins, and begin
To streak with various paths the hoary deep.

10

Batavia's shallow sounds by some are sought,
Or sandy Elbe or Weser, who receive
The swain's and peasant's toil with grateful hand,
Which copious gives return: while some explore
Deep Finnic gulfs, and a new shore and mart,
The bold creation of that Kaiser's power,
Illustrious Peter! whose magnific toils

Repair the distant Caspian, and restore

To trade its ancient ports. Some Thanet's strand,
And Dover's chalky cliff, behind them turn.
Soon sinks away the green and level beach
Of Romney marish, and Rye's silent port,
By angry Neptune closed, and Vecta's isle,
Like the pale moon in vapour, faintly bright.
An hundred opening marts are seen, are lost;
Devonia's hills retire, and Edgecombe mount,
Waving its gloomy groves, delicious scene.
Yet steady o'er the waves they steer: and now
The fluctuating world of waters wide

In boundless magnitude around them swells;
O'er whose imaginary brim, nor towns,

Nor woods, nor mountain tops, nor aught appears,
But Phoebus' orb, refulgent lamp of light,
Millions of leagues aloft: heaven's azure vault
Bends over-head, majestic, to its base,
Uninterrupted clear circumference;

Till, rising o'er the flickering waves, the Cape
Of Finisterre, a cloudy spot appears.
Again, and oft, th' adventurous sails disperse;
These to Iberia; others to the coast
Of Lusitania, the ancient Tharsis deemed
Of Solomon; fair regions, with the webs
Of Norwich pleased, or those of Manchester;
Light airy clothing for their vacant swains.