(Wretched requital) drink, with trembling hand,
Pale Palfy's baneful cup. Our happy swains
Behold arifing, in their fattening flocks,

A double wealth; more rich than Belgium's boast,
Who tends the culture of the flaxen reed;
Or the Cathayan's, whofe ignobler care
Nurfes the filk-worm; or of India's fons,
Who plant the cotton-grove by Ganges' stream.
Nor do their toils and products furnish more,
Than gauds and dreffes, of fantastic web,
To the luxurious: but our kinder toils
Give cloathing to neceffity; keep warm
Th' unhappy wanderer, on the mountain wild
Benighted, while the tempeft beats around.
No, ye foft fons of Ganges, and of Ind,
Ye feebly delicate, life little needs
Your feminine toys, nor asks your nerveless arm
To caft the ftrong-flung fhuttle, or the fpear.
Can ye defend your country from the storm
Of ftrong invafion? Can ye want endure,
In the befieged fort, with courage firm ?
Can ye the weather-beaten yeffel steer,
Climb the tall maft, direct the tubborn helm,
Mid wild difcordant waves, with steady course?
Can
ye lead out, to diftant colonies,

Th' o'erflowings of a people, or your wrong'd
Brethren, by impious perfecution driven,
And arm their breasts with fortitude to try
New regions; climes, though barren, yet beyond
The baneful power of tyrants? These are deeds

To

To which their hardy labors well prepare
The finewy arm of Albion's fons. Pursue,
Ye fons of Albion, with a yielding heart,
Your hardy labours: let the founding loom
Mix with the melody of every vale;

The loom, that long-renown'd, wide-envy'd gift
Of wealthy Flandria, who the boon receiv'd
From fair Venetia; fhe, from Grecian nymphs;
They from Phenicé, who obtain'd the dole
From old Ægyptus. Thus, around the globe,
The golden-footed sciences their path

Mark, like the fun, enkindling life and joy;
And follow'd clofe by Ignorance and Pride,
Lead Day and Night o'er realms. Our day arose
When Alva's tyranny the weaving arts

.

Drove from the fertile vallies of the Scheld.

With speedy wing, and scatter'd course, they fled,
Like a community of bees, difturb'd

By fome relentlefs fwain's rapacious hand;
While good Eliza, to the fugitives

Gave gracious welcome; as wife Ægypt erst
To troubled Nilus, whofe nutritious flood
With annual gratitude enrich'd her meads.
Then, from fair Antwerp, an industrious train
Crofs'd the fmooth channel of our fmiling feas;
And in the vales of Cantium, on the banks
Of Stour alighted, and the naval wave
Of fpacious Medway: fome on gentle Yare,

And fertile Waveney, pitch'd; and made their feats
Pleafant Norvicum, and Colceftria's towers;

Some

Some to the Darent sped their happy way:
Berghem, and Sluys, and elder Bruges, chose
Antona's chalky plains, and stretch'd their tents
Down to Claufentum, and that bay fupine
Beneath the shade of Vecta's cliffy isle.
Soon o'er the hofpitable realm they spread,
With cheer reviv'd; and in Sabrina's flood,
And the Silurian Tame, their textures blanch'd
Not undelighted with Vigornia's spires,

Nor those, by Vaga's ftream, from ruins rais'd
Of ancient Ariconium; nor less pleas'd
With Salop's various fcenes; and that foft tract
Of Cambria, deep-embay'd, Dimetian land,
By green hills fenc'd, by ocean's murmur lull'd;
Nurfe of the ruftic bard, who now refounds
The fortunes of the fleece; whose ancestors
Were fugitives from Superftition's rage,

And erft, from Devon, thither brought the loom;
Where ivy'd walls of old Kidwelly's towers,
Nodding, ftill on their gloomy brows project
Lancaftria's arms, embofs'd in mouldering stone.
Thus, then, on Albion's coaft, the exil'd band,
From rich Menapian towns, and the green banks
Of Scheld, alighted; and, alighting, fang
Grateful thanksgiving. Yet, at times, they fhift
Their habitations, when the hand of Pride,
Restraint, or fouthern Luxury, disturbs
Their industry, and urges them to vales
Of the Brigantes; where, with happier care
Infpirited, their art improves the fleece,

Which occupation erft, and wealth immenfe,
Gave Brabant's swarming habitants, what time
We were their fhepherds only; from which state,
With friendly arm, they rais'd us: nathlefs fome
Among our old and ftubborn fwains misdeem'd,
And envy'd, who enrich'd them; envy'd those,
Whofe virtues taught the varletry of towns
To ufeful toil to turn the pilfering hand.

And ftill, when bigotry's black clouds arise,
(For oft they fudden rife in papal realms),
They, from their ifle, as from fome ark fecure,
Careless, unpitying, view the fiery bolts
Of Superftition, and tyrannic rage,
And all the fury of the rolling storm,

Which fierce pursues the fufferers in their flight,
Shall not our gates, fhall not Britannia's arms,
Spread ever open to receive their flight?
A virtuous people, by diftreffes oft
(Diftreffes for the fake of Truth endur'd)
Corrected, dignify'd; creating good
Where-ever they inhabit: this, our ifle
Has oft experienc'd; witnefs all ye realms
Of either hemisphere, where commerce flows :
Th' important truth is ftampt on every bale;
Each gloffy cloth, and drape of mantle warm,
Receives th' impreffion; every airy woof,
Cheyney, and bayse, and serge, and alepine,
Tammy, and crape, and the long countless list
Of woollen webs; and every work of steel;
And that crystalline metal, blown or fus'd,

Limpid as water dropping from the clefts

Of moffy marble: not to name the aids
Their wit has given the fleece, now taught to link
With flax, or cotton, or the filk-worm's thread,"
And gain the graces of variety:

Whether to form the matron's decent robe,
Or the thin-fhading trail for Agra's * nymphs;
Or folemn curtains, whofe long gloomy folds
Surround the foft pavilions of the rich.
They too the many-colour'd arras taught
To mimic nature, and the airy fhapes
Of sportive fancy: fuch as oft appear
In old Mofaic pavements, when the plough
Up-turns the crumbling glebe of Weldon field;
Or that, o'erfhaded erft by Woodstock's bower,
Now grac'd by Blenheim, in whose stately rooms
Rife glowing tapestries, that lure the eye

With Marlborough's wars: here Schellenbergh exults,
Behind furrounding hills of ramparts steep,

And vales of trenches dark; each hideous pafs
Armies defend; yet on the hero leads

His Britons, like a torrent, o'er the mounds.
Another scene is Blenheim's glorious field,
And the red Danube. Here, the rescued ftates
Crowding beneath his fhield: there, Ramillies'

Important

* There is woven at Manchester, for the Eaft-Indies, a very thin ftuff, of thread and cotton; which is cooler than the manfactures of that country, where the material is only cotton.