How different is the jovial fcenery in the poet's defcription, from the inhuman yell of Ca Ira, in the accurfed times of Roberspierre, for then was his horrible power in force! oppofite, even as the fong of rural innocence, and the diffonant roar of guilt and rapine overrunning the fields! It was a pleafant, an interesting fight; it warmed the bofom of the Gleaner to its inmoft receffes, he was in humour with every thing; the comfort-looking huts, the ample downs, the fheep that fed upon them, the foft and peaceful-feeming inclosures, the ftretches of wood, water, and garden-grounds, the captivating interspersed villas, the aweful mansions, and good old halls of hofpitality, the very cluck of the English household fowl, and the domestic rookery. ble fpoke to every labourer with the voice of a countryman and friend. The charm was, indeed, heightened by a visit to the English cottages; the appearance of the fturdy fwains and blooming damfels, who inhabited inhabited them-fo utterly different, in air, drefs, complexion, fhapes and language, from the peasantry he had quitted. Such is the journal of a flowery day's fenfations, in returning to the land, whose fcenery, places, and perfons, by a fort of indefinable attachment, not only appears to belong to us, but of which one seems to be a part. Perhaps they were not the lefs agreeable to the Gleaner for the pains that afflicted his feelings in other countries. How he wandered over, gazed on, and lingered in the scene! He had fled from a repining and oppreffed people, oppreffed beyond any power of relief, and took fanctuary with the peaceful and contented. All feemed natal. The trees that fhaded, the fun that warmed, the earth that received him, and the air he breathed! And are there those who would reduce all this into a wilderness? Ye Britons, be not not deluded into mifery! Even that, which may be a good cause to one nation may a bad one to another. be "Think, O think, L "How good the God of Harvest is to you! Had the most clamorous, the moft difcontented, half the opportunities of the Gleaner, they would, even with all its errors, think England the happiest country, and themselves the happiest people now on the face of the globe. As to faults, he can only repeat the wish he has earnestly breathed in the Ode, that they may be 66 NOBLY reformed." The Gleaner could have wifhed, however, to have found the benevolence of the country, celebrated in the Ode, more uniform; and that, while it was holding out the hand of hospitality hofpitality to diftreffed aliens, who had been driven from their homes, that it had ceased to inflict tyranny and flavery on a yet more numerous body of unfortunates. He grieved to obferve, even on his fecond return, an *evil which, long before his fetting out, was deemed inconfiftent with the mild, humane, and, generally fpeaking, wholefome principles of the British Government, and which he had heard difcuffed on the Continent with every mark of wonder and reprobation. It is almoft needlefs to fpecify, that he alludes to the immitigable perfecution of more than half of the inhabitants of the globe, merely because they differ from their perfecutors in complexion. And yet we rank ourselves amongst the generous lovers of freedom, and have bled in her facred caufe at every pore. It is fomewhat humiliating, however, that the very men we are fighting on the ground of imputed *The Slave Trade. puted barbarity, and confidering too we have fo long debated the fubject in the great affembly of the nation to find that this fa vage foe, against whofe ferocity we have raised the arm, should have done that generous act in a fingle day, which Britons have been so many years talking about. It cannot be denied that the French people have got the ftart of us in giving real freedom to that unhappy race of beings, who, though they have unquestionably all the rights of men, are treated as heafts of the fields, without any rights at all; nay, as condemned criminals, who have, by the profcription of crimes, forfeited not only those rights, but every kindred claim that attaches to fpecies or even fprings from common charity. The Gleaner certainly has been amongst the first, as will appear on the face of thefe Gleanings, to reprobate fuch parts of the French meafures as justice, no less than philanthropy, must reject; but he was one of the first to I bonour |