"Prompt to assail, and careless of defence, "Invulnerable in his impudence,

"He dares the world and, eager of a name,
"He thrusts about and justles into fame.
"Frontless and satire-proof, he scours the streets,
"And runs an Indian muck at all he meets.
"So fond of loud report, that not to miss
"Of being known, (his last and utmost bliss,)
"He rather would be known for what he is.

"Such was and is the Captain of the Test,+
"Though half his virtues are not here exprest;
"The modesty of fame conceals the rest.
"The spleenful Pigeons never could create
"A prince more proper to revenge their hate;
"Indeed, more proper to revenge than save;
"A king whom in His wrath the Almighty gave.
"For all the grace the landlord had allowed
"But made the Buzzard and the Pigeons proud,

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"Gave time to fix their friends and to seduce the crowd.

They long their fellow-subjects to enthral,

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Their patron's promise into question call,

"And vainly think he meant to make them lords of all.
"False fears their leaders failed not to suggest,

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"As if the Doves were to be dispossest;

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Nor sighs nor groans nor goggling eyes did want,
"For now the Pigeons too had learned to cant.
"The house of prayer is stocked with large increase,
"Nor doors nor windows can contain the press :
"For birds of every feather fill the abode;

"Even Atheists out of envy own a God;

And, reeking from the stews, adulterers come,

"Like Goths and Vandals to demolish Rome.

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"That Conscience, which to all their crimes was mute, 1215
"Now calls aloud and cries to persecute :

"No rigour of the laws to be released,

"And much the less, because it was their Lord's request :

"They thought it great their Sovereign to control,

"And named their pride nobility of soul.

"Tis true, the Pigeons and their prince elect
"Were short of power their purpose to effect:
"But with their quills did all the hurt they could
"And cuffed the tender chickens from their food:
"And much the Buzzard in their cause did stir,

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Though naming not the patron, to infer,

"With all respect, he was a gross idolater.

"

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* Scott in a note on this passage gives the following explanation of the words "runs an Indian "To run a muck is a phrase derived from a practice of the Malays. When muck at all he meets.' one of this nation has lost his whole substance by gaming, or sustained any other great and insupportable calamity, he intoxicates himself with opium; and, having dishevelled his hair, rushes into the streets, crying Amocca, or Kill, and stabbing every one whom he meets with his creeze, until he is cut down, or shot like a mad dog.'

+ Burnet was carrying on a fierce controversy with Parker, Bishop of Oxford, who had urged the abrogation of the Test. This is probably why he is called "Captain of the Test."

"But when the imperial owner did espy
"That thus they turned his grace to villany,
"Not suffering wrath to discompose his mind,
"He strove a temper for the extremes to find,
"So to be just as he might still be kind :
"Then, all maturely weighed, pronounced a doom
"Of sacred strength for every age to come.
"By this the Doves their wealth and state possess,
"No rights infringed, but licence to oppress :
"Such power have they as factious lawyers long
"To crowns ascribed, that kings can do no wrong.
"But since his own domestic birds have tried
"The dire effects of their destructive pride,
"He deems that proof a measure to the rest,
"Concluding well within his kingly breast
"His rowl of nature too unjustly were oppressed.
"He therefore makes all birds of every sect
"Free of his farm, with promise to respect
"Their several kinds alike, and equally protect.
"His gracious edict the same franchise yields
"To all the wild increase of woods and fields,

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"And who in rocks aloof, and who in steeples builds;

"To Crows the like impartial grace affords,

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"And Choughs and Daws, and such republic birds;

"Reduced from her imperial high abode,
"Like Dionysius to a private rod, †

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"The passive Church, that with pretended grace
"Did her distinctive mark in duty place,

"Now touched, reviles her Maker to his face.
"What after happened is not hard to guess;

"The small beginnings had a large increase,

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"And arts and wealth succeed, the secret spoils of peace.
"'Tis said the Doves repented, though too late
"Become the smiths of their own foolish fate :+
"Nor did their owner hasten their ill hour,
"But, sunk in credit, they decreased in power:
"Like snows in warmth that mildly pass away,
"Dissolving in the silence of decay.

"The Buzzard, not content with equal place,
Invites the feathered Nimrods of his race,

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"The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh (Genesis xlix. 10.)

come."

Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, became, after he was deposed, a schoolmaster at Corinth. A phrase translated from a piece ascribed to Sallust, there quoted from Appius, an early Roman poet whose poems are lost." Res docuit id verum esse quod in carminibus Appius ait, fabrum esse quemque fortunæ suæ." (Epist. ad Cæs. de Republica ordinanda, i. 1.)

"To hide the thinness of their flock from sight,
"And all together make a seeming goodly flight :
"But each have separate interests of their own;
"Two Czars are one too many for a throne.
"Nor can the usurper long abstain from food;
"Already he has tasted Pigeon's blood,
"And may be tempted to his former fare,
"When this indulgent lord shall late to Heaven repair.
"Bare benting times and moulting months may come,
"When lagging late they cannot reach their home;
"Or rent in schism (for so their fate decrees)

*

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"Like the tumultuous College of the Bees, +

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They fight their quarrel, by themselves opprest;

"The tyrant smiles below, and waits the falling feast."

Thus did the gentle Hind her fable end,

Nor would the Panther blame it nor commend ;
But, with affected yawnings at the close,
Seemed to require her natural repose;
For now the streaky light began to peep,
And setting stars admonished both to sleep.
The dame withdrew, and wishing to her guest
The peace of Heaven, betook her self to rest.
Ten thousand angels on her slumbers wait
With glorious visions of her future state.

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"Bare benting times." Bent is the name either of a long coarse grass or of a place where it grows; and benting times means times when the pigeons have no other food.

"The pigeon never knoweth woe
Until she doth a benting go."

(Old Proverb, quoted in Latham's edition of Johnson's Dictionary.)

In Coles's Dictionary, 1696, bent is explained as a place where rushes grow.

This is supposed to refer to the dissensions in the College of Physicians with regard to the Dispensary established by Garth, which occasioned Garth's satirical poem of that name.

BRITANNIA REDIVIVA.

A POEM

ON THE BIRTH OF THE PRINCE.

"Dii Patrii indigetes, et Romule, Vestaque mater,
Quæ Tuscum Tiberim et Romana palatia servas,
Hunc saltem everso puerum succurrere sæclo
Ne prohibite satis jampridem sanguine nostro
Laomedonteæ luimus perjuria Troja."

VIRG. Georg. i. 498.