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Now stooping low to hear the shepherd's tale,
Or mark the humblest flowret * of the vale ;
Now tow'ring high, to drink the blaze of day,
Bathed in effulgence of the solar ray;

While raptured mortals view, with dread delight,
The solitary grandeur of thy flight.

Thus, high o'er Cotopaxa's† summit hoar, In " pride of place," the Condor dares to soar,

-"Ou her left breast

A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops

I' the bottom of a Cowslip."

This might have escaped all but a botanist.

CYMBELINE.

†This is another peak of the Andes. Exposed to the vertical rays of the sun, above the clouds, and situated nearly in the centre of the torrid zone, yet are these frozen regions covered with everlasting snows. These bleak, and dreary heights, whose silent solitude must be for ever undisturbed by the footstep, or the voice of man, are rendered vocal, only by the piercing scream of the Condor, by far the largest, and most powerful of the Eagle race. The lonely tenant of these icy craggs, he is endowed with a vigour of circulation to endure their cold, and a strength of pinion, to soar far above their summits; yet can he dart like a thunder-bolt upon the prey, plunging from the zenith of his flight, at once in the deep and sultry valleys of Lima. To him, the instantaneous and violent changes of height and depth, of heat and cold, are alike indifferent; and he can precipitate himself, as it were, in a moment, from the temperature of the Poles, to that of the Line. In those vast and luxuriant Savannahs, which have been compared to seas of grass,

He reigns, where flagging Eagles may not fly,
Sole monarch of that cold and chrystal sky;
Above the sad vicissitudes of things,
Departing Empires, and degraded Kings!
But should he ken the prey, or scent the slain,
Down through the vast abyss he darts amain,
To shade with cow'ring wing parched Lima's sultry
plain !

and under the cloudless canopy of a Peruvian sky, no living object shall be discernible throughout the whole horizon. Yet, the Buccaneer shall have scarcely stripped the ham-stringed Buffalo of his hide, before the Condor shall be seen hovering over him, and covering him with his wings; allured to the prey, from heights beyond the ken of human vision. The anatomy of this wonderful bird must be for many reasons extremely curious. It would open to us another page in the book of Nature; that comprehensive and exhaustless volume, every line and letter of which addresses itself to all our senses, and consoles us with one interesting, joyful, and all pervading truth. A truth, the full and adequate expression of which, can only be found in the volume of Revelation, that other monument of God's wisdom and benevolence. That sacred page re-echoes back the voice of nature, when it declares that "Great and Glorious are Thy Works, and in Wisdom hast Thou made them all !

N n

END OF THE FIRST BOOK.

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APPENDIX,

&c.

TO THE FIRST BOOK.

IT was my intention to have made some farther observations on the TITLE of this Poem, in the first note. But as the half sheet. containing it went to press during my absence from Tiverton, it is, in my own opinion, more imperfect than any other part. of the Poem; and I have to lament some insertions, and some omissions. The anecdote, for instance, of Dr. Johnson ought to have appeared, not in the poetry, but, (if any where) in the note. Alas!" Quid me dempta juvat spinis de pluribus una ?” On my return, the whole impression of the first half sheet was taken off; so that I had only time to regret, what it was too late to remedy. What I meant to have said on the subject of my Title, I shall offer here. Candid Judges will not pronounce the Title to have been ill chosen, until they have seen the whole of the Work. At present, the first Book only is before them. They will, also, admit the difficulty of writing a long Poem on any one particular vice, without some digressions; these, most readers will pardon, should they be found to rise not unnaturally out of the subject; "ex re nata." My first Book is very near three thousand lines; quite enough, if good for any

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thing; a great deal too much if good for nothing. Therefore, I must request my readers to suspend their sentence on the incongruity of the Title, until the whole Work is before them. They may then, if they think proper, re-christen it what they please. It was my fixed determination to give the Poem a single title. And I must presume that no one term can be found in the language, to suit the general tenor of the work so well as HYPOCRISY. There may be parts to which that term does not quite apply. When we see a likeness, we exclaim, 'that is the portrait of such a man ;' and it is not the less so, because the picture may have trees and cattle in it. Even panegyric has been considered, by some, as a digression, in a satirical poem; however, it is a digression in which all the Satirists have indulged,and to me, it has proved the most grateful part of my task. Nor should it be forgotten, that the praise of the good, is often the severest, always the safest, censure on the bad. It also enables the Poet to heighten the effect, by a contrast, as necessary to the painting of the pen, as light and shade to that of the pencil.

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Egotism I think as unpleasant to the writer, as tiresome to the reader. Nevertheless I shall offer a few remarks on myself, which will not be wholly unacceptable, if what I have al ready written has excited any interest in my readers; if it has not, it matters little what I write. In the first place, it would have been more prudent in me to have concealed my name— because no one is sufficiently perfect to take upon himself the avowed office of a Censor-because young men, and young authors, in particular, ought to be very careful not to make enemies; in as much as fame is an empty breath, but revenge an active principle; and because nothing is so strong, but that which is weak may injure it. Pope himself never ventured on satire, until he had established his fortune and his fame. And Juvenal, the Sampson of his tribe, blushed not to own his appre hensions from the power of Nero;

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