By force almighty, streams were taught to flow
In narrower channels, and once more relieve

Avonia, hear'st thou, from the neighb'ring stream
So call'd; or Bristoduna; or the sound
Well known, Vincentia? Sithence from thy rock The thirsty hind, and wash the fruitful vale.
The hermit pour'd his orisons of old,

And, dying, to thy fount bequeath'd his name.
Whate'er thy title, thee the azure god
Of ocean erst beheld, and to the shore
Fast flew his pearly car; th' obsequious winds
Drop'd their light pinions, and no sounds were heard
In earth, air, sea, but murmuring sighs of love.
He left thee then; yet not, penurious, left
Without a boon the violated maid;

But, grateful to thy worth, with bounteous hand
Gave thee to pour the salutary rill,
And pay this precious tribute to the main.
And still he visits 2, faithful to his flame,
Thy moist abode, and each returning tide
Mingles his wave with thine; hence brackish oft
And foul, we fly th' adulterated draught

And scorn the proffer'd bev'rage; thoughtless we,
That then thy Naiads hymeneals chant,
And rocks re-echo to the Triton's shell.

What shrieks, what groans, torment the lab'ring
And pierce the astonish'd hearer? ah, behold [air,
Yon agonizing wretch, that pants and writhes,
Rack'd with the stone, and calls on thee for ease!
Nor calls he long in vain; the balmy draught
Has done its office, and resign'd and calm
The poor pale sufferer sinks to sweet repose.
O could thy lenient wave thus charm to peace
That fiercer fiend, Ill-nature; Argus-like,
Whose eyes still open watch th' unwary steps
Which tread thy margin, and whose subtle brain
To real mischief turns ideal ills!

But not thy stream nectareous, nor the smiles
Of rosy-dimpled innocence, can charm [damps,
That monster's rage: dark, dark as midnight
And ten times deadlier, steal along unseen
Her blasting venom, and devours at once
Fair virtue's growth, and beauty's blooming spring.
But turn we from the sight, and dive beneath

Love warm'd thy breast; to love thy waters pay Thy darksome caverns; or unwearied climb

A kind regard: and thence the pallid maid,
Who pines in fancy for some fav'rite youth,
Drinks in new lustre, and with surer aim
Darts more enliven'd glances. Thence the boy,
Who mourns in secret the polluted charms
Of Lais or Corinna, grateful feels

Health's warm return, and pants for purer joys.

Nor youth alone thy power indulgent owns ;
Age shares thy blessings, and the tott'ring frame
By thee supported: not, Tithonus-like,
To linger in decay, and daily feel

A death in every pain; such cruel aids,
Unknown to Nature, art alone can lend :
But, taught by thee, life's latter fruits enjoy
A warmer winter, and at last fall off,
Shook by no boist'rous, or untimely blasts.

But why on single objects dwell my song?
Wide as the neighb'ring sons of commerce waft
Their unexhausted stores, to every clime
On every wind up-born thy triumphs spread!
Thee the glad merchant hails, whom choice or fate
Leads to some distant home, where Sirius reigns,
And the blood boils with many a fell disease
Which Albion knows not. Thee the sable wretch,
To ease whose burning entrails swells in vain
The citron's dewy moisture, thee he hails;
And oft from some steep cliff at early dawn
In seas, in winds, or the vast void of Heaven
Thy power unknown adores; or ranks, perhaps,
Amid his fabled gods Avonia's name.

Scar'd at thy presence start the train of Death,
And hide their whips and scorpions. Thee confus'd
Slow Febris creeps from; thee the meagre fiend
Consumption flies, and checks his rattling coughs.
But chief the dread disease, whose wat'ry power,
Curb'd by thy wave restringent, knows its bounds,
And feels a firmer barrier. Ocean thus
Once flow'd, they say, impetuous; 'till, restrain'd

The spring at Bristol is usually called St. Vincent's Well, and the rocks near it St. Vincent's Rocks, on a fabulous tradition that that saint resided there.

2 The high tides in the Avon generally foul the spring in such a manner as to make the waters improper to be drank till some hours afterward.

Thy tow'ring mountains, studious to explore
The latent seeds and magazines of health.
"Ye rocks that round me rise, ye pendant woods
High waving to the breeze, ye gliding streams
That steal in silence thro' the mossy clefts
Unnumber'd, tell me in what secret vale
Hygenia shuns the day ?-O, often seen
In dreams poetic, pour thy radiant form
Full on my sight, and bless my waking sense!-
But not to me such visions, not to me;
No son of Pæon I, like that sweet bard [Muse 4
Who sung her charms profest 3; or him, whose
Now builds the lofty rhyme, and nobly wild
Crops each unfading flower from Pindar's brow,
To form fresh garlands from the Naiad train.
Yet will I view her still, however coy,
In dreams poetic; see her to the sound
Of dulcet symphonies harmonious lead
Her sportive sister-graces, Mirth serene,
And Peace, sweet inmate of the sylvan shade.

These are thy handmaids, goddess of the fount,
And these thy offspring. Oft have I beheld
Their airy revels on the verdant steep
Of Avon, clear as fancy's eye could paint.
What time the dewy star of eve invites
To lonely musing, by the wave-worn beach,
Along the extended mead. Nor less intent
Their fairy forms I view, when from the height
Of Clifton, tow'ring mount, th' enraptur'd eye
Beholds the cultivated prospect rise

Hill above hill, with many a verdant bound
Of hedge-row chequer'd. Now on painted clouds
Sportive they roll, or down yon winding stream
Give their light mantles to the wafting wind,
And join the sea-green sisters of the flood.

Happy the man whom these amusive walks,
These waking dreams delight! no cares molest
His vacant bosom: Solitude itself
But opens to his keener view new worlds,

3 Dr. Armstrong, author of that elegant didactic poem, called The Art of preserving Health.

4 Alluding to a manuscript poem of Dr. Akenside's (since published) written in the spirit and manner of the ancients, called, An Hymn to the Water Nymphs.

Worlds of his own: from every genuine scene
Of Nature's varying hand his active mind
Takes fire at once, and his full soul o'erflows
With Heaven's own bounteous joy; he too creates,
And with new beings peoples earth and air,
And ocean's deep domain. The bards of old,
The godlike Grecian bards, from such fair founts
Drank inspiration. Hence on airy clifts
Light satyrs danc'd, along the woodland shade
Pan's mystic pipe resounded, and each rill
Confess'd its tutelary power, like thine.

But not like thine, bright deity, their urns
Pour'd health's rare treasures; on their grassy sides
The panting swain reclin'd with his tir'd flock
At sultry noon-tide, or at evening led
His unyok'd heifers to the common stream.

See in what myriads to her watry shrine.
The various votaries press! they drink, they live!
Not more exulting crowds in the full height
Of Roman luxury proud Baiæ knew;
Ere Musa's fatal skill 9, fatal to Rome,
Defam'd the tepid wave. Nor round thy shades,
Clitumnus 10, more recording trophies hang.

O for a Shakspeare's pencil, while I trace
In Nature's breathing paint, the dreary waste
Of Buxton, dropping with incessant rains
Cold and ungenial; or its sweet reverse
Romantic foliage hangs, and rills descend,
Enchanting Matlock, from whose rocks like thine
And echoes murmur. Derwent, as he pours
His oft obstructed stream down rough cascades
And broken precipices, views with awe,

Yet some there have been, and there are, like With rapture, the fair scene his waters form.

thee

Profuse of liquid balm; from the fair train
Of eldest Tadmor 5, where the sapient king

For the faint traveller, and diseas'd, confin'd
To salutary baths the fugitive stream.

Nor yet has Nature to one spot confin'd
Her frugal blessings. Many a different site
And different air, to suit man's varying frame
The same relief extends. Thus Cheltenham sinks
Rural and calm amid the flowery vale,

And still, though now perhaps their power unknown, Pleas'd with its pastoral scenes; while Scarbrough Unsought, the solitary waters creep

Amid Palmyra's ruin, and bewail

To rocks, and desert caves, the mighty loss
Of two imperial cities! so may sink
Yon cloud-envelop'd tow'rs; and times to come
Inquire where Avon flow'd, and the proud mart
Of Bristol rose. Nay, Severn's self may fail,
With all that waste of waters: and the swain
From the tall summit (whence we now survey
The anchoring bark, and see with every tide
Pass and repass the wealth of either world)
May hail the softer scene where groves aspire,
And bosom'd villages, and golden fields
Unite the Cambrian to the English shore.
Why should I mention many a fabled fount
By bards recorded, or historians old;
Whether they water'd Asia's fertile plains
With soft Callirrhoë 7; or to letter'd Greece
Or warlike Latium lent their kindly aid?
Nor ye of modern fame, whose rills descend
From Alps to Appennines, or grateful lave
Germania's harass'd realms, expect my verse
Shall chant your praise, and dwell on foreign

themes;

When chief o'er Albion have the healing powers
Shed wide their influence: from a thousand rocks
Health gushes, through a thousand vales it flows
Spontaneous. Scarce can luxury produce
More pale diseases than her streams relieve.

Witness, Avonia, the unnumber'd tongues
Which hail thy sister's name! on the same banks
Your fountains rise, to the same stream they flow.

✔ Tadmor in the wilderness, built by king Solomon, celebrated for its baths.

6 Palmyra is generally allowed to have stood on the same spot of ground as Tadmor. See the Universal History, vol. ii. 8vo. edit. where is a print representing the ruins of that city.

7 A fountain in Judea beyond Jordan, which empties itself in the lake Asphaltes. Its waters were not only medicinal, but remarkably soft and agreeable to the taste. Herod the Great made use of them in his last dreadful distemper. Josephus, 1, xvii. c. 8.

Bath.

lifts

Its towering summits to th' aspiring clouds,
And sees th' unbounded ocean roll beneath.

Avonia frowns! and justly may'st thou frown,
O goddess, on the bard, th' injurious bard,
Who leaves thy pictur'd scenes, and idly roves
For foreign beauty to adorn his song.
Thine is all beauty; every site is thine.
Thine the sweet vale, and verdure-crowned mead
Slow rising from the plain, which Cheltenham
boasts.

Thine Scarbrough's cliffs; and thine the russet
heaths

Of sandy Tunbridge; o'er thy spacious downs
Stray wide the nibbling flocks; the hunter train
May range thy forests; and the muse-led youth,
Who loves the devious walk, and simple scene,
May in thy Kingswood view the scatter'd cots
And the green wilds of Dulwich. Does the Sun,
Does the free air delight? lo! Clifton stands
Courted by every breeze; and every Sun
In southern skies sublime, or mildly pours
There sheds a kinder ray; whether he rides
O'er Bristol's red'ning towers his orient beam,

Musa supervacuas Antonius, et tamen illis
Mihi Baias
Per medium frigus. Sanè myrteta relinqui
Me facit invisum gelidâ dum perluor undâ
Dictaque cessantein nervis elidere morbum
Sulfura contemni, Vicus gemit; invidus agris
Qui caput aut stomachum supponere fontibus au-
dent, &c.

river in Pliny's Epistles, Ep. 8. Book viii. where he
10 See a beautiful description of the source of this
mentions it as a custom for persons to leave inscrip-
tions, &c. as testimonies of their being cured
there; something in the manner of the crutches at
Bath.

ON FRIENDSHIP...THE DOG.

For 'tis not-friendship, though the raptures run,

Led by the mad'ning god, through every vein;
Like the warm flower, which drinks the noon-tide
Sun,

Their bosoms open but to close again.
Yet there are hours of mirth, which friendship loves,
When prudence sleeps, and wisdom grows more
kind,

Sallies of sense, which reason scarce approves,
When all unguarded glows the naked mind.
But far from those be each profaner eye

With glance malignant withering fancy's bloom;
Far the vile ear, where whispers never die;

Far the rank heart, which teems with ills to come.
Full oft, by fortune near each other plac'd,

Ill-suited souls, nor studious much to please,
Whole fruitless years in awkward union waste,
Till chance divides, whom chance had join'd
with ease.

And yet, should either oddly soar on high,

And shine distinguish'd in some sphere remov'd,
The friend observes him with a jealous eye,

And calls ungrateful whom he never lov'd.
But leave we such for those of happier clay
On who e emerging stars the Graces smile,
And search for truth, where virtue's sacred ray
Wakes the glad seed in friendship's genuine

soil.

In youth's soft season, when the vacant mind
To each kind impulse of affection yields,
When Nature charms, and love of humankind
With its own brightness every object gilds,
Should two congenial bosoms haply meet,

Or on the banks of Camus, hoary stream,
Or where smooth Isis glides on silver feet,

Nurse of the Muses each, and each their theme,
How blithe the mutual morning task they ply!

How sweet the saunt'ring walk at close of day!
How steal, secluded from the world's broad eye,
The midnight hours insensibly away!
While glows the social bosom to impart

Each young idea dawning science lends,
Or big with sorrow beats th' unpractis'd heart
For suff'ring virtue, and disastrous friends.
Deep in the volumes of the mighty dead

They feast on joys to vulgar minds unknown;
The hero's, sage's, patriot's path they tread,

Adore each worth, and make it half their own.
Sublime and pure as Thebes or Sparta taught
Eternal union from their souls they swear,
Each added converse swells the generous thought,
And each short absence makes it more sincere-
—“ And can”—-(I hear some eager voice exclaim,
Whose bliss now blossoms, and whose hopes beat
high)

"Can Virtue's basis fail th' incumbent frame?
And may such friendships ever ever die?"
Ah, gentle youth, they may. Nor thou complain
If chance the sad experience should be thine.
What cannot change where all is light and
vain?

-Ask of the Fates who twist life's varying line.
Ambition, vanity, suspense, surmise,

On the wide world's tempestuous ocean roll;
New loves, new friendships, new desires arise,

New joys elate, new griefs depress the soul.
Some, in the bustling mart of business, lose
The still small voice retirement loves to hear;
Some at the noisy bar enlarge their views,

And some in senates court a people's ear,

While others, led by glory's meteors, run

To distant wars for laurels stain'd with blood. Meanwhile the stream of time glides calmly on, And ends its silent course in Lethe's flood. Unhappy only he of friendship's train

Who never knew what change or fortune meant,
With whom th' ideas of his youth remain

Too firmly fix'd, and rob him of content.
Condemn'd perhaps to some obscure retreat,
Where pale reflection wears a sickly bloom,
Still to the past he turns with pilgrim feet,
And ghosts of pleasure haunt him to his tomb.
O-but I will not name you-ye kind few,

With whom the morning of my life I pass'd,
May every bliss, your generous bosoms knew
In earlier days, attend you to the last.

I too, alas, am chang'd.-And yet there are
Who still with partial love my friendship own,
Forgive the frailties which they could not share,
Or find my heart unchang'd to them alone.
To them this votive tablet of the Muse

Pleas'd I suspend.-Nor let th' unfeeling mind
From these loose hints its own vile ways excuse,
Or start a thought to injure human-kind.
Who knows not friendship, knows not bliss sincere..
Court it, ye young; ye aged, bind it fast;
Earn it, ye proud; nor think the purchase dear,
Whate'er the labour, if 'tis gain'd at last.
Compar'd with all th' admiring world calls great,
Fame's loudest blast, ambition's noblest ends,
Ev'n the last pang of social life is sweet:
The pang which parts us from our weeping friends.

THE DOG.

A TALE.

A SQUIRE of parts, and some conceit,
Though not a glaring first-rate wit,
Had lately taken to his arms
A damsel of uncommon charms.
A mutual bliss their bosoms knew,
The hours on downy pinions flew,
And scatter'd roses as they pass'd:
Emblem of joy too sweet to last!
For lo! th' unequal Fates divide
Th' enamour'd swain and beauteous bride.
The honeymoon had scarcely wan'd,
And love its empire still maintain'd,
When forth he must, for business calls.
-Adieu, ye fields, ye groves, ye walls,
That in your hallow'd bounds contain
My source of joy-my source of pain!
It must be so; adieu, my dear.
They kiss, he sighs, she drops a tear,
For lovers of a certain cast

Think every parting is the last,
And still whine out, whene'er they sever,
"Farewell for ever!"
In tragic strain,
Awhile, in melancholy mood,
He slowly pac'd the tiresome road;
For" every road must tiresome prove
That bears us far from her we love."
But Sun, and exercise, and air,
At length dispel the glooms of care;
They vanish like a morning dream,
And happiness is now the theme.
How blest his lot, to gain at last,
So many vain researches past,