Like the tall fir-trees on the blasted heath,

Scorch'd by the autumnal burnings which have rush'd

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With wasting fire fierce through its leafy groves.

Should ev'ry hill, by the rebellious foe

So well defended, cost thus dear to us,

Not the united forces of the world

Could master them and the proud rage subdue
Of these AMERICANS.

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Howe. E'en in an enemy I honour worth
And valour eminent. The vanquish'd foe
In feats of prowess shew their ancestry
And speak their birth legitimate,

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The sons of Britons, with the genuine flame
Of British heat and valour in their veins.
What pity 't is such excellence of mind
Should spend itself in the fantastic cause
Of wild-fire liberty. Warren is dead,
And lies unburied on the smoky hill;
But with rich honours he shall be inhum'd,
To teach our soldiery how much we love

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E'en in a foe true worth and noble fortitude.

Come, then, brave soldiers, and take up the dead,

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And round its margin, to the ebbing wave,
A town on fire and rushing from its base
With ruin hideous and combustion down.
Mean time deep thunder from the hollow sides
Of the artill❜ry on the hill top hear'd,
With roar of thunder and loud mortars play'd
From the tall ships and batt'ries on the wave,
Bade yon blue ocean and wide heaven resound.
A scene like which, perhaps, no time shall know
'Till heav'n with final ruin fires the ball,
Burns up the cities and the works of men,
And wraps the mountains in one gen'ral blaze.

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[Exeunt. 85 1776.

JOHN TRUMBULL

THE PROGRESS OF DULNESS

FROM

PART I, OR THE ADVENTURES OF TOM BRAINLESS

"Our Tom has grown a sturdy boy:

His progress fills my heart with joy;
A steady soul that yields to rule,
And quite ingenious, too, at school.
Our master says (I 'm sure he 's right)
There's not a lad in town so bright:
He'll cypher bravely, write and read,
And say his catechism and creed,

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From country cares and labor eased:
No more to rise by break of day
To drive home cows or deal out hay;
To work no more in snow or hail,
And blow his fingers o'er the flail,
Or mid the toils of harvest sweat
Beneath the summer's sultry heat;
Serene he bids the farm good-bye,
And quits the plough without a sigh.
Propitious to their constant friend,
The pow'rs of idleness attend.

So to the priest in form he goes,
Prepared to study and to doze.
The parson in his youth before
Had run the same dull progress o'er,
His sole concern to see with care
His church and farm in good repair.

His skill in tongues that once he knew
Had bid him long a last adieu;

Away his Latin rules had fled,

And Greek had vanish'd from his head..

Two years thus spent in gathering knowledge,

The lad sets forth t' unlade at college,

While down his sire and priest attend him,

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So said, so done, at college now
He enters well, no matter how.
New scenes awhile his fancy please,
But all must yield to love of ease.

Four years at college dozed away

In sleep and slothfulness and play,

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Too dull for vice, with clearest conscience,

Charged with no fault but that of nonsense,

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Now to some priest that 's famed for teaching

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The scriptures speak whate'er he please;
With judgment, unperceived to quote
What Pool explain'd or Henry wrote;
To give the gospel new editions,
Split doctrines into propositions,
Draw motives, uses, inferences,
And torture words in thousand senses;
Learn the grave style and goodly phrase,
Safe handed down from Cromwell's days,
And shun, with anxious care, the while,
The infection of a modern style;

Or on the wings of folly fly
Aloft in metaphysic sky,

The system of the world explain

Till night and chaos come again;
Deride what old divines can say,
Point out to heaven a nearer way,
Explode all known establish'd rules,
Affirm our fathers all were fools.
(The present age is growing wise,
But wisdom in her cradle lies;

Late, like Minerva, born and bred,

Not from a Jove's but scribbler's head,
While thousand youths their homage lend her,
And nursing fathers rock and tend her.)

Round him much manuscript is spread:
Extracts from living works and dead,
Themes, sermons, plans of controversy
That hack and mangle without mercy,
And whence, to glad the reader's eyes,
The future dialogue shall rise.
At length, matured the grand design,
He stalks abroad a grave divine.

Mean while, from every distant seat,
At stated time the clergy meet:
Our hero comes, his sermon reads,
Explains the doctrine of his creeds,
A licence gains to preach and pray,
And makes his bow and goes his way.
What though his wits could ne'er dispense
One page of grammar or of sense;
What though his learning be so slight
He scarcely knows to spell or write;
What though his skull be cudgel-proof-
He's orthodox, and that 's enough.

Now in the desk, with solemn air,
Our hero makes his audience stare;
Asserts with all dogmatic boldness,
Where impudence is yoked to dulness;
Reads o'er his notes with halting pace,
Mask'd in the stiffness of his face,
With gestures such as might become
Those statues once that spoke at Rome,
Or Livy's ox that to the state
Declared the oracles of fate;

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In awkward tones, nor said nor sung,
Slow rumbling o'er the falt'ring tongue,
Two hours his drawling speech holds on,
And names it preaching when he's done.
With roving tired, he fixes down

For life in some unsettled town:
People and priest full well agree,

For why-they know no more than he.

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