The national advocates, a poem. Affectionately inscribed to the Honourable Thomas Erskine, and Vicary Gibbs, Esquire

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THE NATIONAL ADVOCATES.

Spirits divine! who, pleas'd at Nature's birth,

Took your kind station round the recent earth

To watch the world, in viewless state sublime,

A guardian each of each allotted clime—

Ye, who with pity have had cause to melt,

And anguish, such as angels feel, have felt,

To witness evils that ye most abhor,

The fiend-like phrensy of insatiate war,

Leagues without justice, without glory strife,

And mad profusion of envenom'd life;

Though crimes, from which your hallow'd optics shrink,

Hurry the vex'd globe to perdition's brink,

Ye will not yet your guilty charge abjure,

And fly from evils that ye fail to cure—

No, Ye have heard from Britain's favour'd isle,

Sounds to excite a troubled Seraph's smile,

And draw to earth, on just protection's plan,

Pure spirits, friendly to the weal of man.

The sound of joy that town to town repeats,

Circling from London and her crowded streets,

As Echo guides it, with exulting hand,

To every confine of th' enfranchis'd land,—

That sound of joy was not the frantic roar

Of martial triumph pamper'd high with gore,

That giving murder a gigantic frame,

Rears the grim idol deck'd with Glory's name,

When sanguinary man, with impious pride,

In false devotion real guilt to hide,

With inconsistence not to Pagans known,

Presents preposterous thanks to Mercy's throne,

For having tainted both the earth and air,

With blood that Heaven commanded him to spare.—

The sound of joy, this sympathetic song

Would with fond zeal to distant time prolong,

Spoke not of war, but peace's nobler palm;

In civic tempests it announc'd a calm;

Assuring Britain, in her worst alarm,

That Law's bright aegis blazes on her arm;

That round her sons the snares of legal death

Burst at the hallow'd touch of Virtue's breath.

Ye nameless powers, who Reason's voice inspire,

Who give to Eloquence her patriot fire;

Ye, who when man, in fields of spotless fame,

Strains noble faculties with noblest aim,

Haste to refresh him at true honour's goal

With eulogy, the music of the soul;

Grant in this verse such lucid praise to live,

As only Truth, fair child of Light, can give,

They only merit, who, of spirit clear,

And, deaf to int'rest, as exempt from fear,

Exert, while Power's presumptuous claims they scan,

Celestial gifts in aid of suffering man;

Shew splendid talents sanctified by worth,

And made a blessing to th' admiring earth:—

To you, entitled to the world's applause,

Fraternal advocates in Freedom's cause:—

To you, whom Friendship with fond pride unites,

With all the lustre of her ancient rites,

Of equal probity and varied powers,

In arduous duty's spirit-trying hours,

Each to the other a benignant star,

The Scipio and the Laelius of the bar:—

To you, illustrious friends, whose legal fame

Shall last, while Law herself, a sacred name,

Holds her primaeval right, her blest employ,

Parent of peace, and cherisher of joy:—

To you I offer, nor will you refuse,

You, who as Freedom's child caress the Muse,

Tribute, no power commands, no treasures buy,

Pure as the tear of joy in true Love's eye;

Verse undebas'd by adulation's art,

Fresh from the fountain of a feeling heart,

That scorns all Party rage of either side,

Faction's fierce spleen, and Pow'r's suspicious pride,

And, loving England, that her laws display

The blest beneficence of temperate sway,

Honours her advocates, whose truth and zeal

Stand the firm pillars of the public weal:—

Yes, ye brave pleaders in a cause, whose weight

Press'd on the vitals of a panting State,

'Twas not alone the being of a few

Black with false guilt, in dim suspicion's view,

Whose lives, in deference to minds so rare,

Justice consign'd to your defensive care:

'Twas Britain's honour, 'twas her noblest wealth,

The very essence of the public health,

For which your patriot eloquence display'd

Those matchless powers, that bold yet temperate aid,

Which Themis sanctioned with a sacred smile,

And rightful joy convuls'd her rescued isle.

Whence is the gen'rous pride, a test of worth,

That makes a Briton glory in his birth?

Not that his country, Nature's favour'd isle,

Is fenc'd by commerce with a golden pile;

And can impel, with rich temptation's flood,

Poor continental kings to trade in blood,

Though reaping, as their fruit of martial care,

Discomfiture, disgrace, dismay, despair:

No: he exults that in his native land,

Hearts by the warmth of Liberty expand;

And Intellect, a tree that loves the light,

Shoots like a cedar of imperial height;

While fearless Freedom, with an eagle's ken,

Searching the soul of measures and of men,

Alike contemns, in their unmasking hour,

The dupe of Party, and the slave of Power;

And celebrates, what here she still can find,

True public virtue in a potent mind.

When a sick nation, like a feverish child,

Sinks in a panick, wayward, dark, and wild;

From fear to fear in blind confusion runs,

Mistakes for foreign imps her genuine sons;

Calls Loyalty a Traitor, Truth a Liar,

And Freedom's vital warmth Sedition's fire:

When rampant Power, beyond Ixion proud,

Impregnates with chimeras every cloud,

Blest be the minds, whose virtuous labours serve

To save their darkling country's visual nerve;

While fancied plots and shadowy perils fly

Distemper's film, that dimm'd the nation's eye,

Who, with recover'd sight, exults to see

It is not treason, still to wish her free.

Reason may smile, if sophistry would show

A faithful subject is a treacherous foe;

And those, who strike at vices in the State,

Must mean a Monarch's fall, and seek his fate;

As if corruption were the vital spring

Of that effulgent mortal styl'd a King.

Unguarded Poet, in this troubled time,

Beware, cries Caution, how you rant in rhime,

Lest you should find there's treason in the metre,

That deems a Monarch a mere earthly creature.

With rational respect, not stupid awe,

As the just offspring and the guard of law,

The voice of England, her creative voice,

Hails in a King the ruler of her choice.

And Nature here, as if inclin'd to claim

Immortal rev'rence for the regal name,

Bade Alfred's virtues to the world evince

How rightfully we prize a Patriot Prince:

Model of Kings! in a benighted age,

All that adorns the Hero and the Sage;

Lycurgus, Caesar, Antonine in one,

With all their talents, of their errors none:

Thou, whose pure spirit to thy subjects taught,

The sons of England should be free as thought:

Thy arm preserv'd, and thy more potent mind,

With sapient aid, establish'd or refin'd,

For scenes more perilous than martial strife,

Our guardian Juries, as the friends of life!

With fond delight, and with parental love,

Thy people's Father! from the realms above,

Thy sainted spirit may exult to see,

That people guarding what they owe to thee:

Law's soundest buckler, Freedom's brightest dower,

Shielding bold Truth from irritable Power.

Ye Great, whose souls to genuine glory spring,

With such ambition as becomes a king,

Mark how true greatness may in ev'ry clime

Command unceasing life thro' distant time!

Gifts, that Beneficence, on Wisdom's plan,

Confers to meliorate the lot of man,

Live unimpair'd, unconscious of decay,

While Pride's ignoble pageants pass away.

The heart of Alfred still our love excites,

He lives, he breathes in ev'ry Jury's rights!

Though of his line no Prince upholds the name,

He still exists the favourite of Fame!

Though following kings, of ampler pomp and power,

Finish'd in fume their transitory hour:

Tudors of hot, and Stuarts of cold blood,

Have sunk like wrecks in a tempestuous flood:

For, at the will of Heaven's Almighty Sire,

Palaces fall, and dynasties expire.—

The noble Line, that, with Religion's smile,

Freedom invited to this far-fam'd Isle;

Whom Honour wafted on his golden wings

To this his fav'rite throne, and cried: "Be Kings!

Rule with mild sway whom Force shall ne'er enslave,

And long may Virtue guard what Freedom gave!"—

This Line, that boasts the purest claim to power,

May fail—Avert, just Heav'n! their final hour;

And keep them as they keep their regal vow!—

Yet they may fail, and mortals know not how:

But if—in times no living eye can see,

Distant, far distant may that period be!

If England must perceive with fond regret

The star of Brunswick is for ever set;

A George with Alfred may this glory share,

That Law's pure current was his sov'reign care:

If from great Alfred's reign free Juries flow,

The independent Judge to George we owe.

Mild Sov'reign! doom'd, in life's tumultuous dream,

To feel of bliss and woe each wide extreme,

Justice could well thy youthful care engage,

May Heaven make Peace an idol of thy age!

O bid this wheel of War revolve no more,

This frantic lottery of guilt and gore!

Where, when Truth weighs the profit and the pain,

None but the Fiends of desolation gain.

Let not false policy, to Nature blind,

And deaf to Reason pleading for mankind,

Precipitately urge a barb'rous war,

That Equity and Truth alike abhor,

As weak in conduct, as devoid of right,

And boding certain ill in ev'ry light:

Speed as it may, each opposite event

Freedom must fear, Humanity lament.

No, cry the advocates for lasting strife,

Let us be prodigal of wealth and life;

Let Britain's treasure round the globe be hurl'd,

Long let her subsidise the regal world;

Rather than see the Gallic rage advance,

And madd'ning Europe ape the crimes of France!

England, brave nation, of an honest mind,

Yet often dup'd as credulously blind;

Too apt, when artifice obstructs thy view,

To shrink from fancied ills, and scorn the true;

Learn, when thy neighbour of superb pretence,

Whose feelings are too quick for sober sense;

Learn, when assuming France, by Folly led,

Might best awaken thy judicious dread:

Not in the hour when, spurning base controul,

She pluck'd the iron from her wounded soul;

Not in the hour when Indignation's arm

O'erthrew her proud Bastile, as with a charm,

And gave to festive Joy the vacant space,

Nobly disburthen'd of Earth's dark disgrace:

No—in her ancient calm, her nerveless hour

Of tame submission to despotic power,

France might excite more reasonable fear,

Than all her armies in their first career;

For, when in Tyranny's cold grasp she lay,

And strove to smile her sense of wrongs away,

On her soft breast a specious Fiend she nurs'd,

Of all insinuating fiends the worst:

Pleas'd to empoison nations with her breath,

And sow the viewless seeds of public death;

To deaden virtue, to dispirit joy,

And all the energies of life destroy.

For in the minds that, fearsul of deceit,

Slowly embrace this fascinating cheat,

Reason, self-puzzled, loses all its skill,

To mark th' eternal bounds of good and ill;

To them Religion's sweet seraphic face

Appears the sickly mask of sour grimace:

Man, her dear charge, they deem a moving clod,

And, deaf to the paternal voice of God,

Despise the gift his gracious power bestow'd,

Feeling existence a lethargic load.

Whence sprung the fiend, whose tyrannous controul

Thus robs of every joy the palsied soul?

Born to avenge what Greece endur'd from Rome,

Amidst an attic garden's baneful bloom

Rose the fair pest, in beauty and in power

A new Pandora! wretchedness her dower:

Sweet was the wreath of fading flowers she wore,

And gay[*] Philosophy the name she bore.

Two kindred forms, where'er she moves, are seen,

The sure attendants of their potent Queen:

First, bloated Indolence, whose cheeks disclose

The sickly colours of the wither'd rose;

Whose languid arm scarce bears the light employ,

To lift the bubbling cup of mimic joy;

Whose lips deride, with a contemptuous sneer,

Firm Virtue struggling in Contention's sphere.

Behind her, Apathy, whose half-glaz'd eyes

Ne'er melt with love, or sparkle with surprise;

Whose touch, more cold than Terror's icy breath,

Shoots through the wither'd heart petrific Death.

With these, her ministers, to Rome she fled,

And struck the nerve of Roman vigour dead;

The tow'ring Eagle fell her palsied prey,

And dying Freedom curs'd her baleful sway.

Awhile she sat with Triumph's flag unfurl'd,

The laughing Vict'ress of the Roman world;

In pomp Circean, there she joy'd to shine,

Her cave the palace, Emperors her swine!

But soon her nerveless slaves, unfit for war,

Sunk into dust before the sons of Thor;

The Sorceress fell, with all her feeble charms,

Crush'd by the brave barbarians' massive arms.

Through many an age she lay in lifeless trance,

But wak'd to wider ill in servile France;

Gallia's proud Genius, who by force in vain

Had toil'd to forge an universal chain,

Tried o'er the earth his empire to extend,

By the smooth arts of this insidious friend;

Snare Virtue's sons by Pleasure's syren form,

And sap those bulwarks that he fail'd to storm.

Brave generous Britons, who have less to fear

From open enmity's uplifted spear,

Beware this smiling pestilence, and know

In French Philosophy your deadliest foe!

O for that warning lyre, whose solemn swell

Loudly proclaim'd th' advancing Lord of Hell,

When first that prime Artificer of Ill

Leap'd with light bound o'er Eden's highest hill!—

For not more hostile to those happy bowers,

Came the fierce Chief of Falsehood's treach'rous Powers,

Than the gay Syren, fraught with impious guile,

To the frank virtues of this fearless Isle.

Yet vain such warning!—As a welcome guest,

Deluded Britain met the smiling pest;

And oh how wide new scenes of woe extend,

Since the base stranger grew her bosom friend!

Vain Dissipation, in her wild abyss,

O'erwhelms the temp'rate guards of genuine bliss:

No more Fidelity, with Seraph's power,

Spreads her firm wing around the nuptial bower,

That heirs of Truth, of Virtue, Health, and Grace

May spring to life from Passion's pure embrace;

Prepar'd to cherish with affection fond

Each private duty, and each public bond:

No more Content, and Gratitude, whose light

Turns Earth to Paradise in mental sight,

Through dark'ning scenes bewilder'd Reason guide,

And make Humility more strong than Pride:

To French Philosophy these fall a prey,

And Life's prime blessings are all laugh'd away:—

Nay, Life itself! For, when the Sophist tribes

With the keen stroke of their sarcastic gibes

Have cut the cordage, for our safety given,

By which the anchor'd spirit rests on Heaven—

What gulphs the vessel of the Mind o'erwhelm,

When spleenful Phrensy has usurp'd the helm!

Have we not seen a France-taught Sophist here

To impious Suicide a refuge rear,

And give, with argument's delusive air,

A treach'rous sanction to her mad despair?

Tempestuous England! Though we oft surmise,

The heavy vapours of thy varying skies

Breed in our sadden'd frames the mental strife,

Where fancy sickens with disgust of life:

Not all thy fogs, however damp and dense,

Can fix such languor on our loaded sense,

As false Philosophers by stealth impart,

To the cold fibres of the hard'ning heart;

When their base maxims on our spirit steal,

And quench our native flames of love and zeal.

No, though around us exhalations run,

That seem to smother the enfeebled Sun;

True English minds, that England still admire,

And feel the genuine glow of patriot fire,

Defy the storm from southern caves releas'd,

And the raw vapours of the blighting East.

Within themselves an antidote they bear

Gainst all the dark caprices of the air;

'Tis fervent gratitude, and fond esteem

For names still bright with Public Virtue's beam;

'Tis gen'rous pride, of reason the result,

That makes a Briton in his birth exult,

As the compatriot of minds, whose worth

Has giv'n such splendour to this speck of earth;

That, while o'er other realms in Slavery's chain,

An heavy mental twilight seem'd to reign,

Here, and here only, with meridian ray

Glow'd the full warmth of intellectual day;

And generous thoughts, that no damp winds controul,

Form the pure climate of the healthy soul.

"Aye, in old time, cries Age-engender'd Spleen,

Such England was!—but mark her alter'd scene:

See Lux'ry's torrents like hot lava shoot,

With'ring all Genius, killing Virtue's root;

Nor leaving ought unblasted by their fire,

That Sense can praise, or Honesty admire."

This fretful humour of the fancied Sage

Has in each polish'd aera spent its rage;

While credulous Simplicity, aghast,

Has heard of present shame, and glory past;

Of nerveless bodies, of enfeebled minds,

And every ill that sickly Fancy finds;

When all's inverted that her optics see,

And nothing is, but what has ceas'd to be.

But come, Historic Truth, whose hand enrolls

Each splendid record of exalted souls;

Come, Moral Fiction, o'er whose mimic glass

Bright pageants of ideal merit pass:

Come hand in hand, fair friends to Virtue, come,

And strike this murmuring detraction dumb!

Say, in each group your blended scenes unfold,

Keen Admiration can no names behold,

That claim in public love a nobler part,

Or win more honour from the upright heart,

Than you, ye Legal Heroes of my song,

As dear to fancy, as in reason strong;

Who, in despite of mental toil and pain,

That seem to threaten the o'er-burden'd brain,

Breath'd the pure soul of manly eloquence,

Simple in language, liberal in sense;

And, with intrepid Virtue's guardian care,

Rescued the Captives tangled in the snare

Of blood-hound spies, whose prostituted mind

Toil'd to create the guilt it could not find.

No: proud Antiquity's departed host,

Whose shadowy marvels Learning loves to boast,

Shew not, in civic glory's favourite days,

Pleaders more worthy of a People's praise.

When by rapt Greece Demosthenes was heard,

And thunder seem'd less potent than his word;

The stormy passions of revenge and ire

Ting'd his bright language with intemp'rate fire:

When Tully, destin'd to the Grecian's doom,

Pour'd forth philippics to applauding Rome;

Personal hate, with patriot virtue warm,

Gave force and fury to his verbal storm.

These heroes of the hot forensic scene

Blended with public zeal their private spleen:—

Not so the Pleaders who this verse inspire,

Who merit paeans, from a nobler lyre:

As free from virulence, as void of fear,

In conduct graceful, as in motive clear.

They paid just homage to presiding Law,

With manly deference, and decent awe.

No selfish pride, in which light minds rejoice,

Rais'd to victorious sway their temp'rate voice:

But England's welfare, on their heart imprest,

Pure public virtue, glowing in their breast,

Arm'd their just souls with intellectual force,

To check Authority's vindictive course,

And turn Delusion's tide in Danger's hour,

Reckless of frowns from Prejudice and Power.

ERSKINE and GIBBS! whose names, to Nature dear,

Ages unborn may gratesully revere;

While this memorial of your worth I raise,

And firmly credit what I fondly praise;

One hateful truth shall Mem'ry dare suggest,

Grav'd on the deep recesses of her breast:

Rudely she teaches, from her ample range,

That Public Virtue is most apt to change.

The faithful hand, that these frank lines supplied,

Ne'er lavish'd incense by the heart belied;

But, with fond zeal to court in joyous youth

A public idol of imagin'd truth,

Has oft discarded an unfinish'd task,

Finding Apostacy in Virtue's mask;

For ere my fingers could the garland weave,

Like that our hapless Father twin'd for Eve,

It dropp'd, and all its faded roses shed,

Scorning to garnish an Apostate's head.

But may this civic wreath, in eager haste

Form'd of wild flowers, by Merit's smile be grac'd!

For lives preserv'd unquestionably due,

(The nameless donor proves the tribute true;)

Bays from Sincerity's obscure retreat

May cherish Virtue in Contention's heat.

Ye, to whom England owes a pleasing debt,

That English gratitude should ne'er forget;

Thus Freedom prays, to recompense your care,

Deign, righteous Heav'n! to ratify the pray'r:

"Live my firm aids to life's serenest end,

Friends to each other, each the people's friend;

Live beyond life of Briton's glory part,

Enshrin'd for ever in the public heart!"

FINIS.

Notes

*
The doctrine of Epicurus ever ruinous to society; it had its rise when Greece was declining, and perhaps hastened its dissolution, as also that of Rome. It is now propagated in France and England, and seems likely to produce the same effect in both.

GRAY's Works, 4to. page 202.

↵

THE NATIONAL ADVOCATES, A POEM. AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED TO THE NONOURABLE THOMAS ERSKINE, AND VICARY GIBBS, ESQUIRE.

Mirum, qua intentione, quibus clamoribus omnia exceperint, qui modo reclamabant: tanta conversio vel negotii dignitatem, vel proventum orationis, vel actoris constantiam subsecuta est.
PLIN. Epist. lib. ix. ep. 13.

LONDON: PRINTED FOR J. DEBRETT, OPPOSITE BURLINGION-HOUSE, PICCADILLY. MDCCXC•.

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The national advocates, a poem. Affectionately inscribed to the Honourable Thomas Erskine, and Vicary Gibbs, Esquire

Hayley, William, 1745-1820.

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1106010418

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9781106010414

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K039838.000

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CW3311512492

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— The national advocates, a poem. Affectionately inscribed to the Honourable Thomas Erskine, and Vicary Gibbs, Esquire, Hayley, William, 1745-1820.. [2],33,[1]p. ; 4⁰. London :: printed for J. Debrett,. 1795.. [Anonymous. By William Hayley.] [In praise of Erskine and Gibbs' defence of Thomas Hardy, Horne Tooke and others.] [Reproduction of original from the British Library.] [English Short Title Catalog, ESTCT39611.] [Electronic data. Farmington Hills, Mich. : Thomson Gale, 2003. Page image (PNG). Digitized image of the microfilm version produced in Woodbridge, CT by Research Publications, 1982-2002 (later known as Primary Source Microfilm, an imprint of the Gale Group).]

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