As a Shark may disport with the Fry;
Or a Lion, when licking his paws,
May wantonly snap at a Fly.

18

Could there live such an envious Man,
Who endur'd not the halcyon scene?
When the infantine Peasantry ran,
And roll'd on the daisy-deck'd Green:
Ah! sure 'twas fell Envy's despite,
Lest Indigence tasted of Bliss,
That sternly decreed they've no right
To innocent pleasure like this.

19

Tho' the Youth of to-day must deplore--
The rough mounds that now sadden the scene,
The vain stretch of Misanthropy's Power,
The Enclosure of Honington Green.
Yet when not a green turf is left free,
When not one odd nook is left wild,
Will the Children of Honington be
Less blest than when I was a Child?

20

No! ... Childhood shall find the scene fair,
Then here let me cease my complaint;
Still shall Health be inhal'd with the Air,
Which at Honington cannot be taint:
And tho' Age may still talk of the Green,
Of the Heath, and free Commons of yore,
Youth shall joy in the new-fangled scene,
And boast of _that_ change we deplore.

21

Dear to me was the wild-thorny Hill,
And dear the brown Heath's sober scene;
And Youth shall find Happiness still,
Tho' he roves not on Common or Green:
Tho' the pressure of Wealth's lordly hand
Shall give Emulation no scope,
And tho' all the' appropriate Land
Shall leave Indigence nothing to hope.

22

So happily flexile Man's make.
So pliantly docile his mind,
Surrounding impressions we take,
And bliss in each circumstance find.
The Youths of a more polish'd Age
Shall not wish these rude Commons to see;
To the Bird that's inur'd to the Cage,
It would not be Bills to be free.

* * * * *

THE CULPRIT.

"_Man hard of heart to Man! ... of horrid things_
_Most horrid; midst stupendous highly strange:_
_Yet oft his courtesies are smoother wrongs;_
_Pride brandishes the favours he confers,_
_And contumelious his Humanity._
_What then his vengeance? hear it not, ye Stars,_
_And thou, pale Moon, turn paler at the sound_: ...
_Man is to Man the sorest, surest Ill._"

YOUNG.

* * * * *

[His Reflections on the Propensity to gaze on Misery.--Military
Punishments.--Eager Curiosi