When Britain first, at Heaven's command,
Arose from out the azure main,
This was the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sang this strain:
Rule, Britannia, rule the waves!
Britons never will be slaves!

The nations not so blest as thee,
Must, in their turns, to tyrants fall,
Whilst thou shalt flourish, great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.
Rule, Britannia, rule the waves!
Britons never will be slaves!

Still more majestic shalt thou rise,
More dreadful from each foreign stroke;
As the loud blast that tears the skies,
Serves but to root thy native oak.
Rule, Britannia, rule the waves!
Britons never will be slaves!

Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame;
All their attempts to bend thee down
Will but arouse thy generous flame,
But work their woe and thy renown.
Rule, Britannia, rule the waves!
Britons never will be slaves!

To thee belongs the rural reign;
Thy cities shall with commerce shine;
All thine shall be the subject main,
And every shore it circles thine.
Rule, Britannia, rule the waves!
Britons never will be slaves!

The Muses, still with freedom found,
Shall to thy happy coast repair;
Blest isle! with matchless beauty crown'd,
And manly hearts to guard the fair.
Rule, Britannia, rule the waves!
Britons never will be slaves!

XIX. THE FIRST CRUSADE.

DAVID HUME.--1711-1776.

_From_ HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

After Mahomet had, by means of his pretended revelations, united the
dispersed Arabians under one head, they issued forth from their deserts
in great multitudes; and being animated with zeal for their new
religion, and supported by the vigor of their new government, they made
deep impression on the eastern empire, which was far in the decline,
with regard both to military discipline and to civil policy. Jerusalem,
by its situation, became one of their most early conquests; and the
Christians had the mortification to see the holy sepulchre, and the
other places, consecrated by the presence of their religious founder,
fallen into the possession of infidels. But the Arabians or Saracens
were so employed in military enterprises, by which they spread their
empire in a few years from the banks of the Ganges to the Straits of
Gibraltar, th