so divided? could he in any other country have failed of universal love and veneration? How long shall our divisions make us the sport and proverb of the neighbouring nations? Monsieur Quillet, by the purity of his Latin, has diffused our character throughout the world; and when the curious would be informed of the genius of the British people, the learned refer to him[1]: It is thought the most beautiful part of his Callipædia; and, however the spirit of the author may have suffered by the change, I will present it to the reader in the English translator's words[2]:
"If then from Calais you design to land
On England's vile, unhospitable strand,
There you shall find a race of monstrous men,
Where mangled princes strew the cyclops' den.
A false, ungrateful, and rebellious brood,
New from a slaughtered monarch's sacred blood.
They break all laws, all fancies they pursue,
And follow all religions but the true.
All there are priests, each differently prays,
And worships Heaven ten thousand different ways.
If by the mob the canting fool's admir'd,
The brother's gifted, and the saint inspir'd.
Hence the fanaticks rave, and wildly storm,
Convert by pistol, and by pike reform.
Nor are th' enthusiasts so abhorrent grown
To holy ceremonious rites alone:
- ↑ Lib. iv, ver. 8 — 25. It is but common justice to observe, with Mr. Rowe, that this character of our nation was given in the time of the civil war; which makes the severe censure agree very well with those days of confusion and villany.
- ↑ We have not scrupled to substitute Mr. Rowe's translation in which the original has suffered less by the change.
