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Spoken by Miss M ACKLIN .

A ye — now I can with pleasure look around,
Safe as I am, thank Heaven, on English ground. —
In a dark dungeon to be stow'd away,
Midst roaring, thund'ring, danger and dismay:
Expos'd to fire and water, sword and bullet —
Might damp the heart of any Virgin pullet. —
I dread to think what might have come to pass,
Had not the British Lyon quell'd the Gallic ass —
By Champignon a wretched victim led
To cloister'd cell, or more detested bed.
My days in pray'r and fasting I had spent:
As nun, or wife, alike a penitent.
His gallantry, so confident and eager,
Had prov'd a mess of delicate soup — maigre.
To bootless longings I had fallen a martyr:
But, Heav'n be prais'd, the Frenchman caught a Tartar.
Yet soft — our author's fate you must decree:
Shall be come safe to port, or sink at sea?
Your sentence, sweet or bitter, soft or sore,
Floats his frail bark, or runs it bump ashore. —
Ye wits above restrain your awful thunder:
In his first cruise, 'twere pity he should founder.
Safe from your shot he fears no other foe,
Nor gulph, but that which horrid yawns below.
The bravest chiefs, ev'n Hannibal and Cato,
Have here been tam'd with — pippin and potatoe.
Our bard embarks in a more christian cause,
He craves not mercy; but he claims applause.
His pen against the hostile French is drawn,
Who damns him, is no Antigallican.
Indulg'd with fav'ring gales and smiling skies,
Hereafter he may board a richer prize.
But if this welkin angry clouds deform,
And hollow groans portend the approaching storm:
Should the descending show'rs of bail redouble,
And these rough billows hiss, and boil and bubble,
He'll launch no more on such fell seas of trouble.
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