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To that rare soil, where virtues clustering grow,
What mighty blessings doth not England owe!
What waggon-loads of courage, wealth, and sense,
Doth each revolving day import from thence?
To us she gives, disinterested friend!
Faith without fraud, and Stuarts[100] without end.
When we prosperity's rich trappings wear,
Come not her generous sons and take a share?
And if, by some disastrous turn of fate,
Change should ensue, and ruin seize the state, 120
Shall we not find, safe in that hallow'd ground,
Such refuge as the holy martyr[101] found?
Nor less our debt in science, though denied
By the weak slaves of prejudice and pride.
Thence came the Ramsays,[102] names of worthy note,
Of whom one paints, as well as t'other wrote;
Thence, Home,[103] disbanded from the sons of prayer
For loving plays, though no dull Dean[104] was there;
Thence issued forth, at great Macpherson's[105] call,
That old, new, epic pastoral, Fingal; 130
Thence Malloch,[106] friend alike to Church and State,
Of Christ and Liberty, by grateful Fate
Raised to rewards, which, in a pious reign,
All daring infidels should seek in vain;
Thence simple bards, by simple prudence taught,
To this wise town by simple patrons brought,
In simple manner utter simple lays,
And take, with simple pensions, simple praise.
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