Page:Hazlitt, Political Essays (1819).djvu/132

 his leading in history and the human heart. In the Dream he says, speaking of Charissa and Speranza—

"This lovely pair unrolled before the throne "Earth's melancholy map," whereon to sight Two broad divisions at a glance were shown, The empires these of darkness and of light. Well might the thoughtful bosom sigh to mark How wide a portion of the map was dark. Behold, Charissa cried, how large a space Of earth lies unredeemed! Oh grief to think That countless myriads of immortal race In error born, in ignorance must sink, Trained up in customs which corrupt the heart, And following miserably the evil part! Regard the expanded Orient from the shores Of scorched Arabia and the Persian sea, To where the inhospitable Ocean roars Against the rocks of frozen Tartary; Look next at those Australian isles which lie Thick as the stars which stud the wintry sky. Then let thy mind contemplative survey That spacious region where in elder time Earth's unremembered conquerors held the sway; And Science trusting in her skill sublime, With lore abstruse the sculptured walls o'erspread, Its import now forgotten with the dead. From Nile and Congo's undiscovered springs To the four seas which gird the unhappy land, Behold it left a prey to barbarous Kings, The Robber and the Trader's ruthless hand; Sinning and suffering, everywhere unblest, Behold her wretched sons, oppressing and opprest!"

This is "a pretty picture" to be drawn by one who finds in the past history of the world the sure presage of deliverance for mankind. We grant indeed that Mr. Southey was right in one thing, viz. in expecting from it that sort of "deliverance of mankind," bound hand and foot, into the power of Kings and Priests, which has actually come to pass, and which he has celebrated with so much becoming pomp, both here and elsewhere.