Gazette Of The United States, & Philadelphia Daily Advertiser

THE AGES OF REASON.

A French Liberty's a farce:
Like Collot d'Herbois, all her sons are players:
All have their exits and their entrances.
France, in her time, in vice and folly's Drama,
Hath play'd even acts. First, Philosophic Infants
Nurs'd by Voltaire, and mewling for reform:
Then Tiers-Etat; with scraps of Rights of Man,
And front rebellions, with monarchic pow'r
Unwillingly combin'd. Then citizens,
Frantic as Hell, with many a fête and hymn
To Strumpet Goddesses. Then Jacobins,
Full of strange projects, bloody as the pard,
Jealous of neighb'ring nations, quick in quarrel.
Seeking the bubble, dear Equality,
Even in the cannon's mouth. Then Regicides,
In foul convention, drench'd with Louis' blood,
With red-capt heads, or heads cut off sans form,
Full of old Rome and modern Guillotine,
And so they play their part. The sixth age shifts
Into a lean, half-famished horde of slaves,
Five knaves their kings, their pouches cramm'd with
mandats,
Their youthful constitution far too free
For their Shrunk souls; and the big voice of Freedom
Turning to childish adulation, courts
A proud Directory. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful Revolution,
Is barb'rous anarchy, mere savage life:
Sans trade, sans laws, sans God, sans every thing.

HORATIO.
[Lon. pa.]