Fowle's New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

Parnassian Spring.

The following extract from M'FINGAL, contains so lively and exact a representation of the force of our federal government, that we cannot think the insertion of it will be disagreeable to our readers.

The truth of some of the predictions of this second-sighted hero, they already too severely feel.

Heaven forbid that the issue he foresees should be equally verified.


NOR can you boast this present hour,
The shadow of the form of pow'r.
For what's your Congress, or its end?
A pow'r t' advise and recommend,
To call for troops, adjust your quotas,
And yet no soul is bound to notice;
To pawn your faith t' th' utmost limit,
But cannot bind you to redeem it;
And when in want, no more in them lies
Than begging of your State Assemblies;
Can utter oracles of dread.
Like friar Bacon's brazen head.
But should a faction e'er dispute 'em.
Has ne'er an arm to execute 'em,
As though you chose supreme dictators,
And put them under conservators;
You've but pursued the self same way,
With Shakespeare's Trinculo in the play.
"You shall be viceroys here, 'tis true,
"But we'll be viceroys over you."
What wild confusion hence must ensue.
Tho' common danger yet cements you;
So some wreck'd vessel, all in shatters,
Is held up by surrounding waters,
But stranded, when the pressure ceases,
Falls by its rottenness to pieces.
And fall it must--if wars were ended,
You'll ne'er have sense enough to mend it:
But creeping on with low intrigues
Like vermin of an hundred legs,
Will find as short a life assign'd.
As all things else of reptile kind.