Shall commerce, wealth, and plenty smile

Along the silver-eddying Thames:

Still shall thy empire's fabric stand,
Admired and feared from land to land,

Through every circling age renewed,

Unchanged, unshaken, unsubdued;

As rocks resist the wildest breeze,

That sweeps thy tributary seas.

NOTES.

I

Page 14. Tall reeds around thy temples play:
Thy hair the liquid crystal gems:
To thee I pour the votive lay,

Oh Genius of the silver Thames!

"Huic deus ipse loci fluvio Tiberinus amœno
Populeas inter senior se adtollere frondes

Visus eum tenuis glauco velabat amictu
Carbasus, et crines umbrosa tegebat arundo."
VIRG. E. VIII. 31.

THE belief in tutelary GENII, or ▲AIMONEΣ, originated, in the infancy of mythology, from a superstitious reverence paid by mankind to the spirits of their kindred, whom they supposed to be invested by the gods with immor