CANTO iv. OF GOOD AND EVIL. 151 



Now, happier lot! enlighten'd realms possess 

 The learned labours of the immortal Press; 270 



Nursed on whose lap the births of science thrive, 

 And rising Arts the wrecks of Time survive. 



(t 



Ye patriot heroes ! in the glorious cause 

 Of Justice, Mercy, Liberty, and Laws, 

 Who call to Virtue's shrine the British youth, 

 And shake the senate with the voice of Truth; 

 Rouse the dull ear, the hoodwink'd eye unbind, 

 And give to energy the public mind; 



The immortal Press, 1. 270. The discovery of the art of printing has 

 had so great influence on human affairs, that from thence may be dated 

 a new *ra in the history of mankind. As by the diffusion of general 

 knowledge, both of the arts of taste and of useful sciences, the 

 public mind has become improved to so great a degree, that though 

 new impositions have been perpetually produced, the arts of detect- 

 ing them have improved with greater rapidity. Hence since the 

 introduction of printing, superstition has been much lessened by the 

 reformation of religion; and necromancy, astrology, chiromancy, 

 witchcraft, and vampyrism, have vanished from all classes of society; 

 though some are still so weak in the present enlightened times as to 

 believe in the prodigies of animal magnetism, and of metallic trac- 

 tors; by this general diffusion of knowledge, if the liberty of the 

 press be preserved, mankind will not be liable in this part of the 

 world to sink into such abject slavery as exists at this day in China. 



