Still unenjoy'd the present store,

Still endless sighs are breath'd for more.
O! quit the shadow, catch the prize,
Which not all India's treasure buys!
To purchase heaven has gold the pow'r?
Can gold remove the mortal hour?
In life can love be bought with gold?
Are friendship's pleasures to be sold?
No; all that's worth a wish, a thought,
Fair virtue gives unbrib'd, unbought.
Cease then on trash thy hopes to bind :
Let nobler views engage thy mind.

SECTION II.

NOTHING FORMED IN VAIN.

LET no presuming impious railer tax
Creative wisdom, as if ought was form'd
In vain, or not for admirable ends.

DR. JOHNSON

Shall little haughty ignorance pronounce
His works unwise, of which the smallest part
Exceeds the narrow vision of her mind?
As if, upon a full proportion'd dome,
On swelling columns heav'd, the pride of art?
A critic fly, whose feeble ray scarce spreads
An inch around, with blind presumption bold,
Should dare to tax the structure of the whole.
And lives the man, whose universal eye

Has swept at once th' unbounded scheme of things;
Mark'd their dependence so, and firm accord,
As with unfalt'ring accent to conclude,

That this availeth nought? Has any seen

The mighty chain of beings, less'ning down
From infinite perfection, to the brink
Of dreary nothing, desolate abyss!

From which astonish'd thought, recoiling, turns?
Till then alone let zealous praise ascend,
And hymns of holy wonder to that POWER,
Whose wisdom shines as lovely in our minds,
As on our smiling eyes his servant sun.

SECTION III

ON PRIDE.

THOMSON.

Of all the causes, which conspire to blind
Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias.rules,

Is pride, the never failing vice of fools.
Whatever nature has in worth deny'd,
She gives in large recruits of needful pride!
For, as in bodies, thus in souls, we find

What wants in blood and spirits, swell'd with wind.
Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence,
And fills up all the mighty void of sense.
If once right reason drives that cloud away,
Truth breaks upon us with resistless day.
Trust not yourself; but, your defects to know,
Make use of ev'ry friend, and ev'ry foe.
A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring;
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain;
And drinking largely sobers us again.
Fir'd at first sight with what the muse imparts,
In fearless youth we tempt the height of arts,
While, from the bounded level of our mind,
Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind:
But, more advanc'd, behold, with strange surprise,
New distant scenes of endless science rise !
So, pleas'd at first, the tow'ring Alps we try,
Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky;
Th' eternal snows appear already past,

And the first clouds and mountains seem the last:
But, those attain'd, we tremble to survey
The growing labours of the lengthen'd way;

Th' increasing prospect tires our wand'ring eyes;
Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise.

SECTION IV.

CRUELTY TO BRUTES CENSURED.

I WOULD not enter on my list of friends,

a

POPE.

(Though grac'd with polish'd manners and fine sense Yet wanting sensibility,) the man,

Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
An inadvertent step may crush the snail,
That crawls at evening in the public path;
But he that has humanity, forewarn'd,
Will tread aside and let the reptile live.
The creeping vermin loathsome to the sight,
And charg'd perhaps with venom, that intrudes
A visitor unwelcome, into scenes

Sacred to neatness and repose, th' alcove,
The chamber, or refectory, may die.

A necessary act incurs no blame.

Not so, when held within their proper bounds,
And guiltless of offence, they range the air,
Or take their pastime in the spacious field:
There they are privileg'd. And he that hunts
Or harms them there, is guilty of a wrong;
Disturbs th' economy of Nature's realm,
Who, when she form'd, design'd them an abode.
The sum is this: if man's convenience, health,
Or safety interfere, his rights and claims
Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs.
Else they are all-the meanest things that are,
As free to live, and to enjoy that life,
As God was free to form them at the first,
Who, in his sovereign wisdom, made them all.
Ye therefore who love mercy, teach your sons
To love it too. The spring time of our years,
Is soon dishonour'd and defil'd, in most
By budding ills, that ask a prudent hand
To check them. But, alas! none sooner shoots,
If unrestrain'd, into luxuriant growth,
Than cruelty, most dev'lish of them all.
Mercy to him that shows it, is the rule
And righteous limitation of its act,

By which heav'n moves in pard'ning guilty man;
And he that shows none, being ripe in years,
And conscious of the outrage he commits,
Shall seek it, and not find it in his turn.

SECTION V.

203

COWPER.

PARAPHRASE ON THE LATTER PART OF THE SIXTH CHAF

TER OF ST. MATHEW.

WABN my breast labours with oppressive care,
Aud o'er my cheek descends the falling tear;
While all my warring passions are at strife,
O let me listen to the words of life!
Raptures deep-felt his doctrine did impart,
And thus he raised from earth the drooping heart,
"Think not, when all your scanty stores afford,
Is spread at once upon the scanty board;
Think not, when worn the homely robe appears,
While on the roof the howling tempest bears;
What farther shall this feeble life sustain,
And what shall clothe these shiv'ring limbs again..

Say, does not life its nourishment exceed?
And the fair body its investing weed?
Behold! and look away your low despair
See the light tenants of the barren air:
To them, nor stores, nor granaries belong;
Nought, but the woodland, and the pleasing song,
Yet, your kind heav'nly Father bends his eye
On the least wing that flits along the sky.
To him they sing when spring renews the plain;
To him they cry, in winter's pinching rain;
Nor is their music, nor their plaint in vain;
He hears the gay, and the distressful call;
And with unsparing bounty fills them all."
"Observe the rising lily's snowy grace;
Observe the various vegetable race;

They neither toil, nor spin, but careless grow;
Yet see how warm they blush! how bright they glow!
What regal vestments can with them compare?
What king so shining! or what queen so fair!"
"If ceaceless, thus, the fowls of heav'n he feeds;
If o'er the fields such lucid robes he spreads;
Will he not care for you, ye faithless, say?
Is he unwise? or are ye less than they?

SECTION VI.

THOMSON.

THE DEATH OF A GOOD MAN A STRONG INCENTIVE TO VIRTUE

THE chamber where the good man meets his fate,
Is privileg'd beyond the common walk
Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heaven.
Fly, ye prophane! if not, draw near with awe,
Receive the blessing, and adore the chance,
That threw in this Bethesda your disease ;
If unrestor❜d by this, despair your cure.
For, here, resistless demonstration dwells;
A death-bed's a detecter of the heart.
Here, tir'd dissimulation drops her mask,
Through life's grimace, that mistress of the scene!
Here real and apparent, are the same.

You see the man; you see his hold on heaven,
If sound his virtue, as Philander's sound.

Heaven waits not the last moment; owns her friends
On this side death; and points them out to men;
A lecture, silent, but of sovereign power!
To vice, confusion; and to virtue, peace..

Whatever farce the boastful hero plays,

Virtue alone has majesty in death;

And greater still, the more the tyrant frowns.

SECTION VII.

YOUNG.

REFLECTIONS ON A FUTURE STATE, FROM A REVIEW OF

WINTER.

'Tis done! dread winter spreads his latest glooms,
And reigns tremenduous o'er the conquer'd year.
How dead the vegetable kingdom lies!

How dumb the tuneful! Horror wide extends
His desolate domain. Behold, fond man!
Sce here thy pictur'd life: pass some few years,
Thy flow'ring spring, thy summer's ardent strength,
Thy sober autumn fading into age,

And pale concluding winter comes at last,

And shuts the scene. Ah! whither now are fled
Those dreams of greatness? those unsolid hopes
Of happiness, those longings after fame?

Those restless cares? those busy bustling days?
Those gay-spent, festive nights? those veering thoughts
Lost between good and ill, that shar'd thy life?
All now are vanish'd! Virtue sole survives,
Immortal never-failing friend of man,
His guide to happiness on high. And see!
"Tis come, the glorious morn! the second birth
Of heaven and earth! awak'ning nature hears
The new-creating word; and starts to life,
In every heighten'd form, from pain and death
For ever free. The great eternal scheme,
Involving all, and in a perfect whole
Uniting as the prospect wider spreads,
To reason's eye refin'd clears up apace.
Ye vainly wise! ye blind presumpturous! now,
Confounded in the dust, adore that Power,
And Wisdom oft arraign'd: see now the cause
Why unassuming worth in secret liv'd,
And dy'd neglected: why the good man's share
In life was gall, and bitterness of soul:
Why the lone widow and her orphans pin'd
In starving solitude; while luxury,
In palaces, lay straining her low thought,
To form unreal wants: why heaven born truth,
And moderation fair, wore the red marks