For saints can need no conscience As virtue's impious when 'tis rooted And so he proceeds to conclude, that -A large conscience is all one, And signifies the same as none. Such are the meetings of extremes in fanatical religions. And .he description is no caricature. By the ridiculous doctrine of "imputed merit," God's creatures were to be all vice, in order to compliment the Creator with the exclusive possession of all virtue! The children were to be made pure scoundrels, in order to do the greater honor to the father! Such are the flatteries of superstition! THE ASTROLOGERS. Quoth Ralph, Not far from hence doth dwell A cunning man, hight Sidrophel, That deals in Destiny's dark counsels If the moon shine at full or no; That would as soon as e'er she shone, straight Tell what her diameter to an inch is, And prove that she's not made of green cheese. A STATESMAN'S CONVERSATION -All a subtle statesman says Is half in words and half in face, As Spaniards talk in dialogues Of heads and shoulders, nods and shrugs; Of "mum," and "silence," and "the rose," HEROES OF ROMANCE. There was an ancient sage philosopher, Is in them all, but love and battles? O' th' first of these w' have no great matter In which to do the injur'd right We mean, in what concerns just fight. For, to make some well-sounding name "That had read Alexander Ross over.”—A tedious and volumin ous writer of divinity. SELF-POSSESSION. "T is not restraint or liberty, That makes men prisoners or free, But perturbations that possess The mind, or equanimitie The whole world was not half so wide To Alexander when he cried Because he had but one to subdue, As was a paltry narrow tub to (For aught that ever I could read) To whine, put finger i' th' eye, and sob Because he had ne'er another tub,1 1 " Another tub.”-Diogenes, who desired Alexander to "stand out of his sunshine," is Lere made to turn the tables a second time and in the happiest manner, on the great spoiled child of Victory. MISCELLANEOUS PASSAGES AMD RHYMES. "O Heaven!" quoth she, " can that be true? I do begin to fear 'tis you; Not by your individual whiskers, But by your dialect and discourse." A torn beard's like a batter'd ensign ; That's bravest which there are most rents in Th' extremes of glory and of shame, -Wholesale critics, that in coffee- -Antichristian assemblies To mischief bent as far 's in thèm lies. Bruis'd in body, And conjured into safe custody. That proud dame Used him so like a base rascallion, That old Pyg-what d' ve call him-malion, That cut his mistress out of stone. It was a question whether he The business on the horse's side. Have they invented tones to win Doctor epidemic, Stor'd with deletery med'cines, Which whosoever took is dead since. So th' Emperor Caligula, That triumph'd o'er the British sea, Madame, I do, as is my duty Conven'd at midnight in outhouses, 'Mong these there was a politician, So politic, as if one eye Upon the other were a spy That to trepan the one to think The other blind, both strove to blink. “Strove to blink.”—This was Lord Shaftesbury. What an idea of craft and self-deception! a man's two eyes, the most united and friendly of all things, and which cannot stir but in unison, endeavoring to outwit one another! PASSAGES FROM THE POSTHUMOUS POEMS. CAUTION AGAINST OVER-REFORM. Should once the world resolve ť abolish LOFTY CARRIAGE OF IGNORANCE. The truest characters of ignorance, Are vanity, and pride, and arrogance; As blind men use to bear their noses higher Than those that have their eyes and sight entire. CAUTION AGAINST PROSELYTISM. More proselytes and converts use t' accrue But truth has but one way to be i' th' right. The greatest saints and sinners have been made A convert 's but a fly, that turns about |