[man?

In vain they push'd inquiry to the birth
And springtime of the world! ask'd, Whence is
Why form'd at all? and wherefore as he is?
Where must he find his Maker? with what rites
Adore him? Will he hear, accept, and bless?
Or does he sit regardless of his works?
Has man within him an immortal seed?
Or does the tomb take all? If he survive
His ashes, where? and in what weal or woe?
Knots worthy of solution, which alone
A Deity could solve. Their answers, vague
And all at random, fabulous and dark,
Left them as dark themselves. Their rules of life,
Defective and unsanction'd, proved too weak
To bind the roving appetite, and lead
Blind nature to a God not yet reveal'd.
'Tis Revelation satisfies all doubts.
Explains all mysteries except her own,
And so illuminates the path of life
That fools discover it, and stray no more.
Now tell me, dignified and sapient sir,
My man of morals, nurtured in the shades
Of Academus-is this false or true?

Is Christ the abler teacher, or the schools?
If Christ, then why resort at every turn
To Athens or to Rome, for wisdom short
Of man's occasions, when in him reside
Grace,knowledge,comfort-an unfathom'd store?
How oft, when Paul has served us with a text,
Has Epictetus, Plato, Tully, preach'd!
Men that, if now alive, would sit content
And humble learners of a Saviour's worth, [truth,
Preach it who might. Such was their love of
Their thirst of knowledge, and their candour too!

And thus it is. The pastor, either vain
By nature, or by flattery made so, taught
To gaze at his own splendour, and to' exalt
Absurdly, not his office, but himself;

Or unenlighten'd, and too proud to learn;
Or vicious, and not therefore apt to teach;
Perverting often, by the stress of lewd
And loose example, whom he should instruct;
Exposes and holds up to broad disgrace
The noblest function, and discredits much
The brightest truths that man has ever seen.
For ghostly counsel; if it either fall
Below the exigence, or be not back'd
With show of love, at least with hopeful proof
Of some sincerity on the giver's part;
Or be dishonour'd in the' exterior form
And mode of its conveyance by such tricks
As move derision, or by foppish airs
And histrionic mummery, that let down
The pulpit to the level of the stage;
Drops from the lips a disregarded thing.
The weak perhaps are moved, but are not taught,
While prejudice in men of stronger minds
Takes deeper root, confirm'd by what they see.
A relaxation of religion's hold

Upon the roving and untutor'd heart

Soon follows, and, the curb of conscience snapp'd,
The laity run wild.—But do they now?
Note their extravagance, and be convinced.
As nations, ignorant of God, contrive
A wooden one; so we, no longer taught
By monitors that mother church supplies,
Now make our own. Posterity will ask
(If e'er posterity see verse of mine)

Some fifty or a hundred lustrums hence,
What was a monitor in George's days?
My very gentle reader yet unborn,

Of whom I needs must augur better things, Since Heaven would sure grow weary of a world Productive only of a race like ours,

A monitor is wood-plank shaven thin.

We wear it at our backs. There, closely braced
And neatly fitted, it compresses hard

The prominent and most unsightly bones,
And binds the shoulders flat.
We prove

its use

Sovereign and most effectual to secure
A form, not now gymnastic as of yore,
From rickets and distortion, else our lot.
But thus admonish'd, we can walk erect-
One proof at least of manhood! while the friend
Sticks close, a Mentor worthy of his charge.
Our habits, costlier than Lucullus wore,
And by caprice as multiplied as his,
Just please us while the fashion is at full,
But change with every moon. The sycophant,
Who waits to dress us, arbitrates their date;
Surveys his fair reversion with keen eye;
Finds one ill made, another obsolete,
This fits not nicely, that is ill conceived;
And, making prize of all that he condemns,
With our expenditure defrays his own.
Variety's the very spice of life,

That gives it all its flavour. We have run
Through every change that Fancy, at the loom
Exhausted, has had genius to supply;

And, studious of mutation still, discard
A real elegance, a little used,

For monstrous novelty and strange disguise.

We sacrifice to dress, till household joys

And comforts cease. Dress drains our cellar dry,
And keeps our larder lean; puts out our fires;
And introduces hunger, frost, and woe,
Where peace and hospitality might reign.
What man that lives, and that knows how to live,
Would fail to' exhibit at the public shows
A form as splendid as the proudest there,
Though appetite raise outcries at the cost?
A man of the' town dines late, but soon enough,
With reasonable forecast and dispatch,
To' ensure a sidebox station at half price.
You think perhaps, so delicate his dress,
His daily fare as delicate. Alas!

He picks clean teeth, and, busy as he seems
With an old tavern quill, is hungry yet!
The rout is Folly's circle, which she draws
With magic wand. So potent is the spell
That none, decoy'd into that fatal ring,
Unless by Heaven's peculiar grace, escape,
There we grow early gray, but never wise;
There form connexions, but acquire no friend;
Solicit pleasure hopeless of success;
Waste youth in occupations only fit
For second childhood, and devote old
To sports, which only childhood could excuse,
There they are happiest, who dissemble best
Their weariness; and they the most polite,
Who squander time and treasure with a smile,
Though at their own destruction. She that asks
Her dear five hundred friends contemns them all,
And hates their coming. They (what can they less?)
Make just reprisals; and with cringe and shrug,
And bow obsequious, hide their hate of her.

age

All catch the frenzy, downward from her grace,
Whose flambeaux flash against the morning skies,
And gild our chamber ceilings as they pass,
To her, who, frugal only that her thrift
May feed excesses she can ill afford,

Is hackney'd home unlackey'd; who, in haste
Alighting, turns the key in her own door,
And, at the watchman's lantern borrowing light,
Finds a cold bed her only comfort left. [wives,
Wives beggar husbands, husbands starve their
On Fortune's velvet altar offering up

Their last poor pittance-Fortune, most severe
Of goddesses yet known, and costlier far
Than all that held their routs in Juno's heaven.
So fare we in this prison-house the World;
And 'tis a fearful spectacle to see

So many maniacs dancing in their chains.
They gaze upon the links that hold them fast
With eyes of anguish, execrate their lot,
Then shake them in despair, and dance again!
Now basket up the family of plagues
That waste our vitals; peculation, sale
Of honour, perjury, corruption, frauds
By forgery, by subterfuge of law,

By tricks and lies as numerous and as keen
As the necessities their authors feel;
Then cast them, closely bundled, every brat
At the right door. Profusion is the sire.
Profusion unrestrain'd with all that's base
In character has litter'd all the land,
And bred, within the memory of no few,
A priesthood, such as Baal's was of old,
A people such as never was till now.
It is a hungry vice;—it eats up all