Whom truth and soberness assail'd in vain. O Popular Applause! what heart of man Is proof against thy sweet seducing charms? The wisest and the best feel urgent need Of all their caution in thy gentlest gales; But swell'd into a gust-who, then, alas! With all his canvass set, and inexpert,
And therefore heedless, can withstand thy pow'r? Praise from the rivell'd lips of toothless, bald Decrepitude, and in the looks of lean And craving Poverty, and in the bow Respectful of the smutch'd artificer, Is oft too welcome and may much disturb The bias of the purpose. How much more, Pour'd forth by beauty splendid and polite, In language soft as Adoration breathes? Ah, spare your idol, think him human still. Charms he may have, but he has frailties too! Dote not too much, nor spoil what ye admire. All truth is from the semiternal source
Of light divine. But Egypt, Greece, and Rome, Drew from the stream below. More favour'd, we Drink when we choose it, at the fountain head. To them it flow'd much mingid and defil'd With hurtful errour, predjudice, and dreams Hlusive of philosophy, so call'd,
But falsely. Sages after sages strove
In vain to filter off a crystal draught
Pure from the lees, which often more enhanc'd The thirst than slak'd it, and not seldom bred Intoxication and delirium wild.
In vain they push'd inquiry to the birth
And spring-time of the world; ask'd, Whence is man? Why form'd at all? 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 wo? 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, prov'd 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, nurtur'd in the shades Of Academus-is this false or true? Is Christ the abler teacher or the schools If Christ, then why resort at ev'ry turn To Athens, or to Rome, for wisdom shore Of man's occasions, when in him reside Grace, knowledge, comfort-an unfathom'd store? How oft, when Paul has serv'd 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,
Preach it who might. Such was their love of truth.
Their thirst of knowledge, and their candour too. And thus it is.-The pastor, either vain By nature, or by flatt'ry made so, taught To gaze at his own splendour, and t'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 histrionick mu mm'ry that let down The pulpit to the level of the stage; Drops from the lips a disregarded thing.
The weak perhaps are mov'd, 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 convinc'd. 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 auger better things, Since Heav'n 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 brac'd And neatly fitted, it compresses hard
The prominent and most unsightly bones, And binds the shoulder flat. We prove its use Sov'reign and most effectual to secure
A form, not now gymnastick 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 conceiv'd; 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 ev'ry change, that Fancy at the loom Exhausted, has had genius to supply; And studious of mutation stil!, discard A real elegance, a little us'd,
For monstrous novelty and strange disguise. We sacrifice to dress, till husehold joys
And comforts cease. Dress drains our cellar dry, And keeps our larder lean; puts out our fires; And introduces hunger, frost, and wo, Where peace and hospitality might reign. What man that lives, and that knows how to live, Would fail t' exhibit at the publick shows A form as splendid as the proudest there, Though appetite raise outcries at the cost? A man o' th' town dines late, but soon enough, With reasonable forecast and despatch,
Tensure a side-box 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 magick wand. So potent is the spell, That none, decoy'd into that fatal ring, Unless by Heav'n'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 age 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. 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 beggar husbands, husbands starve their wives,
On Fortune's velvet altar off'ring up
Their last poor pittance-Fortune, most severe
Of goddesses yet known, and costlier far
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