Page images
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

It

pours

the bliss that fills up all the mind. He sees why Nature plants in man alone]

Hope of known bliss, and Faith in bliss unknown:~ (Nature, whose dictates to no other kind

Are given in vain, but what they seek they find)
Wise is her present; she connects in this
His greatest Virtue with his greatest bliss;
At once his own bright prospect to be blest,
And strongest motive to assist the rest.

Self-love thus push'd to social, to divine,
Gives thee to make thy neighbour's blessing thine.
Is this too little for the boundless heart?
Extend it, let thy enemies have part:

Grasp the whole worlds of Reason, Life, and Sense, In one close system of benevolence:

Happier as kinder, in whate'er degree,

And height of Bliss but height of Charity.

God loves from Whole to Parts: But human soul Must rise from Individual to the Whole.

[ocr errors]

Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake,
As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake;
The centre mov'd a circle strait succeeds
Another, still, and still another spreads;
Friend, parent, neighbour, first it will embrace;
His country next; and next all human race;
Wide and more wide, th' o'erflowings of the mind
Take every creature in, of ev'ry kind;

Earth smiles around, with boundless bounty blest,
And Heav'n beholds it's image in his breast. Pore.

[blocks in formation]

On Versification.

MANY by Numbers judge a Poet's song ;

And smooth or rough, with them is right or wrong;
In the bright Muse tho' thousand charms conspire,
Her voice is all these tuneful fools admire ;
Who haunt Parnassus but to please their ear,
Not mend their minds; as some to church repair
Not for the doctrine, but the music there.
These equal syllables alone require,

Tho' oft the ear the open vowels tire;
While expletives their feeble aid do join,
And ten low words oft creep in one dull line:
While they ring round the same unvary'd chimes,
With sure returns of still expected rhimes;

Where'er you find « the cooling western breeze, »
In the next line, it « whispers thro' the trees : >>
If crystal streams « with pleasing murmurs creep,”
The reader's threaten'd (not in vain, with «sleep: >>
Then at the last and only couplet fraught
With some unmeaning thing they call a thought,
A needless Alexandrine ends the song

That, like a wounded snake, draws its slow length

along.

Leave such to tune their own dull rhimes, and know What's roundly smooth, or languishingly slow; And praise the easy vigour of a line,

Where Denham's strength and Waller's sweetness join.

True ease in writing comes from art not chance,
As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.
'Tis not enough, no harshness gives offence,
The sound must seem an echo to the sense;
Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse rough verse should like the torrentroar:
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to
throw,

The line too labours, and the words move slow ;
Not so,
when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the

main.

Hear how Timotheus' vary'd lays surprise,
And bid alternate passions fall and rise!
While at each change, the son of Libyan Jove
Now burns with glory, and then melts with love;
Now his fierce eyes with sparkling fury glow,
Now sighs steal out, and tears begin to flow!
Persians and Greeks like turns of nature found,
And the world's victor stood subdu'd by sound! PorE.

O

[blocks in formation]

Lessons of Wisdom.

How to live happiest: how avoid the pains,

The disappointments and disgust of those
Who would in pleasure all their hours employ;
The precepts here of a divine old man
I could recite. Tho' old, he still retain'd
His manly sense, and energy of mind.
Virtuous and wise he was, but not severe;
He still remember'd that he once was young:
His easy presence check'd no decent joy.
Him evin the dissolute admir'd; for he

A graceful looseness, when he pleas'd, put on.
And laughing could instruct. Much had he read,
Much more had seen; he studied from the life,
And in th' original perus'd mankind.

Vers'd in the woes and vanities of life, He pitied man: and much he pitied those Whom falsely-smiling Fate has curs'd with means To dissipate their days in quest of joy. Our aim is happiness; 'tis your's, 'tis mine, He said, 'tis the pursuit of all that live; Yet few attain it, if 'twas e'er attain'd. But they the widest wander from the mark, Who thro' the flow'ry paths of saunt'ring Joy Seek this coy goddess; that from stage to stage Invites us still, but shifts as we pursue.

For, not to name the pains that Pleasure brings counterpoise itself, relentless Fate

Το

Forbids that we thro' gay voluptuous wilds
Should ever roam : And were the Fates more kind
Our narrow luxuries would soon be stale.

Were these exhaustless, Nature would grow sick
And cloy'd with pleasure; squeamishly complain
That all was vanity, and life a dream.
Let nature rest: Be busy for yourself,
And for your friend; be busy ev'n in vain,
Rather than teaze her sated appetites.
Who never fasts, no banquet e'er enjoys;

[ocr errors]

Wo never toils or watches, never sleeps.
Let nature rest: and when the taste of joy
Grows keen, indulge: but shun satiety.

'Tis not for mortals always to be blest.
But him the least the dull or painful hours
Of life
whom sober Sense conducts,
oppress
And Virtue, thro' this labyrinth we tread.
Virtue and Sense I mean not to disjoin:
Virtue and Sense are one: and, trust me,
Who has not virtue is not truly wise.
Virtue (for mere Good-nature is a fool)
Is sense and spirit, with humanity:

he

'Tis sometimes angry, and it's frown confounds; 'Tis e'en vindictive, but in vengeance just. Knaves fain would laugh at it; some great one's dare;

But at his heart the most undaunted son

Of fortune dreads it's name and awful charms.
To noblest uses this determines wealth;
This is the solid pomp of prosperous days;
The peace and shelter of adversity,
And if you pant for glory, build your fame
On this foundation, which the secret shock
Defies of Envy and all sapping Time.
The gaudy gloss of Fortune only strikes
The vulgar eye: the suffrage of the wise,
The praise that's worth ambition, is attain'd
By sense alone, and dignity of mind.

"Virtue, the strength and beauty of the soul,
Is the best gift of Heaven: a happiness
'That e'en above the smiles and frowns of fate
Exalts great Nature's favourites: a wealth
That ne'er encumbers, nor to baser hands
Can be transferr'd: it is the only good
Man justly boasts of, or can call his own.
Riches are oft by guilt and baseness earn'd;
Or dealt by chance to shield a lucky knave,
Or throw a cruel sunshine on a fool.
But for one end, one much neglected use
Are riches worth your care (for Nature's wants
Are few, and without opulence supplied)

This

This noble end is, to produce the Soul:
To shew the virtues in their fairest light;
To make humanity the Minister

Of bounteous Providence; and teach the breast
That generous luxury the Gods enjoy.-
Thus, in his graver vein, the friendly Sage
Sometimes declaim'd. Of Right and wrong he taught
Truths as refin'd as ever Athens heard;

And (strange to tell!) he practis'd what he preach'd

CHA P. XIX.

Against Indolence.
An Epistle.

ARMSTRONG

Ix frolick's hour, ere serious thought had birth,

There was a time, my dear Cornwallis, when
The Muse would take me on her airy wing
And waft to views romantic; there present
Some motley vision, shade and sun: the cliff
O'erhanging, sparkling brooks, and ruins grey:
Bade me meanders trace, and catch the form
Of various clouds, and rainbows learn to paint.
Sometimes ambition, brushing by, would twitch
My mantle, and with winning look sublime,
Allure to follow. What tho' steep the track,
Her mountain's top would overpay, when climb'd,
The scaler's toil; her temple there was fine,
And lovely thence the prospects. She could tell
Where laurels grew, whence many a wreath an-
tique ;

But more advis'd to shun the barren twig,
(What is immortal verdure without fruit?)
And woo some thriving art; her numerous mines
Were open to the searcher's skill and pains?
Caught by th' harangue, heart beat, and flutt'ring
pulse

Sounded irregular marches to be gone-
What! pause a moment when Ambition calls!
No, the blood gallops to the distant goal,

E

« PreviousContinue »