But should I meet with an unlucky run,
And at a throw be glòriously undone ;
My debts of honour I'd discharge the first,
Let all my lawful creditors be curs❜d:
My title would preferve me from arrest,
And feizing hired horses is a jeft.

I'd walk the morning with an oaken stick,
With gloves and hat, like my own footman Dick.
A footman I would be in outward show,
In fenfe and education, truly fo.

As for my head it fhould ambiguous wear
At once a perriwig and it's own hair.
My hair I'd powder in the women's way,
And drefs, and talk of dreffing, more than they.
I'll please the maids of honour, if I can;
Without black velvet breeches, what is man!
I will my skill in button-holes display,.
And brag how oft I shift me every day.'"
Shall I wear cloaths in aukward England made;
And sweat in cloth, to help the woollen trade?
In French embroid'ry, and in Flanders lace,
I'll spend the income of a treasurer's place.
Deard's bill for baubles fhall to thousands mount,
And I'd out-diamond e'en the diamond count.
I would convince the world, by tawdry cloaths,
That belles are less effeminate than beaux,
And Doctor Lamb fhall pare my lordship's toes.

To boon companions I my time would give,
With players, pimps, and parafites, I'd live.
I would with jockies from Newmarket dine,
And to rough riders give my choiceft wine;
I would carefs fome ftableman of note,

And imitate his language and his coat.
My ev'nings all I would with sharpers spend,
And make the thief-catcher, my bofom friend.
3 F2

}

In

In Fig, the prize-fighter, by day delight,
And fup with Colley Cibber ev'ry night.
Should I perchance be fashionably ill,
I'll fend for Mifaubin, and take his pill.
I fhould abhor, though in the utmuft need,
Arbuthnot, Hollins, Wigan, Lee, or Mead;
But if I found that I grew worfe and worse,
I'd turn off Mifaubin and take a nurse.
How oft, when eminent phyficians fail,
Do good old women's remedies prevail!
When beauty's gone, and Chloe's ftruck with years,'
Eyes she can touch, or fhe can fyringe ears.
Of graduates I dislike the learned rout,

And chufe a female doctor for the gout,

Thus would I live, with no dull pedants curs'd;
Sure, of all blockheads, fcholars are the worst.
Back to your univerfities, ye fools,

And dangle arguments on firings in schools:
Those schools which univerfities they call;
'Twere well for England were there none at all.
With ease that lofs the nation might sustain,
Supply'd by Goodman's Fields and Drury Lane.
Oxford and Cambridge are not worth one farthing,
Compar'd to Hay Market and Covent Garden:
Quit thofe, ye British youth, and follow thefe;
Turn players all, and take your squires degrees.
Boaft not your incomes now, as heretofore,

Ye book-learn'd seats! the theatres have more :
Ye ftiff-rump'd heads of colleges be dumb;

A fingle eunuch gets a larger fum.

Have fome of you three hundred by the year;

Booth, Rich, and Cibber, twice three thousand clear.
Should Oxford to her fifter Cambridge join

A year's rack-rent, and arbitrary fine:

Thence not one winter's charge would be defray'd,

For play-house, opera, ball, and masquerade,

Glad

Glad I congratulate the judging age,

The players are the world, the world the ftage.

I am a politician too, and hate,
Of any party, ministers of state:

I'm for an act, that he, who fev'n whole years
Has ferv'd his king and country, lose his ears.
Thus from my birth I'm qualified, you find,
To give the laws of taste to human kind.
Mine are the gallant schemes of politeffe,"
For books, and buildings, politicks, and dress.
This is true taste; and whofo likes it not,
Is blockhead, coxcomb, puppy, fool, and for.

WHA

HAT am I? how produc'd? and for what end?
Whence drew I being? to what period tend?

Am I th' abandon'd orphan of blind chance,
Dropp'd by wild atoms in disorder'd dance?
Or from an endless chain of caufes wrought,
And of unthinking fubftance, born with thought?
By motion which began without a caufe,
Supremely wife, without defign or laws?
Am I but what I feem, mere flesh and blood;
A branching channel, with a mazy flood?
The purple stream that through my veffels glides,
Dull and unconfcious flows, like common tides:
The pipes through which the circling juices ftray,
Are not that thinking I, no more than they;
This frame compacted with tranfcendent skill,
Of moving joints obedient to my will,
Nurs'd from the fruitful glebe, like yonder tree,
Waxes and waftes; I call it mine, not me.

New

New matter ftill the mould'ring mass fustains,
The manfion chang'd, the tenant still remains;
And from the fleeting stream repair'd by food,
Distinct, as is the fwimmer from the flood.
What am I then? Sure, of a nobler birth.
By parent's right, I own as mother, earth;
But claim fuperior lineage by my Sire,

Who warm'd the unthinking clod with heavenly fire:
Effence divine, with lifelefs clay allay'd,
By double nature, double instinct sway'd;
With look erect, I dart my longing eye,
Seem wing'd to part, and gain my native sky;
I ftrive to mount, but ftrive, alas! in vain,
Ty'd to this maffy globe with magick chain.
Now with fwift thought I range from pole to pole,
View worlds around their flaming centers roll:
What steady powers their endless motions guide,
Through the fame trackless paths of boundless void!
I trace the blazing comet's fiery trail,

And weigh the whirling planets in a scale:
Thefe godlike thoughts while eager I pursue,
Some glittering trifle offer'd to my view,
A gnat, an infect of the meaneft kind,
Erase the new-born image from my mind;
Some beaftly want, craving, importunate,
Vile as the grinning maftiff at my gate,
Calls off from heav'nly truth this reas'ning me,
And tells me, I'm a brute as much as he,

If on fublimer wings of love and praise,
My foul above the starry vault I raise,
Lur'd by fome vain conceit, or shameful luft,
I flag, I drop, and flutter in the duft.
The tow'ring lark thus from her lofty ftrain,
Stoops to an emmet, or a barley grain.
By adverse gufts of jarring instincts toss'd,
I rove to one, now to the other coaft;

Το

To blifs unknown my lofty foul afpires,
My lot unequal to my vaft defires.

As 'mongst the hinds a child of royal birth
Finds his high pedigree by conscious worth ;
So man, amongst his fellow-brutes expos'd,
Sees he's a king, but 'tis a king depos'd.
Pity him, beafts! you by no law confin'd,
Are barr'd from devious paths by being blind;
Whilst man, through op'ning views of various ways
Confounded, by the aid of knowledge strays;
Too weak to chufe, yet chusing still in haste,
One moment gives the pleafure and distaste;
Bilk'd by past minutes, while the present cloy,
The flatt'ring future still must give the joy:
Not happy, but amus'd upon the road,
And (like you) thoughtless of his last abode,
Whether next fun his being shall restrain
To endless nothing, happiness or pain.

Around me, lo! the thinking, thoughtless crew,
(Bewilder'd each) their diff'rent paths pursue:
Of them I ask the way; the first replies,

• Thou art a god!' and fends me to the skies:
• Down on the turf,' the next, thou two-legg'd beast,
There fix thy lot, thy blifs and endless rest.'
Between these wide extremes the length is fuch,
I find I know too little or too much,

Almighty Power, by whose most wise command, Helpless, forlorn, uncertain, here I ftand;

Take this faint glimmering of thyself away,

Or break into my foul with perfect day!'

This faid, expanded lay the Sacred Text,
The balm, the light, the guide of fouls perplex'd.
Thus the benighted traveller that strays
Through doubtful paths, enjoys the morning rays;
The vightly mist, and thick-descending dew,
Parting, unfold the fields, and vaulted blue.

O Truth