Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, But looks through Nature, up to Nature's God: Pursues that Chain which links th' immense design, Joins heav'n and earth, and mortal and divine; Sees, that no Being any bliss can know, But touches some above, and some below; Learns, from this union of the rising Whole, The first, last purpose of the human soul; And knows where Faith, Law, Morals, all began, All end, in LOVE OF GOD, and LOVE OF MAN. For him alone, Hope leads from goal to goal, And opens still, and opens on his soul; 'Till lengthen'd on to FAITH, and unconfin'd, 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 giv'n 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. Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake, As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake; The centre mov'd, a circle straight 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 ev'ry creature in, of ev'ry kind; Earth smiles around, with boundless bounty blest, And Heav'n beholds its image in his breast.
CHARACTERS are given according to the RANK of
'Tis from high life high characters are drawn; A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn; A judge is just, a chanc'llor juster still;
A gownman, learn'd; a bishop, what you will; Wise, if a minister; but, if a king,
More wise, more learn'd, more just, more ev'ry thing. Court-virtues bear, like gems, the highest rate, Born where Heav'n's influence scarce can penetrate : In life's low vale, the soil the virtues like, They please as beauties, here as wonders strike. Tho' the same sun, with all-diffusive rays, Blush in the rose, and in the di'mond blaze, We prize the stronger effort of his pow'r, And justly set the gem above the flow'r.
EXAMPLES of the STRENGTH of the RULING PASSION in the HOUR of DEATH.
"ODIOUS! in woollen! 'twould a saint provoke," (Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke) "No, let a charming chintz, and Brussels lace, "Wrap my cold limbs, and shade my lifeless face : "One would not, sure, be frightful when one's dead- "And-Betty-give this cheek a little red."
The courtier smooth, who forty years had shin'd An humble servant to all human kind,
Just brought out this, when scarce his tongue could stir, "If-where I'm going-I could serve you, Sir?" " I give and I devise (old Euclio said, And sigh'd) my lands and tenements to Ned." Your money, Sir? -" My money, Sir, what all?
Why, if I must-(then wept) I give it Paul." The manor, Sir?" The manor! hold," he cry'd, "Not that, - I cannot part with that"-and dy'd. And you, brave COBHAM! to the latest breath Shall feel your ruling passion strong in death : Such in those moments as in all the past,
"Oh, save my country, Heaven!" shall be your last.
AH! friend! to dazzle let the vain design; To raise the thought, and touch the heart be thine! That charm shall grow, while what fatigues the ring Flaunts and goes down, an unregarded thing: So when the sun's broad beam has tir'd the sight, All mild ascends the moon's more sober light, Serene in virgin modesty she shines, And unobserv'd the glaring orb declines.
Oh! blest with temper, whose unclouded ray Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day : She, who can love a sister's charms, or hear Sighs for a daughter with unwounded ear; She who ne'er answers till a husband cools, Or, if she rules him, never shews she rules; Charms by accepting, by submitting sways, Yet has her humour most, when she obeys; Let fops or fortune fly which way they will, Disdains all loss of tickets or codille; Spleen, vapours, or small-pox, above them all, And mistress of herself, tho' China fall.
But all our praises why should lords engross? Rise, honest muse! and sing the MAN OF Ross: Pleas'd Vaga echoes thro' her winding bounds, And rapid Severn hoarse applause resounds. Who hung with woods yon mountain's sultry brow ? From the dry rock who bade the waters flow; Not to the skies in useless columns tost, Or in proud falls magnificently lost, But clear and artless, pouring thro' the plain Health to the sick, and solace to the swain? Whose cause-way parts the vale with shady rows? Whose seats the weary traveller repose ? Who taught that heav'n-directed spire to rise ? "The MAN OF Ross," each lisping babe replies. Behold the market-place with poor o'erspread! The MAN OF Ross divides the weekly bread...
He feeds yon alms-house, neat, but void of state, Where age and want sit smiling at the gate; Him portion'd maids, apprentic'd orphans blest, The young who labour, and the old who rest. Is any sick? the MAN OF ROss relieves, Prescribes, attends, the med'cine makes, and gives. Is there a variance ? enter but his door, Baulk'd are the courts, and contest is no more. Despairing quacks with curses fled the place, And vile attornies, now an useless race.
Thrice happy man! enabled to pursue What all so wish, but want the pow'r to do! Oh say! what sums that gen'rous hand supply? What mines to swell that boundless charity?
Of debts and taxes, wife and children clear, This man possest-five hundred pounds a year. Blush, grandeur, blush! proud courts, withdraw your blaze! Ye little stars! hide your diminish'd rays.
And what! no monument, inscription, stone ? His race, his form, his name almost unknown? Who builds a church to God, and not to fame, Will never mark the marble with his name: Go, search it there, where to be born and die, Of rich and poor makes all the history; Enough, that virtue fill'd the space between; Prov'd by the ends of being, to have been.
BUT most 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 rhymes; 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, drags its slow length along. Leave such to tune their own dull rhymes, 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 torrent roar : When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, The line too labours, and the words move słow; 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 Lybian 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! The pow'r of music all our hearts allow, And what Timotheus was, is Dryden now.
The PARTING of HECTOR and ANDROMAGNE.
(POPE'S HOMER'S ILIAD.)
HECTOR, this heard, return'd without delay; Swift thro' the town he trod his former way, Through streets of palaces, and walks of state; And met the mourner at the Scæan Gate. With haste to meet him sprung the joyful fair, His blameless wife, Aetion's wealthy heir : (Cilician Thebè great Aëtion sway'd, And Hippoplacus' wide-extended shade)
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