If arms engage him, he devotes to sport
His date of life, fo likely to be fhort;
A foldier may be any thing, if brave,

So may a tradesman, if not quite a knave.
Such stuff the world is made of; and mankind,
To paffion, int'reft, pleasure, whim refign'd,
Infift on, as if each were his own pope,
Forgiveness, and the privilege of hope;
But conscience, in fome awful filent hour,
When captivating lufts have loft their pow'r,
Perhaps when fickness, or fome fearful dream
Reminds him of religion, hated theme!

Starts from the down on which the lately flept,
And tells of laws defpis'd, at leaft not kept;
Shows with a pointing finger but no noise,
A pale proceffion of past finful joys,

All witneffes of bleffings foully fcorn'd,

And life abus'd-and not to be fuborn'd.

Mark these, she says, thefe, fummon'd from afar,

Begin their march to meet thee at the bar;

There

There find a Judge inexorably just,

And perish there, as all prefumption must.

Peace be to thofe (fuch peace as earth can give)
Who live in pleasure, dead ev'n while they live,
Born capable indeed of heav'nly truth,

But down to latest age, from earliest youth,
Their mind a wilderness through want of care,

The plough of wisdom never ent'ring there.
Peace (if infenfibility may claim

A right to the meek honours of her name)
To men of pedigree, their noble race,
Emulous always of the nearest place

To any throne, except the throne of grace.
Let cottagers, and unenlighten'd fwains,

Revere the laws they dream that heaven ordains,
Refort on Sundays to the houfe of pray'r,

And afk, and fancy they find bleffings there
Themselves, perhaps, when weary they retreat
T'enjoy cool nature in a country feat,
T'exchange the centre of a thousand trades,
For clumps and lawns and temples and cascades,

May

May now and then their velvet cushions take,
And feem to pray for good example fake;
Judging, in charity no doubt, the town

Pious enough, and having need of none.
Kind fouls! to teach their tenantry to prize,
What they themselves, without remorse, despise;
Nor hope have they, nor fear, of aught to come
As well for them had prophefy been dumb;
They could have held the conduct they pursue,
Had Paul of Tarfus liv'd and died a Jew;
And truth propos'd to reas'ners wife as they,

Is a pearl caft-completely caft away.

They die-Death lends them, pleas'd and as in fport,
All the grim honours of his ghaftly court;
Far other paintings grace the chamber now,

Where late we faw the mimic landscape glow;
The bufy heralds hang the fable scene,

With mournful 'fcutcheons and dim lamps between

Proclaim their titles to the crowd around,

But they that wore them, move not at the found

They

The coronet placed idly at their head,

Adds nothing now to the degraded dead,
And ev'n the star that glitters on the bier,
Can only fay, nobility lies here.
Peace to all fuch-twere pity to offend
By useless cenfure, whom we cannot mend;
Life without hope can close but in despair,
'Twas there we found them, and muft leave them there.
As, when two pilgrims in a forest stray,
Both may be loft, yet each in his own way,
So fares it with the multitudes beguil'd,

In vain opinion's waste and dang'rous wild;
Ten thousand rove, the brakes and thorns among,
Some eastward, and some weftward, and all wrong:
But here, alas! the fatal diff'rence lies,

Each man's belief is right in his own eyes;
And he that blames, what they have blindly chofe,

Incurs refentment for the love he fhows.

Say botanist! within whose province fall The cedar and the hyffop on the wall,

Of

Of all that deck the lanes, the fields, the bow'rs, What parts the kindred tribes of weeds and flow'rs? Sweet fcent, or lovely form, or both combin'd,

Distinguish ev'ry cultivated kind;

The want of both denotes a meaner breed,

And Chloe from her garland picks the weed.
Thus hopes of every fort, whatever sect
Efteem them, fow them, rear them and protect;
If wild in nature, and not duly found
Gethsemane in thy dear, hallowed ground,
That cannot bear the blaze of fcripture light,

Nor cheer the spirit, nor refresh the fight,
Nor animate the foul to Christian deeds,

Oh caft them from thee! are weeds, arrant weeds.
Ethelred's house, the centre of fix ways,

Diverging each from each, like equal rays;
Himself as bountiful as April rains,

Lord paramount of the furrounding plains,
Would give relief of bed and board to none,
But guests that fought it in th' appointed, ONE.

And