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If Pope but writes, the devil, Legion raves,
And meagre critics mutter in their caves:
(Such critics of necessity consume

All wit, as hangmen ravish'd maids at Rome.)
Names he a scribbler? all the world's in arms;
Augusta, Granta, Rhedecyna swarms:
The guilty reader fancies what he fears,
And every Midas trembles for his ears.

See all such malice, obloquy and spite,
Expire e'er morn, the mushroom of a night.
Transient as vapours glimm'ring thro' the glades,
Half-form'd and idle, as the dreams of maids.
Vain as the sick man's vow, or young man's sigh,
Third-nights of bards, or Henley's "sophistry.
These ever hate the poet's sacred line:
These hate whate'er is glorious or divine.
From one eternal fountain beauty springs,
The energy of wit and truth of things.

That source is God: from him they downwards tend,

Flow round--yet in their native centre end. Hence rules, and truth, and order, dunces strike; Of arts, and virtues, enemies alike.

Some urge, that poets of supreme renown
Judge ill to scourge the refuse of the town;
Howe'er their casuists hope to turn the scale,
These men must smart, or scandal will prevail.
By these the weaker sex still suffer most;
And such are prais'd who rose at honour's cost:
The learn'd they wound, the virtuous, and the
fair;

No fault they cancel, no reproach they spare:
The random shaft, impetuous in the dark,
Sings on unseen, and quivers in the mark.
'Tis justice, and not anger, makes us write,
Such sons of darkness must be dragg'd to light:
Long-suff'ring nature must not always hold:
In virtue's cause 'tis gen'rous to be bold.
To scourge the bad, th' unwary to reclaim,
And make light flash upon the face of shame.
Others have urg'd (but weigh it, and you'll
find

'Tis light as feathers blown before the wind)
That poverty, the curse of Providence,
Atones for a dull writer's want of sense:
Alas! his dulness 'twas which made him poor :
Not vice versa: we infer no more.
Of vice and folly poverty's the curse,
Heav'n may be rigid, but the man was worse,
By good made bad, by favours more disgrac'd,
So dire th' effects of ignorance misplac'd!
Of idle youth, unwatch'd by parents' eyes!
Of zeal for pence, and dedication lies!
Of conscience modell'd by a great man's looks,
And arguings in religion-from no books!

No light the darkness of that mind invades,
Where Chaos rules, enshrin'd in genuine shades:
Where in the dungeon of the soul enclos'd,
True Dulness nods, reclining and repos'd.
Sense, grace, or harmony, ne'er enter there,
Nor human faith, nor piety sincere :
A midnight of the spirits, soul and head,
(Suspended all) as thought itself lay dead.
Yet oft a mimic gleam of transient light
Breaks thro' this gloom, and then they think
they write;

From streets to streets th' unnumber'd pamphlets fly;

Then tremble Warner, Brown and Billinsly "2.
O thou most gentle deity appear,
Thou who still hear'st, and yet art prone to hear:
Whose eye ne'er closes, and whose brains ne'er
rest,

(Thy own dear Dulness bawling at thy breast)
Attend, O Patience, on thy arm reclin'd,
And see wit's endless enemies behind!

And ye, our Muses, with a hundred tongues;
And thou, O Henley! blest with brazen lungs:
Fanatic Withers! fam'd for rhymes and sighs,
And Jacob Behmen! most obscurely wise:
From darkness palpable, on dusky wings
Ascend! and shroud him who your offspring
sings.

The first with Egypt's darkness in his head, Thinks wit the devil, and curses books unread. For twice ten winters he has blunder'd on, Thro' heavy comments, yet ne'er lost nor won: Much may be done in twenty winters more, And let him then learn English at threescore. No sacred Maro glitters on his shelf, He wants the mighty Stagyrite himself. See vast Coimbrias' 13 comments pil'd on high; In heaps Soncinas'4, Sotus, Sanchez lie; For idle hours, Sa's's idle casuistry.

Yet worse is he, who in one language read,
Has one eternal jingling in his head,
At night, or morn, in bed, and on the stairs-
Talks flights to grooms, and makes lewd songs
at pray'rs;

His pride, a pun, a guinea his reward,
His critic Gildon, Jemmy Moore his bard.

What artful hand the wretch's form can hit,
Begot by Satan on a Manley's wit:

In parties furious at the great man's nod,
And hating none for nothing, but his God:
Foe to the learn'd, the virtuous, and the sage,
A pimp in youth, an atheist in old age;
Now plung'd in bawdry and substantial lies,
Now dabbling in ungodly theories:

But so, as swallows skim the pleasing flood,
Grows giddy, but ne'er drinks to do him good:
Alike resolv'd to flatter, or to cheat,
Nay worship onions, if they cry,
A foe to faith, in revelation blind,
And impious much, as dunces are by kind.

come eat:"

Next see the master-piece of flatt'ry rise, Th' anointed son of dulness and of lies; Whose softest whisper fills a patron's ear, Who smiles unpleas'd, and mourns without a Persuasive, tho' a woful blockhead he: [tear; Truth dies before his shadow's sophistry; For well he knows the vices of the town, The schemes of state, and int'rest of the gown >' Immoral afternoons, indecent nights, Inflaming wines, and second appetites.

But most the theatres with dulness groan ; Embrios half form'd, a progeny unknown:

12 Three booksellers.

published commentaries on Aristotle.
13 The society of Coimbria in Spain, which
Soncinas, a schoolman.
Is Eman, de Sa.

"In the original H~~; probably orator Jesuitis.n. Henley. C.

zee Paschal's Mystery of

Fine things for nothing, transports out of season,
Effects uncaus'd, and murders without reason.
Here worlds run round, and years are taught to
Each scene an elegy, each act a play. [stay,
Can the same pow'r such various passions move?
Rejoice or weep, 'tis ev'ry thing for love.
The self-same cause produces Heav'n and Hell:
Things contrary, as buckets in a well:
One up, one down, one empty and one full:
Half high, half low, half witty, and half dull,
So on the borders of an ancient wood,

Or where some poplar trembles o'er the flood,
Arachne travels on her filmy thread,
Now high, now low, or on her feet or head.
Yet these love verse, as croaking comforts
frogs,

And mire and ordure are the heav'n of hogs.
As well might nothing bind immensity,
Or passive matter immaterials see,

As these should write by reason, rhyme and rule,
Or he turn wit, whom Nature doom'd a fool.
If Dryden err'd, 'twas human frailty once,
But blundering is the essence of a dunce.

Some write for glory, but the phantom fades:
Some write as party, or as spleen invades :
A third because his father was well read,
And, murd'rer like, calls blushes from the dead.
Yet all for morals and for arts contend-
They want them both, who never prais'd a friend.
More ill, than dull: for pure stupidity
Was ne'er a crime in honest Banks, or me.

See next a crowd in damasks, silks, and crapes,
Equivocal in dress, half-belles, half-trapes:
A length of night-gown rich Phantasia trails,
Olinda wears one shift, and pares no nails:
Some in Curll's cabinet each act display,
When Nature in a transport dies away:
Some more refin❜d transcribe their Opera-loves
On iv'ry tablets, or in clean white gloves:
Some of Platonic, some of carnal taste,
Hoop'd or unhoop'd, ungarter'd or unlac'd.
Thus thick in air the wing'd creation play,
When vernal Phoebus rolls the light away,
A motley race, half insects, and half fowls,
Loose-tail'd and dirty, may-flies, bats and owls.

Gods! that this native nonsense was our worst!
With crimes more deep, O Albion, art thou

curst.

No judgment open prophanation fears,

For who dreads God, that can preserve his fears!
O save me, Providence, from vice refin'd,
That worst of ills, a speculative mind!
Not that I blame divine philosophy

From wayward nature, or lewd poets' rhymes?
From praying, canting, or king-killing times?
From all the dregs which Gallia could pour forth,
(These sous of schism) landed in the north?-
From whence, it came, they and the d- best
know,

Yet thus much, Pope, each atheist is thy fue.
O Decency, forgive these friendly rhymes,
For raking in the dung-hill of their crimes.
To name each monster would make printing
dear,

Or tire Ned Ward, who writes six books a year.
Such vicious nonsense, impudence, and spite,
Would make a hermit, or a father write.
Though Julian rul'd the world, and held no more
Than deist Gildon taught, or Toland swore,
Good Gregory 16 prov'd him execrably bad,
And scourg'd his soul, with drunken reason mad.
Much longer Pope restrain'd his awful hand,
Wept o'er poor Nineveh, and her dull band,
Till fools like weeds rose up, and chok'd the
land.

Long, long he slumber'd e'er th' avenging hour:
For dubious mercy half o'er-rul'd his pow'r :
Till the wing'd bolt, red-hissing from above,
Pierc'd millions thro'-for such the wrath of

Jove.

Hell, Chaos, Darkness, tremble at the sound,
And prostrate fools bestrow the vast profound;
No Charon wafts them from the farther shore,
Silent they sleep, alas! to rise no more.

O Pope, and sacred Criticism, forgive [live!
A youth, who dares approach your shrine, and
Far as he wander'd in an unknown night,
No guide to lead him, but his own dim light.
For him more fit in vulgar paths to tread,
To show th' unlearned what they never read,
Youth to improve, or rising genius tend,
To science much, to virtue more, a friend.

AN ESSAY ON REASON.

Cœlestis rationis opus deducere mundo aggrediar.
MANIL. Lib. 1.

FROM Time's vast length, eternal and unknown,
Essence of God, coeval Reason shone :
Mark'd each recess of providence and fate,
Weighing the present, past, and future state:
'Ere Earth to start from nothing was decreed,
'Ere man had fall'n, or God vouchsaf'd to bleed;
Part of herself in Eden's pair she saw,

(Yet much we risk, for pride and learning lye): Where virtue was but practice, nature's law; Heav'n's paths are found by nature more than

art,

The schoolman's head misleads the layman's

heart.

[own.

What unrepented deeds has Albion done?
Yet spare us, Heav'n! return, and spare thy
Religion vanishes to types and shade,
By wits, by fools, by her own sons betray'd.
Sure 'twas enough, to give the dev'l his due,
Must such men mingle with the priesthood too?
So stood Onias at th' Almighty's throne,
Profanely cinctur'd in a harlot's zone.

Where truth was almost felt as well as seen, Where homage strove in praise and pray'r (Perception half) and scarce a mist between:

t'adore,

By one to honour, and by one implore: [bowl,
While temp'rance cropt the herb, and mixt the

And health warm'd sense, and sense sublim'd the
soul.

Fear was not then, nor malady, nor age,
Nor public hatred, nor domestic rage:
No fancied want, no lust of taste decreed

Some Rome, and some the Reformation blame; The honest ox to groan, the lamb to bleed:

'Tis hard to say froin whence such licence came: From fierce enthusiasts, or Socinians sad? Collins the soft, or Bourignon the mad?

16 Gregory Nazianzen who wrote two satires, or invectives against Julian,

No earth-born pride had snatch'd th' Almighty's | How, the first morning life inform'd his frame,

rod,

O'erturn'd the balance, or blasphem'd the God:
No vice (for vice is only truth deny'd)
Nurs'd ignorance, or nature's voice bely'd.
Hail, blissful pair! whose sense if farther
wrought,

Had weaken'd, stretch'd, and agoniz'd the thought,
Created both to know and to possess
What we, unhappy, can but barely guess:
Truth to survey in clearest lights arrang'd,
Ere frauds were form'd to rules, or words were
Ere every act a double aspect bore, [chang'd,
Or doubts intending well, perplext us more:
You saw the source of actions and the end;
Why things are opposite, and why they blend;
How from eternal causes good and ill
Subsist: how mingle, yet are diff'rent still:
How modes unnumber'd soften and unite;
How strength of falsehood glares, and strength of
light:

Half of the God came open to your view;
You hail'd his presence, and his voice you knew;
That God, whose light is truth, whose vast extent
Of pleasure, good-self-form'd and self-content!
Unhurt by years, unlimited by place,

At once o'erflowing time and thought and space.
By knowing him, you knew him to be best,
(For the first attribute infers the rest),
Knew from his mind why boundless virtues rose,
Why his unerring will that virtue chose,
Not something sep'rate (as the deist dreams)
To circumscribe his pow'r, contract his schemes:
For reason though it binds th' immortal will,
Is but a portion of the Godhead still:
This learn, ye wits, by sacred myst'ry aw'd,
And know that God is only guide to God.

This the first knew, their heart, their knowledge clear;

Their reason perfect, as their frame could bear:
Till lust of change and more than mortal pride
Infring'd the law, the penalty defy'd:
Curst by themselves in Eden's blest abodes,
Possessing all, yet raging to be gods:
Thence sin unnerv'd the sense, obscur'd the soul,
And still increas'd, like rivers as they roll:
For nature once deprav'd, like motion crost,
Ne'er of herself can gain the pow'rs she lost.
But here the moderns eagerly dispute,-
Why in a state of knowledge absolute,
(Where unmix'd truth came naked to the view,
And the first glance could pierce all nature thro',)
God should an edict positive decree
And guard so strict th' inviolable tree?
This were for trifles sagely to contend,
To barter truth for show, for means the end."
Agreed: but first our mighty sect should

66

prove

God has no title to our faith or love :
To awe submissive, reverential fear,
To hope, to homage, to the grateful tear:
That truth omniscient may sometimes deceive,
That all-wise bounty knows not what to give:
First let the critics of the Godhead make
Such theorems clear, and then this answer take:
That Adam, though all moral truth he saw,
Yet scarce a motive had t' infringe that law:
How could he honour other gods than one?
How change a spirit into sculptur'd stone?
YOL. XVI.

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Durst he profane his Maker's sacred name?
How without parents could intemp'rate rage
Spurn the hoar head, or mock the tears of age?.
Why should he covet? when supremely blest-
Or why defraud? when all things he possest―
The bridal bed for whom should he deceive?
Or whom assassin, but his much-lov'd Eve ?—
Hence 'twas that man by positives was try'd:
And hence beheld the Godhead justifi'd.

Add, that the reasoning faculty of man
Serv'd not as now, when Adam first began:
Much though he saw, yet little had he try'd,
Nor known experience, nature's surest guide:
See then a previous cause and reason giv'n
Why a reveal'd instinct should come from Heav'n,
Which op'd at once the natures and the pow'rs
Of earth, air, sea, beasts, reptiles, fruits, and
flow'rs.

Effects, as yet uncaus'd, thence Adam knew, The rage of poisons, and the balms of dew: Smil'd when the gen'rous courser paw'd the plains,

Yet shun'd the tygress and her beauteous stains: Nurs'd the soft dove that slumber'd on his breast, Nor touch'd the dipsas' poi-on-flaming crest.

How had he trembled in that bless'd abode,
Had not his sovereignty been taught by God?
Or how, unlicens'd, durst he wanton tread
Ev'n the green insect in its herbal bed?
For life, like property, is no man's slave,
And only he can reassume that gave.
(This by the way :) the hist'ry of the fall,
And how the first-form'd loins contain'd us all,
Dread points! which none explain, and few con-
ceive,

We wave for ever, doctors, by your leave.
Ethnics and Christians a corruption grant,
The manner how, still wicked wits may want,
So, if they doubt what sound, or vision be,
Thence let them prove we cannot hear, or see.

'Spite of their mock'ry also, plain is this,
That no man had a plea to Adam's bliss.
Grant that the parent wastes a vast estate―
Is he for that, just object of our hate,
Provided all remains that use requires,
Or need can crave, for ends and for desires,
To point out evil, virtue's heights to reach,
This life to soften, or the next to teach?

Shall man, because he wants a seraph's flame,
Not taste the joys proportion'd to his frame?
Knowledge enough for use, for pride is giv'n;
Strong, but not sensitive as truth in Heav'n:
Clear yet adapted to the mental sight:
For too much truth o'erpow'rs, as too much light,
Reason, like virtue, in a medium lies: [wise,
A hair's-breadth more might make us mad, not
Out-know ev'n knowledge, and out-polish art,
Till Newton drops down giddy-a Descartes!
For reason, like a king who thirsts for pow'r,
Leaves realms unpeopled, while it conquers more:
Admit our eye-sight as the lynx's clear:
T' attain the distant, we o'ershoot the near:
(for art too nice, like tubes revers'd, extends
Things beyond things, till ev'n the object ends.)
Hence nature, like Alcides, saw 'twas fit
To fix th' extremest stretch of human wit;
Wit, like an insect clamb'ring up a ball,
Mounts to one point, and then of course must fall,

A a

No wiser, if its pains proceed, than end,
And all its journey only to descend.

The question is not therefore, how much light God's wisdom gives us, but t'exert it right: Enough remains for ev'ry social end,

For practice, theory, self, neighbour, friend:
Then call not knowledge narrow, Heav'n unkind;
One curse there is, 'tis wantonness of mind.—
No human plummets can abysses sound:
greed: yet rocks they reach and shelving
ground:

Thus reason, where 'tis dang'rous, steers us right,
And then dissolves amidst th' abyss of light.
'Tis reason finds th' horizon's glimm'ring line
Where realms of truth, and realms of errour join:
Views its own hemisphere with thankful eyes,
Thinks nature good in that which she denies :
While pride amidst the vast abrupt must soar-
Alas! to fathom God is to be more!

Then dare be wise, into thyself descend,
Sage to some purpose, studious to some end:
Search thy own heart, the well where knowledge
lies:
[skies:
Thence (not from higher earth) we catch the
Leave myst'ry to the seraph's purer thought
Which takes in truth, as forms by streams are

caught:

Leaves lust to brutes whose unhurt sense is such,
That tenfold transport thrills at ev'ry touch:
Holding the middle sphere where reason lies,
Than these more temp'rate, as than those less
wise.

Each pow'r of animals in each degree,
Ev'n second instinct, knowledge is to thee:
Th' effect as certain, tho' the birth more slow,
For like the rose it must expand and blow:
Time must call forth the manhood of the mind,
By study strengthen'd, and by taste refin'd:
Its action open, as its purpose true,
Slow to resolve, but constant to pursue :
Weeded from passion, prejudice and pride,
Mod'rate to all, yet steady to one side.
Such once was Knight: in word, in action clear,
Ev'n in the last recess of thought sincere:
Great without titles, virtuous without show,
Learn'd without pride, and just without a foe:
Alike humane, to pity, or impart:
The coolest head, and yet the warmest heart.
O early lost! With ev'ry grace adorn'd!
By me (so Heav'n ordain'd it) always mourn'd;
In life's full joy, and virtues' fairest bloom
Untimely check'd, and hurry'd to the tomb:
Torn ev'n from her whom all the world approv'd,
More blest than man, and more than man be-
lov'd.

How few, like thee, truth's arduous paths can
tread,
[head?
Trace her slow streams, and taste them at their
See how scarft sages, and pale schoolmen roam
From art to art? their mind a void at home.
For oft our understanding opes our eyes,
Forgets itself, tho' all things it descries.
Minds like fine pictures are by distance prov'd,
And objects proper, only as remov'd.

Yet reason has a fund of charms t' engage Art, study, meditation, youth and age: Beauty, which must the slave, the monarch strike; Homage, which paid not, injures both alike: Virtue at once to please, and to befriend, (Great Nature's clue, observant of its end);

Such were the paths, the rubric ancients trod,
The friends of virtue and the friends of God.
Science like this, important and divine,
The good man offers, Reason, at thy shrine:
Sees thee, God, Nature (well explain'd) the same:
Not chang'd when thought on, varying but in

name:

Sees whence each aptitude,each diff'rence springs, How thought ev'n acts, and meaning lives in things:

Or else examines at less studious hours
The thinking faculty, its source, its pow'rs:
How stretch'd like Kneller's canvas first it lies,
.'Ere the soft tints awake, or outlines rise:
How till the finishing of thrice ser'n years,
The master figure Reason scarce appears:
Sighs to survey a realm by right its own,
While passion, fierce co-heir, usurps the throne:
A second Nero, turbulent in sway,

His pleasure, noise, his life one stormy day:
Headstrong in love, and headstrong too in hate,
Resolv'd t' enslave the mob, or sink the state:
Sad farce of pow'r, sad anarchy of things,
Where brutes are subjects, and where tyrants
kings!

Yet in this infant state, by stealth, by chance, Th' increasing mind still feels a slow advance, Thro' the dark void ev'n gleams of truth can And love of liberty upheave at root: [shoot, No more the tender seeds unquicken'd lie, But stretch their form and wait for wings to fly. Sensation rst, the ground-work of the whole, Deals ray by ray each image to the soul: Perception true to every nerve, receives The various impulse, now exults, now grieves: Thought works and ends, and dares afresh be

gin:

[in;

So whirlpools pour out streams, and suck them
That thought romantic Memory detains
In unknown cells, and in aerial chains :
Imagination thence her flow'rs translates;
And Fancy, emulous of God, creates :
Experience slowly moving next appears,
Wise but by habit, judging but from years:
Till Knowledge comes, a wise and gen'rous heir,
And opes the reservoir, averse to spare:
And Reason rises, the Newtonian sun,
Moves all, guides all, and all sustains in one.
Bright emanation of the Godhead, hail!
Fountain of living lustre, ne'er to fail :
As none deceiving, so of none deceiv'd :
Beheld, and in the act of sight believ'd;
In truth, in strength, in majesty array'd,
No change to turn thee, and no cloud to shade.
Such in herself is Reason-deist, say,
What hast thou here t' object, t' explain away?
Thinkst thou thy reason this unerring rule?
Then live a madinan-and yet die a fool!
God gave us reason as the stars were giv'n,
Not to discard the Sun, but mark out Heav'n;
At once a rule of faith, if well employ'd,
A source of pleasure, if aright enjoy'd,
A point, round which th' eternal errour lies
Of fools too credulous, and wits too wise:
A faithful guide to comfort and to save,
Till the mind floats, like Peter ou the wave:
Then bright-ey'd Hope descends, of heav'nly
And Faith our immortality on Earth. [birth,
A Saviour speaks! lo! darkness low'rs no more,
And the hush'd billows sleep against the shore,

I

If this be hardship, let the dying heir
Spurn back his father's aid, and curse his care:
If this be cruel, partial and unwise,
Then perish infidel, and God despise.

Nor flows it hence, that revelation's force
Chains reason down, or thwarts it in its course:
Since obligation, first of moral ties,
Binds thus, and yet no tyranny implies:
We grant that men th' eternal motive see,
Yet motive, where there's choice, still leaves
them free:

True liberty was ne'er by licence gain'd,
Nor are liege-subjects slaves because restrain'd;
Restriction shows the check, but none creates :
So prescience finds, but not necessitates.

Yet still the wits with partial voice exclaim,
"What art thou truth? What knowledge, but a
name?

In short, are mortals free, or they are bound?
Tell us, is reason something, or a sound?”

Friends, 'tis agreed: behold the gen'rous part,
My soul at once unfolded, and my heart;
Too brave to be by superstition aw'd,
And yet too modest to confront the God:
Chain'd to no int'rest, bigot to no cause,
Slave of no hope, preferment, or applause:
For those who cleave to truth for virtue's sake,
Enjoy all party-good, yet nothing stake.

Thou then, O source of uncreated light,
Hallow my lips, and guard me while I write.
First in that Pow'r (to whose eternal thought
No outward image e'er one image brought,
The part, the whole, the seer and the seen,
No distance, inference, or act between),
Reason presides, diffusing thence abroad
Thro' truth, thro' things-the test, the point of
God.

As perfect reason from the Godhead springs,
(And still unchang'd if perfect): so from things,
Truths, actions-in their kind and their degree,
Starts real meaning, difference, harmony.
These all imply a reason, reason still
A duty; good, if sought; if sought not, ill:
Hence in the chain of causes, virtue, vice,
And hence religion, take their gen❜ral rise.
God first creates; the ref'rence, nature, force
Of things created must result of course:
As well might sense its evidence disclaim,
Or chance sketch out Earth's, Heav'n's stupen-
dous frame;

As well might motion to be rest consent,
As well might matter fill without extent,
As things (instead of being what they ought)
Sink into hazard, whim, caprice, or nought.
Hence in each art, the great, the glorious
For science only copies moral charms, [warms,
Mysterious excellence! the dome, the draught,
The lay, the concert swell upon the thought.

The mind to nobler beauty thence proceeds,
The union, colouring, and force of deeds;
Swells in the hero's cause with vast esteem,
Pants for the patriot, and would more than seem;
Labours with Brutus in the stern decree, [free!"
Yet whispers 'midst his tears, "O Rome be
Envies at Utica the stoic sword,

Or bleeds at Carthage, martyr to its word.
These truths congenial, nor devis'd though
found,

Live in each age, and shoot from ev'ry ground;

Bloom or on Albion's, or on India's coast,
Midst Abyssinia's flames, or Zembla's frost.
Yet still the wits and moralists exclaim,
"That virtue's casual oft, and oft a name:
At Esperanza's cape (or Jesuits lie)
Their baptism's urine, and their god a fly:
Old Cato, sagely vers'd in stoic laws,
Still hackney'd out his wife to serve the cause:
And incest, for th' advantage of a nation
Was sacred made by Spartan toleration:
Midst Tart'ry's deserts, and Cathaya's sands,
In their horse-soup their natives wash their
hands:

One drop of wine but in their chamber spilt,
Is certain death, inexpiable guilt'!
For a huge whore, see heroes, kings, at strife,
But never virgin there was made a wife 2."

Of all assertions, these indeed are chief
T'excite compassion, tho' not shake belief:
Since from an agent's want of taste and skill
It flows not that the rule must needs be ill;
For truth exists abstracted from the mind,
And Nature's laws are laws, tho' man be blind,
Reason, at most, but imitates the Sun,
To each is various, and to all is one:
Perfect, consider'd in itself, 'tis true,
And yet imperfect as exerted too:
The mental pow'r eternal, equal, fixt,
The human act unequal, casual, mixt;
And if such dormant reason bears no fruit,
Dead in the branch, tho' real at the root,
Defect and actual ignorance are one,
For useless talents are the same as none:
All men may catch the heights of truths,'tis true,
But the great question is, if all men do.

"Oh but:" says one, "if reason comes from

Heav'n,

"Nature, or God, must deal the blessing ev'n. '
Agreed and in a prior sense they do;
But still t' improve the gift devolves on you:
Reason in this respect, I boldly say [lay)-
(And so do thousands, schoolmen, churchmen,
No more is natural, and inly born
Than love, or lust, or pride, or hate, or scorn;
'Tis man's t' exert, exalt, subject, impart :
Here lies the honesty and here the art.

'Tis his, t' improve good sense, but none create,
Ty'd down to spend no more than his estate:
To strike no notion out, no truth deduce,
But just as nature sow'd the seeds for use.

This instance urg'd and drawn from mental
pow'rs,

Earth each day testifies in trees and flowers:
Culture with skill, and science join'd with toil,
Teach Persia's peach to bloom in Albion's soil;
As truly nature's produce here, as there
In its own sunshine and its spicy air.—
For truth, like carth made barren by the fall,
Just as men labour, tribute pays to all:
Plain, if kind Heav'n two blessings shall impart,
A reasonable head, and upright heart:
For plainness rises in a giv'n degree
As men are honest, and as men can see:
Quarles may be harder to th' unletter'd clown
Than Hed'lin, or Bossu to wits in town.
What's ethic to the true pains-taking man,
Who never thinks, and cheats but all he can ?”
Voyages de Carpin.
Histoire des Gheriffs.

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