One age is poor applause; the mighty shout,
The thunder by the living few begun,
Late time muft echo; worlds unborn, refound.
We wish our names eternally to live:
Wild dream,which ne'er had haunted human thought, 360
Had not our natures been eternal too.
Inftinct points out an interest in hereafter;
But our blind reason fees not where it lies;
Or, feeing, gives the fubftance for the shade.
Fame is the fhade of immortality,
And in itself a fhadow. Soon as caught,
Contemn'd; it fhrinks to nothing in the grafp.
Confult th' ambitious, 'tis ambition's cure.
"And is This all ?" cry'd Cæfar at his height,
Difgufted. This third proof ambition brings
Of immortality. The firft in fame,
Obferve him near, your envy will abate:
Sham'd at the disproportion vaft, between
The paffion and the purchase, he will fight
At fuch fuccefs, and blush at his renown.
And why? Because far richer prize invites
His heart; far more illuftrious glory calls;
It calls in whispers, yet the deafest hear.
And can ambition a fourth proof fupply?
It can, and stronger than the former three ;
Yet quite o'er-look'd by some reputed wise.
Though difappointments in ambition pain,
And though fuccefs difgufts; yet ftill, Lorenzo!
In vain we strive to pluck it from our hearts;
By nature planted for the nobleft ends.
Abfurd the fam'd advice to Pyrrhus given,
More prais'd, than ponder'd; fpecious, but unfound;
Sooner that hero's fword the world had quell'd,
Than reafon, his ambition. Man must soar.
An obftinate activity within,
An infuppreffive spring, will tofs him up
In fpite of fortune's load. Not kings alone,
Each villager has his ambition too;
No Sultan prouder than his fetter'd flave:
Slaves build their little Babylons of straw,
Echo the proud Affyrian in their hearts,
And cry," Behold the wonders of my might!"
And why? Because immortal as their lord;
And fouls immortal must for ever heave
At fomething great; the glitter, or the gold;
The praise of mortals, or the praise of heaven.
Nor abfolutely vain is human praise,
*When human is fupported by divine. I'll introduce. Lorenzo to Himself;
Pleafure and pride (bad masters !) fhare our hearts, 405 As love of pleasure is ordain'd to guard
And feed our bodies, and extend our race;
The love of praife is planted to protect,
And propagate the glories of the mind.
What is it, but the love of praife, inspires,
Matures, refines, embellishes, exalts,
Earth's happiness? From that, the delicate,
The grand, the marvellous, of civil life,
Want and convenience, under-workers, lay
The bafis, on which love of glory builds.
Nor is thy life, O virtue! lefs in debt
To praise, thy fecret ftimulating friend.
Were men not proud, what merit should we mifs!
Pride made the virtues of the pagan world.
Praise is the falt that seasons right to man,
And whets his appetite for moral good.
Thirst of applause is virtue's fecond guard;
Reason, her firft; but reason wants an aid;
Our private reason is a flatterer;
Thirst of applaufe calls public judgment in,
To poise our own, to keep an even scale,
And give endanger'd virtue fairer play.
Here a fifth proof arises, stronger ftill: Why this so nice construction of our hearts? Thefe delicate moralities of fenfe;
This conftitutional reserve of aid
To fuccour virtue, when our reason fails;
If virtue, kept alive by care and toil,
And, oft, the mark of injuries on earth,
When labour'd to maturity (its bill
Of disciplines, and pains, unpaid) muft die?
Why freighted-rich, to dash against a rock
Were man to perish when most fit to live,
O how mif-spent were all these stratagems,
By skill divine invowen in our frame !
Where are heaven's holiness and mercy fled?
Laughs heaven, at once, at virtue, and at man ?
If not, why that discourag'd, this destroy'd ?
Thus far ambition. What fays avarice?
This her chief maxim, which has long been Thine: 445 « The
"The wife and wealthy are the fame,”—I grant it.
To store up treasure, with inceffant toil,
This is man's province, this his highest praise.
To this great end keen instinct stings him on.
To guide that inftinct, reason! is thy charge;
"Tis thine to tell us where true treafure lies:
But, reafon failing to discharge her trust,
Or to the deaf discharging it in vain,
A blunder follows; and blind industry,
Gall'd by the fpur, but stranger to the course,
(The course where stakes of more than gold are won) O'er-loading, with the cares of distant age,
The jaded fpirits of the prefent hour,
Provides for an eternity below.
"Thou shalt not covet," is a wife command; 460 But bounded to the wealth the fun furveys:
Look farther, the command ftands quite revers'd,
And avarice is a virtue most divine.
Is faith a refuge for our happiness?
Moft fure: and is it not for reafon too?
Nothing this world unriddles, but the next.
Whence inextinguishable thirst of gain?
From inextinguishable life in man :
Man, if not meant, by worth, to reach the skies,
Had wanted wing to fly fo far in guilt.
Sour grapes, I grant, ambition, avarice,
Yet ftill their root is immortality:
Thefe its wild growths fo bitter, and fo base, (Pain and reproach!) religion can reclaim,
Refine, exalt, throw down their poisonous lee,
And make them sparkle in the bowl of bliss.
See, the third witness laughs at bliss remote, And falfely promises an Eden here:
Truth fhe shall speak for once, though prone to lye, A common cheat, and Pleasure is her name.
To pleasure never was Lorenzo deaf;
Then hear her now, now first thy real friend.
Since nature made us not more fond than proud
Of happiness (whence hypocrites in joy!
Makers of mirth! artificers of smiles !)
Why should the joy most poignant fenfe affords
Burn us with blushes, and rebuke our pride ?—
Those heaven-born blushes tell us man defcends,
Ev'n in the zenith of his earthly blifs:
Should reason take her infidel repose,
This honeft inftinct speaks our lineage high;
This inftinct calls on darknefs to conceal
Our rapturous relation to the stalls.
Our glory covers us with noble fame,
And he that's unconfounded, is unmann'd.
The man that blufhes is not quite a brute.
Thus far with Thee, Lorenzo! will I clofe,
Pleafure is good, and man for pleasure made;
But pleasure full of glory, as of joy;
Pleasure, which neither blushes, nor expires.
The witneffes are heard; the cause is o'er ;
Let confcience file the fentence in her court,
Dearer than deeds that half a realm convey :
Thus feal'd by trath, th' authentic record runs.
|