XVI.

That is, with men with women he was what
They pleased to make or take him for; and
Imagination's quite enough for that: [their
So that the outline's tolerably fair,
They fill the canvas up-and verbum sat.
If once their phantasies be brought to bear
Upon an object, whether sad or playful,
They can transfigure brighter than a Raphael.

XVII.

Adeline, no deep judge of character,

Was apt to add a colouring from her own: 'Tis thus the good will amiably err,

And eke the wise, as has been often shown. Experience is the chief philosopher,

But saddest when his science is well known: And persecuted sages teach the schools Their folly in forgetting there are fools.

XVIII.

Was it not so, great Locke? and greater Bacon? Great Socrates? And Thou, Diviner still, • Whose lot it is by man to be mistaken,

And Thy pure creed made sanction of all ill? Redeeming worlds to be by bigots shaken,

How was Thy toil rewarded? We might fill Volumes with similar sad illustrations,

But leave them to the conscience of the nations.

XIX.

I perch upon an humbler promontory,
Amidst life's infinite variety:

With no great care for what is nicknamed glory,
But speculating as I cast mine eye

On what may suit, or may not suit, my story,
And never straining hard to versify,
I rattle on exactly as I'd talk
With anybody in a ride or walk.

xx.

I don't know that there may be much ability
Shown in this sort of desultory rhyme;
But there's a conversational facility,

Which may round off an hour upon a time.
Of this I'm sure, at least there's no servility
In mine irregularity of chime,
Which rings what's uppermost of new or hoary,
Just as I feel the Improvisatore.

XXI.

'Omnia vult belle Matho dicere-dic aliquando Et bene, dic neutrum, dic aliquando male. t

As it is necessary in these times to avoid ambiguity, I sy that I mean by Diviner still,' Christ. If ever God was man. or man God,-He was both. I never arraigned His creed, but the use, or abuse, made of it. Mr Canning one day quŠORĖ Christianity to sanction negro slavery, and Mr Wilberforce had little to say in reply. And was Christ crucified that black men might be scourged? If so, He had better been born a Me latto, to give both colours an equal chance of freedom, or at least salvation.

[Thou finely would'st say all! Say something well:

Say something ill if thou
Wouldst bear the bell

ELPHINSTON.]

Because he either meant to sneer at harmony

Or marriage, by divorcing them thus oddly;

many

Or not, 'tis said his sect is rich and godly, Pious and pure, beyond what I can term any Of ours, although they propagate more broadly.

My objection's to his title, not his ritual,
Although I wonder how it grew habitual.

XXXVII.

But Rapp is the reverse of zealous matrons, Who favour, malgré Malthus, generationProfessors of that genial art, and patrons

Of all the modest part of propagation; Which, after all, at such a desperate rate runs, That half its produce tends to emigration, That sad result of passions and potatoesTwo woods which pose our economic Catos.

XXXVIII.

Had Adeline read Malthus? I can't tell :

I wish she had; his book's the eleventh commandment,

Which says, 'Thou shalt not marry, 'unless well; This he (as far as I can understand) meant.

This extraordinary and flourishing German colony in America does not entirely exclude matrimony, as the 'Shakers' do, but lays such restrictions upon it as prevent more than a certain quantum of births within a certain number of years: which births (as Mr Hulme observes) 'generally arrive in a little flock like those of a farmer's lambs, all within the same month perhaps.' These Harmonists (so called from the name of their settlement) are represented as a remarkably flourishing, pious, and quiet people. See the various recent writers

on America.