To the Reverend Dr. Ayscou GH, at OXFORD.
Written from Paris in the Year 1728.
AY, dearest friend, how roll thy hours away?
What pleafing ftudy cheats the tedious day?
Doft thou the facred volumes oft explore
Of wife Antiquity's immortal lore,
Where virtue, by the charms of wit refin'd,
At once exalts and polishes the mind?
How different from our modern guilty art,
Which pleases only to corrupt the heart;
Whofe curft refinements odious vice adorn,
And teach to honour what we ought to fcorn!
Doft thou in fage hiftorians joy to fee
How Roman greatness rofe with liberty;
How the fame hands that tyrants durft control
Their empire ftretch'd from Atlas to the Pole;
Till wealth and conqueft into flaves refin'd
The proud luxurious mafters of mankind?
Doft thou in letter'd Greece each charm admire,
Each grace, each virtue, Freedom could inspire;
Yet in her troubled ftate fee all the woes,
And all the crimes, that giddy Faction knows;
Till, rent by parties, by corruption fold,
Or weakly careless, or too rafhly bold,
She funk beneath a mitigated doom,
The flave and tutorefs of protecting Rome ?
Does calm Philofophy her aid impart,
To guide the paffions, and to mend the heart?
Taught by her precepts, haft thou learnt the end
To which alone the wife their ftudies bend;
For which alone by nature were defign'd
The powers of thought-to benefit mankind?
Not, like a cloyster'd drone, to read and dofe,.
In undeferving, undeferv'd, repose;
But Reafon's influence to diffuse; to clear
Th' enlighten'd world of every gloomy fear;
Difpel the mifts of error, and unbind
Those pedant chains that clog the freeborn mind..
Happy who thus his leifure can employ !
He knows the pureft hours of tranquil joy;
Nor vext with pangs that bufier bofoms tear,
Nor loft to focial virtue's pleafing care;
Safe in the port, yet labouring to fuftain
Those who still float on the tempeftuous main.
So Locke the days of studious quiet spent;
So Boyle in wifdom found divine content;
So Cambray, worthy of a happier doom,
The virtuous flave of Louis and of Rome.
Good Wor'fter thus fupports his drooping age,
Far from court-flattery, far from party-rage;
He, who in youth a tyrant's frown defy'd,
Firm and intrepid on his country's fide,
Her boldest champion then, and now her mildeft
O generous warmth! O fanctity divine!
To emulate his worth, my friend, be thine:
Learn from his life the duties of the gown;
Learn, not to flatter, nor infult the crown;
Nor, bafely fervile, court the guilty great,
Nor raile the church a rival to the ftate:
To error mild, to vice alone fevere,
Seek not to spread the law of love by fear.
The priest who plagues the world can never mend :
No foe to man was e'er to God a friend.
Let reafon and let virtue faith maintain;
All force but theirs is impious, weak, and vain.
Me other cares in other climes engage,
Cares that become my birth, and fuit my age;
In various knowledge to improve my youth,
And conquer prejudice, worst foc to truth;
By foreign arts domeftic faults to mend,
Enlarge my notions, and my views extend;,
The useful science of the world to know,
Which books can never teach, or pedants fhow.
A nation here I pity and admire,
Whom nobleft fentiments of glory fire,
Yet taught, by cuftom's force and bigot fear,
To ferve with pride, and boaft the yoke they bear:
Whofe nobles, born to cringe and to command,
(In courts a mean, in camps a generous band,)
From each low tool of power, content receive
Thofe laws, their dreaded arms to Europe give.
Whofe people (vain in want, in bondage bleft;
Though plunder'd, gay; induftrious, though oppreft)
With happy follies rife above their fate,,
The jeft and envy of each wifer state.
Yet here the Mufes deign'd a while to sport
In the fhort fun-fhine of a favouring court:
Here Boileau, ftrong in fenfe, and sharp in wit,
Who, from the ancients, like the ancients writ
Permiffion gain'd inferior vice to blame,
By flattering incenfe to his master's fame.
Here Moliere, firft of comic wits, excell'd
Whate'er Athenian theatres beheld;
By keen, yet decent, fatire skill'd to please,
With morals mirth uniting, strength with ease.
Now, charm'd, I hear the bold Corneille inspire
Heroic thoughts, with Shakespeare's force and fire!
Now fweet Racine, with milder influence, move
The foften'd heart to pity and to love.
With mingled pain and pleasure, I furvey
The pompous works of arbitrary fway;
Proud palaces, that drain'd the fubjects' store,
Rais'd on the ruins of th' opprest and poor;
Where ev'n mute walls are taught to flatter state,
And painted triumphs style Ambition GREAT
With more delight thofe pleafing shades I view,
Where Condé from an envious court withdrew +;
Where, fick of glory, faction, power, and pride,,
(Sure judge how empty all, who all had tried !)
*The victories of Louis the Fourteenth, painted in the galleries of Versailles.
Beneath his palms the weary chief repos'd,
And life's great fcene in quiet virtue clos'd.
With fhame that other fam'd retreat I fee,
Adorn'd by art, disgrac'd by luxury *:
Where Orleans wafted every vacant hour,
In the wild riot of unbounded power;.
Where feverish debauch and impious love
Stain'd the mad table and the guilty grove.
With these amusements is thy friend detain'd,
Pleas'd and inftructed in a foreign land;
Yet oft a tender with recals my mind
From prefent joys to dearer left behind!
O native isle, fair Freedom's happiest seat!
At thought of thee, my bounding pulfes beat;
At thought of thee, my heart impatient burns,
And all my country on my foul returns.
When shall I fee thy fields, whofe plenteous grain
No power can ravish from th' industrious swain ?
When kifs, with pious love, the facred earth
That gave a Burleigh or a Ruffel birth ?
When, in the fhade of laws, that long have stood,
Propt by their care, or ftrengthen'd by their blood,
Of fearless independence wifely vain,
The proudest flave of Bourbon's race difdain ?
Yet, oh! what doubt, what fad prefaging voice,
Whispers within, and bids me not rejoice;
Bids me contemplate every state around,
From fultry Spain to Norway's icy bound;
Bids their loft rights, their ruin'd glories, fee;
And tells me, Thefe, like England, once were free!
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