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Is oft too welcome, and may much disturb
The bias of the purpose. How much more,
Pour'd forth by beauty splendid and polite,
In language foft as Adoration breathes?
Ah, spare your idol! think him human still.
Charms he may have, but he has frailties too!
Dote not too much, nor spoil what ye admire.
All truth is from the fempiternal fource
Of Light Divine. But Egypt, Greece, and Rome
Drew from the stream below. More favour'd, we
Drink, when we choose it, at the fountain head.
To them it flow'd much mingled and defiled
With hurtful error, prejudice, and dreams
Illufive of philofophy, so call'd,

But falfely.

Sages after fages ftrove

In vain to filter off a crystal draught

Pure from the lees, which often more enhanced
The thirft than flaked it, and not feldom bred
Intoxication and delirium wild.

In vain they push'd inquiry to the birth [man?
And springtime of the world; ask'd, Whence is
Why form'd at all? And wherefore as he is?
Where must he find his Maker? With what rites
Adore him? Will he hear, accept, and bless?
Or does he fit regardless of his works?
Has man within him an immortal feed?
Or does the tomb take all? If he furvive
His ashes, where? and in what weal or woe?
Knots worthy of solution, which alone
A Deity could folve. Their answers vague
And all at random, fabulous and dark,

Left them as dark themselves. Their rules of life,

Defective and unfanction'd, proved too weak
To bind the roving appetite, and lead
Blind Nature to a God not yet reveal'd.
'Tis Revelation fatisfies all doubts,
Explains all myfteries, except her own,
And fo illuminates the path of life,
That fools difcover it, and ftray no more.
Now tell me, dignified and fapient fir,
My man of morals, nurtured in the fhades
Of Academus, is this falfe or true?

Is Chrift the abler teacher, or the fchools?
If Christ, then why refort at every turn
To Athens or to Rome, for wisdom short
Of man's occafions, when in Him refide
Grace, knowledge, comfort-an unfathom'd store?
How oft, when Paul has served us with a text,
Has Epictetus, Plato, Tully, preach'd!

Men that, if now alive, would fit content
And humble learners of a Saviour's worth,

Preach it who might. Such was their love of truth,
Their thirst of knowledge, and their candour too!
And thus it is.The paftor, either vain
By nature, or by flattery made so, taught
To
gaze at
at his own splendour, and to exalt
Abfurdly, not his office, but himself;
Or unenlighten'd, and too proud to learn;
Or vicious, and not therefore apt to teach;
Perverting often, by the ftrefs of lewd
And loose example, whom he should instruct;
Exposes, and holds up to broad disgrace,
The nobleft function, and difcredits much
The brightest truths that man has ever seen.

For ghoftly counfel; if it either fall
Below the exigence, or be not back'd

With show of love, at least with hopeful proof
Of fome fincerity on the giver's part;

Or be dishonour'd in the exterior form
And mode of its conveyance by such tricks
As move derifion, or by foppish airs
And hiftrionic mummery, that let down
The pulpit to the level of the stage;
Drops from the lips a difregarded thing.
The weak perhaps are moved, but are not taught,
While prejudice in men of stronger minds
Takes deeper root, confirm'd by what they fee.
A relaxation of religion's hold

Upon the roving and untutor'd heart

Soon follows, and the curb of conscience snapp'd,
The laity run wild.-But do they now?
Note their extravagance, and be convinced.
As nations, ignorant of God, contrive
A wooden one, fo we, no longer taught
By monitors that mother church supplies,
Now make our own. Posterity will ask
(If e'er pofterity see verse of mine)
Some fifty or a hundred luftrums hence,
What was a monitor in George's days?
My very gentle reader, yet unborn,

Of whom I needs must augur better things,
Since Heaven would fure grow weary of a world
Productive only of a race like us,

A monitor is wood-plank shaven thin.

We wear it at our backs. There, clofely braced And neatly fitted, it compreffes hard

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The prominent and moft unfightly bones,
And binds the fhoulders flat. We prove its ufe
Sovereign and moft effectual to secure

A form, not now gymnaftic as of yore,
From rickets and diftortion, elfe our lot.
But thus admonish'd, we can walk erect,
One proof at least of manhood! while the friend
Sticks close, a Mentor worthy of his charge.
Our habits, coftlier than Lucullus wore,
And by caprice as multiplied as his,

Just please us while the fashion is at full,
But change with every moon. The fycophant,
That waits to dress us, arbitrates their date;
Surveys his fair reverfion with keen eye;
Finds one ill made, another obsolete,
This fits not nicely, that is ill conceived;
And, making prize of all that he condemns,
With our expenditure defrays his own.
Variety's the very spice of life,

That gives it all its flavour. We have run
Through every change that Fancy, at the loom
Exhausted, has had genius to fupply;

And, ftudious of mutation ftill, discard
A real elegance, a little used,

For monstrous novelty and ftrange disguise.
We facrifice to drefs, till household joys

And comforts ceafe. Dress drains our cellar dry,
And keeps our larder lean; puts out our fires;
And introduces hunger, froft, and woe,

Where peace and hofpitality might reign.

What man that lives, and that knows how to live, Would fail to exhibit at the public shows

A form as fplendid as the proudeft there,
Though appetite raise outcries at the cost?
A man of the town dines late, but foon enough,
With reasonable forecast and despatch,
To infure a fide-box ftation at half price.
You think, perhaps, fo delicate his dress,
His daily fare as delicate. Alas!

He picks clean teeth, and, bufy as he seems
With an old tavern quill, is hungry yet!
The rout is Folly's circle, which the draws.
With magic wand. So potent is the spell,
That none, decoy'd into that fatal ring,
Unless by Heaven's peculiar grace, escape.
There we grow early gray, but never wife;
There form connexions, but acquire no friend;
Solicit pleasure, hopeless of success ;
Waste youth in occupations only fit

For fecond childhood, and devote old age
To sports which only childhood could excufe.
There they are happiest who dissemble best
Their weariness; and they the most polite
Who fquander time and treasure with a smile,
Though at their own destruction. She that asks
Her dear five hundred friends contemns them all,
And hates their coming. They, what can they less?
Make juft reprifals; and with cringe and fhrug,
And bow obfequious, hide their hate of her.
All catch the frenzy, downward from her Grace,
Whose flambeaux flash against the morning skies,
And gild our chamber ceilings as they pass,
To her, who, frugal only that her thrift
May feed exceffes fhe can ill afford,

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