Lamented change! to which full many a cause Inveterate, hopeless of a cure, confpires.
The courfe of human things from good to ill, From ill to worfe, is fatal, never fails. Increase of power begets increase of wealth; Wealth luxury, and luxury excefs; Excefs, the fcrofulous and itchy plague, That seizes firft the opulent, defcends To the next rank contagious, and in time Taints downward all the,graduated scale Of order, from the chariot to the plough. The rich, and they, that have an arm to check The licence of the loweft in degree,
Defert their office; and themselves, intent On pleasure, haunt the capital, and thus
To all the violence of lawless hands
Refign the scenes, their prefence might protect. Authority herself not seldom fleeps,
Though refident, and witness of the wrong. The plump convivial parfon often bears The magisterial sword in vain, and lays His reverence and his worship both to reft On the fame cushion of habitual floth. Perhaps timidity reftrains his arm;
When he should strike he trembles, and sets free, Himself enslaved by terror of the band,
The audacious convict, whom he dares not bind. Perhaps, though by profeffion ghostly pure, He too may have his vice, and sometimes prove Lefs dainty than becomes his grave outfide In lucrative concerns. Examine well
His milk-white hand; the palm is hardly clean- But here and there an ugly smutch appears. Foh! 'twas a bribe that left it: he has touched Corruption. Whofo feeks an audit here
Propitious, pays his tribute, game or fish, Wild fowl or venifon; and his errand speeds.
But fafter far, and more than all the rest, A noble caufe, which none, who bears a spark Of public virtue, ever withed removed, Works the deplored and mischievous effect. 'Tis univerfal foldiership has ftabbed
The heart of merit in the meaner class. Arms, through the vanity and brainless rage Of thofe that bear them, in whatever caufe, Seem moft at variance with all moral good, And imcompatible with ferious thought.
The clown, the child of nature, without guile, Bleft with an infant's ignorance of all
But his own fimple pleasures; now and then A wrestling match, a foot-race, or a fair; Is ballotted, and trembles at the news: Sheepish he doffs his hat, and mumbling fwears A bible-oath to be whate'er they please, To do he knows not what. The task performed, That inftant he becomes the ferjeant's care, His pupil, and his torment, and his jest. His awkward gait, his introverted toes,
Bent knees, round shoulders, and dejected looks, Procure him many a curfe. By flow degrees, Unapt to learn, and formed of stubborn stuff, He yet by flow degrees puts off himself, Grows confcious of a change, and likes it well: He stands erect; his flouch becomes a walk; He steps right onward, martial in his air, His form, and movement; is as smart above As meal and larded locks can make him; wears His hat, or his plumed helmet, with a grace; And, his three years of heroship expired, Returns indignant to the flighted plough. He hates the field, in which no fife or drum
Attends him; drives his cattle to a march; And fighs for the smart comrades he has left. "Twere well if his exterior change were all— But with his clumfy port the wretch has loft His ignorance and harmless manners too. To fwear, to game, to drink; to show at home By lewdness, idleness, and fabbath-breach, The great proficiency he made abroad;
To aftonish and to grieve his gazing friends; To break fome maiden's and his mother's heart; To be a peft where he was useful once; Are his fole aim, and all his glory, now.
Man in fociety is like a flower
Blown in its native bed: 'tis there alone His faculties, expanded in full bloom, Shine out; there only reach their proper use. But man, affociated and leagued with man By regal warrant, or felf-joined by bond For intereft-fake, or fwarming into clans Beneath one head for purposes of war,
Like flowers felected from the reft, and bound And bundled close to fill fome crowded vase, Fades rapidly, and by compreffion marred
Contracts defilement not to be endured.
Hence chartered boroughs are fuch public plagues; And burghers, men immaculate perhaps
In all their private functions, once combined, Become a loathfome body, only fit
For diffolution, hurtful to the main. Hence merchants, unimpeachable of fin Against the charities of domeftic life, Incorporated feem at once to lofe
Their nature; and disclaiming all regard For mercy and the common rights of man, Build factories with blood, conducting trade At the fword's point, and dyeing the white robe Of innocent commercial juftice red.
Hence too the field of glory, as the world Mifdeems it, dazzled by its bright array,
With all its majesty of thundering pomp, Enchanting mufic and immortal wreaths, Is but a school, where thoughtlessness is taught On principle, where foppery atones For folly, gallantry for every vice.
But flighted as it is, and by the great Abandoned, and, which ftill I more regret,
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