And must be bribed to compass earth again
By other hopes and richer fruits than your's.

But though true worth and virtue in the mild And genial foil of cultivated life

Thrive most, and may perhaps thrive only there,
Yet not in cities oft: in proud and gay
And gain-devoted cities. Thither flow,
As to a common and most noisome sewer,
The dregs and feculence of every land
In cities foul example on moft minds
Begets its likeness. Rank abundance breeds
In grofs and pampered cities floth and luft,
And wantonnefs and gluttonous excess.
In cities vice is hidden with most ease,

Or feen with leaft reproach; and virtue, taught
By frequent lapfe, can hope no triumph there
Beyond the achievement of fuccessful flight.
I do confess them nurseries of the arts

In which they flourish moft; where, in the beams
Of warm encouragement, and in the eye

Of public note, they reach their perfect size. Such London is, by taste and wealth proclaimed The fairest capital of all the world,

By riot and incontinence the worst.

There, touched by Reynolds, a dull blank becomes

A lucid mirror, in which Nature fees

All her reflected features. Bacon there
Gives more than female beauty to a stone,
And Chatham's eloquence to marble lips.
Nor does the chiffel occupy alone

The powers of sculpture, but the ftyle as much;
Each province of her art her equal care.
With nice incifion of her guided steel

She ploughs a brazen field, and clothes a foil
So fterile with what charms foever fhe will,
The richest scenery and the lovelieft forms.
Where finds philofophy her eagle eye,
With which the gazes at yon burning difk
Undazzled, and detects and counts his spots?
In London: where her implements exact,
With which the calculates, computes, and fcans,
All distance, motion, magnitude, and now
Measures an atom, and now girds a world?

In London. Where has commerce fuch a mart,
So rich, fo thronged, fo drained, and fo fupplied,
As London-opulent, enlarged, and still

Increafing, London? Babylon of old

Not more the glory of the earth than she,
A more accomplished world's chief glory now.

She has her praise. Now mark a spot or two
That so much beauty would do well to purge;
And how this queen of cities, that fo fair
May yet be foul; fo witty, yet not wife.
It is not seemly, nor of good report,

That she is flack in difcipline; more prompt
To avenge than to prevent the breach of law :
That he is rigid in denouncing death.

On petty robbers, and indulges life

And liberty, and oft-times honour too,

To peculators of the public gold;

That thieves at home muft hang; but he, that puts
Into his overgorged and bloated purse
The wealth of Indian provinces, escapes.
Nor is it well, nor can it come to good,
That, through profane and infidel contempt
Of holy writ, the has prefumed to annul
And abrogate, as roundly as the may,
The total ordinance and will of God;
Advancing fashion to the post of truth,
And centering all authority in modes

And cuftoms of her own, till fabbath rites
Have dwindled into unrefpected forms,
And knees and haffocks are well-nigh divorced.

God made the country, and man made the town. What wonder then that health and virtue, gifts, That can alone make sweet the bitter draught, That life holds out to all, fhould most abound And leaft be threatened in the fields and groves? Poffefs ye therefore, ye who, borne about In chariots and fedans, know no fatigue But that of idlenefs, and tafte no scenes But fuch as art contrives, poffefs ye ftill Your element; there only can ye fhine; There only minds like yours can do no harm. Our groves were planted to confole at noon The pentive wanderer in their fhades. At eve The moon-beam, fliding foftly in between. The fleeping leaves, is all the light they wish, Birds warbling all the mufic. We can spare The fplendour of your lamps; they but eclipse. Our fofter fatellite. Your fongs confound Our more harmonious notes: the thrush departs Scared, and the offended nightingale is mute.

There is a public mifchief in your mirth;

It plagues your country. Folly fuch as your's,
Graced with a fword, and worthier of a fan,
Has made, what enemies could never have done,
Our arch of empire, ftedfaft but for you,

A mutilated ftructure, foon to fall.