They, if one votary they find

To mistress more divine inclin'd,
In truth's pursuit, to cause delay,
Throw golden apples in his way,

Place me, O Heav'n, in some retreat;
There let the serious death-watch beat,
There let me self in silence shun,
To feel thy will, which should be done.
Then comes the Spirit to our hut,
When fast the senses' doors are shut;
For so divine and pure a guest
The emptiest rooms are furnish'd best.

O Contemplation! air serene!

From damps of sense, and fogs of spleen!
Pure mount of thought! thrice holy ground,
Where grace, when waited for, is found.
Here 'tis the soul feels sudden youth,
And meets exulting, virgin Truth;
Here, like a breeze of gentlest kind,
Impulses rustle through the mind;
Here shines that light with glowing face,
The fuse divine, that kindles grace;
Which, if we trim our lamps, will last,
'Till darkness be by dying past.
And then goes out at end of night,
Extinguish'd by superior light.

Ah me! the heats and colds of life,
Pleasure's and pain's eternal strife,
Breed stormy passions, which confin'd,
Shake, like th' Æolian cave, the mind.
And raise despair; my lamp can last,
Plac'd where they drive the furious blast.

False eloquence! big empty sound! Like showers that rush upon the ground! Little beneath the surface goes,

All streams along, and muddy flows.
This sinks, and swells the buried grain,
And fructifies like southern rain.

His art, well hid in mild discourse,
Exerts persuasion's winning force,
And nervates so the good design,
That king Agrippa's case is mine.
Well-natur'd, happy shade forgive!
Like you I think, but cannot live.
Thy scheme requires the world's contempt,
That from dependence life exempt;
And constitution fram'd so strong,
This world's worst climate cannot wrong,
Not such my lot, not Fortune's brat,
I live by pulling off the hat;
Compell'd by station every hour
To bow to images of power;
And in life's busy scenes immers'd,
See better things, and do the worst.

Eloquent Want, whose reasons sway, And make ten thousand truths give way, While I your scheme with pleasure trace, Draws near, and stares me in the face. "Consider well your state," she cries, "Like others kneel, that you may rise; Hold doctrines, by no scruples vex'd, To which preferment is annex'd; Nor madly prove, where all depends, Idolatry upon your friends.

See, how you like my rueful face,

Such you must wear, if out of place.
Crack'd is your brain to turn recluse
Without one farthing out at use.

They, who have lands, and safe bank-stock,
With faith so founded on a rock,
May give a rich invention ease,
And construe scripture how they please.
"The honour'd prophet that of old,
Us'd Heav'n's high counsels to unfold,
Did, more than courier angels, greet
The crows, that brought him bread and meat.”

THE SEEKER.

WHEN I first came to London, I rambled about, From sermon to sermon, took a slice and went out. Then on me, in divinity bachelor, try'd

Many priests to obtrude a Levitical bride;

And urging their various opinions, intended

To make me wed systems, which they recommended.

Said a lech'rous old fri'r skulking near Lincoln's

inn,

(Whose trade's to absolve, but whose pastime's to

sin;

Who, spider-like, seizes weak protestant flies,

Which hung in his sophistry cobweb he spies ;)

"Ah! pity your soul; for without our church pale, If you happen to die, to be damn'd you can't fail; The Bible, you boast, is a wild revelation :

Hear a church that can't err, if you hope for salvation."

Said a formal non-con, (whose rich stock of

grace

Lies forward expos'd in shop-window of face,)
"Ah! pity your soul: come, be of our sect:
For then you are safe, and may plead you're elect.
As it stands in the Acts, we can prove ourselves

saints,

Being Christ's little flock every where spoke against."

Said a jolly church parson, (devoted to ease, While penal-law dragons guard his golden fleece,) "If you pity your soul, I pray listen to neither; The first is in errour, the last a deceiver:

That our's is the true church, the sense of our tribe

is,

And surely in medio tutissimus ibis."

Said a yea and nay friend, with a stiff hat and

band,

(Who while he talk'd gravely would hold forth his hand,)

"Dominion and wealth are the aim of all three, Though about ways and means they may all disagree;

Then prithee be wise, go the quakers by-way, 'Tis plain, without turnpikes, so nothing to pay."

THE GROTTO, *

WRITTEN BY MR. GREEN, UNDER THE NAME OF
PETER DRAKE, A FISHERMAN OF BRENTFORD.

Printed in the Year 1732, but not published.

Scilicet hic possis curvo dignoscere rectum,
Atque inter silvas Academi quærere verum.

Our wits Apollo's influence beg,
The Grotto makes them all with egg:
Finding this chalkstone in my nest,
I strain, and lay among the rest.

ADIEU awhile, forsaken flood,

To ramble in the Delian wood,
And pray the god my well-meant song
May not my subject's merit wrong.

Say, father Thames, whose gentle pace
Gives leave to view what beauties grace
Your flow'ry banks, if you have seen
The much-sung Grotto of the queen.
Contemplative, forget awhile

Oxonian towers, and Windsor's pile,

HOR.

* A building in Richmond Gardens, erected by Queen Caroline, and committed to the custody of Stephen Duck. At the time this poem was written many other verses appeared on the same subject.