§ 268. The Love of Distinction.
let us talk of these : is:
ON N life's gay stage, one inch above the grave, The proud run up and down in quest of eye The fenfual, in purfuit of fomething worse; The grave, of gold; the politic, of pow'r; And all, of other butterflies, as vain. As eddies draw things frivolous, and light, How is man's heart by vanity drawn in; On the fwift circle of returning toys, Whirl'd, straw-like, round and round, and then Unbounded prospect, and immortal kin,
AMBITION! pleasure! Doft grafp at greatness? first, know what it Think'st thou thy greatness in diftinction lies? Not in the feather, wave it e'er fo high, Is glory lodg'd: 'tis lodg'd in the reverse; In that which joins, in that which equals all, The monarch, and his flave: -" A deathless foul,
Where gay delufion darkens to despair !
§267. Human Life compared to the Ocean. OCEAN! thou dreadful and tumultuous home
Of dangers, at eternal war with man! Death's capital! where moft he domineers, With all his chofen terrors frowning round, Tho' lately feafted high at Albion's coft, Wide op'ning, and loud roaring still for more! Too faithful mirror! how dost thou reficct
The melancholy face of human life! The strong refemblance tempts me farther still: And, haply, Britain may be deeper struck By moral truth, in fuch a mirror feen, Wrich nature holds for ever at her eye.
Self-flatter'd, unexperienc'd, high in hope, When young, with fanguine cheer, and streamers We cut our cable, launch into the world, [gay, And fondly dream each wind and star our friend; All in fome darling enterprise embark'd: But where is he can fathom its event? Amid a multitude of artless hands, Ruin's fure perquisite! her lawful prize! Some steer aright; but the black blast blows hard, And puffs them wide of hope: with hearts of
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In stress of weather, most some sink outright; O'er them and o'er their names the billows close; To-morrow knows not they were ever born : Others a short memorial leave behind; Like a flag floating, when the bark 's ingulph'd, It floats a moment, and is seen no more: One Cæfar lives, a thousand are forgot. How few beneath auspicious planets born, With fwelling fails make good the promis'd port, With all their wishes freighted! Yet even these, Freighted with all their wishes, foon complain:
A father God, and brothers in the skies!" We wifely strip the steed we mean to buy; Judge we, in their caparifons, of men ? It nought avails thee, where, but what thou art; All the diftinctions of this little life
Are quite cutaneous, foreign to the man: [creep, When thro'death's ftreights earth's fubtil ferpents Which wriggle into wealth, or climb renown, They leave their party-colour'd robe behind, All that now glitters, while they rear aloft Their brazen crefts, and hiss at us below. How mean that fnuff of glory fortune lights, And death puts out! dost thou demand a test, A test at once infallible and short, Of real greatness? that man greatly lives, Whate'er his fate or fame, who greatly dies: High-flush'd with hope, where heroes shall defpair.
THOUGH somewhat difconcerted, steady still To the world's caufe, with half a face of joy,
Lorenzo cries, "Be, then, ambition cast; Ambition's dearer far stands unimpeach'd, Gay pleasure proud ambition is her flave: Who can refift her charms?" - Or, should ?
What mortal shall refift, where angels yield ? Pieafure 's the mistress of ethereal pow'rs; Pleasure's the mistress of the world below: How would all stagnate, but for pleasure's ray! What is the pulse of this so busy world? The love of pleasure: that, thro' ev'ry vein, Throws motion, warmth; and shuts out death from life.
Tho' various are the tempers of mankind, Pleasure's gay family holds all in chains. Some moft affect the black; and some the fair: Whate'er the motive, pleasure is the mark : For her the black affaffin draws his sword; For her, dark statesmen trim their midnight-lamp, To which no single facrifice may fall; The Stoic proud, for pleasure, pleafure scorn'd; For her, affliction's daughters grief indulge,
And find, or hope, a luxury in tears: For her, guilt, shame, toil, danger, we defy, And, with an aim voluptuous, rush on death: Thus univerfal her despotic pow'r.
Patron of pleasure! I thy rival am; Pleasure, the purpose of my gloomy fong. Pleasure is nought but virtue's gayer nameI wrong her still, I rate her worth too low: Virtue the root, and pleasure is the flow'r.
The love of pleasure is man's eldest-born, Born in his cradle, living to his tomb : Wifdom, her younger fifter, tho' more grave, Was meant to minifter, and not to mar Iimperial pleafure, queen of human hearts.
FIRST, pleasure's birth, rife, strength, and grandeur fee. Brought forth by wisdom, nurs'd by difcipline, By patience taught, by perfeverance crown'd, She rears her head majeftic; round her throne, Erected in the bosom of the juft,
Each virtue, lifted, forms her manly guard: For what are virtues? (formidable name!) What, but the fountain, or defence, of joy ? Great legiflator! scarce so great as kind! If men are rational, and love delight, Thy gracious law but flatters human choice: In the tranfgreffion lies the penalty;
And they the most indulge, who most obey.
§ 271. The End of Pleasure. OF pleafure, next, the final cause explore; Its mighty purpose, its important end.
Not to turn human brutal, but to build Divine on human, pleasure came froin heav'n: In aid to reason was the goddess sent, To call up all its strength by such a charm. Pleasure first fuccours virtue; in return, Virtue gives pleasure an eternal reign. What, but the pleafure of food, friendship, faith, Supports life natural, civil, and divine? It ferves ourselves, our species, and our God; Glide then for ever, plcature's facred stream! Through Eden as Euphrates ran, it runs, And fosters ev'ry growth of happy life; Makes a new Eden where it flows.
"TS virtue, then, and piety the fame?"
No:-piety is more; 'tis virtue's fource;
Mother of ev'ry worth, as that of joy. With piety begins all good on earth; Confcience, her first law broken, wounded lies; Enfeebled, lifcless, impotent to good,
A feign'd affection bounds her utmost power : Some we can 't love, but for the Almighty's fake; A foe to God was ne'er true friend to man. On piety, humanity is built; And, on humanity much happiness; And yet still more on piety itself. A. Deity believ'd, is joy begun;
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Thy gloom is scatter'd, sprightly spirits flow; Tho' wither'd is thy vine, and harp unstrung. Doft call the bowl, the viol, and the dance, Loud mirth, mad laughter? wretched comforters balf Phyficians! more than half of thy disease. Laughter, tho' never cenfur'd yet as fin, Is half-immoral. Is it much indulg'd> By venting spleen, or diffipating thought, It shews a scorner, or it makes a fool; And fros, as hurting others, or ourselves. The house of laughter makes a house of woe: What cause for triumph, where such ills abound What for dejection, where prefides a pow'r, Who call'd us into being to be bless'd? So grieve, as confcious grief may rife to joy; So joy, as confcious joy to grief may fall: Moft true, a wife man never will be fad; But neither will fonorous, bubbling mirth A shallow ftream of happiness betray;
Too happy to be sportive, he 's fcrene.
Retire, and read thy bible, to be gay. There truths abound of fov'reign aid to peace: Ah! do not prize them less, because inspir'd; If not infpir'd, that pregnant page had ftood, Time's treafure! and the wonder of the wife !
But these, thou think 'ft, are gloomy paths to joy.
True joy in funshine ne'er was found at first: They, first, themfelves offend, who greatly please, And travel only gives us found repofe. Heaven fells all pleasure; effort is the price; The joys of conquest are the joys of man; And glory the victorious laurel fpreads O'er pleasure's pure, perpetual, placid stream.
§274. A Man of Pleasure is a Man of Pains. THERE is a time, when toil must be preferr'd,
Or joy, by miftim'd fondness, is undone. A man of pleafure is a man of pains, Thou wilt not take the trouble to be bless'd,
Falfe jovs, indeed, are born from want of thought; From thought's full bent, and energy, the true; And that demands a mind in equal poife, Remote from gloomy grief, and glaring joy. Much joy not only fpeaks small happiness, But happiness that shortly must expire: Can joy, unbottom'd in reflection, stand? And in a tempeft can reflection live? Can joy like thine fecure itself an hour? Can joy like thine meet accident unshock'd, Or ope the door to honest poverty? Or talk with threat'ning death, and not turn pale? In fuch a world, and fuch a nature, these Are needful fundamentals of delight: These fundamentals give delight indeed; Delight, pure, delicate, and durable; Delight, unshaken, masculine, divine; A conftant, and a found, but ferious joy.
Is joy the daughter of feverity? It is: Yet far my doctrine from severe : "Rejoice for ever;" it becomes a man; Exalts, and fets him nearer to the gods; "Rejoice for ever," Nature cries, "Rejoice;" And drinks to man, in her nectareous cup, Mix'd up of delicates for ev'ry fenfe; To the great Founder of the bounteous feast Drinks glory, gratitude, eternal praise; And he that will not pledge her, is a churl. Ill firmly to fupport, good fully taste, Is the whole science of felicity. Yet fparing pledge; her bowl is not the best Mankind can boaft: A rational repast; Exertion, vigilance, a mind in arms, A military difcipline of thought, To foil temptation in the doubtful field; An ever-waking ardour for the right,
'Tis these first give, then guard a cheerful heart. Nought that is right, think little; well aware, What reafon bids, God bids: by his command, How aggrandis'd the smallest thing we do! Thus nothing is infipid to the wife; To thee infipid all, but what is mad;
Joys feafon'd high, and tasting strong of guilt.
They stand collecting ev'ry beam of thought, Till their hearts kindle with divine delight; For all their thoughts, like angels seen of old In Ifrael's dream, come from and go to heav'ns Hence are they studious of sequester'd scenes, While noise and diffipation comfort thee.
VAIN are all fudden fallies of delight;
Convulfions of a weak, distemper'd joy.
Joy 's a fix'd state; a tenor, not a ftart: Blifs there is none, but unprecarious blifs: That is the gem; fell all, and purchase that. Reafon perpetuates joy that reason gives, And makes it as immortal, as herself: To mortals, nought immortal, but their worth. § 277. Follies of Imagination.
IN this is seen imagination's guilt; But who can count her follies? She betrays To think in grandeur there is something great. For works of curious art, and ancient fame, Thy genius hungers, elegantly pain'd; And foreign climes must cater for thy Hence what difaster!-Tho' the price was paid, That perfecuting priest, the Turk of Rome Detain'd thy dinner on the Latian shore; And poor magnificence is starv'd to death. Hence, just refentment, indignation, ire!-
§ 278. Pleajure confifts in Goodness. PLEASURE, we both agree, is man's chief
Our only conteft, what deserves the name? [pass'd Give pleasure's name to nought, but what has Th' authentic feal of reason, which defies
The tooth of time; when past a pleasure still; Dearer on trial, lovelier for its age, And doubly to be priz'd, as it promotes Our future, while it forms our present joy. Some joys the future overcaft; and fome Throw all their beams that way, and gild the Some joys endear eternity: fome give (tomb: Abhorr'd annihilation dreadful charms. Are rival joys contending for thy choice? Confult thy whole existence, and be safe;
CONSISTENT wifdom ever wills the fame; That oracle will put all doubt to flight:
Thy fickle with is ever on the wing.
Sick of herself is folly's character; As wisdom's is a modest self applaufe. A change of evils is thy good fupreme; Nor, but in motion, canft thou find thy reft. Man's greatest ftrength is shewn in standing still: The first fure fymptom of a mind in health, Is rest of heart, and pleafure felt at home. Falfe pleasure from abroad her joys imports; Rich from within, and felf-fuftain'd, the true: The true is fix'd, and folid, as a rock; Slipp'ry the falfe, and toffing, as the wave: 'Tis love o'erflowing makes an angel here; Such angels all, intitled to repose
On him who governs fate. The tempeft frowns, Tho' nature thakes, how foft to lean on heav'n! To lean on Him on whom archangels lean ! With inward eyes, and filent as the grave,
Be good, and let heav'n answer for the rest. Yet, with a figh o'er all mankind, I grant, In this our day of proof, our land of hope, The good man has his clouds that intervene Clouds that obfcure his fublunary day, But never conquer. Ev'n the best must own, Patience, and refignation, are the pillars Of human peace on earth: remote from thee, Till this heroic lesson thou hast learn'd; To frown at pleasure, and to fimile in pain, Fir'd at the profpect of unclouded blifs. Heav'n in reverfion, like the fun as yet Beneath th' horizon, cheers us in this world; It sheds, on fouls susceptible of light, The glorious dawn of our eternal day.
Now fee the man immortal: him, I mean, Who lives as fuch; whose heart, full bent on heav'n,
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WITH afpect mild, and elevated eye, Behold him feated on a mount ferene, Above the fogs of fenfe, and paflion's ftorm; All the black cares and tumults of this life, Like harmless thunders, breaking at his feet; Earth's genuine fons, the fceptred and the flave, A mingled mob! a wand'ring herd! he fees Dewilder'd in the vale; in all unlike! His full reverse in all! what higher praise? What stronger demonftration of the right?
The prefent all their care; the future, his: When public welfare calls, or private want, They give to fame; his bounty he conceals : Their virtues varnish nature; his exalt: Theirs, the wild chace of false felicities; His, the compos'd poffeffion of the true : Alike throughout is his confiftent peace, All of one colour, and an even thread; While party-colour'd fhreds of happincfs, With hideous gaps between, patch up for them A madman's robe; each puff of fortune blows The tatters by, and shews their nakedness.
He fees with other eyes than theirs; where they Behold a fun, he spies a Deity; What makes them only smile, makes hiin adore; Where they fee mountains, he but atoms sees; An empire, in his balance, weighs a grain : They things terrestrial worship, as divine; His hopes immortal blow them by, as dust, That dims his fight, and shortens his furvey, Which longs, in infinite, to lose all bound: Titles and honours (if they prove his fate) He lays afide, to find his dignity: They triumph in externals (which conceal Man's real glory) proud of an eclipfe; He nothing thinks fo great in man, as man; Too dear he holds his int'reft, to neglect Another's welfare, or his right invade; Their int'reft, like a lion's, lives on prey: They kindle at the shadow of a wrong; Wrong he furtains with temper, looks on heav'n, Nor ftoops to think his injurer his foe;
Nought, but what wounds his virtue, wounds his A cover'd heart their character defends; A cover'd heart denies him half his praife: With nakedness his innocence agrees;
While their broad foliage teftifies their fall : Their no joys end, where his full feaft begins; His joys create, theirs murder, future blifs: To triumph in exiftence, his alone; And his alone, triumphantly to think His true cxiftence is not yet begun : His glorious course was, yesterday, complete; Death, then, was welcome, yet life ftill is fweet.
§ 280. Toe Fall of the Good Man.
UT nothing charms Lorenzo, like the firm, Undaunted breast:-And whore is that high praife?
They yield to pleasure, tho' they danger brave, And thew no fortitude, but in the field; if there they shew it, 'tis for glory shown; Nor will that cordial always man their hearts: A cordial his fuftains, that cannot fail: By pleafure unfubdu'd, unbroke by pain, He thares in that omnipotence he truts: All-bearing, all-attempting, till he fails, And, when he falls, writes VICI on his shield; From magnaniınity, all fear above; From nobler recompenfe, above applause.
§ 281. Wit and Wisdom. WIT, how delicious to man's dainty rafte 'Tis precious, as the vehicle of fente;
But, as its fubstitute, a dire disease : Pernicious talent! flatter'd by mankind, Yet hated too; they think the talent rare. Wifdom is rare, Lorenzo! wit abounds; Paffion can give it; sometimes wine inspires The lucky flash; and madness rarely fails. Whatever caufe the spirit strongly stirs, Confers the bays, and rivals thy renown; Chance often hits it; and, to pique thee more, See duiness blund'ring on vivacitics. But wisdom, awful wisdom! which infpects, Difcerns, compares, weighs, separates, infers, Seizes the right, and holds it to the last; How rare! In fenates, fynods, fought in vain; Or, if there found, 'tis facred to the few. While a loud prostitute to multitudes, Frequent as fatal, wit. In civil life, Wit makes an enterpriser, sense, a man: Senfe is our helmet, wit is but the plume, The plume exposes, 'tis our helmet faves: Senfe is the diamond, weighty, folid, found; When cut by wit, it cafts a brighter beam; Yet, wit apart, it is a diamond itill: Wit, widow'd of good fenfe, is worse than It hoifts more fail to run againft a rock. [nougat,
How ruinous the rock I warn thee shun, Where fyrens fit, to fing thee to thy fate! Let not the cooings of the world allure thee; Which of her lovers ever found her true?
Happy! of this bad world who little know;- She gives but little; nor that little, long. There is, I grant, a triumph of the pulse; A dance of spirits, a mere froth of joy, That mantles high, that sparkles and expires, Leaving the foul more vapid than before; An animal ovation I fuch as holds.
No commerce with our reafon, but fubfifts On juices thro' the well-ton'd tubes, well-strain'd A nice machine! fcarce ever tun'd aright; Bat when it jars, thy fyrens fing no more, The demi-god is thrown beneath the man; In coward ploom inmers'd, or fell defair..
Hard either task! The most abandon'd own, That others, if abandon'd, are undone : Then, for themselves, the moment reason wakes, O how laborious is their gaicty!
They scarce can mufter patience for the farce; And pump fad laughter, till the curtain falls: Scarce, did I fay? Some cannot fit it out; Oft their own daring hands the curtain draw, And shew us what their joy, by their defpair.
The clotted hair! gor'd breast! blafphemingeye! Its impious fury still alive in death! Shut, thut the shocking scene. But heav'n denies A cover to fuch guilt; and so should man. Look round, Lorenzo! fee the reeking blade; Th' envenom'd phial, and the fatal ball; The strangling cord, and fuffocating stream; The loathiome rottenness and foul decays From raging riot (flower fuicides!), And pride in these, more execrable still!- How horrid all to thought!-But horrors, these, That vouch the truth, and aid my feeble fong.
§ 283. NIGHT IX. Reflections on Death.
WHERE the prime actors of the last year's [plume? Their port so proud, their buskin, and their How many fleep, who kept the world awake With luftre, and with noife? Has Death proclaim'd A truce, and hung his fated lance on high ? 'Tis brandish'd still, nor shall the prefent year Be more tenacious of her human leaf,
Or fpread of feeble life a thinner fall.
But needless monuments to wake the thought; Life's gayest scenes speak man's mortality, Tho' in a style more florid, full as plain, As mausoleums, pyramids, and tombs. What are our nobleft ornaments, but deaths Turn'd flatterers of life, in paint, or marble, The well-ftain'd canvas, or the featur'd ftone ? Our fathers grace, or rather haunt, the scene; Joy peoples her pavilion from the dead.
"Profest diversions! cannot these escape?" Far from it; these present us with a fhroud, And talk of death, like garlands o'er the grave. As fome bold plunderers, for buried wealth, We ranfack tombs for pastime; from the duft Call up the fleeping hero; bid him tread The scene for our amusement: how like gods We fit; and, wrapt in immortality,
Shed gen'rous tears on wretches born to die; Their fate deploring, to forget our own!
And is the ceiling of her fleeping fons: O'er devastation we blind revels keep
Whole buried towns fupport the dancer's heel: The moift of human frame the fun exhales;
Winds fcatter, thro' the mighty void, the dry; Earth re-poffeffes part of what she gave, And the freed fpirit mounts on wings of fire; Each element partakes our fcatter'd ipoils; As nature wide, our ruins spread: man's death Inhabits all things, but the thought of man.
§ 285. The Triun.phs of Death.
NOR man alone; his breathing bust expires;
His tomb is mortal; empires die: Where now The Roman? Greek? They stalk, an empty name! Yet few regard them in this useful light; Tho' half our learning is their epitaph. [thought, When down thy vale, unlock'd by midnight That loves to wander in thy funless realms, O Death! I stretch my view; what visions risel What triumphs toils imperial! arts divine! In wither'd laurels, glide before my fight! What lengths of far-fam'd ages, billow'd high With human agitation, roll along In unsubstantial images of air! The melancholy ghosts of dead renown, Whifp'ring faint echos of the world's applause, With penitential afpect, as they pass, All point at earth, and hiss at human pride.
§ 286. Deluge and Conflagration. BUT, O Lorenzo! far the rest above,
Of ghastly nature, and enormous size, One form affaults my fight, and chills my blood, And shakes my frame of one departed world I fee the mighty shadow; oozy wreath. And difmal fea-weed crown her; o'er her ura Reclin'd, she weeps her defolated realms, And bloated fons; and, weeping, prophefies Another's diffolution, foon, in flames.
Deluge and Conflagration, dreadful pow'rs! Prime minifters of vengeance! chain'd in caves Diftinct, apart the giant-furies roar; Apart; or, such their hortid rage for ruin, In mutual conflict would they rife, and wage Eternal war, till one was quite devour'd': But not for this ordain'd their boundless rage; When heav'n's inferior instruments of wrath, War, famine, pestilence, are found too weak To scourge a world for her enormous crimes; These are let loofe, alternate: down they rush, Swift and tempestuous, from th' eternal throne, With irrefiftible commiffion arm'd, The world, in vain corrected, to destroy, And ease creation of the shocking scene.
SEEST thou, Lorenzo! what depends on man?
The fate of nature; as, for man, her birth:
WHAT is the world itself? thy world?-a | Earth's actors change earth's tranfitory scenes,
Where is the dust that has not been alive? The spade, the plough, disturb our ancestors; From human mould we reap cur daily bread : The globe around earth's hollow surface shakes,
And make creation groan with human guilt: How must it groan, in a new deluge whelm'd; But not of waters? at the destin'd hour, By the loud trumpet summon'd to the charge, See, all the formidable fons of fire,
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