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And ye, whofe bolder note is heard afar,
Who thake th'aftonish'd world, lift high to heav'n
Th'impetuous fong, and fay from whom you rage.
His praile, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills;
And let me catch it as I mufe along.
Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound;
Ye fofter floods, that lead the humid maze
Along the vale; and thou majestic main,
A fecret world of wonders in thyfelf,
Sound his ftupendous praise, whofe greater voice
Or bids you roar, or bids your roaring fall.
So roll your incenfe, herbs, and fruits, and flowers,
In mingled clouds to Him, whose sun exalts,
Whole breath perfumes you, and whose penci
paints.

Ye foreits bend, ye harvefts wave, to Him;
Breathe your ftill fong into the reaper's heart,
As home he goes beneath the joyous moon.
Ye that keep watch in heav'n, as earth aflcep
Unconscious lies, effufe your mildest beams,
Ye conftellations, while your angels (trike,
Amid the fpangled fky, the filver lyre.
Great fource of day! bleft image here below
Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide,
From world to world, the vital ocean round,
On nature write with every beam his praife.
The thunder rolls: be hush'd the proftrate world;
While cloud to cloud returns the folemn hymn.
Bleat out afresh, ye hills; ye molly rocks,
Retain the found: the broad refponfive low,
Ye valleys, raife; for the Great Shepherd reigns;
And his unfuffering kingdom yet will come.
Ye woodlands, all awake: a boundless fung
Burst from the groves! and when the reftiefs day,
Expiring, lays the warbling world afleep,
Sweeteft of birds! fweet Philomela, charm
The liftening fhades, and teach the nighthis praife.
Ye chief for whom the whole creation fmiles;
At once the head, the heart, the tongue of all,
Crown the great hymn In fwarming cities vaft,
Affembled men to the deep organ join
The long-refounding voice, oft breaking clear,
At folemn paufes, thro' the fwelling bafe;
And as cach mingling flame increafes each,
In one united ardour rife to heav'n.
Or if you rather choose the rural fhade,
And find a fane in every facred grove;
There let the fhepherd's flute, the virgin's lay,
The prompting feraph, and the poct's lyre,
Still ling the God of Seafons as they roll.
For me, when I forget the darling theme,
Whether the bloffom blows; the Summer ray
Ruflets the plain; infpiring Autumn gleams;
Or Winter lifes in the blackening caft;
Be my tongue mute, my fancy paint no more,
And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat.
Should fate command me to the fartheft verge
Of the green earth, to diftant barbarous clines,
Rivers unknown to fong; where first the fun
Gilds Indian mountains, or his fetting beam
Flames on th' Atlantic ifles; 'tis nought to me:
Since God is ever prefent, ever felt,
In the void wafte as in the city full;

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When even at laft the folemn hour fhall come,
And wing my myftic flight to future worlds,
I cheerful will obey; there, with new powers,
Will rifing wonders fing: I cannot go
Where univerfal love not fmiles around,
Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their funs:
From feeming evil ftill educing good,
And better thence again, and better ftill,
In infinite progreffion.-But I lofe
Myfelf in Him, in light ineffable!
Come then, expreffive filence, muse his praise.

$31. Hymn to Humanity. LANGHORNE,

I.

PARENT of virtue, if thine ear

Attend not now to forrow's cry;

If now the pity-ftreaming tear

Should haply on thy cheek be dry; Indulge my votive ftrain, O fwect Humanity!

2.

Come, ever welcome to my breast!
A tender, but a cheerful guest.
Nor always in the gloomy cell
Of life-confuming forrow dwell;
For forrow, long-indulg'd and flow,.
Is to Humanity a foe;

And grief, that makes the heart its prey,
Wears fenfibility away.

Then comes, fweet nymph, inftead of thee, The gloomy fiend, Stupidity.

3.

O may that fiend be banish'd far,
Though paffions hold eternal war!
Nor ever let me ceafe to know
The pulfe that throbs at joy or woc.
Nor let my vacant cheek be diy,
When forrow fills a brother's eye;
Nor may the tear that frequent flows
From private or from focial woes,
E'er make this pleafing fenfe depart.
Ye Cares, O harden not my heart!
4.

If the fair ftar of fortune fimile,
Let not its flattering power beguile;
Nor, borne along the fav'ring tide,
My full fails fwell with bloating pride.
Let me from wealth but hope content,
Remembering ftill it was but lent;
To modeft merit fpread my ftore,
Unbar my hofpitable door;
Nor feed, for pomp, an idle train,
While want unpitied pines in vain.

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6.

Howe'er exalted, or depreft,

Be ever mine the feeling breast.
From me remove the ftagnant mind
Of languid indolence, reclin'd;
The foul that one long fabbath keeps,
And through the fun's whole circle fleeps;
Dull Peace, that dwells in Folly's eye,
And felf-attending Vanity.
Alike, the foolith and the vain
dre ftrangers to the fenfe humane.

7.

0 for that fympathetic glow
Which taught the holy tear to flow,
When the prophetic eye furvey'd
Sion in future afhes laid;

Or, rais'd to heaven, implor'd the bread
That thousands in the defert fed!

Or, when the heart o'er friendship's grave Sigh'd-and forgot its power to fave0 for that fympathetic glow

Which taught the holy tear to flow!

8.

It comes: It fills my labouring breast,
I feel my beating heart oppreft.
Oh hear that lonely widow's wail!
See her dim eye! her afpect pale!
To heaven the turns in deep despair,
Her infants wonder at her prayer,
And, mingling tears they know not why,
Lift up their little hands, and cry.
O God! their moving forrows fee!
Support them, fweet Humanity!

9.

Life, fill'd with grief's distressful train,
For ever afks the tear humane.
Behold in von unconscious grove
The victims of ill-fated love!
Heard you that agonizing throe?
Sore this is not romantic woe!
The golden day of joy is o'er;
And now they part-to meet no more.
At them, hearts from anguifh free!
Afit them, fweet Humanity!

10.

Parent of virtue, if thine ear

Attend not now to Sorrow's cry; If now the pity-ftreaming tear

Should haply on thy cheek be dry, Indulge my votive ftrain, O fweet Humanity!

32. The Enlargement of the Mind. LANGHORNE. EPISTLE I. To General Craufurd. Written at Belvidere 1756.

WHERE is the man, who, prodigal of mind,

In one wide with embraces human kind All pride of fects, all party zeal above, Whofe Prieft is Reafon, and whofe God is Love; Fair Nature's friend, a foe to fraud and artWhere is the man, fo welcome to my heart?

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The fightless herd fequacious, who purfue
Dull Folly's path, and do as others do,
Who look with purblind prejudice and fcorn,
On different fects, in different nations born,
Let us, my Craufurd, with compaffion view,
Pity their pride, but fhun their error too.
From Belvidere's fair groves, and mountains
green,

Which Nature rais'd, rejoicing to be seen,
Let us, while raptur'd on her works we gaze,
And the heart riots on luxurious praise,
Th' expanded thought, the boundless with retain,
And let not Nature moralize in vain.

O facred Guide! preceptrefs more fublime
Than fages boafting o'er the wrecks of time!
See on each page her beauteous volume bear
The golden characters of good and fair.
All human knowledge (bluth, collegiate pride!)
Flows from her works, to none that reads denied.

Shall the dull inmate of pedantic walls, On whofe old walk the funbeam feldom falls, Who knows of nature, and of man, no more Than fills fome page of antiquated lore Shall he, in words and terms profoundly wife, The better knowledge of the world defpife, Think Wildom centred in a falfe degree, And fcorn the fcholar of Humanity?

Something of men these fapient drones may Of men that liv'd two thousand years ago: [know, Such human monsters if the world c'er knew, As ancient verfe, and ancient story drew!

If to one object, fyftem, scene confin'd, The fure effect is narrowness of mind.

'Twas thus St. Robert, in his lonely wood, Forfook each focial duty-to be good. Thus Hobbes on one dear fyftem fix'd his eyes, And prov'd his nature wretched-to be wife. Each zealot thus, elate with ghoftly pride, Adores his God, and hates the world befide. Though form'd with powers to grafp this various ball,

Gods! to what meannefs may the fpirit fall! Powers that thould fpread in reafon's orient ray, How are they darken'd, and debarr'd the day!

When late, where Tajo rolls his ancient tide,
Reflecting clear the mountain's purple fide,
Thy genius, Craufurd, Britain's legions led,
And fear's chill cloud forfook each bright'ning
head,

Say, did not human follies vex thy heart?
By nature brave, and generous as thou art,
Glow'd not thy breaft indignant, when you faw
The dome of murder confecrate by law?
Where fiends, commiffion'd with the legal rod,
In pure devotion, burn the works of God.

O change me, powers of Nature, if ye can,
Transform me, make me any thing but man.
Yet why? This heart all human kind forgives,
While Gillman loves me, and while Craufurd
Is Nature, all benevolent, to blame,
lives,
That half her offspring are their mother's fhame?
Did the ordain o'er this fair feene of things
The cruelty of Priests, or pride of Kings?

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Though

Though worlds lie murder'd for their wealth or Poor rioters on Life's contracted stage!

fame,

Is Nature, all benevolent, to blame?

"Yet furely once, my friend, the feem'd to err;
"For W-ch-t was"-He was not made by her.
Sure, form'd of clay that nature held in fcorn,
By fiends conftructed, and in darkness born,
Rofe the low wretch, who, defpicably vile,
Would fell his Country for a Courtier's imile;
Would give up all to truth and freedom dear,
To dine with *** or fome ideot peer,
Whofe mean malevolence in dark disguise
The man that never injur'd him belies,
Whofe actions bad and good two motives guide,
The Serpent's malice, and the Coxcomb's pride.
"Is there a wretch fo mean, fo base, so low?"
I know there is-afk W-ch-t if he know.

O that the world were emptied of its flaves!
That all the fools were gone, and all the knaves!
Then might we, Craufurd, with delight em-
brace

In boundless love the rest of human race.

But let not knaves milanthropy create,
Nor feed the gall of univerfal hate.
Wherever Genius, Truth, and Virtue dwell,
Polish'd in courts, or fimple in a cell,
All views of country, fects, and creeds apart,
Thefe, thefe I love, and hold them to my heart.
Vain of our beauteous ifle, and justly vain,
For freedom here, and health, and plenty reign,
We different lots contemptuously compare,
And boaft, like children, of a fav'rite's hare.
Yet though each vale a deeper verdure yields
Than Arno's banks, or Andalufia's fields,
Though many a tree-crown'd mountain teems
with ore,

Though flocks innumerous whiten every fhore,
Why should we, thus with nature's wealth elate,
Behold her different families with hate?
Look on her works-on every page you'll find
Infcrib'd the doctrine of the focial mind.

See countless worlds of infect being share
Th' unenvied regions of the liberal air!
In the fame grove what mufic void of ftrife!
Heirs of one ftream, what tribes of fealy life!
Sec Earth, and Air, and Fire, and Flood combine,
Of general good to aid the great defign!

Where Ancon drags o'er Lincoln's lurid plain,
Like a flow fnake, his dirty-winding train,
Where fogs eternal blot the face of day,

And the loft bittern moans his gloomy way;
As well we might, for unpropitious skies,
The blameless native with his clime defpife,
As him who still the poorer lot partakes
Of Bifcay's mountains, or Batavia's lakes.

Yet look once more on Nature's various plan!
Behold, and love her nobleft creature man!
She, never partial, on each various zone
Beftow'd fome portion to the reft unknown,
By mutual intereft meaning thence to bind
In one vaft chain the commerce of mankind.
Behold, ye vain difturbers of an hour!
Ye Dupes of Faction! and ye Tools of Power

Behold, and lofe your littleness of rage
Throw Envy, Folly, Prejudice, behind!
And yield to Truth the empire of the mind.
Immorta! Truth! O from thy radiant shrine,
Where Light created firft effay'd to shine;
Where cluft'ring Stars eternal beams difplay,
And Gems ethereal drink the golden day;
To chafe this moral, clear this fenfual night,
O fhed one ray of thy celeftial light!
Teach us, while wandering through this vale
below

We know but little, that we little know.
One beam to mole-ey'd Prejudice convey,
Let Pride perceive one mortifying ray;
Thy glafs to Fools, to infidels apply,
And all the dimnefs of the mental
eye.
Plac'd on this fhore of Time's far-stretching
bourn,

With leave to look at Nature and return;
While wave on wave impels the human tide,
And ages fink, forgotten as they glide;
Can Life's fhort duties better be discharg'd,
Than when we leave it with a mind enlarg'd?

Judg'd not the old Philofopher aright,
When thus he preach'd, his pupils in his fight?
"It matters not, my friends, how low or high,
Your little walk of tranfient life may lie;
Soon will the reign of Hope and Fear be o'er,
And warring paflions militate no more:
And trust me, he who, having once furvey'd
The good and fair which Nature's wisdom made,
The fooneft to his former ftate retires,
And feels the peace of fatisfied defires,
(Let others deem more wifely if they can)
look on him to be the happiest man.'

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So thought the facred Sage, in whom I trust,
Becaufe I feel his fentiments are juft.
'Twas not in Luftrums of long counted years
That fwell'd th'alternate reign of hopes and fears,
Not in the fplendid fcenes of pain and strife,
That Wifdom plac'd the dignity of life;
To ftudy Nature was the task defign'd,
And learn from her th'enlargement of the mind,
Learn from her works whatever Truth admires,
And fleep in Death with fatisfied defires.

§ 33. EPISTLE II. To William Langhorne,
M. A. 1760.

LIGHT heard his voice, and, eager to obey,

From all her orient fountains burft away.
At Nature's birth, O! had the power divine
Commanded thus the moral fun to thine,
Beam'd on the mind all reafon's influence bright,
And the full day of intellectual light,
Then the free foul, on Truth's ftrong pinion borne,
Had never languish'd in this fhade forlorn.

Yet thus imperfect form'd, thus blind and vain,
Doom'd by long toil a glimpse of truth to gain;
Beyond its fphere fhall human wifdom go,
And boldly cenfure what it cannot know?
'Tis ours to cherish what Heav'n deign'd to give,
And thankful for the gift of being live.

Progreffive

Progreffive powers, and faculties that rife From earth's low vale, to grafp the golden fkies, Though diftant far from perfect, good, or fair, Claim the due thought, and afk the grateful

care.

Come, then, thou partner of my life and name, From one dear fource, whom Nature form'd the fame,

heart!

Ally'd more nearly in cach nobler part,
And more the friend, than brother of my
Let us, unlike the lucid twins that rife
At different times, and thine in diftant fkies,
With mutual eye this mental world furvey,
Mark the flow rife of intellectual day,
View reafon's fource, if man the fource may find,

And trace each Science that exalts the mind.

"Thou felf-appointed lord of all below!
Ambitious man, how little doft thou know?
For once let Fancy's towering thoughts fub-
fide;

Look on thy birth, and mortify thy pride!
A plaintive wretch, fo blind, fo helpless born,
The brute fagacious might beheld with fcorn.
How foon, when Nature gives him to the day,
In ftrength exulting, does he bound away!
By inftinet led, the foftering teat he finds,
Sports in the ray, and fhuns the fearching winds.
No grief he knows, he feels no groundlefs fear,
Feeds without cries, and fleeps without a tear.
Did he but know to reafon ard compare,
See here the vaffal, and the inafter there,
What strange reflections must the scene afford,
That fhew'd the weakness of his puling Lord!"
Thus fophiftry unfolds her fpecious plan,
Form'd not to humble, but depreciate man.
Unjuft the cenfure, if unjuft to rate
His pow'rs and merits from his infant-state.
For, grant the children of the flow'ry vale
By inftinct wifer, and of limbs more hale,
With equal eye their perfect ftate explore,
And all the vain comparifon's no more.
"But why should life, fo fhort by Heav'n
ordain'd,

Be long to thoughtlefs infancy restrain’d-
To thoughtlefs infancy, or vainly fage,
Mourn through the languors of declining age?"
O blind to truth! to Nature's wifdom blind!
And all that the directs, or Heav'n defign'd!
Behold her works in cities, plains and groves,
Or life that vegetates, and life that moves!
In due proportion, as each being stays
In perfect life, it rifes and decays.

Is man long helplefs? Through each tender
hour,

See love parental watch the blooming flow'r!
By op'ning charms, by beauties freth difplay'd,
And fweets unfolding, fee that love repaid!

Has age its pains? For luxury it may—
The temp rate wear infenfibly away,
While fage experience and reflection clear
Beam a gay funfhine on life's fading year.
But fee from age, from infant weakness fee,
That man was destin'd for society;

There from thofe ills a fafe retreat behold,
Which young might vanquish, or afflict him
old.

"That, in proportion as each being stays
In perfect life, it rifes and decays—
Is Nature's law-to forms alone confin'd,
The laws of matter act not on the Mind.
Too feebly, fure, its faculties muft grow,
And Reafon brings her borrow'd light too flow."
O! ftill cenforious? art thou then poffeft
Of Reafon's power, and does the rule thy breast?
Say what the ufe-had Providence affign'd
To infant years maturity of mind?
That thy pert offspring, as their father wife,
Might fcorn thy precepts, and thy pow'r de
fpife >

Or mourn, with ill-match'd faculties at ftrife,
O'er limbs unequal to the task of life?
To feel more fenfibly the woes that wait
On every period, as on every state;
And flight, fad convicts of each painful truth,
The happier trifles of unthinking youth?

Conclude we then the progrefs of the mind
Ordain'd by wisdom infinitely kind:
No innate knowledge on the foul impreft,
No birthright inftinct acting in the breast,
No natal light, no beam from Heav'n difplay'd,
Dart through the darkness of the mental fhade.
Perceptive powers we hold from Heav'n's decree,
Alike to knowledge as to virtue free,
In both a liberal agency we bear,
The moral here, the intellectual there;
And hence in both an equal joy is known,
The confcious pleasure of an act our own.

When first the trembling eye receives the day,
External forms on young perception play;
External forms affect the mind alone,
Their diff'rent pow'rs and properties unknown,
See the pleas'd infant court the flaming brand,
Eager to grafp the glory in its hand!
The crystal wave as cager to pervade
Stretch its fond arins to meet the filing fhade!
When Memory's call the mimic words obey,
And wing the thought that falters on its way;
When wife Experience her flow verdict draws,
The fure effect exploring in the Caule,
In Nature's rude, but not unfruitful wild,
Reflection fprings, and Reafon is her child :
On her fair flock the blooming fcyon grows,
And brighter through revolving feafons blows.
All beauteous flow'r ! immortal fhalt thou

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From low purfuits the ductile mind to fave,
Creeds that contract, and vices that enflave;
O'er life's rough feas its doubtful courfe to steer,
Unbroke by av'rice, bigotry, or fear!
For this fair Science fpreads her light afar,
And fills the bright urn of her castern star.
The liberal power in no fequetter'd cells,
No moonthine-courts of dreaming fchoolmen

dwells;

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There (but at diftance never meant to vie),
The full-form'd image glancing on her eye,
See lively Painting! on her various face,
Quick-gliding forms a moment find a place
She looks, the acts the character the gives,
And a new feature in each feature lives.

See Attic cafe in Sculpture's graceful air,
Half loofe her robe, and half unbound her hair;
To life, to life, the fmiling feems to call,
And down her fair hands negligently fall.

Laft, but not meaneft, of the glorious choir,
See Mufic, lift'ning to an angel's lyre.

Simplicity, their beauteous handmaid, drest By Nature, bears a field-flower on her breast.

O Arts divine! O magic Powers that move
The fprings of truth, enlarging truth and love!
Loft in their charms each mean attachment ends,
And Tafte and Knowledge thus are Virtue's
friends.

Thus nature deigns to fympathize with art,
And leads the moral beauty to the heart;
There, only there, that strong attraction lies,
Which wakes the foul, and bids her graces
rife,

Lives in thofe powers of harmony that bind
Congenial hearts, and ftretch from mind to mind:
Glow'd in that warmth, that social kindness
gave,
Which once-the reft is filence and the grave.
O tears, that warm from wounded friendship
flow!

O thoughts, that wake to monuments of woe!
Reflection keen, that points the painful dart;
Mem'ry, that speeds its patfage to the heart;
Sad monitors, your cruel power fufpend,
And hide, for ever hide, the buried friend:
-In vain-confeft I fee my Craufurd stand,
And the pen falls-falls from my trembling hand;
E'en Death's dim fhadow feeks to hide, in vain,
That lib'ral afpect, and that fmile humane;
Een Death's din fhadow wears a languid light,
And his eye beams through everlafting night.
Till the laft figh of Genius fhall expire,
His keen eye faded, and extinct his fire,
Till time, in league with Envy and with Death,
Blast the kill'd hand, and stop the tuneful breath,

My Craufurd still shall claim the mournful fong
So long remember'd, and bewail'd so long.

§34. The Univerfal Prayer. POPE.
Deo Opt. Max.

FATHER of all! in ev'ry age,
In ev'ry clime, ador'd,
By Saint, by Savage, and by Sage,
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!

Thou Great First Caufe, least understood,
Who all my fenfe confin'd

To know but this, that Thou art good,
Yet gave me, in this dark eftate,
And that myself am blind:

To fue the good from ill;
And, binding nature faft in fate,
Left free the human will.
What confcience dictates to be done,
Or warns me not to do,

This teach me more than hell to fhun,
That more than heav'n purfue.
What bleffings thy free bounty gives
Let me not caft away;

For God is paid when man receives,
T'enjoy is to obey.

Yet not to earth's contracted fpan

Thy goodnets let me bound,
Or think Thee Lord alone of man,

When thousand worlds are round.
Let not this weak, unknowing hand
Prefume thy bolts to throw,
And deal damnation round the land
On each I judge thy foc.
If I am right, thy grace impart
Still in the right to stay;
If I am wrong, oh teach my
heart

To find that better way.
Save me alike from foolish pride,

Or impious difcontent,
At aught thy wisdom has deny'd,
Or aught thy goodnefs lent.
Teach me to feel another's woe,
To hide the fault I fee;
That mercy I to others fhow,
That mercy fhow to me.
Mean tho' I am, not wholly fo,
Since quicken'd by thy breath;
O lead me wherefoe'er I go,

Thro' this day's life or death.
This day, be bread and peace my lot:
All elfe beneath the fun,
Thou know'st if best bestow'd or not,
And let thy will be done.
To Thee, whofe temple is all space,
Whofe altar, earth, fea, fkies!
One chorus let all Being raife!
All nature's incenfe rift!

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