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Our frailties help, our vice control,
Submit the senses to the soul;
And when rebellious they are grown,
Then lay Thy hand, and hold them down.

Chase from our minds the infernal foe,
And peace, the fruit of love, bestow;
And, lest our feet should step astray,
Protect and guide us in the way.
Make us eternal truths receive,
And practise all that we believe;
Give us Thyself, that we may see
The Father, and the Son, by Thee.

Immortal honour, endless fame,
Attend the Almighty Father's Name!
The Saviour Son be glorified,

Who for lost man's redemption died!
And equal adoration be,

Eternal Paraclete, to Thee!

THE CHARACTER OF THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY DELINEATED

AS ACHITOPHEL.

Of these the false Achitophel was first ;
A name to all succeeding ages curst;
For close designs and crooked counsels fit,
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit:
Restless, unfixed in principles and place;
In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace:
A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
Fretted the pigmy body to decay,
And o'er-informed the tenement of clay.
A daring pilot in extremity!

Pleased with the danger when the waves went high,
He sought the storms; but, for a calm unfit,
Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit.
Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide;
Else why should he, with wealth and honour blest,
Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
Punish a body which he could not please;
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?
And all to leave what with his toil he won,
To that unfeathered two-legged thing—a son.
Absalom and Achitophel.

THE CHARACTER OF VILLIERS, DUKE OF
BUCKINGHAM, DELINEATED AS ZIMRI.

SOME of their chiefs were princes of the land :
In the first rank of these did Zimri stand;
A man so various that he seemed to be,
Not one, but all mankind's epitome:
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
Was everything by starts, and nothing long;
But, in the course of one revolving moon,
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon.
Blest madman! who could every hour employ
With something new to wish, or to enjoy.
Railing and praising were his usual themes;
And both, to show his judgment, in extremes ;
So over-violent, or over-civil,

That every man with him was God or devil.
In squandering wealth was his peculiar art;
Nothing went unrewarded but desert:

Beggared by fools, whom still he found too late,
He had his jest, and they had his estate.

He laughed himself from court, then sought relief
By forming parties, but could ne'er be chief;

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For, spite of him, the weight of business fell
On Absalom and wise Achitophel;

Thus, wicked but in will, of means bereft,
He left not faction, but of that was left.

ALEXANDER POPE.
(1688-1744.)

Ibid.

BORN in the Strand, London, where his father was a prosperous linen-draper. Brought up at Binfield, in Windsor Forest, to which place his father had retired on giving up business. Began to write when only twelve years of age; and when about twentyfive years old, had completely established his reputation as a poet. Resided during the last thirty years of his life at Twickenham, where he died in 1744. Pope's principal works are, Ode on Solitude; Essay on Criticism; Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady; The Rape of the Lock; Essay on Man; Moral Essays; and Translations of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.

ODE ON SOLITUDE.*

HAPPY the man, whose wish and care,

A few paternal acres bound;

Content to breathe his native air,

In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire ;
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter fire.

Blessed, who can unconcern'dly find
Hours, days, and years, slide soft away;
In health of body, peace of mind,

Quiet by day.

* This poem is said to have been written by the author when

he was only twelve years old.

Sound sleep by night, study and ease
Together mixed; sweet recreation;
And innocence, which most does please;
With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown,
Thus, unlamented, let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.

THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL.

VITAL spark of heavenly flame!
Quit, oh, quit this mortal frame!
Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying;
Oh, the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond nature! cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life!

Hark, they whisper; angels say,
"Sister spirit, come away!
What is this absorbs me quite,
Steals my senses, shuts my sight,
Drowns my spirit, draws my breath?
Tell me, my soul; can this be death?

The world recedes; it disappears!
Heaven opens on my eyes! my ears
With sounds seraphic ring!

Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!
O grave, where is thy victory?

O death, where is thy sting?

MAN SHOULD STUDY HIMSELF, AND NOT
PRY INTO GOD.

KNOW thou thyself, presume not God to scan,
The proper study of mankind is man.

Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise, and rudely great;
With too much knowledge for the sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a god or beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reasoning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little or too much :
Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused or disabused;
Created half to rise and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled :
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world.

Essay on Man.

A LESSON OF THANKFULNESS.

HOPE springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never is, but always to be blest :
The soul, uneasy and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

Lo, the poor Indian, whose untutored mind
Sees God in clouds, and hears Him in the wind;
His soul proud science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk or milky way;

Yet simple nature to his hope has given
Behindt he cloud-topped hill, an humbler heaven;
Some safer world in depth of woods embraced,
Some happier island in the watery waste,

Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, nor Christians thirst for gold.
To be, contents his natural desire,—

He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire;

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