draw their admiration from Socrates, or make them endeavour, by their imitation of this illustrious example, to share bis glory; and, consequently, it would inc ine them to peruse the following pages with candour and impartiality, which is all I desire, and that for their sakes; for I am persuaded that an unprejudiced Infidel must necessarily receive some advantageous impressions from them.

July 7, 1744.

The Contents.

IN the Sixth Night arguments were drawn from Nature in proof of immorality here cthers are drawn from man: from his discontent, p 5; from his passions and powers, p. 7; from the gradual growth of reason ibid. from his fear of death, p. 8; from the nature of hope, ibid. and of virtue, p. 9; from knowledge and love, as being the most essential properties of the soul, p. 13; from the order of creation, p. 14, &c. from the nature of ambition, p. 16, &c. avarice, p. 20; pleasure, p. 21; a digression on the grandeur of the passions, p. 23; Immortality alone renders our present state intelligible, p. 24; An objection from the Stoicks disbelief of immortality answered, p. 25; Endless ques tions unresolvable, but on supposition of our in mortality, p. 26; &c. The natural, most melancholy, and pathetick complaint of a worthy man, under the persuasion of no futurity, p. 28, &c. The gross absur dities and horreurs of annihilation urged home on Lorenzo, p. 34, &c. The su's vast importance, p. 40, &c. from whence it arises, p. 43, &c. The sifficulty of being an Infidel, p. 45; the infamy, p. 45; the cause, p. 47; and the character, ibid. of an infidel state. What true free-thinking is, p. 49; the necessary punishment of the false, p. 55. Man's ruin is from himself, p. 51; an Infidel accuses himself of guilt and hypocrisy, and that of the worst sort, ibid. his obligation to Christians, p. 52; what danger he incurs by virtue, ibid. Vice recommended to him, p. 54; his high pretences to virtue and benevolence exploded, ibid. The conclusion, on the nature of faith, p 56; reason, ibid.. and hope, ibid. with an apology for this attempt, p. 57.

HEAV'N gives the needful, but neglected, call: What day, what hour, but knocks at human hearts, To wake the soul to sense of future scenes?

Deaths stand, like Mercuries, in ev'ry way,

And kindly point us to our journey's end.

10

Pope, who couldst make immortals! art thou dead?
I give thee joy; nor will I take my leave,
So soon to follow. Man but dives in death,
Dives from the sun, in fairer day to rise,
The grave his subterranean road to bliss.
Yes, infinite indulgence plann'd it so;
Thro' various parts our glorious story runs;
Time gives the preface, endless age unrolls
The volume (ne'er unroll'd) of human fate.

This earth and skies* already have proclaim'd.
The world's a prophecy of worlds to come,
And who what God foretels (who speaks in things
Still louder than in words) shall dare deny ?
If Nature's arguments appear too weak,
Turn a new leaf, and stronger read in man.
If man sleeps on, untaught by what he sees,
Can he prove infidel to what he feels?
He whose blind thought futurity denies,
Unconscious bears, Bellerophon! like thee,
His own indictment; he condemns himself;
Who reads his bosom, reads immortal life;
Or Nature there, imposing on her sons,
Has written fables: man was made a lie.
Why discontent for ever harbour'd there?
Incurable consumption of our peace!

15

20

25

*Night the Sixth.

Resolve me why the cottager and king,

He whom sea-sever'd realms obey, and he
Who steals his whole dominion from the waste,
Repelling winter blasts with mud and straw,
Disquietude alike, draw sigh for sigh,
In fate so di tant, in complaint so near?

Is it that things terrestrial cann't content:
Deep in rich pasture will thy flocks complain?
Not so; but to their master is deny'd
To share their sweet serene. Man, ill at ease
In this, not his own place, this foreign field,
Where Nature fodders him with other food
Than was ordain'd his cravings to suffice,
Poor in abundance, famish'd at a feast,

Sighs on for something more, when most enjoy’d.
Is Heav'n then kinder to thy flocks than thee?
Not so; thy pasture richer, but remote;

In part remote; for that remoter part

35

40

46

Man bleats from instinct, tho', perhaps, debauch'd
By sense, his reason sleeps, nor dreams the cause. 59
The cause how obvious, when his reason wakes!
His griefis but his grandeur in disguise,

And discontent is immortality.

Shall sons of Ether, shall the blood of Heav'n,
Set up their hopes on earth, and stable here,
With brutual acquiescence in the mire?
Lorenzo! no; they shall be nobly pain'd;
The glorious foreigners, distress'd, shall sigh

55

On thrones, and thou congratulate the sigh.
Man's misery declares him born for bliss;
His anxious heart asserts the truth I sing,
And gives the sceptick in his head the lie.

65

Our heads, our hearts, our passions, and our pow'rs,
Speak the same language; call us to the skies:
Unripen'd these, in this inclement clime,
Scarce rise above conjecture and mistake;
And for this land of trifles those, too strong,
Tumultuous rise, and tempest human life.
What prize on earth can pay us for the storm?
Meet objects for our passions Heav'n ordain'd,
Objects that challenge all their fire, and leave
No fault but in defect. Bless'd Heav'n! avert
A bounded ardour for unbounded bliss!
O for a bliss unbounded! far beneath
A soul immortal is a mortal joy.

Nor are our pow'rs to perish immature;
But, after feeble effort here, beneath

A brighter sun, and in a nobler soil,
Transplanted from this sublunary bed,

70

75

75

Shall flourish fair, and put forth all their bloom.
Reason progressive, instinct is complete:
Swift instinct leaps; slow Reason feebly climbs.
Brutes soon their zenith reach; their little all

80

Flows in at once; in ages they no more
Could know, or do, or covet, or enjoy.

85

Were man to live coeval with the sun,

The patriarch pupil would be learning still,
Yet, dying, leave his lesson half-unlearn'd,
Men perish in advance, as if the sun

Should set ere noon, in eastern oceans drown'd: go
If fit with dim illustrious to compare,

The sun's meridian with the soul of man.
To man, why, stepdame Nature! 'so severe ?
Why thrown aside thy master-piece half-wrought,
While meaner eforts thy last hand enjoy ?
Or if, abortively, poor man must die,

Nor reach what reach he might, why die in dread?
Why curs'd with foresight? wise to misery?
Why of his proud prerogative the prey?
Why less pre-eminent in rank than pain?
His immortality alone can tell,

Full ample fund to balance all amiss,
And turn the scale in favour of the just!

His immortality alone can solve
That darkest of enigmas, human hope,
Of all the darkest, if at death we die.

Hope, eager Hope, the assassin of our joy,
All present blessings treading under foot,
Is scarce a milder tyrant than Despair.
With no past toils content, still planning new,
Hope turns us o'er to Death alone for ease.
Possession why more tasteless than pursuit ?
Why is a wish far dearer than a crown?

That wish accomplish'd, why the grave of bliss?

95

105

110