But 'tis not timber, lead, and stone,
An architect requires alone

To finish a fine building—
The palace were but half complete
If he could possibly forget

The carving and the gilding.

The man who hails you Tom or Jack,
And proves by thumps upon your back
How he esteems your merit,
Is such a friend, that one had need
Be very much his friend indeed
To pardon or to bear it.

As similarity of mind,
Or something not to be defined,
First fixes our attention;
So manners decent and polite
The same we practised at first sight
Must save it from declension.

Some act upon this prudent plan,
Say little and hear all you can."
Safe policy, but hateful-

""

So barren lands imbibe the shower,
But render neither fruit nor flower,
Unpleasant and ungrateful.

The man I trust, if shy to me,
Shall find me as reserved as he,
No subterfuge or pleading
Shall win my confidence again,
I will by no means entertain
A spy on my proceeding.

These samples-for alas! at last
These are but samples, and a taste

Of evils yet unmentionedMay prove the task a task indeed, In which 'tis much if we succeed However well-intentioned.

Pursue the search, and you will find
Good sense and knowledge of mankind
To be at least expedient,
And after summing all the rest,
Religion ruling in the breast
A principal ingredient.

The noblest Friendship ever shown
The Saviour's history makes known,
Though some have turned and turned it;
And whether being crazed or blind,
Or seeking with a biassed mind,
Have not, it seems, discerned it.

Oh Friendship! if my soul forego
Thy dear delights while here below;
To mortify and grieve me,
May I myself at last appear
Unworthy, base, and insincere,
Or may my friend deceive me.

STANZAS

SUBJOINED TO THE YEARLY BILL OF MORTALITY OF THE PARISH OF ALL-SAINTS, NORTHAMPTON,

ANNO DOMINI, 1787.

Pallida Mors aquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas,
Regumque turres.

Pale death with equal foot strikes wide the door
Of royal halls, and hovels of the poor.

WHILE thirteen moons saw smoothly run
The Nen's barge-laden wave,

All these, life's rambling journey done,
Have found their home, the grave.

Was man (frail always) made more frail
Than in foregoing years?

Did famine or did plague prevail,

That so much death appears?

No; these were vigorous as their sires,
Nor plague nor famine came;
This annual tribute death requires,
And never waves his claim.

Like crowded forest-trees we stand,
And some are marked to fall;
The axe shall smite at God's command,
And soon shall smite us all.

Green as the bay-tree, ever green,
With its new foliage on,

The gay, the thoughtless, I have seen-
I passed-and they were gone.

Read, ye that run, the solemn truth,
With which I charge my page;
A worm is in the bud of youth,
And at the root of age.

1

No present health can health insure
For yet an hour to come;

No medicine, though it often cure,
Can always balk the tomb.

And oh! that humble as my lot,
And scorned as is my strain,
These truths, though known, too much forgot,
I may not teach in vain.

So prays your clerk with all his heart,

And, ere he quits the pen,

Begs you for once to take his part

And answer all-Amen!

ON A SIMILAR OCCASION,

FOR THE YEAR 1788.

Improve the present hour, for all beside

Is a mere feather on a torrent's tide.

COULD I, from heaven inspired, as sure presage To whom the rising year shall prove his last;

As I can number in my punctual page,

And item down the victims of the past;

How each would trembling wait the mournful sheet, On which the press might stamp him next to die; And, reading here his sentence, how replete

With anxious meaning, heaven-ward turn his eye!

Time then would seem more precious than the joys In which he sports away the treasure now;

And

prayer more seasonable than the noise Of drunkards, or the music-drawing bow.

Then doubtless many a trifler, on the brink

Of this world's hazardous and headlong shore,
Forced to a pause, would feel it good to think,
Told that his setting sun must rise no more.

Ah self-deceived! Could I prophetic say
Who next is fated, and who next to fall,
The rest might then seem privileged to play;
But, naming none, the Voice now speaks to ALL.

Observe the dappled foresters, how light

They bound, and airy o'er the sunny glade-
One falls-the rest, wide scattered with affright,
Vanish at once into the darkest shade.

Had we their wisdom, should we, often warned,
Still need repeated warnings, and at last,

A thousand awful admonitions scorned,

Die self-accused of life run all to waste?

Sad waste! for which no after thrift atones :
The grave admits no cure for guilt or sin;
Dew-drops may deck the turf that hides the bones,
But tears of godly grief ne'er flow within.

Learn then, ye living! by the mouths be taught
Of all these sepulchres, instructors true,

That, soon or late, death also is your lot,
And the next opening grave may yawn

for you.