Both fairly owning riches, in effect,
No grace of Heav'n, or token of the' elect;
Giv'n to the fool, the mad, the vain, the evil,
To Ward, to Waters, Chartres, and the devil.

B. What nature wants, commodious gold bestows; 'Tis thus we eat the bread another sows.

P. But how unequal it bestows observe;
'Tis thus we riot, while who sow it starve:
What nature wants (a phrase I much distrust)
Extends to luxury, extends to lust:
Useful I grant, it serves what life requires,
But dreadful too, the dark assassin hires.
B. Trade it may help, society extend.

P. But lures the pirate, and corrupts the friend.
B. It raises armies in a nation's aid.

P. But bribes a senate, and the land's betray'd. In vain may heroes fight and patriots rave, If secret gold sap on from knave to knave. Once, we confess, beneath the patriot's cloak From the crack'd bag the dropping guinea spoke, And jingling down the back-stairs, told the crew, 'Old Cato is as great a rogue as you.' Blest paper-credit! last and best supply! That lends corruption lighter wings to fly! Gold imp'd by thee, can compass hardest things, Can pocket states, can fetch or carry kings; A single leaf shall waft an army o'er, Or ship off senates to some distant shore; A leaf, like Sibyl's, scatter to and fro

Our fates and fortunes as the winds shall blow; Pregnant with thousands flits the scrap unseen, And silent sells a king or buys a queen.

Oh! that such bulky bribes as all might see Still, as of old, incumber'd villainy!

Could France or Rome divert our brave designs With all their brandies or with all their wines? What could they more than knights and 'squires confound,

Or water all the quorum ten miles round?

A statesman's slumbers how this speech would spoil!
'Sir, Spain has sent a thousand jars of oil;
Huge bales of British cloth blockade the door;
A hundred oxen at your levee roar.'

Poor avarice one torment more would find,
Nor could profusion squander all in kind:
Astride his cheese Sir Morgan might we meet,
And Worldly crying coals from street to street,
Whom with a wig so wild and mien so maz'd
Pity mistakes for some poor tradesman craz'd.
Had Colepepper's whole wealth been hops and hogs,
Could he himself have sent it to the dogs?
His grace will game: to White's a bull be led,
With spurning heels and with a butting head:
To White's be carried, as to ancient games,
Fair coursers, vases, and alluring dames.
Shall then Uxorio, if the stakes he sweep,
Bear home six whores, and make his lady weep?
Or soft Adonis, so perfum'd and fine,

Drive to St. James's a whole herd of swine?
Oh-filthy check on all industrious skill,

To spoil the nation's last great trade,-quadrille !
Since then, my lord, on such a world we fall,
What say you? B. Say? Why, take it, gold and all
P. What riches give us let us then inquire:
Meat, fire, and clothes, B. What more? P. Meat,
clothes, and fire.

Is this too little? would you more than live?
Alas! 'tis more than Turner finds they give.
Alas! 'tis more than (all his visions past)
Unhappy Wharton, waking, found at last!
What can they give? to dying Hopkins heirs?
To Chartres vigour? Japhet nose and ears?
Can they in gems bid pallid Hippia glow?
In Fulvia's buckle ease the throbs below?
Or heal, old Narses, thy obscener ail,
With all the' embroidery plaster'd at thy tail?-
They might (were Harpax not too wise to spend)
Give Harpax' self the blessing of a friend;

Or find some doctor that would save the life
Of wretched Shylock, spite of Shylock's wife.
But thousands die without or this or that,
Die, and endow a college or a cat.

To some indeed Heav'n grants the happier fate
To' enrich a bastard, or a son they hate.

Perhaps you think the poor might have their part? Bond damns the poor, and hates them from his heart. The grave Sir Gilbert holds it for a rule

That every man in want is knave or fool.

God cannot love (says Blunt, with tearless eyes) The wretch he starves'-and piously denies : But the good bishop, with a meeker air, Admits, and leaves them, Providence's care. Yet, to be just to these poor men of pelf, Each does but hate his neighbour as himself: Damn'd to the mines, an equal fate betides The slave that digs it and the slave that hides. B. Who suffers thus, mere charity should own, Must act on motives powerful though unknown.

P. Some war, some plague or famine, they foresee, Some revelation hid from you and me. Why Shylock wants a meal the cause is found; He thinks a loaf will rise to fifty pound. What made directors cheat in South-sea year? To live on ven'son, when it sold so dear. Ask you why Phrynè the whole auction buys? Phryne foresees a general excise.

Why she and Sappho raise that monstrous sum?-
Alas! they fear a man will cost a plum.

Wise Peter sees the world's respect for gold,
And therefore hopes this nation may be sold.
Glorious ambition! Peter, swell thy store,
And be what Rome's great Didius was before.
The crown of Poland, venal twice an age,
To just three millions stinted modest Gage.
But nobler scenes Maria's dreams unfold,
Hereditary realms, and worlds of gold.
Congenial souls! whose life one avarice joins,
And one fate buries in the' Asturian mines.

Much-injur'd Blunt! why bears he Britain's hate? A wizard told him in these words our fate:'At length corruption, like a general flood, (So long by watchful ministers withstood) Shall deluge all; and avarice, creeping on, Spread like a low-born mist and blot the sun; Statesman and patriot ply alike the stocks, Peeress and butler share alike the box, And judges job, and bishops bite the town, And mighty dukes pack cards for half-a-crown: See Britain sunk in lucre's sordid charms,

And France reveng'd of Anne's and Edward's arms!" 'Twas no court-badge, great scriv'ner! fir'd thy brain, Nor lordly luxury, nor city gain:

No, 'twas thy righteous end, asham'd to see
Senates degenerate, patriots disagree,

And nobly wishing party-rage to cease,

To buy both sides, and give thy country peace.
All this is madness,' cries a sober sage:-
'But who, my friend, has reason in his rage?
The ruling passion, be it what it will,
The ruling passion, conquers reason still.'
Less mad the wildest whimsey we can frame
Than ev❜n that passion if it has no aim;
For though such motives folly you may call,
The folly's greater to have none at all.

Hear then the truth:-'Tis Heav'n each passion sends,

And different men directs to different ends.
Extremes in nature equal good produce;
Extremes in man concur to general use.'

Ask we what makes one keep, and one bestow ?--
That Pow'r who bids the ocean ebb and flow;
Bids seedtime, harvest, equal course maintain,
Through reconcil'd extremes of drought and rain;
Builds life on death, on change duration founds,
And gives the' eternal wheels to know their rounds.
Riches, like insects, when conceal'd they lie,
Wait but for wings, and in their season fly.

Who sees pale Mammon pine amidst his store,
Sees but a backward steward for the poor;
This year a reservoir to keep and spare,

The next a fountain spouting through his heir,
In lavish streams to quench a country's thirst,
And men and dogs shall drink him till they burst.
Old Cotta sham'd his fortune and his birth,
Yet was not Cotta void of wit or worth:
What though (the use of barbarous spits forgot)
His kitchen vied in coolness with his grot?
His court with nettles, moats with cresses stor'd,
With soups unbought, and salads, bless'd his board?
If Cotta liv'd on pulse, it was no more
Than bramins, saints, and sages, did before:
To cram the rich was prodigal expence ;

And who would take the poor from Providence?
Like some lone chartreux stands the good old hall,
Silence without, and fasts within the wall;
No rafter'd roofs with dance and tabor sound,
No noontide bell invites the country round;
Tenants with sighs the smokeless tow'rs survey,
And turn the' unwilling steeds another way;
Benighted wanderers, the forest o'er,
Curse the sav'd candle and unopening door;
While the gaunt mastiff, growling at the gate,
Affrights the beggar whom he longs to eat.

Not so his son; he mark'd this oversight,
And then mistook reverse of wrong for right:
(For what to shun will no great knowledge need,
But what to follow is a task indeed!)

Yet sure, of qualities deserving praise,
More go to ruin fortunes than to raise.

What slaughter'd hecatombs, what floods of wine,
Fill the capacious 'squire and deep divine!
Yet no mean motive this profusion draws;
His oxen perish in his country's cause;
'Tis George and liberty that crown the cup,
And zeal for that great house which eats him up.
The woods recede around the naked seat,
The silvans groan-no matter-for the fleet: