But comes at last the dull and dusky eve,

Nor is it well, nor can it come to good, And sends thee to thy cabin, well-prepar'd

That, through profane and infidel contempt To dream all night of what the day denied. Of Holy Writ, she has presum'd tannul Alas! expect it not. We found no bait

And abrogate, as roundly as she may,
To tempt us in thy country. Doing good, | The total ordinance and will of God;
Disinterested good, is not our trade.

Advancing Fashion to the post of Truth,
We travel far, 't is true, but not for nought; And cent'ring all authority in modes
And must be brib'd to compass Earth again

And customs of her own, till sabbath-rites
By other hopes and richer fruits than yours. Have dwindled into unrespected forms,

But though true worth and virtue in the mild And knees and hassocks are well nigh divorc'd. And genial soil of cultivated life

God made the country, and man made the town. Thrive most, and may perhaps thrive only there, What wonder then that health and virtue, gifts, Yet not in cities oft : in proud, and gay,

That can alone make sweet the bitter draught, And gain-devoted cities. Thither flow,

That life holds out to all, should most abound As to a common and most noisome sewer,

And least be threaten'd in the fields and groves? The dregs and feculence of ev'ry land.

Possess ye therefore, ye who, borne about In cities foul example on most minds

In chariots and sedans, know no fatigue Begets it's likeness. Rank abundance breeds, But that of idleness, and taste no scenes In gross and pamper'd cities, sloth, and lust, But such as art contrives, possess ye still And wantonness, and gluttonous excess.

Your element; there only can ye shine ; In cities vice is hidden with most ease,

There only minds like yours can do no harm. Or seen with least reproach ; and virtue, taught Our groves were planted to console at noon By frequent lapse, can hope no triumph there The pensive wand'rer in their shades. At eve Beyond th' achievement of successful fight. The moon-beam, sliding softly in between I do confess them nurs’ries of the arts,

The sleeping leaves, is all the light they wish, In which they flourish most; where in the beams Birds warbling all the music. We can spare Of warm encouragement, and in the eye

The splendour of your lamps; they but eclipse Of public note, they reach their perfect size. Our softer satellite. Your songs confound Such London is, by taste and wealth proclaim'd Our more harmonious notes; the thrush departs The fairest capital of all the world,

Scar'd, and th' offended nightingale is mute. By riot and incontinence the worst.

There is a public mischief in your mirth; There, touch'd by Reynolds, a dull blank becomes It plagues your country. Folly such as yours, A lucid mirror, in which Nature sees

Grac'd with a sword, and worthier of a fan, All her reflected features. Bacon there

Has made what enemies could ne'er have done, Gives more than female beauty to a stone,

Our arch of empire, stedfast but for you,
And Chatham's eloquence to marble lips.

A mutilated structure, soon to fall.
Nor does the chisel occupy alone
The pow'rs of sculpture, but the style as much;
Each province of her art her equal care.

Book II.
With nice incision of her guided steel
She plows a brazen field, and clothes a soil

THE TIME-PIECE.
So sterile with what charms so'er she will,

Argument.
The richest scen'ry and the loveliest forms.
Where finds Philosophy her eagle eye,

Reflections suggested by the conclusion of the With which she gazes at yon burning disk

former book. Peace among the nations recomUndazzled, and detects and counts his spots ? mended on the ground of their common fellowIn London. Where her implements exact,

ship in sorrow. Prodigies enumerated. SiWith which she calculates, computes, and scans, cilian earthquakes. Man rendered obnoxious to All distance, motion, magnitude, and now

these calamities by sin. God the agent in them. Measures an atom, and now girds a world ?

The philosophy that stops at secondary causes In London. Where has commerce such a mart, reproved. Our own late miscarriages accounted So rich, so throng'd, so drain’d, and so supplied, for. Satirical notice taken of our trips to FonAs London - opulent, enlarg'd, and still

taine-Bleau. But the pulpit, not satire, the Increasing, London ? Babylon of old

proper engine of reformation. The reverend Not more the glory of the Earth than she,

advertiser of engraved sermons. Petit-inaître A more accomplish'd world's chief glory now. parson. The good preacher. Picture of a

She has her praise. Now mark a spot or two, theatrical clerical coxcomb. Story-tellers and That so much beauty would do well to purge; jesters in the pulpit reproved. Apostrophe to And show this queen of cities, that so fair

popular applause. Retailers of ancient phiMay yet be foul; so witty, yet not wise.

losophy expostulated with. Sum of the whole It is not seemly, nor of good report,

matter. Effects of sacerdotal mismanagement That she is slack in discipline ; more prompt

on the laity. Their folly and extravagance. T avenge than to prevent the breach of law :

The mischiefs of profusion. Profusion itself, That she is rigid in denouncing death

with all it's consequent evils. ascribed, as to it's On petty robbers, and indulges life

principal cause, to the want of discipline in the And liberty, and oft-times honour too,

universities.
To peculators of the public gold ;
That thieves at home must hang; but he, that puts O for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Into his overgorg'd and bloated purse

Some boundless contiguity of shade,
The wealth of Indian provinces, escapes.

| Where rumour of oppression and deceit,

with all it's consequent evils

discipline in the

Of unsuccessful or successful war,

Still they are frowning signals, and bespeak Might never reach me more. My ear is pain'd, Displeasure in His breast, who smites the Earth My soul is sick, with ev'ry day's report

Or heals it, makes it languish or rejoice.
Of wrong and outrage, with which Earth is fill'd. And 't is but seemly, that, where all deserve
There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart,

And stand expos'd by common peccancy
It does not feel for man; the nat'ral bond

To what no few have felt, there should be peace, Of brotherhood is sever'd as the fax,

And brethren in calamity should love. That falls asunder at the touch of fire.

Alas for Sicily! rude fragments now He finds his fellow guilty of a skin

Lie scatter'd, where the shapely column stood Not colour'd like his own; and having pow'r Her palaces are dust. In all her streets T enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause The voice of singing and the sprightly chond Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey.

Are silent. Revelry, and dance, and show Lands intersected by a narrow frith

Suffer a syncope and solemn pause; Abhor each other. Mountains interpos'd

While God performs upon the trembling stage Make enemies of nations, who had else

Of his own works his dreadful part alone. Like kindred drops been mingled into one

How does the Earth receive him? — with what signs Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys; | Of gratulation and delight her king? And, worse than all, and most to be deplor'd | Pours she not all her choicest fruits abroad, As human nature's broadest, foulest blot,

Her sweetest flowers, her aromatic gums, Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat Disclosing Paradise where'er be treads ? With stripes, that Mercy with a bleeding heart She quakes at his approach. Her hollow womb, Weeps, when she sees inficted on a beast.

Conceiving thunders through a thousand deeps Then what is man? And what man, seeing this, And fiery caverns, roars beneath his foot. And having human feelings, does not blush, The hills move lightly, and the mountains smoke, And hang his head, to think himself a man? For he has touch'd them. From th' extremest point I would not have a slave to till my ground, Of elevation down into the abyss To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,

His wrath is busy, and his frown is felt. And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth, The rocks fall headlong, and the valleys rise, That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd. The rivers die into offensive pools, No: dear as freedom is, and in my heart's And charg'd with putrid verdure, breathe a grass Just estimation priz'd above all price,

And mortal nuisance into all the air.
I had much rather be myself the slave,

What solid was, by transformation strange,
And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him. Grows fluid; and the fix'd and rooted earth,
We have no slaves at home - Then why abroad ? | Tormented into billows, heaves and swells,
And they themselves, once ferried o'er the wave | Or with vortiginous and hideous whirl
That parts us, are emancipate and lous'd.

| Sucks down it's prey insatiable. Immense
Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs The tumult and the overthrow, the pangs
Receive our air, that moment they are free; | And agonies of human and of brute
They touch our country, and their shackles fall. Multitudes, fugitive on ev'ry side,
That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud

And fugitive in vain. The sylvan scene
And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then, Migrates uplifted; and with all its soil
And let it circulate through ev'ry vein

Alighting in far distant fields, finds out Of all your empire; that, where Britain's pow'r A new possessor, and survives the change. Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too.

Ocean has caught the phrenzy, and, upwrought Sure there is need of social intercourse,

To an enormous and o'erbearing height, Benevolence, and peace, and mutual aid,

Not by a mighty wind, but by that voice, Between the nations in a world, that seems

Which winds and waves obey, invades the shore To toll the death-bell of it's own decease,

Resistless. Never such a sudden flood, And by the voice of all it's elements

Upridg'd so high, and sent on such a charge, To preach the gen'ral doom. When were the winds Possess'd an inland scene. Where now the tarong, Let slip with such a warrant to destroy ?

That press'd the beach, and, hasty to depart, When did the waves so haughtily o'erleap

Look'd to the sea for safety? They are gone, Their ancient barriers, deluging the dry ?

Gone with the refluent wave into the deep Fires from beneath, and ineteors + from above, A prince with half his people! Ancient tow'rs, Portentous, unexampled, unexplain'd,

And roofs embattled high, the gloomy scenes, Have kindled beacons in the skies; and th' old Where beauty oft and letter'd worth consume And crazy Earth has had her shaking fits

Life in the unproductive shades of death, More frequent, and foregone her usual rest. Fall prone: the pale inhabitants come forth, Is it a time to wrangle, when the props

And, happy in their unforeseen release And pillars of our planet seem to fail,

From all the rigours of restraint, enjoy And Nature $ with a dim and sickly eye

The terrours of the day, that sets them free. To wait the close of all ? But grant her end Who then, that has thee, would not hold thee fast, More distant, and that prophecy demands

Freedom ! whom they that lose thee so regret, A longer respite, unaccomplish'd yet ;

Tbat ev'n a judgment, making way for thee,

Seems in their eyes a mercy for thy sake? * Alluding to the calamities in Jamaica,

Such evil Sin hath wrought; and such a flame † August 18. 1783.

Kindled in Heav'n, that it burns down to Earth, Alluding to the fog, that covered both Europe And in the furious inquest, that it makes and Asia during the whole summer of 1783. | On God's behalf, lays waste his fairest works

The very elements, though each be meant 1 England, with all thy faults, I love thee still The minister of man, to serve his wants,

My country! and, while yet a nook is left, Conspire against him. With his breath he draws Where English minds and manners may be found, A plague into his blood; and cannot use

Shall be constrain'd to love thee. Though thy clime Life's necessary means, but he must die.

Be fickle, and thy year most part deform'd
Storms rise t'o'erwhelm him : or if stormy winds With dripping rains, or wither'd by a frost,
Rise not, the waters of the deep shall rise, | I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies,
And, needing none assistance of the storm, | And fields without a flow'r, for warmer France
Shall roll themselves ashore, and reach him there. With all her vines : nor for Ausonia's groves
The earth shall shake him out of all his holds, Of golden fruitage, and her myrtle bow'rs.
Or make his house his grave: nor so content, | To shake thy senate, and from heights sublime
Shall counterfeit the motions of the flood,

Of patriot eloquence to flash down fire
And drown him in her dry and dusty gulfs. | Upon thy foes, was never meant my task :
What then! were they the wicked above all, But I can feel thy fortunes, and partake
And we the righteous, whose fast-anchor'd isle | Thy joys and sorrows, with as true a heart
Mov'd not, while theirs was rock'd, like a light skiff, | As any thund'rer there. And I can feel

The sport of ev'ry wave? No: none are clear, | Thy follies too, and with a just disdain
And none than we more guilty. But, where all | Frown at effeminates, whose very looks
Stand chargeable with guilt, and to the shafts | Reflect dishonour on the land I love.
Of wrath obnoxious, God may choose his mark : How, in the name of soldiership and sense, (smooth
May punish, if he please, the less, to warn

Should England prosper, when such things, as
The more malignant. If he spar'd not them, And tender as a girl, all essenc'd o'er
Tremble and be amaz'd at thine escape,

With odours, and as profligate as sweet; Far guiltier England, lest he spare not thee! Who sell their laurel for a myrtle wreath,

Happy the man, who sees a God employ'd And love when they should fight; when such as these In all the good and ill, that chequer life!

Presume to lay their hand upon the ark Resolving all events with their effects

Of her magnificent and aweful cause ? And manifold results, into the will

Time was when it was praise and boast enough And arbitration wise of the Supreme.

In ev'ry clime, and travel where we might, Did not his eye rule all things, and intend | That we were born her children. Praise enough The least of our concerns (since from the least To fill th' ambition of a private man, The greatest oft originate); could chance

That Chatham's language was his mother's tongue, Find place in his dominion, or dispose

| And Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own. One lawless particle to thwart his plan ;

Farewell those honours, and farewell with them
Then God might be surpris'd, and unforeseen The hope of such hereafter; they have fall’n
Contingence might alarm him, and disturb | Each in his field of glory; one in arms,
The smooth and equal course of his affairs,

And one in council – Wolfe upon the lap
This truth Philosophy, though eagle-ey'd

Of smiling Victory that moment won, In nature's tendencies, oft overlooks ;

And Chatham heart-sick of his country's shame! And, having found his instrument, forgets,

They made us many soldiers. Chatham, still
Or disregards, or, more presumptuous still, Consulting England's happiness at home,
Denies the pow'r that wields it. God proclaims Secur'd it by an unforgiving frown,
His hot displeasure against foolish men,

If any wrong'd her. Wolfe, where'er he fought,
That live an atheist life: involves the Heav'ns Put so much of his heart into his act,
In tempests ; quits his grasp upon the winds, That his example had a magnet's force,
And gives them all their fury; bids a plague And all were swift to follow whom all lov'd.
Kindle a fiery boil upon the skin,

Those suns are set. O rise some other such!
And putrefy the breath of blooming Health. Or all that we have left is empty talk
He calls for Famine, and the meagre fiend

Of old achievements, and despair of new.
Blows mildew from between his shrivellid lips, Now hoist the sail, and let the streamers float
And taints the golden ear. He springs his mines, | Upon the wanton breezes. Strew the deck
And desolates a nation at a blast,

With lavender, and sprinkle liquid sweets,
Forth steps the spruce philosopher, and tells That no rude savour maritime invade
Of homogeneal and discordant springs

The nose of nice nobility! Breathe soft,
And principles : of causes, how they work

Ye clarionets; and softer still, ye flutes; By necessary laws their sure effects;

That winds and waters, lull'd by magic sounds, Of action and re-action : he has found

May bear us smoothly to the Gallic shore ! The source of the disease, that nature feels

True, we have lost an empire — let it pass. And bids the world take heart and banish fear. True ; we may thank the perfidy of France, Thou fool! will thy discov'ry of the cause

That pick'd the jewel out of England's crown, Suspend th' effect, or heal it? Has not God With all the cunning of an envious shrew. Still wrought by means since first he made the world? And let that pass 't was but a trick of state ! And did he not of old employ his means,

A brave man knows no malice, but at once To drown it? What is his creation less

Forgets in peace the injuries of war, Than a capacious reservoir of means

And gives his direst foe a friend's embrace. Form'd for his use, and ready at his will ?

And, sham'd as we have been, to th' very beard Go, dress thine eyes with eye-salve; ask of him, Bray'd and defied, and in our own sea prov'd Or ask of whomsoever he has taught ;

Too weak for those decisive blows, that once And learn, though late, the genuine cause of all. | Ensur'd us mast'ry there, we yet retain

Some small pre-eminence; we justly boast And, arm'd himself in panoply complete
At least superior jockeyship, and claim

Of heav'nly temper, furnishes with arms
The honours of the turf as all our own!

Bright as his own, and trains, by ev'ry rule Go then, well worthy of the praise ye seek, Of holy discipline, to glorious war And show the shame, ye might conceal at home, The sacramental host of God's elect! In foreign eyes ! — be grooms and win the plate, Are all such teachers ? - Would to Heaven all were! Where once your nobler fathers won a crown! But hark - the doctor's voice! fast wedg'd between 'Tis gen'rous to communicate your skill

Two empirics he stands, and with swoln cheeks To those that need it. Folly is soon learn'd: Inspires the news, his trumpet. Keener far And under such preceptors who can fail !

Than all invective is his bold harangue, There is a pleasure in poetic pains,

While through that public organ of report Which only poets know. The shifts and turns, He hails the clergy: and, defying shame, Th' expedients and inventions multiform,

Announces to the world his own and theirs ! To which the mind resorts, in chase of terms He teaches those to read, whom schools dismissid, Though apt, yet coy, and difficult to win - And colleges, untaught ; sells accent, tone, T' arrest the fleeting images, that fill

And emphasis in score, and gives to pray's The mirror of the mind, and hold them fast,

Th' adagio and andante it demands. And force them sit, till he has pencill'd off

He grinds divinity of other days A faithful likeness of the forms he views;

Down into modern use; transforms old print Then to dispose his copies with such art,

To zig-zag manuscript, and cheats the eyes
That each may tind it's most propitious light, Of gall'ry critics by a thousand arts.
And shine by situation, hardly less

Are there who purchase of the doctor's ware? Than by the labour and the skill it cost;

O name it not in Gath!-- it cannot be, Are occupations of the poet's mind

That grave and learned clerks should need such aid. So pleasing, and that steal away the thought He doubtless is in sport, and does but droll, With such address from themes of sad import, Assuming thus a rank unknown before That, lost in his own musings, happy man! Grand caterer and dry-nurse of the church ! He feels th' anxieties of life, denied

I venerate the man, whose heart is warm, Their wonted entertainment, all retire.

Whose hands are pure, whose doctrine and whose life Such joys has he that sings. But ah! not such, | Coincident, exhibit lucid proof, Or seldom such, the hearers of his song.

That he is honest in the sacred cause. Fastidious, or else listless, or perhaps

To such I render more than mere respect, Aware of nothing arduous in a task

Whose actions say, that they respect themselves They never undertook, they little note

But loose in morals, and in manners vain,
His dangers or escapes, and haply find

In conversation frivolous, in dress
Their least amusement where he found the most. Extreme, at once rapacious and profuse;
But is amusement all ? Studious of song,

Frequent in park with lady at his side,
And yet ambitious not to sing in vain,

Ambling and prattling scandal as he goes; I would not trifle merely, though the world

But rare at home, and never at his books, Be loudest in their praise, who do no more. Or with his pen, save when he scrawls a card; Yet what can satire, whether grave or gay?

Constant at routs, familiar with a round It may correct a foible, may chastise

Of ladyships, a stranger to the poor;
The freaks of fashion, regulate the dress,

Ambitious of preferment for its gold,
Retrench a sword-blade, or displace a patch ; And well prepar'd, by ignorance and sloth,
But where are it's sublimer trophies found? By infidelity and love of world,
What vice has it subdued ? whose heart reclaim'd To make God's work a sinecure; a slave
By rigour, or whom laugh'd into reformn ?

To his own pleasures and his patron's pride.
Alas! Leviathan is not so tam'd:

From such apostles, O ye mitred heads, Laugh'd at, he laughs again; and stricken hard Preserve the church ! and lay not careless hands Turns to the stroke his adamantine scales,

On sculls, that cannot teach, and will not learn. That fear no discipline of human hands."

Would I describe a preacher, such as Paul, The pulpit, therefore, (and I name it fillid Were he on Earth, would hear, approve, and own, With solemn awe, that bids me well beware

Paul should himself direct me. I would trace With what intent I touch that holy thing,) - His master-strokes, and draw from his design, The pulpit, (when the sat’rist has at last,

I would express him simple, grave, sincere ; Strutting and vap'ring in an empty school,

In doctrine uncorrupt; in language plain, Spent all his force, and made no proselyte,) — And plain in manner; decent, solemn, chaste, I say the pulpit (in the sober use

And natural in gesture; much impress'd Of it's legitimate, peculiar pow'rs) sstand, | Himself, as conscious of his aweful charge, Must stand acknowledg'd, while the world shall And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds The most important and effectual guard,

May feel it too; affectionate in look, Support, and ornament, of virtue's cause.

And tender in address, as well becomes There stands the messenger of truth: there stands | A messenger of grace to guilty men. The legate of the skies ! - His theme divine, Behold the picture !-- Is it like ? — Like whom? His office sacred, his credentials clear.

The things that mount the rostrum with a skip, By him the violated law speaks out

And then skip down again ; pronounce a tert; It's thunders, and by him, in strains as sweet Cry- Hem; and reading what they never wrote: As angels use, the Gospel whispers peace.

Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work, He 'stablishes the strong, restores the weak,

And with a well-bred whisper close the scene! Reclaims the wand'rer, binds the broken heart, In man or woman, but far most in man,

And most of all in man that ministers

But swell'd into a gust - who then, alas!' And serves the altar, in my soul I loathe

With all his canvass set, and inexpert, All affectation. 'T is my perfect scorn!

And therefore heedless, can withstand thy pow'r ? Object of my implacable disgust.

Praise from the rivell'd lips of toothless bald
What ! — will a man play tricks, will he indulge Decrepitude, and in the looks of lean
A silly fond conceit of his fair form,

And craving Poverty, and in the bow
And just proportion, fashionable mien,

Respectful of the smutch'd artificer, And pretty face, in presence of his God?

Is oft too welcome, and may much disturb Or will he seek to dazzle me with tropes,

The bias of the purpose. How much more, As with the diamond on his lily hand,

Pour'd forth by beauty splendid and polite, And play his brilliant parts before my eyes,

In language soft as Adoration breathes ? When I am hungry for the bread of life?

Ah spare your idol! think him human still. He mocks his Maker, prostitutes and shames Charms he may have, but he has frailties too! His noble office, and, instead of truth,

Dote not too much, nor spoil what ye admire. Displaying his own beauty, starves his flock.

All truth is from the sempiternial source Therefore avaunt all attitude, and stare,

Of light divine. But Egypt, Greece, and Rome, And start theatric, practis'd at the glass !

Drew from the stream below. More favour'd we I seek divine simplicity in him,

Drink, when we choose it, at the fountain head. Who handles things divine; and all besides, (mir'd | To them it flow'd much mingled and defild Though learn'd with labour, and though much ad- With hurtful errour, prejudice, and dreams By curious eyes and judgments ill-inform'd, Illusive of philosophy, so callid, To me is odious as the nasal twang

But falsely. Sages after sages strove Heard at conventicle, where worthy men,

In vain to filter off a crystal draught Misled by custom, strain celestial themes

Pure from the lees, which often more enhanc'd Through the press'd nostril, spectacle-bestrid. The thirst than slak'd it, and not seldom bred Some decent in demeanour while they preach, Intoxication and delirium wild. That task perform'd, relapse into themselves; In vain they push'd inquiry to the birth [man ? And having spoken wisely, at the close

And spring-time of the world; ask'd, Whence is Grow wanton, and give proof to ev'ry eye,

Why form’d at all ? and wherefore as he is ? Whoe'er was edified, themselves were not!

Where must he find his Maker? with what rites Forth comes the pocket mirror. - First we stroke Adore him ? Will he hear, accept, and bless? An eyebrow; next compose a straggling lock; Or does he sit regardless of his works? Then with an air most gracefully perform'd

Has man within him an immortal seed ? Fall back into our seat, extend an arm,

Or does the tomb take all? If he survive And lay it at its ease with gentle care,

His ashes, where? and in what weal or woe? With handkerchief in hand depending low:

Knots worthy of solution, which alone The better hand more busy gives the nose

A Deity could solve. Their answers, vague Its bergamot, or aids th' indebted eye

And all at random, fabulous and dark, With op'ra glass, to watch the moving scene, Left them as dark themselves. Their rules of life, And recognize the slow retiring fair.

Defective and unsanction'd, prov'd too weak, Now this is fulsome; and offends me more

To bind the roving appetite, and lead Than in a churchman slovenly neglect

Blind nature to a God not yet reveal'd. And rustic coarseness would." A heav'nly mind | 'T is Revelation satisfies all doubts, May be indiff'rent to her house of clay,

Explains all mysteries, except her own, And slight the hovel as beneath her care;

And so illuminates the path of life, But how a body so fantastic, trim,

That fools discover it, and stray no more.
And quaint, in it's deportment and attire,

Now tell me, dignified and sapient sir,
Can lodge a heav'nly mind — demands a doubt. My man of morals, nurtur'd in the shades

He, that negotiates between God and man, Of Academus - is this false or true ?
As God's ambassador, the grand concerns

Is Christ the abler teacher, or the schools ? Of judgment and of mercy, should beware | If Christ, then why resort at ev'ry turn Of lightness in his speech. 'T is pitiful

To Athens or to Rome, for wisdom short To court a grin, when you should woo a soul; Of man's occasions, when in him reside To break a jest, when pity would inspire

Grace, knowledge, comfort -- an unfathom'd store ? Pathetic exhortation ; and t address

How oft, when Paul has serv'd us with a text, The skittish fancy with facetious tales,

Has Epictetus, Plato, Tully, preach'd! When sent with God's commission to the heart! Men that, if now alive, would sit content So did not Paul. Direct me to a quip

And humble learners of a Saviour's worth, Or merry turn in all he ever wrote,

Preach it who might. Such was their love of truth. And I consent you take it for your text,

Their thirst of knowledge, and their candour too! Your only one, till sides and benches fail.

And thus it is - The pastor, either vain No: he was serious in a serious cause,

By nature, or by flatt'ry made so, taught
And understood too well the weighty terms,

To gaze at his own splendour, and t'exalt
That he had tak’n in charge. He would not stoop | Absurdly, not his office, but himself ;
To conquer those by jocular exploits,

Or unenlighten'd, and too proud to learn ;
Whom truth and soberness assail'd in vain.

Or vicious, and not therefore apt to teach ; O Popular Applause! what heart of man

Perverting often by the stress of lewd Is proof against thy sweet seducing charms? And loose example, whom he should instruct; The wisest and the best feel urgent need

Exposes, and holds up to broad disgrace, Of all their caution in thy gentlest gales;

The noblest function, and discredits mach