The refpite they enjoy but only lent,
The best they have to hope, protracted punishment. Be judge yourself if interest may prevail,
Which motives, yours or mine, will turn the scale.
While pride and pomp allure, and plenteous ease,
That is, till man's predominant paffions ceafe,
Admire no longer at my flow increase.
By education most have been misled;
So they believe, because they so were bred.
The priest continues what the nurse began,
And thus the child imposes on the man.
The reft I nam'd before, nor need repeat:
But interest is the most prevailing cheat,
The fly feducer both of age and youth;
They study that, and think they ftudy truth.
When intereft fortifies an argument,
Weak reason ferves to gain the will's affent;
For fouls, already warp'd, receive an easy bent.
Add long prescription of establish'd laws,
And pique of honor to maintain a cause,
And shame of change, and fear of future ill,
And zeal, the blind conductor of the will;
And chief among the ftill-mistaking crowd,
The fame of teachers obftinate and proud,
And more than all the private judge allow'd;
VOL. II.
Difdain of fathers which the dance began,
And laft, uncertain whose the narrower span,
The clown unread, and half-read gentleman.
To this the Panther, with a scornful smile:
Yet ftill you travel with unwearied toil,
And range around the realm without controul,
Among my
fons for profelytes to prowl,
And here and you snap some filly foul.
You hinted fears of future change in state;
Pray heaven
you did not prophefy your fate. Perhaps, you think your time of triumph near, But mistake the feafon of the year;
The Swallow's fortune gives you caufe to fear.
For charity, reply'd the matron, tell
What fad mifchance thofe pretty birds befel.
Nay, no mifchance, the favage dame reply'd, But want of wit in their unerring guide, And eager hafte, and gaudy hopes, and giddy pride. Yet wishing timely warning may prevail, Make you the moral, and I'll tell the tale. The Swallow, privileg'd above the rest Of all the birds, as man's familiar guest, Purfues the fun in fummer brifk and bold, But wifely fhuns the perfecuting cold: Is well to chancels and to chimnies known, Tho 'tis not thought the feeds on smoke alone.
From hence he has been held of heavenly line, Endu'd with particles of foul divine.
This merry chorifter had long poffefs'd
Her fummer feat, and feather'd well her neft:
Till frowning skies began to change their chear,
And time turn'd
up the
wrong fide of the
The shedding trees began the ground to ftrow
With yellow leaves, and bitter blasts to blow.
Sad auguries of winter thence the drew,
Which by instinct, or prophecy, the knew:
When prudence warn'd her to remove betimes,
And seek a better heaven, and warmer climes.
Her fons were fummon'd on a steeple's height,
And call'd in common council, vote a flight;
The day was nam'd, the next that should be fair:"
All to the general rendezvous repair,
They try their fluttering wings and trust them-
felves in air.
But whether upward to the moon they go,
Or dream the winter out in caves below,
Or hawk at flies elfewhere, concerns us not to know.
Southwards, you may be fure, they bent their
And harbour'd in a hollow rock at night:
Next morn they rofe, and fet up every fail;
The wind was fair, but blew a Mackrel gale:
The fickly young fat fhivering on the shore,
Abhor'd falt-water never feen before,
And pray'd their tender mothers to delay
The paffage, and expect a fairer day.
With these the Martin readily concurr'd,
A church-begot, and church-believing bird;
Of little body, but of lofty mind,
Round-belly'd, for a dignity defign'd,
And much a dunce, as Martins are by kind.
Yet often quoted canon-laws, and Code,
And fathers which he never understood:
But little learning needs in noble blood.
For, footh to fay, the Swallow brought him in,
Her houfhold chaplain, and her next of kin:
In fuperftition filly to excefs,
And casting schemes by planetary guess!
In fine, fhort-wing'd, unfit himself to fly,
His fear foretold foul weather in the sky.
Befides, a Raven from a wither'd oak,
Left of their lodging, was obferv'd to croak.
That omen lik'd him not; fo his advice
Was prefent fafety, bought at any price;
A seeming pious care, that coyer'd cowardice.
To strengthen this he told a boding dream,
Of rifing waters, and a troubled stream,
Sure figns of anguish, dangers and distress,
With something more, not lawful to express:
By which he flily feem'd to intimate
Some fecret revelation of their fate.
For he concluded, once upon a time,
He found a leaf infcrib'd with facred rhyme,
Whofe antique characters did well denote
The Sibyl's hand of the Cumæan grot:
The mad divinerefs had plainly writ,
A time should come, but many ages yet,
In which, finifter destinies ordain,
A dame should drown with all her feather'd
And feas from thence be call'd the Chelidonian
At this, fome shook for fear, the more devout
Arofe, and blefs'd themselves from head to foot.
'Tis true, fome stagers of the wifer fort
Made all these idle wonderments their fport:
They faid, their only danger was delay,
And he, who heard what every fool could say,
Would never fix his thought, but trim his time
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