Beauty alone has for the vulgar charms,
He wanted beauty trembling with alarms;
His was no more a youthful dream of joy,
The wretch desired to ruin and destroy;

He bought indulgence with a boundless price,
Most pleased when decency bow'd down to vice,
When a fair dame her husband's honour sold,
And a frail Countess play'd for Blaney's gold.
"But did not conscience in her anger rise?"
Yes! and he learn'd her terrors to despise ;
When stung by thought, to soothing books he fled,
And grew composed and harden'd as he read;
Tales of Voltaire, and essays gay and slight,
Pleased him and shone with their phosphoric light;
Which, though it rose from objects vile and base,
Where'er it came threw splendour on the place,
And was that light which the deluded youth,
And this grey sinner, deem'd the light of truth.

He different works for different cause admired—
Some fix'd his judgment, some his passions fired;
To cheer the mind and raise a dormant flame,
He had the books, decreed to lasting shame,
Which those who read are careful not to name:
These won to vicious act the yielding heart,
And then the cooler reasoners soothed the smart.

He heard of Blount, and Mandeville, and Chubb,
How they the doctors of their day would drub;
How Hume had dwelt on miracles so well,
That none would now believe a miracle;
And though he cared not works so grave to read,
He caught their faith and sign'd the sinner's creed.
Thus was he pleased to join the laughing side;
Nor ceased the laughter when his lady died.
Yet was he kind and careful of her fame,
And on her tomb inscribed a virtuous name:
"A tender wife, respected, and so forth."-
The marble still bears witness to the worth.

He has some children, but he knows not where ;
Something they cost, but neither love nor care;
A father's feelings he has never known,

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His joys, his sorrows, have been all his own.
He now would build and lofty seat he built,
And sought, in various ways, relief from guilt.
Restless, for ever anxious to obtain

Ease for the heart by ramblings of the brain,
He would have pictures, and of course a taste,
And found a thousand means his wealth to waste.
Newmarket steeds he bought at mighty cost;
They sometimes won, but Blaney always lost.
Quick came his ruin, came when he had still
For life a relish, and in pleasure skill:
By his own idle reckoning he supposed

His wealth would last him till his life was closed;
But no! he found his final hoard was spent,
While he had years to suffer and repent.
Yet at the last, his noble mind to show,
And in his misery how he bore the blow,
He view'd his only guinea, then suppress'd
For a short time, the tumults in his breast,
And, moved by pride, by habit and despair,
Gave it an opera-bird to hum an air.

Come ye! who live for pleasure, come, behold
A man of pleasure when he's poor and old;
When he looks back through life, and cannot find
A single action to relieve his mind;

When he looks forward, striving still to keep

A steady prospect of eternal sleep;

When not one friend is left, of all the train
Whom 'twas his pride and boast to entertain-

Friends now employ'd from house to house to run
And say,
"Alas! poor Blaney is undone !”—
Those whom he shook with ardour by the hand,
By whom he stood as long as he could stand,

Who seem'd to him from all deception clear,

And who, more strange! might think themselves sincere. Lo! now the hero shuffling through the town,

To hunt a dinner and to beg a crown;

To tell an idle tale, that boys may smile;

To bear a strumpet's billet-doux a mile;

To cull a wanton for a youth of wealth,

(With [reverent] view to both his taste and health);

To be a useful, needy thing between

Fear and desire-the pander and the screen;

To flatter pictures, houses, horses, dress,
The wildest fashion or the worst excess;
To be the grey seducer, and entice
Unbearded folly into acts of vice;

And then, to level every fence which law
And virtue fix to keep the mind in awe,
He first inveigles youth to walk astray,

Next prompts and soothes them in their fatal way,
Then vindicates the deed, and makes the mind his prey.
Unhappy man! what pains he takes to state

(Proof of his fear!) that all below is fate;
That all proceed in one appointed track,

Where none can stop, or take their journey back!
Then what is vice or virtue?-Yet he'll rail
At priests till memory and quotation fail;
He reads, to learn the various ills they've done,
And calls them vipers, every mother's son.

He is the harlot's aid, who wheedling tries
To move her friend for vanity's supplies;
To weak indulgence he allures the mind,
Loth to be duped, but willing to be kind;
And if successful-what the labour pays?
He gets the friend's contempt and Chloe's praise,
Who, in her triumph, condescends to say,
"What a good creature Blaney was to-day!"
Hear the poor dæmon when the young attend,
And willing ear to vile experience lend;
When he relates (with laughing, leering eye)
The tale licentious, mix'd with blasphemy:
No genuine gladness his narrations cause,
The frailest heart denies sincere applause;
And many a youth has turn'd him half aside,
And laugh'd aloud, the sign of shame to hide.
Blaney, no aid in his vile cause to lose,
Buys pictures, prints, and a licentious muse;
He borrows every help from every art,
To stir the passions and mislead the heart.

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But from the subject let us soon escape,
Nor give this feature all its ugly shape:
Some to their crimes escape from satire owe;
Who shall describe what Blaney dares to show?
While thus the man, to vice and passion slave,
Was, with his follies, moving to the grave,
The ancient ruler of this mansion died,
And Blaney boldly for the seat applied.
Sir Denys Brand, then guardian, join'd his suit;
"'Tis true," said he, "the fellow's quite a brute—
"A very beast; but yet, with all his sin,
"He has a manner-let the devil in."

They half complied, they gave the wish'd retreat,
But raised a worthier to the vacant seat.

Thus forced on ways unlike each former way,
Thus led to prayer without a heart to pray,
He quits the gay and rich, the young and free,
Among the badge-men with a badge to be.
He sees an humble tradesman raised to rule
The grey-beard pupils of this moral school;
Where he himself, an old licentious boy,
Will nothing learn, and nothing can enjoy ;
In temp'rate measures he must eat and drink,
And, pain of pains! must live alone and think.

In vain, by fortune's smiles, thrice affluent made,
Still has he debts of ancient date unpaid;
Thrice into penury by error thrown,
Not one right maxim has he made his own;
The old men shun him--some his vices hate,
And all abhor his principles and prate;
Nor love nor care for him will mortal show,
Save a frail sister in the female row.

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THE BOROUGH.

LETTER XV.

INHABITANTS OF THE ALMS-HOUSE.

CLELIA.

She early found herself mistress of herself. All she did was right: all she said was admired. Early, very early, did she dismiss blushes from her cheek she could not blush, because she could not doubt; and silence, whatever was the subject, was as much a stranger to her as diffidence.

Richardson.

Quo fugit Venus? heu! Quove color? decens

Quo motus? Quid habes illius, illius,

Quæ spirabat amores,

Quæ me surpuerat mihi?

Horatius, lib. iv. od. 13 [vv. 17-20].

Her lively and pleasant Manners-Her Reading and Decision-Her Intercourse with different Classes of Society-Her Kind of Character— The favoured Lover-Her Management of him: his of her-After one Period, Clelia with an Attorney: her Manner and Situation there -Another such Period, when her Fortune still declines-Mistress of an Inn-A Widow-Another such Interval: she becomes poor and infirm, but still vain and frivolous-The fallen Vanity-Admitted into the House; meets Blaney.