Judging, in charity no doubt, the town
Pious enough, and having need of none.
Kind fouls! to teach their tenantry to prize
What they themselves, without remorfe, despise:
Nor hope have they, nor fear, of aught to come-
As well for them had prophecy been dumb.
They could have held the conduct they pursue,
Had Paul of Tarfus liv'd and died a Jew;
And truth, propos'd to reas'ners wife as they,
Is a pearl caft-completely caft away.

They die.-Death lends them, pleas'd, and as in
fport,

All the grim honours of his ghaftly court.
Far other paintings grace the chamber now,
Where late we saw the mimic landscape glow:
The bufy heralds hang the fable scene

With mournful 'fcutcheons, and dim lamps. between;

Proclaim their titles to the crowd around,

But they that wore them move not at the found;
The coronet, plac'd idly at their head,

Adds nothing now to the degraded dead,
And ev'n the ftar that glitters on the bier
Can only fay-Nobility lies here.

Peace to all fuch-'twere pity to offend,

By useless cenfure, whom we cannot mend;
Life without hope can close but in despair-

'Twas there we found them, and must leave them there.

As, when two pilgrims in a forest stray,
Both may be loft, yet each in his own way;
So fares it with the multitudes beguil'd
In vain opinion's wafte and dang'rous wild.
Ten thousand rove the brakes and thorns among,
Some eastward, and fome weftward, and all wrong.
But here, alas! the fatal diff'rence lies-

Each man's belief is right in his own eyes;
And he that blames, what they have blindly chose,
Incurs refentment for the love he shows.

Say, botanist, within whofe province fall
The cedar and the hyffop on the wall,

Of all that deck the lanes, the fields, the bow'rs, What parts the kindred tribes of weeds and flow'rs? Sweet fcent, or lovely form, or both combin'd, Diftinguish ev'ry cultivated kind;

The want of both denotes a meaner breed,

And Chloe from her garland picks the weed.

Thus hopes of ev'ry fort, whatever fect
Efteem them, fow them, rear them, and protect,
If wild in nature, and not duly found,
Gethsemane, in thy dear hallowed ground,
That cannot bear the blaze of fcripture light,
Nor cheer the fpirit, nor refresh the fight,
Nor animate the foul to Chriftian deeds,

(Oh caft them from thee!) are weeds, arrant weeds.
Ethelred's house, the centre of fix ways,
Diverging each from each, like equal rays,
Himself as bountiful as April rains,

Lord paramount of the furrounding plains,
Would give relief of bed and board to none,
But guefts that fought it in th' appointed ONE.
And they might enter at his open door,
Ev'n till his fpacious hall would hold no more.
He fent a fervant forth by ev'ry road,

To found his horn and publish it abroad,

That all might mark-knight, menial, high and low

An ord'nance it concern'd them much to know. If, after all, fome headstrong hardy lout Would difobey, though fure to be shut out,

Could he with reafon murmur at his cafe,
Himself fole author of his own disgrace?
No! the decree was just and without flaw;
And he that made, had right to make, the law;
His fov'reign pow'r and pleasure unrestrain'd,
The wrong was his who wrongfully complain'd.
Yet half mankind maintain a churlish strife
With him the Donor of eternal life,
Because the deed, by which his love confirms
The largess he bestows, prescribes the terms.
Compliance with his will your lot enfures—
Accept it only, and the boon is your's.
And fure it is as kind to smile and give,
As with a frown to say-Do this, and live!
Love is not pedlar's trump'ry, bought and fold;
He will give freely, or he will withhold;
His foul abhors a mercenary thought,
And him as deeply who abhors it not ;
He ftipulates, indeed, but merely this-
That man will freely take an unbought bliss,
Will truft him for a faithful gen'rous part,
Nor fet a price upon a willing heart.
Of all the ways that feem'd to promise fair,

To place you where his faints his prefence share,

This only can; for this plain caufe, exprefs'd
In terms as plain-himself has fhut the reft.
But oh the ftrife, the bick'ring, and debate,
The tidings of unpurchas'd heav'n create!
The flirted fan, the bridle, and the tofs,
All speakers, yet all language at a loss.
From ftucco'd walls fmart arguments rebound;
And beaus, adepts in ev'ry thing profound,
Die of disdain, or whiftle off the found.
Such is the clamour of rooks, daws, and kites,
Th' explosion of the levell'd tube excites,
Where mould'ring abbey-walls o'erhang the glade,
And oaks coeval spread a mournful fhade.
The fcreaming nations, hov'ring in mid air,
Loudly refent the ftranger's freedom there,
And feem to warn him never to repeat
His bold intrufion on their dark retreat.
Adieu, Vinofa cries, ere yet he fips
The purple bumper, trembling at his lips,
Adieu to all morality—if grace

Make works a vain ingredient in the cafe!
The Christian hope is-Waiter, draw the cork-
If I mistake not-Blockhead! with a fork !—