Ethelred's house, the centre of six ways, Diverging each from each, like equal rays, Himself as bountiful as April rains,

Lord paramount of the surrounding plains, Would give relief of bed and board to none, But guests that sought it in the appointed ONE. And they might enter at his open door,

Even till his spacious hall would hold no more. He sent a servant forth by every road,

To sound his horn and publish it abroad,

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

An ordinance it concerned them much to know,
If after all some headstrong hardy lout

Would disobey, though sure to be shut out,
Could he with reason murmur at his case,
Himself sole author of his own disgrace?
No! the decree was just and without flaw;
And he that made, had right to make, the law;
His sovereign power and pleasure unrestrained,
The wrong was his, who wrongfully complained.

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 ensures,
Accept it only, and the boon is your's.
And sure it is as kind to smile and give,
As with a frown to say, Do this, and live.
Love is not pedlar's trumpery bought and sold:
He will give freely, or he will withhold;

His soul abhors a mercenary thought,
And him as deeply who abhors it not;,
He stipulates indeed, but merely this,

That man, will freely take an unbought bliss,
Will trust him for a faithful generous part,
Nor set a price upon a willing heart,

Of all the ways that seem to promise fair,
To place you where his saints his presence share,
This only can; for this plain cause, expressed
In terms as plain, himself has shut the rest.
But oh the strife, the bickering, and debate,
The tidings of unpurchased heaven create!
The flirted fan, the bridle and the toss,
All speakers, yet all language at a loss.
From stuccoed walls smart arguments rebound;
And beaus, adepts in every thing profound,
Die of disdain, or whistle off the sound.
Such is the clamour of rooks, daws, and kites,
The explosion of the levelled tube excites,
Where mouldering abbey-walls overhang the
glade,

And oaks coeval spread a mournful shade,
The screaming nations, hovering in mid air,
Loudly resent the stranger's freedom there,
And seem to warn him never to repeat
His bold intrusion on their dark retreat.
Adieu, Vinosa cries, ere yet he sips
The purple bumper trembling at his lips,
Adieu to all morality if grace

Make works a vain ingredient in the case.

The Christian hope is-Waiter, draw the cork-
If I mistake not-Blockhead! with a fork!-
Without good works, whatever some may boast,
Mere folly and delusion-Sir, your toast.
My firm persuasion is, at least sometimes,
That heaven will weigh man's virtues and his crimes
With nice attention, in a righteous scale,
And save or damn as these or those prevail.
I plant my foot upon this ground of trust,
And silence every fear with-God is just.
But if perchance on some dull drizzling day
A thought intrude that says, or seems to say,
If thus the important cause is to be tried,
Suppose the beam hould dip on the wrong side;
I soon recover from these needless frights,
And God is merciful-sets all to rights.
Thus, between justice, as my prime support,
And mercy, fled to as the last resort,
I glide and steal along with heaven in view,
And, pardon me, the bottle stands with you.

I never will believe, the colonel cries,

The sanguinary schemes that some devise,
Who make the good Creator on their plan
A being of less equity than man,

If appetite, or what divines call lust,

Which men comply with, e'en because they must,

Be punished with perdition, who is pure?
Then their's, no doubt, as well as mine, is sure.

If sentence of eternal pain belong

To every sudden slip and transient wrong,

Then heaven enjoins the fallible and frail
An hopeless task, and damns them if they fail.
My creed (whatever some creed-makers mean
By Athanasian nonsense, or Nicene)

My creed is, he is safe that does his best,
And death's a doom sufficient for the rest.
Right, says an ensign; and for aught I see,
Your faith and mine substantially agree;
The best of every man's performance here
Is to discharge the duties of his sphere.
A lawyer's dealings should be just and fair,
Honesty shines with great advantage there.
Fasting and prayer sit well upon a priest,
A decent caution and reserve at least,
A soldier's best is courage in the field,
With nothing here that wants to be concealed.
Manly deportment, gallant, easy, gay;
An hand as liberal as the light of day.

The soldier thus endowed who never shrinks,
Nor closets up his thoughts, whatever he thinks,
Who scorns to do an injury by stealth,

Must go to heaven and I must drink his health,
Sir Smug, he cries, (for lowest at the board,
Just made fifth chaplain of his patron lord,
His shoulders witnessing by many a shrug
How much his feelings suffered, sat Sir Smug)
Your office is to winnow false from true;
Come, prophet, drink, and tell us, What think you?
Sighing and smiling as he takes his glass,
Which they that woo preferment rarely pass,

Fallible man, the church-bred youth replies,
Is still found fallible, however wise;

And differing judgments serve but to declare
That truth lies somewhere, if we knew but where.
Of all it ever was my lot to read,

Of critics now alive, or long since dead,

The book of all the word that charmed me most
Was, well-a-day, the title page was lost;
The writer well remarks, an heart that knows
To take with gratitude what heaven bestows,
With prudence always ready at our call,
To guide our use of it, is all in all.
Doubtless it is.-To which, of my own store,
I superadd a few essentials more;
But these, excuse the liberty I take,

I wave just now, for conversation sake,-
Spoke like an oracle, they all exclaim,

And add Right Reverend to Smug's honoured name,
And yet our lot is given us in a land,
Where busy arts are never at a stand;
Where science points her telescopic eye,
Familiar with the wonders of the sky;
Where bold inquiry, diving out of sight,
Brings many a precious pearl of truth to light:
Where nought eludes the persevering quest,
That fashion, taste, or luxury, suggest.

But above all in her own light arrayed,
See mercy's grand apocalypse displayed!
The sacred book no longer suffers wrong,
Bound in the fetters of an unknown tongue;