But when those charms are past, for charms are frail,
When time advances, and when lovers fail,
She then shines forth, solicitous to bless,
In all the glaring impotence of dress.
Thus fares the land, by luxury betray'd,
In nature's simplest charms at first array'd,
But verging to decline, its splendours rise,
Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise;
While, scourg'd by famine from the smiling land,
The mournful peasant leads his humble band;
15 And while he sinks, without one arm to save,
The country blooms-a garden and a grave.

Where then, ah! where shall poverty reside, To 'scape the pressure of contiguous pride? If to some common's fenceless limits stray'd, He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade, Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide, And even the bare worn common is denied.

If to the city sped-What waits him there?
16 To see profusion that he must not share ;
To see ten thousand baneful arts combin'd
To pamper luxury, and thin mankind;

To see each joy the sons of pleasure know
Extorted from his fellow creature's woe,

15 And while] 'Sinks the poor babe, without a hand to save.` Roscoe's Nurse, p. 69.

16 To see profusion] He only guards those luxuries he is not fated to share.' An. Nat. iv. p. 43.

Here, while the courtier glitters in brocade,
There the pale artist plies the sickly trade;

Here, while the proud their long drawn pomps display,

There the black gibbet glooms beside the way.
The dome where pleasure holds her midnight reign,
Here, richly deck'd, admits the gorgeous train;
Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing square,
The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare.
Sure scenes like these no troubles e'er annoy!
Sure these denote one universal joy!

Are these thy serious thoughts-Ah,turn thine eyes
17 Where the poor houseless shivering female lies.
She once, perhaps, in village plenty blest,
Has wept at tales of innocence distrest;
Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,
Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn;
Now lost to all; her friends, her virtue fled,
Near her betrayer's door she lays her head,
And, pinch'd with cold, and shrinking from the

shower,

With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour,
When idly first, ambitious of the town,

She left her wheel and robes of country brown.

17 These poor shivering females have once seen happier days, and been flattered into beauty. They have been prostituted to the gay and luxurious villain, and now turned out to meet the severity of the winter. Perhaps now lying at the doors of their betrayers, they sue to wretches whose hearts are insensible.' Cit. of the World, ii. 211. See also The Bee. The City Night Piece, p. 126.

Do thine, sweet Auburn, thine, the loveliest
train,

Do thy fair tribes participate her pain?
E'en now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led,
At proud men's doors they ask a little bread.

Ah, no. To distant climes, a dreary scene, Where half the convex world intrudes between, Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go, Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe.

Far different there from all that charm'd before,
The various terrors of that horrid shore;
Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray,
And fiercely shed intolerable day;

Those matted woods where birds forget to sing,
But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling;
Those pois'nous fields with rank luxuriance crown'd,
Where the dark scorpion gathers death around;
Where at each step the stranger fears to wake
The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake;
18 Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey,
And savage men more murderous still than they;
While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies,
Mingling the ravag'd landscape with the skies.
Far different these from every former scene,
The cooling brook, the grassy vested green,

18 To savage beasts who on the weaker prey,
Or human savages more wild than they!'

Sir W. Temple. v. Nicholls' Poems, ii. 80.

The breezy covert of the warbling grove,

19 That only shelter'd thefts of harmless love.

Good heaven! what so.rows gloom'd that parting day,

That call'd them from their native walks away;
When the poor exiles, every pleasure past,
20 Hung round the bowers, and fondly look'd their
last,

And took a long farewell, and wish'd in vain
For seats like these beyond the western main;
And shuddering still to face the distant deep,
Return'd and wept, and still return'd to weep.
21 The good old sire, the first prepar'd to go
To new-found worlds, and wept for others' woe;
But for himself, in conscious virtue brave,
He only wish'd for worlds beyond the grave.

19 That only]

- Thy shady groves

Only relieve the heats, and cover loves,
Sheltering no other thefts, or cruelties.'

v. Nicholls' Poems, ii. 80.

'Often in amorous thefts of lawless love!'

v. Nicholls' Poems, ii. 278.

20 Compare Quinctiliani Declam. xiii. p. 272. Quod cives pascebat, nunc divitis unius hortus est. Æquatæ solo villæ, et excisa patria sacra, et cum conjugibus, parvisque liberis, respectantes patrium larem migraverunt veteres coloni,' &c. good old sire] The good old sire!'

21

v. Dryden's Orid, vol. iii. p. 302. And The good old sire unconscious of decay! The modest matron clad in homespun gray.'

v. Threnod. August.

E

His lovely daughter, lovelier in her tears,
The fond companion of his helpless years,
Silent went next, neglectful of her charms,
And left a lover's for her father's arms.
With louder plaints the mother spoke her woes,
And bless'd the cot where every pleasure rose;
And kiss'd her thoughtless babes with many a tear,
And clasp'd them close, in sorrow doubly dear;
Whilst her fond husband strove to lend relief
In all the silent manliness of grief.

O, luxury! thou curst by heaven's decree, How ill exchang'd are things like these for thee ! How do thy potions with insidious joy Diffuse their pleasures only to destroy! Kingdoms by thee, to sickly greatness grown, Boast of a florid vigour not their own.

At every draught more large and large they grow, A bloated mass of rank unwieldy woe;

Till sapp'd their strength, and every part unsound, Down, down they sink, and spread a ruin round.

Even now the devastation is begun, And half the business of destruction done; Even now, methinks, as pondering here I stand, I see the rural virtues leave the land.

Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail That idly waiting flaps with every gale, Downward they move, a melancholy band,

Pass from the shore, and darken all the strand.