Reclaim'd, her wild licentious youth
Confefs'd the potent voice of TRUTH,
And felt its just controul:

The Paffions ceas'd their loud alarms,
And Virtue's foft perfuafive charms
O'er all their fenfes stole.

Thy breath inspires the POET's fong,
The PATRIOT's free, unbiafs'd tongue,
The HERO's gen❜rous ftrife;
Thine are Retirement's filent joys,
And all the sweet engaging ties
Of ftill domeftick life.

No more to fabled Names confin'd,
To the fupreme all-perfect Mind

My thoughts direct their flight:
Wisdom's thy gift, and all her force
From thee deriv'd, eternal source
Of intellectual light.

O fend her fure, her steady ray,
To regulate my doubtful way,
Thro' life's perplexing road:
The mists of error to controul,
And thro' its gloom direct my foul
To happiness and good.

6

Beneath

On his intending to cut down a GROVE to enlarge his Prospect.

By the Same.

N plaintive founds, that tun'd to woe

IN The fadly fighing breeze,

A weeping HAMADRYAD mourn'd

Her fate-devoted trees.

Ah! ftop thy facrilegious hand,

Nor violate the fhade,

Where Nature form'd a filent'haunt

For Contemplation's aid.

Can't thou, the fon of science, bred

Where learned Ifis flows,

Forget that, nurs'd in fhelt'ring groves,

The Grecian genius rofe?

03

Within

Within the plantane's spreading fhade,
Immortal PLATO taught;

And fair LYCEUM form'd the depth
Of ARISTOTLE's thought.

To Latian groves reflect thy views,
And blefs the Tuscan bloom
Where Eloquence deplor'd the fate
Of Liberty and Rome:

Retir'd beneath the beechen shade,
From each infpiring bough

The Muses wove th' unfading wreaths
That circled VIRGIL's brow.

Reflect before the fatal ax

My threaten'd doom has wrought; Nor facrifice to fenfual tafte

The nobler growth of thought.

Not all the glowing fruits that blush
On India's funny coaft,

Can recompence thee for the worth

Of one idea loft.

My fhade a produce may fupply,

Unknown to folar fire;

And what excludes APOLLO's rays,
Shall harmonize his lyre.

THE

THE

ESTIMATE of LIFE,

IN THREE PART S.

A PO E M.

By JOHN GILBERT COOPER, Efq;

PART I.

MELPOMENE: or, The Melancholy.

Reafon thus with Life;

If I do lofe thee, I do lofe a thing,
That none but fools would sweep.

SHAKESP. Meal. for Meaf.

FFSPRING of folly and of noise,
Fantaftick train of airy joys,

Cease, cease your vain delufive lore,
And tempt my serious thoughts no more,

Ye horrid forms, ye gloomy throng,
Who hear the bird of midnight's fong;
Thou too, DESPAIR, pale spectre, come,
From the self-murd'rer's haunted tomb,
While fad MELPOMENE relates,

How we're afflicted by the fates.

What's all this wish'd for empire, Life?
A fcene of mis'ry, care, and ftrife;
And make the moft, that's all we have
Betwixt the cradle and the grave.
The being is not worth the charge,
Behold the estimate at large.
Our youth is filly, idle, vain;
Our age is full of care and pain;
From wealth accrues anxiety;
Contempt and want from poverty;
What trouble business has in ftore!
How idleness fatigues us more!
To reafon, th' ignorant are blind;
The learned's eyes are too refin'd
Each wit deems every wit his foe,
Each fool is naturally fo;

And ev'ry rank and ev'ry station
Meet juftly with disapprobation.
Say, man, is this the boasted state,
Where all is pleasant, all is great?
Alas! another face you'll see,
Take off the vail of vanity.

Is