"When trees and ftreams were made a general good; "And not as limits, meanly to exclude:

"When all to all belong'd; ere pow'r was told

66

By number'd troops, or wealth by counted gold: "Ere kings, or priests, their tyranny began; "Or man was vaffal'd to his fellow-man.”

O halcyon ftate! when man begun to live!
A bleffing, worthy of a god to give!
When on th' unspotted mind his Maker drew
The heav'nly characters, correct and true.
All useful knowlege, from that fource, fupply'd;
No blindness sprung from ignorance, or pride:
All proper bleffings, from that hand, bestow'd;
No mischiefs, or for want, or fulness, flow'd:
The quick'ning paffions gave a pleafing zeft;
While thankful man fubmitted to be bleft.
Simplicity, was wifdom; temperance, health:
Obedience, pow'r; and full contentment, wealth.
So happy once, was man! till the vain elf
Shook off his guide, and fet up for himself.
Smit with the charms of independency,
He fcorns protection, raging to be free..:
Now, felf-expos'd, he feels his naked state;
Shrinks with the blaft, or melts before the heat:
And blindly wanders, as his fancy leads,
To starve on waftes, or feast on pois'nous weeds.
Now to the favage beasts an obvious prey ;
Or crafty men, more favage ftill than they :

6

No

No lefs imprudent to his breaft to take
The friend unfaithful, or th' envenom'd snake;
Equally fatal, whether on the Nile,

Or in the city, weeps the crocodile.

Nor yet lefs blindly deviates learned pride;
In Etna burn'd, or drown'd amid the tide:
Boafts of fuperior fenfe; then raves to fee.
(When contradicted) fools lefs wife than he.
Mates with his great Creator; vainly bold
To make new fyftems, or to mend the old.
Shapes out a Deity; doubts, then denies :
And drunk with fcience, curfes God and dies.

Not heav'nly wisdom, only, is with-held,
But the free bounty of the self-sown field :
No more, as erst, from Nature's ready feast,
Rifes the fatisfy'd, but temp'rate guest:
Caft wild abroad, no happy mean preferves;
By choice he furfeits, by constraint he starves:
Toils life away upon the stubborn plain,
'T' extort from thence the flow reluctant grain ;
The flow reluctant grain, procur'd to-day,
His lefs induftrious neighbour steals
Hence fifts and clubs the village-peace confound,
Till fword and cannon spread the ruin round;
For time and art but bring from bad to worse :
Unequal lots fucceed unequal force,

away:

Each lot a feveral curfe. Hence rich, and poor:
This pines, and dies neglected at the door;

While

While gouts and fevers wait the loaded mefs,
And take full vengeance for the poor's distress.

No more the paffions are the springs of life;
But feeds of vice, and elements of strife:
Love, focial love, t'extend to all defign'd,
Back to its fountain flows; to felf, confin'd.
Source of misfortunes! the fond husband's wrong;
The maid difhonour'd, and deferted young!
The mischief spreads; when vengeance for the luft
Unpeoples realms, and calls the ruin juft.

Hence, Troy, thy fate! the blood of thousands fpilt,
And orphans mourning for unconscious guilt.
Thus love deftroys, for kinder purpose giv❜n;
And man corrupts the bleffings meant by heav'n;
Self-injur'd, let us cenfure HIM no more:
Ambition makes us flaves, and avʼrice poor.

What arts the wild disorder fhall controul,
And render peace with virtue to the foul?
Out-reafon intereft, ballance prejudice ;
Give paffion ears, and blinded error eyes?
Arm the weak hand with conqueft, and protect
From guile, the heart too honeft to fufpect?
For this, mankind, by fad experience taught,
Again their fafety in dependence fought:
Prefs'd to the standard, fued before the throne;
And durft rely on wisdom not their own.
Hence Saturn rul'd in peace th' Aufonian plains,
While Salian fongs to virtue won the swains,

But pois'nous ftreams must flow from pois'ned springs:
The priests were mortal, and mere men the kings.
What aid from monarchs, mighty to enslave?
What good from teachers, cunning to deceive?
Allegiance gives defenfive arms away;
And faith usurps imperial reason's sway.

Let civil Rome, from faithful records, tell
What royal bleflings from her Nero fell.
When those, prefer'd all grievance to redress,
Bought of their prince a licence to oppress:
When uncorrupted merit found no place,
But left the trade of honour to the base.

See industry, by draining impoâs curst, ma enn de
Starve in the harveft, in the vintage thirst!
In vain for help th' infulted matron cries,
'Twas death in hufbands to have ears and eyes:
Fatal were beauty, virtue, wealth, or fame:
No man in aught a property could claim;
No, not his fex: ftrange arts the monster try'd;
And Sporus, fpight of nature, was his bride.
Unhurt by foes proud Rome for ages ftands,
Secure from all, but her protector's hands.
Recall your pow'rs, ye Romans, back again;
Unmake the monarch, and ne'er fear the man.
Naked, and fcorn'd, fee where the abject flies!
And once un-cæfar'd, foon the fidler dies.

Next, holy Rome, thy happiness declare ;
While peace and truth watch round the facred chair.

L

હોટ સીને

Peace!-which from racks and perfecution flows!
Myfterious truths!-which every sense oppose!
That God made man, was all th' unlearn'd could reach ;
That man makes God th' enlighten'd fathers teach.
Men, blind and partial, need a light divine :
Which popes new trim, and teach it how to shine.
Rude nature dreads accufing guilt, unknown
The balmy doctrine, that dead faints atone:
The careful pontiff, merciful to fave,
Hoards up a fund of merit from the grave;
And righteous hands the equal balance hold,
Nor weigh it out but to just sums of gold.
Sole judge, he deals his pardon, or his curfe ;
Not heav'n itself the sentence can reverse :
Grac❜d with his scepter, awful with his rod,
This man of fin ufurps the feat of God;
Difarm'd and unador'd th' Almighty lies,
And quits to faints his incenfe, and his fkies:
No more the object of our fears, or hope;
The creature, and the vaffal of the pope.
"From fanes and cities fcar'd, fly swift away
-To the rude Lybian in his wilds a prey.

גן

“The blood-stain'd fword from the fell tyrant wreft !" -Thousands unfheath'd shall threat thy naked breast. "The dogmatifts imperious aid difdain!"

-So fink in brutish ignorance again.

"Is there no medium ? must we victims fall

To one man's Lust, or to the RAGE of all?

D 2