And play his brilliant parts before my eyes,
When I am hungry for the bread of life?
He mocks his Maker, prostitutes and shames
His noble office, and, instead of truth,
Displaying his own beauty, starves his flock!
Therefore avaunt all attitude, and stare,
And start theatric, practised at the glass!

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Heard at conventicle, where worthy men,
Misled by custom, strain celestial themes
Through the prest nostril, spectacle-bestrid.
Some, decent in demeanour while they preach,
That task perform'd, relapse into themselves;
And, having spoken wisely, at the close
Grow wanton, and give proof to ev'ry eye-
Whoe'er was edified, themselves were not !

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Forth comes the pocket mirror.-First we stroke

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An eye-brow; next, compose a straggling lock;
Then with an air most gracefully perform'd,
Fall back into our seat, extend an arm,
And lay it at its ease with gentle care,

With handkerchief in hand depending low :

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The better hand, more busy, gives the nose

Its bergamot, or aids the indebted eye

With opera glass, to watch the moving scene,

And recognize the slow-retiring fair.

But how a body so phantastic, trim,

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And quaint, in its deportment and attire,`

Can lodge an heavenly mind-demands a doubt.

He that negociates between God and man,
As God's ambassador, the grand concerns
Of judgment and of mercy, should beware
Of lightness in his speech. 'Tis pitiful
To court a grin, when you should woo a soul;
To break a jest, when pity would inspire
Pathetic exhortation and to address

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The skittish fancy with facetious tales,

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When sent with God's commission to the heart!
So did not Paul. Direct me to a quip

Or merry turn in all he ever wrote,
And I consent you take it for your text,

Your only one, till sides and benches fail.

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No: he was serious in a serious cause,

And understood too well the weighty terms

That he had ta'en in charge. He would not stoop

To conquer those by jocular exploits,

Whom truth and soberness assail'd in vain.

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Oh, popular applause! what heart of man
Is proof against thy sweet seducing charms?
The wisest and the best feel urgent need
Of all their caution in thy gentlest gales;

But, swell'd into a gust-who then, alas!

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With all his canvass set, and inexpert,

And therefore heedless, can withstand thy power?

Praise from the shrivel'd lips of toothless, bald

Decripitude; and in the looks of lean

And craving poverty; and in the bow
Respectful of the smutch'd artificer;

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Is oft too welcome, and may much disturb
The bias of the purpose. How much more,
Pour'd forth by beauty splendid and polite,
In language soft as aderation breathes?
Ah, spare your idol! think him human still.
Charms he may have, but he has frailties too!
Dote not too much, nor spoil what ye admire.

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All truth is from the sempiternal source
Of light divine. But Egypt, Greece, and Rome,
Drew from the stream below. More favour'd, we
Drink, when we choose it, at the fountain head.
To them it flow'd much mingled and denl'd
With hurtful error, prejudice, and dreams
Illusive of philosophy, so call'd,

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But falsely. Sages after sages strove

In vain to filtre off a crystal draught

Pure from the lees, which often more enhanc'd

The thirst than slak'd it, and not seldom bred

Intoxication and delirium wild.

510

In vain they push'd inquiry to the birth

And spring-time of the world; ask'd, Whence is man?
Why form'd at all? and wherefore as he is?

Where must he find his Maker? with what rites

Adore him? Will he hear, accept, and bless!
Or does he sit regardless of his works?
Has man within him an immortal seed?
Or does the tomb take all? If he survive

515

His ashes, where? and in what weal or woe?
Knots worthy of solution, which alone

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A deity could solve. Their answers, vague,

And all at random, fabulous, and dark,

Left them as dark themselves. Their rules of life,

Defective and unsanction'd, prov'd too weak

To bind the roving appetite, and lead

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Blind nature to a God not yet reveal'd.
'Tis revelation satisfies all doubts,
Explains all mysteries, except her own,
And so illuminates, the path of life,

That fools discover it, and stray no more.
Now tell me, dignified and sapient sir,
My man of morals, nurtur'd in the shades
Of Academus-is this false or true?
Is Christ the abler teacher, or the schools?
If Christ, then why resort at every turn
To Athens or to Rome, for wisdom short
Of man's occasions, when in him reside

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Grace, knowledge, comfort-an unfathom'd store?

How oft, when Paul has serv'd us with a text,

Has Epictetus, Plato, Tully, preach'd!

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Men that, if now alive, would sit content

And humble learners of a Saviour's worth,

Preach it who might. Such was their love of truth,

Their thirst of knowledge, and their candour too!

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And thus it is.—The pastor, either vain
By nature, or by flattery made so, taught
To gaze at his own splendour, and to exalt
Absurdly, not his office, but himself;
Or unenlighten'd, and too proud to learn;
Or vicious, and not therefore apt to teach;
Perverting often, by the stress of lewd
And loose example, whom he should instruct;
Exposes, and holds up to broad disgrace,
The noblest function, and discredits much

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The brightest truths that man has ever seen.
For ghostly council; if it either fall

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Below the exigence, or be not back'd

With show of love, at least with hopeful proof

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Of some sincerity on the giver's part;
Or be dishonour'd, in the exterior form
And mode of its conveyance, by such tricks
As move derision, or by foppish airs
And histrionic mummery, that let down

The pulpit to the level of the stage;

Drops from the lips a disregarded thing.

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The weak perhaps are mov'd, but are not taught,

While prejudice in men of stronger minds

Takes deeper root, confirm'd by what they see.
A relaxation of religion's hold

Upon the roving and untutor❜d heart

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Soon follows, and the curb of conscience snapt,

The laity run wild-But do they now?

Note their extravagance, and be convinc'd.

As nations ignorant of God, contrive
A wooden one, so we, no longer taught
By monitors that mother church supplies,
Now make our own. Posterity will ask
(If e'er posterity see verse of mine)
Some fifty or an hundred lustrums hence,
What was a monitor in George's days?
My very gentle reader, yet unborn,

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580

Of whom I needs must augur better things,

Since heaven would sure grow weary of a world

Productive only of a race like our's,

A monitor is wood-plank shaven thin.

685

We wear it at our backs. There, closely brac'd

And neatly fitted, it compresses hard

The prominent and most unsightly bones,

And binds the shoulders flat. We prove its use
Sovereign and most effectual to secure

590

A form not now gymnastic as of yore,

From rickets and distortion, else our lot.

But, thus admonish'd, we can walk erect

One proof at least of manhood! while the friend

Sticks close, a Mentor worthy of his charge.

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Our habits, costlier than Lucullus wore,

And by caprice as multiplied as his,

Just please us while the fashion is at full,

But change with every moon, The sycophant,
Who waits to dress us, arbitrates their date ;
Surveys his fair reversion with keen eye;
Finds one ill made, another obsolete,

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This fits not nicely, that is ill conceiv'd;

And, making prize of all that he condemns,
With our expenditure defrays his own.
Variety's the very spice of life,

605

That gives it all its flavour. We have run

Through every change that fancy, at the loom
Exhausted, has had genius to supply;

And, studious of mutation still, discard

610

A real elegance, a little us'd,

For monstrous novelty and strange disguise.

We sacrifice to dress, till household joys

And comforts cease. Dress drains our cellar dry,

And keeps our larder lean; puts out our fires;

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And introduces hunger, frost, and wo,

Where peace and hospitality might reign.

What man that lives, and that knows how to live,

Would fail to exhibit at the public shows

A form as splendid as the proudest there,
Though appetite raise outcries at the cost?
A man o' th' town dines late, but soon enough,
With reasonable forecast and dispatch,
To insure a side-box station at half price.
You think, perhaps, so delicate his dress,
His daily fare as delicate. Alas!

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He picks clean teeth, and, busy as he seems
With an old tavern quill, is hungry yet!
The rout is folly's circle, which she draws
With magic wand. So potent is the spell,
That none, decoy'd into that fatal ring,

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Unless by heaven's peculiar grace, escape;

There we grow early gray, but never wise;

There form connexions, but acquire no friend;

Solicit pleasure, hopeless of success;

635

Waste youth in occupations only fit

For second childhood, and devote old age

To sports which only childhood could excuse.
There they are happiest who dissemble best
Their weariness; and they the most polite,
Who squander time and treasure with a smile,
Though at their own destruction. She, that asks
Her dear five hundred friends, contemns them all,
And hates their coming. They (what can they less?)
Make just reprisals; and, with cringe and shrug,
And bow obsequious, hide their hate of her.
All catch the frenzy, downward from her grace,
Whose flambeaux flash against the morning skies,
And gild our chamber ceilings as they pass,

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