And tho' fuccefs difgufts; yet ftill, LORENZO !
In vain we ftrive to pluck it from our hearts;
By nature planted for the noblest ends.

Abfurd the fam'd advice to PYRRHUS giv'n,

More prais'd, than ponder'd; fpecious, but unfound;
Sooner that hero's ford the world had quell'd,
Than reafon, his ambition. Man must foar.
An obftinate activity within,

An infuppreflive spring, will tofs him up
In spite of fortune's load. Not kings alone,
Each villager has his ambition too;

No Sultan prouder than his fetter'd slave:
Slaves build their little Babylons of straw,
Echo the proud Affyrian, in their hearts,..
And cry," Behold the wonders of my might!
And why? Because immortal as their lord;
And fouls immortal must for ever heave
At fomething great; the glitter, or the gold;
The praise of mortals, or the praise of heaven.
Nor abfolutely vain is human praise,
When human is fupported by divine.
I'll introduce LORENZO to Himself;

Pleafure and pride (bad masters!) fhare our hearts.
As love of pleasure is ordain'd to, guard

And feed our bodies, and extend our race;
The love of praise is planted to protect;

And propagate the glories of the mind.
What is it, but the love of praise, inspires,
Matures, refines, embellishes, exalts,

Earth's happiness? From that, the delicate,

The grand, the marvellous, of civil life,
Want and convenience, under-workers, lay
The bafis, on which love of glory builds.
Nor is thy life, O virtue! lefs in debt
To praife, thy fecret ftimulating friend.
Were men not proud, what merit should we mifs!
Pride made the virtues of the pagan world.
Praise is the falt that seasons right to man,
And whets his appetite for moral good.
Thirst of applaufe is virtue's fecond guard;
Reason, her firft; but reafon wants an aid;
Our private reason is a flatterer;

Thirst of applause calls public judgment in,
To poise our own, to keep an even scale,
And give endanger'd virtue fairer play.

Here a fifth proof arifes, ftronger ftill:
Why this so nice conftruction of our hearts ?
These delicate moralities of sense;
This conflitutional referve of aid

To fuccour virtue, when our reafon fails;
If virtue, kept alive by care and toil,
And, oft, the mark of injuries on earth,
When labour'd to maturity (its bill
Of disciplines, and pains, unpaid) must die?
Why freighted-rich, to dash against a rock ?
Were man to perish when most fit to live,
O how mif-fpent were all these ftratagems,
By skill divine inwoven in our frame ?`
Where are heav'n's holiness and mercy fled ?
Laughs heav'n, at once, at virtue, and at man ?
If not, why that discourag'd, this destroy'd ?

Thus

Thus far ambition. What fays avarice?

This her chief maxim, which has long been Thine :
"The wife and wealthy are the fame,"-I grant it.
To ftore up treasure, with inceffant toil,
This is man's province, this his highest praise.
To this great end keen instinct ftings him on.
To guide that instinct, reafon! is thy charge,
"Tis thine to tell us where true treasure lies:
But, reafon failing to discharge her trust,
Or to the deaf discharging it in vain,
A blunder follows; and blind industry,

Gall'd by the fpur, but ftranger to the course,
(The course where stakes of more than gold are won)
O'er-loading, with the cares of diftant age,
The jaded spirits of the prefent hour,

Provides for an eternity below.

“Thou shalt not covet," is a wife command; But bounded to the wealth the fun furveys: Look farther, the command stands quite revers'd, And av'rice is a virtue most divine.

Is faith a refuge for our happiness?

Moft fure: And is it not for reason too?
Nothing this world unriddles, but the next.
Whence inextinguishable thirst of gain?
From inextinguishable life in man:

Man, if not meant, by worth, to reach the skies,
Had wanted wing to fly fo far in guilt.

Sour grapes, F grant, ambition, avarice:
Yet ftill their root is immortality,

Thefe its wild growths fo bitter, and fo bafe,

(Pain and reproach!) religion can reclaim, Refine, exalt, throw down their pois'nous lee, And make them fparkle in the bowl of bliss.

See, the third witnefs laughs at blifs remote, And falfly promifes an Eden here:

Truth fhe fhall fpeak for once, tho' prone to lye,
A common cheat, and Pleasure is her name.
To pleasure never was LORENZO deaf;

Then hear her now, now first thy real friend.
Since nature made us not more fond than proud
Of happiness (whence hypocrites in joy!
Makers of mirth! artificers of smiles!)
Why should the joy most poignant sense affords,
Burn us with blushes, and rebuke our pride ?-
Those heav'n-born blushes tell us man defcends,
Ev'n in the zenith of his earthly bliss:
Should reason take her infidel repose,
This honeft instinct speaks our lineage high;
This inftinct calls on darkness to conceal
Our rapturous relation to the ftalls.
Our glory covers us with noble shame,
And he that's unconfounded, is unmann'd.
The man that blufhés, is not quite a brute.
Thus far with Thee, LORENZO ! will I close,
Pleasure is good, and man for pleasure made;
But pleasure full of glory, as of joy;
Pleasure, which neither blushes, nor expires.

The witneffes are heard; the cause is o'er;
Let confcience file the fentence in her court,
VOL. III.

K

Dearer

Dearer than deeds that half a realm convey:
Thus feal'd by truth, th`authentic record runs.
"Know, All; know, infidels,-unapt to know!
"'Tis immortality your nature folves;
""Tis immortality decyphers man,

"And opens all the myft'ries of his make.
"Without it, half his infinds are a riddles
"Without it, all his virtues are a dream.
"His very crimes attest his dignity;

"His fateless thirst of pleasure, gold, and fame,
"Declares him born for bleffings infinite:

"What lefs than infinite, makes un-absurd

Paffions, which all on earth but more inflames? "Fierce paffions, so mis-measur'd to this scene, "Stretch'd out, like eagles wings, beyond our neft, "Far, far beyond the worth of all below, "For earth too large, prefage a nobler flight, "And evidence our title to the skies.”

Ye gentle theologues, of calmer kind! Whose conftitution dictates to your pen, Who, cold yourselves, think ardor comes from hell! Think not our paffions from corruption fprung, Tho' to corruption now they lend their wings; That is their mistress, not their mother. All (And justly) reafon deem divine: I fee,

I feel a grandeur in the pafians too,

Which speaks their high defcent, and glorious end;
Which speaks them rays of an eternal fire.
In Paradise itself they burnt as ftrong,

Ere ADAM fell; tho' wifer in their aim.