(As far as man can penetrate) or heaven Is an immenfe, ineftimable prize;

Or all is Nothing, or that prize is all.

And shall each toy be ftill a match for heaven?
And full equivalent for groans below?
Who would not give a trifle to prevent
What he would give a thousand worlds to cure?
LORENZO! thou haft feen (if thine to fee)
All nature, and her GoD (by nature's course,
And nature's courfe controul'd) declare for me:
The skies above proclaim "immortal man!”
And, “man immortal!" all below resounds.
The world's a fyftem of theology,

Read, by the greateft ftrangers to the schools;
If boneft, learn'd; and fages o'er a plough.
Is not, LORENZo! then, impos'd on thee
This hard alternative; or, to renounce
Thy reafon, or thy fenfe; or, to believe?
What then is unbelief? "Tis an exploit;
A ftrenuous enterprize: To gain it, man
Must burst thro' ev'ry bar of common sense,
Of common shame, magnanimously wrong;
And what rewards the turdy combatant?
His prize, repentance; infamy, his crown.

But wherefore, infamy ?-For want of faith,
Down the fteep precipice of wrong he flides;
There's nothing to support him in the right.
Faith in the future wanting, is, at least
In embyro, ev'ry weakness, ev'ry guilt;
And trong temptation ripens it to birth.

If this life's gain invites him to the deed,
Why not his country fold, his father flain?
'Tis virtue to pursue our good fupreme;
And his fupreme, his only good is here.
Ambition, av'rice, by the wife difdain'd,
Is perfect wisdom, while mankind are fools,
And think a turf, or tombstone, covers all:
Thefe find employment, and provide for fenfe
A richer pasture, and a larger range;

And fenfe by right divine ascends the throne,
When virtue's prize and prospect are no more;
Virtue no more we think the will of heaven.
Would heav'n quite beggar virtue, if belov'd?

Has virtue charms?"-I grant her heav'nly fair

But if unportion'd, all will int'reft wed;

Tho' that our admiration, this our choice.
The virtues grow on immortality;

That root destroy'd, they wither and expire.
A DEITY believ'd, will nought avail;
Rewards and punishments make God ador'd;
And hopes and fears give confcience all her power.
As in the dying parent dies the child,
Virtue, with immortality, expires.

Who tells me he denies his foul immortal,
Whate'er his boast, has told me, He's a knave.
His duty 'tis, to love himfelf alone;

Nor care tho' mankind perish, if he fmiles.
Who thinks ere long the man fhall wholly die,
Is dead already; nought but brute furvives.

And

And are there fuch ?-Such candidates there are
For more than death; for utter lofs of being,
Being, the bafis of the DEITY!

Afk you the caufe ?-The caufe they will not tell :
Nor need they: Oh the forceries of sense!
They work this transformation on the foul,
Difmount her like the ferpent at the fall,

Difmount her from her native wing (which foar'd
Fre-while ethereal heights), and throw her down,
To lick the duft, and crawl, in fuch a thought.
Is it in words to paint you? O ye fall'n!
Fall'n from the wings of reafon, and of hope!
Erect in ftature, prone in appetite!

Patrons of pleasure, pofting into pain!
Lovers of argument, averfe to fenfe!
Boafters of liberty, faft-bound in chains!
Lords of the wide creation, and the fhame!
More fenfelefs than th' irrationals you scorn!
More base than those you rule! Than those you pity,
Far more undone ! O ye most infamous

Of beings, from fuperior dignity!

Deepest in woe from means of boundless blifs!

Ye curft by bleffings infinite! Because

Moft highly favour'd, moft profoundly loft!
Ye motly mafs of contradiction ftrong!
And are you, too, convinc'd, your fouls fly off
In exhalation foft, and die in air,

From the full flood of evidence against you?
In the coarse drudgeries, and finks of sense,
Your fouls have quite worn out the make of heaven,

VOL. III.

L

By

By vice new caft, and creatures of your own:
But tho' you can deform, you can't destroy ;
To curfe, not uncreate, is all your power.
LORENZO! this black brotherhood renounce;
enounce St. Evremont, and read St. Paul.
ère rapt by miracle, by reafon wing'd,
His mounting mind made long abode in heaven.
This is freethinking, unconfin'd to parts,

To fend the foul, on curious travel bent,
Thro' all the provinces of human thought;
To dart her flight, thro' the whole sphere of man;
Cf this vaft univerfe to make the tour;

In each recefs of Space, and time, at home;
Familiar with their wonders; diving deep;
And, like a prince of boundless int'refts there,
Still moft ambitious of the most remote;
To look on truth unbroken, and intire;
Truth in the fyftem, the full orb; where truths
By truths enlighten'd, and sustain'd, afford
An arch-like, ftrong foundation, to support
Th' incumbent weight of abfolute, complete
Conviction; here, the more we prefs, we ftand
More firm; who most examine, most believe.
Parts, like half-fentences, confound; the whole
Conveys the fenfe, and GoD is understood;
Who not in fragments writes to human race:
Read his whole volume, fceptic! then reply.
This, this, is thinking-free, a thought that grafps
Beyond a grain, and looks beyond an hour.
Turn up thine eye, furvey this midnight scene;

What

What are earth's kingdoms, to yon boundless orbs,
Of human fouls, one day, the destin'd range?
And what yon boundless orbs, to godlike man?
Thofe num'rous worlds that throng the firmament,
And ask more space in heav'n, can roll at large
In man's capacious thought, and still leave room
For ampler orbs, for new creations, there.
Can fuch a foul contract itself, to gripe
A point of no dimension, of no weight?
It can; it does: The world is fuch a point:
And, of that point, how Small a part enflaves!

How fmall a part-of nothing, fhall I fay?
Why not?-Friends, our chief treasure! how they drop!
LUCIA, NARCISSA fair, PHILANDER, gone!
The grave, like fabled Cerberus, has op'd
A triple mouth; and, in an aweful voice,
Loud calls my foul, and utters all I fing.
How the world falls to pieces round about us,
And leaves us in a ruin of our joy!
What fays this transportation of my friends?
It bids me love me place where now they dwell,
And fcorn this wretched spot, they leave fo poor.
Eternity's vaft ocean lies before thee;

There; there, LORENZO! thy CLARISSA fails.
Give thy mind fea-room; keep it wide of earth,
That rock of fouls immortal; cut thy cord;
Weigh anchor; fpread thy fails; call ev'ry wind;
Eye thy Great Pele ftar; make the land of life.

Two kinds of life has double-natur'd man,
And two of death; the last far more fevere.
L 2

Life