6 While thus she spoke, my looks express'd
The raptures kindling in my breast;
My soul a fix'd attention gave;
When the stern monarch of the grave,
With haughty strides approach'd :-amaz'd
I stood, and trembled as I gaz’d.
The scraph calm'd each anious fear,
And kindly wip'd the falling tear;
Then hasten'd, with expanded wing,
To meet the pale, terrific king.
7 But now what milder scenes arise!
The tyrant drops his hostile guise;
He seems a youth divinely fair;
In graceful ringlets waves his hair;
His wings their whit'ning plumes display,
His burnish'd plumes, reflect the day;
Light flows his shining azure vest,
And all the angel stands confess'd.
I view'd the change with sweet surprise;
And, Oh! I panted for the skies;
Thank'd heav'n, that e'er I drew my breath,
And triumph'd in the thoughts of death.--COTTON
CHAPTER III.
DIDACTIC PIECES.
SECTION I.
The vanity of Wealth.
NO more thus brooding o'er yon heap, With av'rice painful vigils keep;
Still unenjoy'd the present store,
Still endless sighs are breath'd for more.
Oh! quit the shadow, catch the prize,
Which not all India's treasure buys!
To purchase heav'n has gold the pow'r?
Can gold remove the mortal hour?
In life, can love be bought with gold?
Are friendship's pleasures to be sold?
No-all that's worth a wish-a thought,
Fair virtue gives unbrib'd, unbought,
Cease then on trash thy hopes to bind ;
Let nobler views engage thy mind.-DR. JOHNSON.
SECTION II.
Nothing formed in vain.
LET no presun ing impious railer tax
Creative wisdom, as if ought was form'd
In vain, or not for admirable ends.
Shall little haughty ignorance pronounce
His works unwise, of which the smallest part
Exceeds the narrow vision of her mind?
As if, upon a full-proportion'd dome,
On swelling column heav'd, the pride of art,
A critic-fly, whose feeble ray scarce spreads
An inch around, with blind presumption boid,
Should dare to tax the structure of the whole.
2 And lives. the man whose universal eye
Has swept at once th' unbounded scheme of things,
Mark'd their deper.dence so, and firm accord,
As with unfault'ring accent to conclude,
That this availeth nought? Has any seen
The mighty chain of beings, less'ning down
From infinite perfection to the brink
Of dreary nothing, desolate abyss!
From which astonish'd thought, recoiling turns?
Till then alone let zealous praise ascend,
And hymns of holy wonder to that POWER,
Whose wisdom shines as lovely in our minds,
As on our smiling eyes his servant sun.-THOMPSON
Of all the causes, which conspire to blind
Man's erring judgment, and misguid the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,
Is pride; the never failing vice of fools.
Whatever nature has in worth deny'd,
She gives in large recruits of needful pride!
For, as in bodies, thus in souls, we find
What wants in blood and spirits, swell'd with wind.
Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence,
And fills up all the mighty void of sense.
2 If once right reason drives that cloud away,
Truth breaks upon us with resistless day.
Trust not yourself; but, your defects to know,
Make use of ev'ry friend-and ev'ry foe.
A little learning is a dangerous thing
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain;
And drinking largely sobers us again.
3 Fir'd at first sight with what the muse imparts,
In fearless youth we tempt the heights of arts,
While, from the bounded level of our mind,
Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind;
But more advanc'd, behold with strange surprise
New distant scenes of endless science rise!
So, pleas'd at first the tow'ring Alps we try,
Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky;
Th' eternal snows appear already past,
And the first clouds and mountains seem the last ;
But, those attain'd, we tremble to survey
The growing labours of the lengthen'd way;
Th' increasing prospect tires our wand'ring eyes;
Ilills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise.
SECTION IV.
Cruelly to Brutes censured.
I WOULD not enter on my list of friends,
(Though grac'd with polish'd manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility,) the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
An inadvertent step may crush the snail,
That crawls at evening in the public path;
But he that has humanity, forewarn'd,
Will tread aside, and let the reptile live.
The creeping vermin, loathsome to the sight,
And charg'd perhaps with venom, that intrude!
A visitor unwelcome into scenes
Sacred to neatness and repose, th' alcove,
The chamber, or refectory, may die.
A necessary act incurs no blame.
Not so, when heid within their proper bounds,
And guiltless of offence they range the air,
Or take their pastime in the spacious field.
There they are privileged. And he that hurts
Or harms them there, is guilty of a wrong;
Disturbs th' economy of nature's realm,
Who when she form'd, design'd them an abode.
The sum is this; if man's convenience, health,
Or safety interfere, his rights and claims
Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs.
Else they are all-the meanest things that are
As free to live and to enjoy that life,
As God was free to form them at the first,
Who, in his sovereign wisdom, made them all.
4 Ye therefore, who love mercy, teach your sons
To love it too. The spring time of our years
Is soon dishonour'd and defil'd in most,
By budding ills that ask a prudent hand
To check them. But alas! none sooner shoots
If unrestrain'd, into luxuriant growth
Than cruelty, most dev'lish of them all.
5 Mercy to him that shows it, is the rule
And righteous limitation of its act,
By which heav'n moves in pard'ning guilty man,
And he that shows none, being ripe in years,
And conscious of the outrage he commits,
Shall seek it, and not find it, in his turn.—coWPER.
SECTION V.
A paraphrase on the later part of the 6th chapler of Si
Matthew.
When my breast laoours with o,pressive care,
And o'er my cheek descends the falling tear;
While all my warring passions are at strife,
Oh! let me listen to the words of life!
Raptures deep-felt his doctrine did impart,
And thus he rais'd from earth the drooping heart.
2 "Think not, when all your scanty stores afford,
Is spread at once upon the sparing board;
Think not, when worn the homely robe appears,
While on the roof the howling tempest bears;
What further shall this feeble life sustain,
And what shall clothe these shiv'ring limbs again.
3 Say, does not life its nourishment exceed ?
And the fair body its investing weed?
Behold! and look away your low despair-
See the light tenants of the barren air :
To them, nor stores nor granaries belong;
Nought, but the woodland and the pleasing song;
Yet, your kind heav'nly Father bends his eye
To the least wing that flits along the sky.
To him they sing, when spring renews the plain;
To him they cry, in winter's pinching reign;
Nor is their music, nor their plaint in vain;
He hears the gay, and the distressful call; And with unsparing bounty fills them all." 5" Observe the rising lily's snowy grace; Observe the various vegetable race :
They neither toil, nor spin, but careless grow; Yet see how warm they blush! how bright they glow! What regǝl vestments can with them compare! What king so shining! or what queen so fair!" 6 "If ceaseless, thus, the fowls of heav'n he feeds; If c'er the fields such lucid robes he spreads; Will he not care for you, ye faithless, say ?
Is he unwise? or are ye less than they ?"-THOMSON
The death of a good Man a strong incentive to Virtue.
THE chamber where the good man meets his fate,
Is privileg'd beyond the common walk
Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heav'n.
Fly, ye profane! if not, draw near with awe,
Receive the blessing, and adore the chance,
That threw in this Bethesda your disease:
If unrester'd by this, despair your cure.
2 For, here, resistless demonstration dwells;
A death-bed's a detector of the heart.
Here tir'd dissimulation drops her mask,
Through life's grimace, that mistress of the scene!
Here real, and apparent, are the same.
You see the man; you see his hold on Heav'n,
If sound his virtue, as Philander's sound.
3 Heav'n waits not the last moment; owns her friends
On this side death, and points them out to men;
A lecture silent, but of sov'reign pow'r ;
To vice, confusion; and to virtue, peace.
Whatever farce the boastful hero plays,
Virtue alone has majesty in death;
And greater still, the more the tyrant frowns. —YOUNG, SECTION VII.
Reflections on a Future State, from a review of Winter.
"TIS done! dread winter spreads his latest glooms,
And reigns tremendous o'er the conquer'd year.
How dead the vegetable kingdom lies!
How dumb the tuneful! Horror wide extends
His desolate domain. Behold, fond man!
See here thy pictur'd life: pass some few years,
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