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What conscience dictates to be done,

Or warns me not to do,

This, teach me more than hell to shun,
That, more than heav'n, pursue. „..
What blessings thy free bounty gives,
Let me not cast away;

For God is paid, when man receives,
T' enjoy is to obey.

Yet not to Earth's contracted span
Thy goodness let me bound,
Or think Thee Lord alone of man,
When thousand worlds are round;
Let not this weak, unknowing hand
Presume thy bolts to throw,
And deal damnation round the land,
On each I judge thy foe..
If I am right, thy grace impart
Still in the right to stay;
If I am wrong, oh teach my heart
To find that better way.

Save me alike from foolish pride,
Or impious discontent,

At aught thy wisdom has deny'd,
Or aught thy goodness lent.
Teach me to feel another's woe,
To hide the fault I see;
That mercy I to others show,
That mercy show to me.)
Mean tho' I am, not wholly so,
Since quicken'd by thy breath;
O lead me wheresoe'er I go,

Thro' this day's life or death. an

This day, be bread and peace my lot:
All else beneath the sun,

Thou know'st if best bestow'd or not, i
And let thy will be done.

To thee, whose temple is all 'space,
Whose altar, earth, sea, skies!
One chorus let all Being raise !i
All Nature's incense rise!

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MENTAL BEAUTY preferable to PERSONAL.

(VILLAGE CURATE.)

BUT leave we not the gentle Isabel
Unsung, tho' nature on her cheek no rose
Has planted, and the lily blossom there
Without a rival-Look within, and learn
That nature often on the mind bestows
What she denies the face.-O, she is kind,
And gives to ev'ry man his proper gift,
To make him needful in the land he lives.
There is not inequality so strange

'Twixt man and man, as haughty wits suppose.
The beggar treads upon the monarch's heel
For excellence, and often wears a heart
Of noble temper, under filth and rags:
While he that reigns, in spite of outward pomp,
Is mean and beggarly within, and far outweigh'd
By the offensive lazar at his gate.

Th' unletter'd fool that daily steers the plough,
With vacant head, and heart as unimprov'd
As the dull brute he drives, gives to the world
A necessary good, which all thy pains,
Ingenious Critic, or thy deep research,
Profound Philosopher, thy preaching, Clerk,
Thy prattle, Lawyer, or thy grave demurs,
Costly Physician, hardly shall exceed.
The kingly tulip captivates the eye,
But smelt we loath, while the sweet violet,
That little beauty boasts, hid from the sight
With such a fragrant perfume hits the sense
As makes us love ere we behold. And so
The gaudy peacock of the feather'd race
The noblest seems, till the sweet note be heard
That nightly cheers the musing poet's ear
Under the thorny brake; and then we grant,
That little Philomel, so unadorn`d,
Needs not the aid of plumes. So, Isabel,
Internal worth upon thy cheek bestows
A rose's beauty, tho' no rose be there.
A heart that almost breaks to be rebuk'd,
A mind inform'd, yet fearful to be seen,
Kept by a tongue that never but at home,
And cautious then, its golden trust betrays→

These are thy charms, and they are charms for me,
And in my eye as sweet a grace bestow,
As matchless beauty, trick'd in airy smiles
And suit of fantasy, what time she trips
With foot inaudible the sprightly round
Of fairy dance, outshining ev'ry star
And planet of the night. And these shall last,
As morning fair and fresh as amaranth,
When all thy triumphs, Beauty, are no more.

DESCRIPTION of a COUNTRY FAIR.

THE happy morning comes, expected long
By lads and lasses. Soon as light appears,
The swain is ready in his Sunday frock,
And calls on Nell to trip it to the fair.
The village bells are up, and jangling loud
Proclaim the holiday. The clam'rous drum
Calls to the puppet-shew. The groaning horn
And twanging trumpet speak the sale begun,
Of articles most rare and cheap. Dogs bark
Astounded at the noise. Old women laugh,
Boys shout, and the grave Doctor mounts with glee
His crowded scaffold, struts, and makes a speech,
Maintains the virtue of his salve for corns,

His worm-cake and his pills, puffs his known skill,
And shews his kettle, silver knives and forks,
Ladle and cream-pòt, and, to crown the whole,
The splendid tankard. Andrew grins, and courts
The gaping multitude, till Tom and Sue
And Abigail and Ned their shoulders shrug,
And laugh and whisper, and resolve to sport
The solitary shilling. See produc'd

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Their unwash'd handkerchiefs. Ah! simple swains,
Ah! silly maids, you laugh, but Andrew wins.,
And what for you but sorrow and remorse,
Or box of salve to plaíster disappointment?
Unless the smart of folly may be sooth`d
By Andrew's merry pranks, the dancing girl,
And frolic tumbler. Now the street is fill'd
With stalls and booths for gingerbread and beer,
Rear'd by enchantment, finish'd in a trice.
Amusements here for children of all sorts;
For little master's pence, a coach, a drum.

A horse, a wife, a trumpet; dolls for miss,
Fans, cups and saucers, kettles, maids and churns.
For idle school-boys Punchinello rants,
The juggler shuffles, and the artful dame
Extends her lucky bag. For infants tall,
Of twenty years and upwards, rueful games,
To whirl the horse-shoe, bowl at the nine-pins,
Game at the dial-plate, drink beer and gin,
Rant, rave, and swear, cudgel, get drunk and fight.
Then comes the ass-race. Let not wisdom frown
If the grave clerk look on, and now and then
Bestow a smile; for we may see, Alcanor,
In this untoward race the ways of life.
Are we not asses all? we start and run,
And eagerly we press to pass the goal,
And all to win a bauble, a lac'd hat.
Was not great Wolsey such? He ran the race
And won the hat. What ranting politician,
What prating lawyer, what ambitious clerk,
But is an ass that gallops for a hat?

For what do Princes strive, but gilded hats?
For diadems, whose bare and scanty brims
Will hardly keep the sun-beam from their eyes.
For what do Poets strive? a leafy hat,

Without or crown or brim, which hardly screens
The empty noddle from the fist of scorn,

Much less repels the critic's thund'ring arm.

And here and there intoxication too

Concludes the race. Who wins the hat, gets drunk.
Who wins a laurel, mitre, cap, or crown,

Is drunk as he. So Alexander fell,

So Haman, Cæsar, Spencer, Wolsey, James.

LIBERTY the chief Recommendation of ENGLAND. (COWPER.)

"TIS Liberty alone that gives the flow'r

Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume,
And we are weeds without it. All constraint,
Except what wisdom lays on evil men,
Is evil; hurts the faculties, impedes

Their progress in the road of science; blinds
The eyesight of discov'ry, and begets,
In those that suffer it, a sordid mind

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Bestial, a meagre intellect, unfit

To be the tenant of man's noble form.
Thee therefore still, blame-worthy as thou art,
With all thy loss of empire, and though squeez'd
By public exigence till annual food

Fails for the craving hunger of the state,
Thee I account still happy, and the chief
Among the nations, seeing thou art free!
My native nook of earth! thy clime is rude,
Replete with vapours, and disposes much
All hearts to sadness, and none more than mine;
Thine unadult'rate manners are less soft
And plausible than social life requires,
And thou hast need of discipline and art
To give thee what politer France receives
From Nature's bounty-that humare address
And sweetness, without which no pleasure is
In converse, either starv'd by cold reserve,
Or flush'd with fierce dispute, a senseless brawl;
Yet being free, I love thee: for the sake
Of that one feature can be well content,
Disgrac'd as thou hast been, poor as thou art,
To seek no sublunary rest beside.

But once enslav'd, farewel! I could endure
Chains no where patiently; and chains at home
Where I am free by birthright, not at all.
Then what were left of roughness in the grain
Of British natures, wanting its excuse
That it belongs to freemen, would disgust
And shock me. I should then, with double pai),
Feel all the rigor of thy fickle clime;

And if I must bewail the blessing lost,
For which our Hampdens and our Sidneys bled,
I would at least bewail it under skies
Milder, among a people less austere,

In scenes which, having never known me free,
Would not reproach me with the loss I felt.
Do I forebode impossible events,

And tremble at vain dreams? Heav'n grant I may!
But th' age of virtuous politics is past,

And we are deep in that of cold pretence.

Patriots are grown too shrewd to be sincere,

And we too wise to trust them. He that takes
Deep in his soft credulity the stamp

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