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 Praise, thy fecret-ftimulating Friend.
Was Man not proud, what Merit fhould we mifs?
Pride made the Virtues of the Pagan World.
Praise is the Salt that seasons Right to Man,
And whets his Appetite for moral Good.
Thirst of Applause is Virtue's second Guard;
Reason, her First; but Reason wants an Aid;
Our private Reason is a Flatterer;
Thirst of Applause calls publick Judgment in,
To poife our own, to keep an even Scale,
And give endanger'd Virtue fairer Play.
Here a Fifth Proof arises, ftronger ftill:
Why this so nice Construction of our Hearts ?
These delicate Moralities of Sense?
This conftitutional Reserve of Aid
To fuccour Virtue, when our Reason 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) muft die?
Why freighted-rich, to dash against a Rock?
Was Man to perish when moft fit to live,
O how mifpent were all these Stratagems,
By Skill Divine inwoven in our Frame?
Where is 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 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

To this

great
End keen inftinct ftings him on.
To guide that Inftinct, Reafon! is thy Charge;
'Tis Thine to tell us where true Treasure lies:
But Reason failing to difcharge her Truft,.
Or to the Deaf difcharging it in vain,
A Blunder follows, and blind Indufiry,

Gall'd by the Spur, but Stranger to the Course,
(The Courfe where Stakes of more than Gold are won)
O'er-loading, with the Cares of distant Age,
The jaded Spirits of the prefent Hour,

Provides for an Eternity below.

"THOU fhalt not covet," is a wife Command,
But bounded to the Wealth the Sun furveys:
Look farther, the Command ftands 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 Thirft 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 I 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 sparkle in the Bowl of Bliss.

SEE the Third Witness laughs at Bliss remote,
And falfly promises an Eden here;

Truth fhe shall speak 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 firft thy real Friend.
SINCE Nature made us not more fond, than proud
Of Happiness, (whence Hypocrites in Joy,

Makers

Makers of Mirth! Artificers of Smiles!)
Why should the Joy moft poignant Senfe affords,
Burn us with Blushes, and rebuke our Pride?
Thofe 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 Inftinct fpeaks our Lineage high;
This Inftinct calls on Darkness to conceal
Our rapturous Relation to the Stalls.
Our Glory covers us with noble Shame,
And he that's unconfounded, is unmanned.
The Man that blushes 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 Sentence in her Court,
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 Inftincts are a Riddle; "Without it, all his Virtues are a Dream: "His very Crimes atteft his Dignity; "His fatelefs Thirft of Pleasure, Gold, and Fame, "Declares him born for Bleffings infinite;

"What, lefs than Infinite, makes unabfurd

Paffions, which all on Earth but more inflames? "Fierce Paffions fo mifmeafur'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

YE gentle Theologues, of calmer Kind!
Whose Constitution dictates to your Pen,

Who, Cold yourselves, think Ardor comes from Hell !
Think not our Paffions from Corruption sprung,
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 Paffions too,

Which speaks their high Descent, 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.

Like the proud Eaftern, ftruck by Providence,
What tho' our Paffions are run mad, and stoop
With low, terreftrial Appetite, to graze,

On Trash, on Toys, dethron'd from high Defire;
Yet ftill, thro' their Difgrace, no feeble Ray
Of Greatness shines, and tells us whence they fell:
But Thefe, (like that fall'n Monarch when reclaim'd)
When Reafon moderates the Rein aright,

Shall reafcend, remount their former Sphere,
Where, once, they foar'd Illuftrious; ere feduc'd,
By wanton Eve's Debauch, to ftrole on Earth,
And fet the fublunary World on Fire.

BUT grant their Frenzy lasts; their Frenzy fails To disappoint one providential End ;

Was Reason filent, boundless Paffion speaks
A future Scene of boundless Objects too,
And brings glad Tidings of eternal Day.
Eternal Day! 'Tis that enlightens All;
And All, by that enlighten'd, proves it fure.
Confider Man as an immortal Being,
Intelligible, All; and All is Great;
A cryftalline Transparency prevails,

And strikes full Luftre thro' the Human Sphere;
Confider Man as mortal, All is dark,

And wretched; Reason weeps at the Survey. THE

THE learn'd LORENZO cries, " And let her weep, Weak, modern Reason; antient Times were wise. "Authority, that venerable Guide,

"Stands on my Part; the fam'd Athenian Porch,
(And who for Wisdom so renown'd as They?)
"Deny'd this Immortality to Man."
I grant it; but affirm they prov'd it too.
A Riddle, this? Have Patience, I'll explain.

WHAT noble Vanities, what moral Flights,
Glitt'ring thro' their romantic Wisdom's Page,
Make us, at once, despise them, and admire ?
Fable is flat to These high-feafon'd Sires,

They leave th' Extravagance of Song below.
"Flesh shall not feel; or feeling, shall enjoy
"The Dagger, or the Rack; to them alike
"A Bed of Roses, or the burning Bull."
In Men exploding all beyond the Grave,
Strange Doctrine, This: As Doctrine it was strange,
But not as Prophecy; for such it prov'd,

And, to their own Amazement, was fulfill'd:
They feign'd a Firmness Chriftians need not feign,
The Chriftian truly triumph'd in the Flame:
The Stoic faw, in double Wonder loft,
Wonder at Them, and Wonder at Himself,
To find the bold Adventures of his Thought
Not bold, and that he strove to lye in vain.
WHENCE, then, thofe Thoughts? Those tow'ring
Thoughts that flew

Such monstrous Heights? From Instinct, and from
Pride.

The glorious Inftinct of a deathless Soul,
Confus'dly conscious of her Dignity,
Suggested Truths, they could not understand.
In Luft's Dominion, and in Paffion's Storm,
Truth's Syftem broken, scatter'd Fragments lay,
As light in Chaos, glimm'ring thro' the Gloom :

Smit