That felf-condemned they muft neglect the prize,
And what they will not taste muft yet approve.
What we admire we praife; and when we praise,
Advance it into notice, that its worth
Acknowledged, others may admire it too.
I therefore recommend, though at the risk
Of popular difguft, yet boldly ftill,
The cause of piety and sacred truth,
And virtue, and thofe fcenes, which God ordained
Should beft fecure them and promote them moft;
Scenes that I love, and with regret perceive
Forfaken, or through folly not enjoyed.
Pure is the nymph, though liberal of her smiles,
And chafte, though unconfined, whom I extol.
Not as the prince in Shufhan, when he called,
Vain-glorious of her charms, his Vashti forth
To grace the full pavilion. His defign
Was but to boaft his own peculiar good,
Which all might view with envy, none partake.
My charmer is not mine alone; my sweets,
And the, that sweetens all my bitters too,
Nature, enchanting nature, in whose form
And lineaments divine I trace a hand,
That errs not, and find raptures ftill renewed,
Is free to all men-universal prize.
Strange that so fair a creature should yet want
Admirers, and be deftined to divide
With meaner objects ev'n the few she finds!
Stripped of her ornaments, her leaves and flowers,
She lofes all her influence. Cities then
Attract us, and neglected Nature pines
Abandoned, as unworthy of our love.
But are not wholesome airs, though unperfumed
By roses; and clear funs, though scarcely felt;
And groves, if unharmonious, yet fecure
From clamour, and whose very filence charms;
To be preferred to smoke, to the eclipse,
That Metropolitan volcanos make,
Whofe Stygian throats breathe darkness all day long;
And to the ftir of commerce, driving flow,
And thundering loud, with his ten thoufand wheels?
They would be, were not madness in the head,
And folly in the heart; were England now,
What England was, plain, hospitable, kind,
And undebauched. But we have bid farewell
To all the virtues of those better days,
And all their honeft pleasures. Manfions once
Knew their own masters; and laborious hinds,
Who had furvived the father, ferved the fon.
Now the legitimate and rightful lord
Is but a tranfient guest, newly arrived,
And foon to be fupplanted. He that faw
His patrimonial timber caft its leaf,
Sells the laft fcantling, and transfers the price
To fome fhrewd fharper, ere it buds again.
Eftates are landfcapes, gazed upon awhile,
Then advertised, and auctioneered away.
The country ftarves, and they, that feed the o'ercharged
And furfeited lewd town with her fair dues,
By a juft judgment ftrip and ftarve themselves.
The wings, that waft our riches out of fight,
Grow on the gamefter's elbows; and the alert
And nimble motion of those restless joints,
That never tire, foon fans them all away.
Improvement too, the idol of the age,
Is fed with many a victim. Lo, he comes!
The omnipotent magician, Brown, appears!
Down falls the venerable pile, the abode
Of our forefathers-a grave whiskered race,
But taftelefs. Springs a palace in its ftead,
But in a diftant fpot; where more exposed
It may enjoy the advantage of the north,
And aguish east, till time fhall have transformed
Thofe naked acres to a fheltering grove.
He speaks. The lake in front becomes a lawn;
Woods vanish, hills fubfide, and vallies rife ;
And ftreams, as if created for his use,
Pursue the track of his directing wand,
Sinuous or ftraight, now rapid and now flow,
Now murmuring foft, now roaring in cafcades-
Ev'n as he bids! The enraptured owner fmiles.
'Tis finished, and yet, finished as it seems,
Still wants a grace, the lovelieft it could show,
A mine to fatisfy the enormous coft.
Drained to the laft poor item of his wealth,
He fighs, departs, and leaves the accomplished plan,
That he has touched, retouched, many a long day
Laboured, and many a night pursued in dreams,
Juft when it meets his hopes, and proves the heaven
He wanted, for a wealthier to enjoy!
And now perhaps the glorious hour is come,
When, having no stake left, no 1 ledge to endear
Her interefts, or that gives her facred caufe
A moment's operation on his love,
He burns with moft intense and flagrant zeal
To ferve his country. Minifterial grace
Deals him out money from the public cheft;
Or, if that mine be fhut, fome private purfe
Supplies his need with an ufurious loan,
To be refunded duly, when his vote
Well-managed fhall have earned its worthy price.
Oh innocent, compared with arts like thefe,
Crape, and cocked pistol, and the whiftling ball
Sent through the traveller's temples! He, that finds
One drop of heaven's fweet mercy in his cup,
Can dig, beg, rot, and perish, well content,
So he may wrap himself in honest rags
At his laft gafp; but could not for a world
Fish up his dirty and dependent bread
From pools and ditches of the commonwealth,
Sordid and fickening at his own fuccefs.
Ambition, avarice, penury incurred
By endless riot, vanity, the luft
Of pleasure and variety, dispatch,
As duly as the fwallows disappear,
The world of wandering knights and fquires to town.
London ingulphs them all! The shark is there,
And the fhark's prey; the fpendthrift and the leech,
That fucks him. There the fycophant, and he
Who, with bare-headed and obfequious bows,
Begs a warm office, doomed to a cold jail
And groat per diem, if his patron frown.
The levee fwarms, as if in golden pomp
Were charactered on every statesman's door,
"BATTERED AND BANKRUPT FORTUNES MENDED
These are the charms,
The charms of nature.
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