Expect her foon with foot-boy at her heels,
No longer blushing for her awkward load,
Her train and her umbrella all her care!
The town has tinged the country; and the ftain Appears a spot upon a veftal's robe,
The worse for what it foils. The fashion runs
Down into scenes ftill rural; but alas,
Scenes rarely graced with rural manners now!
Time was when in the paftoral retreat
The unguarded door was fafe; men did not watch
To invade another's right, or guard their own.
Then fleep was undisturbed by fear, unscared
By drunken howlings; and the chilling tale
Of midnight murder was a wonder heard
With doubtful credit, told to frighten babes.
But farewell now to unfufpicious nights,
And flumbers unalarmed! Now, ere you sleep,
See that your polished arms be primed with care,
And drop the night-bolt;-ruffians are abroad;
And the firft larum of the cock's fhrill throat
May prove a trumpet, fummoning your ear
To horrid founds of hoftile feet within.
Ev'n daylight has its dangers; and the walk
Through pathlefs waftes and woods, unconscious once Of other tenants than melodious birds,
Or harmless flocks, is hazardous and bold.
Lamented change! to which full many a cause
Inveterate, hopeless of a cure, confpires.
The course of human things from good to ill,
From ill to worfe, is fatal, never fails.
Increase of power begets increase of wealth;
Wealth luxury, and luxury excefs;
Excess, the fcrofulous and itchy plague,
That feizes firft the opulent, defcends
To the next rank contagious, and in time
Taints downward all the graduated scale
Of order, from the chariot to the plough.
The rich, and they, that have an arm to check
The licence of the loweft in degree,
Defert their office; and themselves, intent
On pleasure, haunt the capital, and thus
To all the violence of lawless hands.
Refign the fcenes, their prefence might protect.
Authority herself not feldom fleeps,
Though refident, and witness of the wrong.
The plump convivial parfon often bears
The magifterial sword in vain, and lays
His reverence and his worship both to reft
On the fame cushion of habitual floth.
Perhaps timidity reftrains his arm;
When he should strike he trembles, and sets free,
Himself enslaved by terror of the band,
The audacious convict, whom he dares not bind.
Perhaps, though by profeffion ghoftly pure,
He too may have his vice, and sometimes prove
grave outfide
In lucrative concerns. Examine well
Lefs dainty than becomes his
His milk-white hand; the palm is hardly clean-
But here and there an ugly smutch appears.
Foh! 'twas a bribe that left it: he has touched
Corruption. Whofo seeks an audit here
Propitious, pays his tribute, game or fish,
Wild fowl or venifon; and his errand speeds.
But fafter far, and more than all the reft,
A noble cause, which none, who bears a spark
Of public virtue, ever wished removed,
Works the deplored and mischievous effect.
'Tis univerfal foldiership has stabbed
The heart of merit in the meaner clafs.
Arms, through the vanity and brainless rage
Of those that bear them, in whatever cause,
Seem moft at variance with all moral good,
And incompatible with ferious thought.
The clown, the child of nature, without guile,
Bleft with an infant's ignorance of all
But his own fimple pleasures; now and then
A wrestling match, a foot-race, or a fair;
Is ballotted, and trembles at the news:
Sheepish he doffs his hat, and mumbling fwears
A bible-oath to be whate'er they please,
To do he knows not what. The task performed,
That inftant he becomes the ferjeant's care,
His pupil, and his torment, and his jeft.
His awkward gait, his introverted toes,
Bent knees, round shoulders, and dejected looks,
Procure him many a curfe. By flow degrees,
Unapt to learn, and formed of ftubborn ftuff,
He yet by flow degrees puts off himself,
Grows confcious of a change, and likes it well:
He ftands erect; his flouch becomes a walk;
He fteps right onward, martial in his air,
His form, and movement; is as smart above
As meal and larded locks can make him; wears
His hat, or his plumed helmet, with a grace;
And, his three years of herofhip expired,
Returns indignant to the flighted plough.
He hates the field, in which no fife or drum
Attends him; drives his cattle to a march;
And fighs for the smart comrades he has left.
"Twere well if his exterior change were all-
But with his clumfy port the wretch has loft
His ignorance and harmless manners too.
To fwear, to game, to drink; to fhow at home
By lewdness, idleness, and sabbath-breach,
The great proficiency he made abroad;
To aftonish and to grieve his gazing friends;
To break fome maiden's and his mother's heart;
To be a peft where he was useful once;
Are his fole aim, and all his glory, now.
Man in fociety is like a flower
Blown in its native bed: 'tis there alone
His faculties, expanded in full bloom,
Shine out; there only reach their proper use.
But man, affociated and leagued with man
By regal warrant, or felf-joined by bond
For intereft-fake, or fwarming into clans
Beneath one head for purposes of war,
Like flowers felected from the reft, and bound
And bundled close to fill föme crowded vase,
Fades rapidly, and by compreffion marred
Contracts defilement not to be endured.
Hence chartered boroughs are fuch public plagues; And burghers, men immaculate perhaps
In all their private functions, once combined,
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