Terribly arched and aquiline his nofe,
And overbuilt with most impending brows,
'Twere well, could you permit the world to live
As the world pleafes. What's the world to you?
Much. I was born of woman, and drew milk
As sweet as charity from human breafts.
I think, articulate, I laugh and weep,
And exercise all functions of a man.
How then should I and any man that lives
Be ftrangers to each other? Pierce my vein,
Take of the crimson stream meandering there,
And catechise it well; apply thy glass,
Search it, and prove now if it be not blood
Congenial with thine own: and, if it be,
What edge of fubtlety canft thou fuppofe
Keen enough, wife and skilful as thou art,
To cut the link of brotherhood, by which
One common Maker bound me to the kind?
True; I am no proficient, I confefs,

In arts like your's. I cannot call the swift
And perilous lightnings from the angry clouds,
And bid them hide themselves in earth beneath;
I cannot analyfe the air, nor catch

The parallax of yonder luminous point,

That feems half quenched in the immense abyfs: Such powers I boaft not-neither can I reft

A filent witnefs of the headlong rage,

Or heedlefs folly, by which thousands die,
Bone of my bone, and kindred souls to mine.

God never meant that man should scale the heavens By ftrides of human wisdom. In his works, Though wondrous, he commands us in his word To feek him rather, where his mercy fhines. The mind indeed, enlightened from above, Views him in all; afcribes to the grand caufe The grand effect; acknowledges with joy His manner, and with rapture taftes his style. But never yet did philosophic tube, That brings the planets home into the eye Of obfervation, and discovers, elfe

Not visible, his family of worlds,

Discover him, that rules them; fuch a veil
Hangs over mortal eyes, blind from the birth,
And dark in things divine. Full often too
Our wayward intellect, the more we learn
Of nature, overlooks her author more;
From inftrumental caufes proud to draw
Conclufions retrograde, and mad mistake.
But if his word once teach us, fhoot a ray
Through all the heart's dark chambers, and reveal
Truths undifcerned but by that holy light,

Then all is plain. Philofophy, baptized
In the pure fountain of eternal love,

Has eyes indeed; and viewing all she fees
As meant to indicate a God to man,

Gives him his praise, and forfeits not her own.
Learning has borne fuch fruit in other days
On all her branches: piety has found

Friends in the friends of science, and true prayer
Has flowed from lips wet with Caftalian dews.
Such was thy wisdom, Newton, childlike fage!
Sagacious reader of the works of God,

And in his word fagacious. Such too thine,
Milton, whofe genius had angelic wings,
And fed on manna! And fuch thine, in whom
Our British Themis gloried with juft cause,
Immortal Hale! for deep difcernment praised,
And found integrity, not more than famed
For fanctity of manners undefiled.

All flesh is grafs, and all its glory fades Like the fair flower dishevelled in the wind; Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream. The man we celebrate muft find a tomb, And we that worship him ignoble graves. Nothing is proof against the general curfe Of vanity, that feizes all below.

The only amaranthine flower on earth

Is virtue; the only lafting treasure, truth.
But what is truth? 'twas Pilate's queftion put
To Truth itself, that deigned him no reply.
And wherefore? will not God impart his light
To them that afk it ?-Freely-'tis his joy,
His glory, and his nature, to impart.
But to the proud, uncandid, infincere,
Or negligent, inquirer not a spark.

What's that, which brings contempt upon a book
And him who writes it, though the ftyle be neat,
The method clear, and argument exa&t. ?
That makes a minifter in holy things

The joy of many, and the dread of more,

His name a theme for praise and for reproach? —
That, while it gives us worth in God's account,
Depreciates and undoes us in our own?
What pearl is it that rich men cannot buy,
That learning is too proud to gather up ;
But which the poor, and the despised of all,
Seek and obtain, and often find unfought?
Tell me and I will tell thee what is truth.

O friendly to the beft pursuits of man, Friendly to thought, to virtue, and to peace, Domeftic life in rural leifure paffed!

Few know thy value, and few tafte thy sweets;
Though many boaft thy favours, and affect
To underftand and choose thee for their own.
But foolish man foregoes his proper blifs,
Ev'n as his firft progenitor, and quits,
Though placed in paradife, (for earth has ftill
Some traces of her youthful beauty left)
Substantial happiness for tranfient joy.
Scenes formed for contemplation, and to nurse
The growing feeds of wisdom; that fuggeft,
By every pleafing image they present,
Reflections fuch as meliorate the heart,
Compofe the paffions, and exalt the mind;
Scenes fuch as thefe 'tis his fupreme delight
To fill with riot, and defile with blood.
Should fome contagion, kind to the poor brutes
We perfecute, annihilate the tribes,

That draw the sportsman over hill and dale
Fearless and rapt away from all his cares;
Should never game-fowl hatch her eggs again,
Nor baited hook deceive the fish's eye;
Could pageantry and dance, and feaft and fong,
Be quelled in all our fummer-months' retreat;
How many felf-deluded nymphs and swains,
Who dream they have a tafte for fields and groves,
Would find them hideous nurseries of the spleen,