The course of human things from good to ill,
From ill to worse, is fatal, never fails.
Increase of pow'r begets increase of wealth;
Wealth luxury, and luxury excefs;
Excefs, the fcrophulous and itchy plague
That seizes first 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 license 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 scenes their prefence might protect.
Authority herself not seldom 'fleeps,
Though refident, and witnefs of the wrong.
The plump convivial parfon often bears
The magisterial sword in vain, and lays
His rev'rence and his worship both to rest
On the fame cushion of habitual floth.
Perhaps timidity restrains his arm;

When he should strike he trembles, and sets free,
Himself enflav'd by, terror of the band,

Th' audacious convict, whom he dares not bind.
Perhaps, though by profeffion, ghoftly pure,
He too may have his vice, and fometimes prove
Lefs dainty than becomes his grave outfide

In lucrative concerns. Examine well

His milk-white hand; the palm is hardly clean-
But here and there an ugly fmutch appears.

Foh! 'twas a bribe that left it: he has touch'd
Corruption. Whofo feeks an audit here
Propitious, pays his tribute, game or fish,
Wildfowl or ven'son, 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 with'd remov❜d,
Works the deplor'd and mischievous effect.
'Tis univerfal foldiership has stabb'd
The heart of merit in the meaner clafs.
Arms, through the vanity and brainless rage
Of those that bear them, in whatever cause,
Seem most 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 balloted, and trembles at the news:
Sheepish he doffs his hat, and, mumbling, swears
A Bible-oath to be whate'er they please,
To do he knows not what. The task perform'd,
That inftant he becomes the ferjeant's care,
His pupil, and his torment, and his jest.
His awkward gait, his introverted toes,

Bent

Bent knees, round shoulders, and dejected looks,
Procure him many a curfe. By flow degrees,
Unapt to learn, and form'd of stubborn stuff,
He yet by flow degrees puts off himself,
Grows conscious of a change, and likes it well:
He stands erect; his flouch becomes a walk;
He steps right onward, martial in his air,
His form, and movement; is as fmart above
As meal and larded locks can make him; wears
His hat, or his plum'd helmet, with a grace;
And his three years of herofhip expir'd,
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 finart comrades he has left.
Twent well if his exterior change were all→→→
But with his clumfy port the wretch has lost
His ignorance and harmless manners too.
To fwear, to game, to drink; to fhew at home,
By lewdness, idleriefs, and fabbath-breach,
The great proficiency he made abroad;
T'aftonish and to grieve his gazing friends;
To break fome maiden's and his mother's heart 3
To be a pest where he was useful once;
Are his fole aim, and all his glory now.

Man in fociety is like a flow'r

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 leagu'd with man
By regal warrant, or felf-join'd by bond
For interest-fake, or fwarming into clans
Beneath one head for purposes of war,
Like flow'rs felected from the reft, and bound
And bundled close to fill some crowded vafe,
Fades rapidly, and, by compreffion marr'd,
Contracts defilement not to be endur'd.

Hence charter'd boroughs are such public plagues;
And burghers, men immaculate perhaps
In all their private functions, once combin❜d,
Become a loathsome body, only fit

For diffolution, hurtful to the main.
Hence merchants, unimpeachable of fin
Against the charities of domestic life,
Incorporated, feem at once to lofe

Their nature, and, disclaiming all regard
For mercy and the common rights of man,
Build factories with blood, conducting trade
At the fword's point, and dying the white robe
Of innocent commercial juftice red.
Hence too the field of glory, as the world
Mifdeems it, dazzled by its bright array,
With all its majesty of thund'ring pomp,
Enchanting mufic and immortal wreaths,.
Is but a school where thoughtleffness is taught

On

On principle, where foppery atones
For folly, gallantry for ev'ry vice.

But flighted as it is, and by the great
Abandon'd, and, which ftill I more regret
Infected with the manners and the modes

It knew not once, the country wins me ftill.
I never fram'd a wifh, or form'd a plan,
That flatter'd me with hopes of earthly bliss,
But there I laid the fcene. There early stray'd
My fancy, ere yet liberty of choice

Had found me, or the hope of being free..
My very dreams were rural, rural too
The first-born efforts of my youthful mufe,
Sportive, and jingling her poetic bells
Ere yet her ear was mistress of their pow'rs.
No:bard could please me but whofe lyre was tun'd
To Nature's praises. Heroes and their feats
Fatigu'd me, never weary of the pipe

Of Tityrus, affembling, as he fang,
The ruftic throng beneath his fav'rite beech.
Then Milton had indeed a poet's charms :
New to my taste, his Paradise furpafs'd
The struggling efforts of my boyifh tongue
To speak its excellence; I danc'd for joy.
I marvel'd much that at fo ripe an age
As twice fev'n years, his beauties had then firft
Engag'd my wonder, and admiring still,

And