Who much diseased, yet nothing feel; Who deem His house a useless place, Who trample order; and the day If scorn of God's commands, impress'd Such want it; and that want uncured, Sad period to a pleasant course! Yet so will God repay Sabbaths profaned without remorse, And mercy cast away. INSCRIPTION For a Stone erected at the sowing of a Grove of Oaks at Chillington the Seat of T. GIFFARD, Esq., 1790. [June, 1790.] OTHER stones the era tell, Which shall longest brave the sky, I must moulder and decay, But the years that crumble me Cherish honour, virtue, truth, Stone at heart, and cannot grow. IN MEMORY OF THE LATE JOHN THORNTON, ESQ. [November, 1790.] POETS attempt the noblest task they can, Thee, therefore, of commercial fame, but more Famed for thy probity from shore to shore, Thee, THORNTON! worthy in some page to shine, As honest, and more eloquent than mine, I mourn; or, since thrice happy thou must be, The world, no longer thy abode, not thee. Thee to deplore, were grief mispent indeed; It were to weep that goodness has its meed— That there is bliss prepared in yonder sky, And glory for the virtuous, when they die. What pleasure can the miser's fondled hoard, Or spendthrift's prodigal excess afford, Sweet as the privilege of healing woe, By virtue suffer'd, combating below? That privilege was thine: Heaven gave thee means Avarice, in thee, was the desire of wealth Thine had a value, in the scales of Heaven, Nice in its choice, and of a temper'd heat; Refreshes, where it winds, the faded green, Such was thy charity; no sudden start, After long sleep, of passion in the heart, But steadfast principle, and, in its kind, Of close relation to the Eternal Mind, Traced easily to its true source above,— To Him, whose works bespeak his nature, Love. Thy bounties all were Christian, and I make VERSES TO THE MEMORY OF DR. LLOYD. Translated from the Latin as spoken at the Westminster Election next after his decease. OUR good old friend is gone,-gone to his rest, ye of riper age, who recollect How once ye loved, and eyed him with respect, And richer than the rich in being so, Obtain'd the hearts of all, and such a meed He could congratulate, but envied not. Light lie the turf, good Senior! on thy breast, And tranquil as thy mind was, be thy rest! Though, living, thou hadst more desert than fame, And not a stone, now, chronicles thy name. * He was usher and under-master of Westminster near fifty years, and retired from his occupation when he was near seventy, with a handsome pension from the King. |