When she from exercise to learned ease

Shall change again, and teach the change to please..
Now friends conversing my soft hours refine
And Tully's Tusculum revives in mine :
Now to grave books I bid the mind retreat,
And such as make me rather good than great;
Or o'er the works of easy Fancy rove,
Where flutes and innocence amuse the grove:
The native bard that on Sicilian plains

First sung
the lowly manners of the swains,
Or Maro's Muse, that in the fairest light/
Paints rural prospects and the charms of sight;
These soft amusements bring content along,
And fancy, void of sorrow, turns to song,
Here, beauteous Health! for all the
year remain
When the next comes, I'll charm thee thus again..

PARNELL.

On Pride.

Of all the causes which conspire to blind

Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,
Ís Pride, the never-failing vice of fools.
Whatever Nature has in worth deny'd,
She gives in large recruits of needless pride!
For, as in bodies, thus in souls, we find
What wants in blood and spirits, swell'd with
wind.

Pride, where wit fails, steps into our defence,
And fills up all the mighty void of sense.
If once right Reason drives that cloud away,
Truth breaks upon us with resistless day.
Trust not yourself; but, your defects to know,
Make use of ev'ry friend-and ev'ry foe.
A little learning is a dang'rous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring :-
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain!
And drinking largely sobers us again.
Fir'd at first sight with what the Muse imparts,
In fearless youth we tempt the heights of arts,
While, from the bounded level of our mind,
Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind;
But, more advanc'd, behold with strange surprise,
New distant scenes of endless science rise !
So pleas'd at first the tow'ring Alps we try,
Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky;
Th' eternal snows appear already past,

And the first clouds and mountains seem the last:
But, those attain'd, we tremble to survey.
The growing labours of the lengthen'd way;
Th' increasing prospect tires our wand'ring eyes;
Hills
peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise.

POPE.

Picture of a good Man.

ITH aspect mild, and elevated eye, Behold him seated on a mount serene

Above the fogs of Sense, and Passion's storm:
All the black cares, and tumults of this life,
Like harmless thunders, breaking at his feet,
Excite his pity, not impair his peace..
Earth's genuine son's, the sceptred and the slave,
A mingled mob! a wand'ring herd! he sees
Bewilder'd in the vale; in all unlike!
His full reverse in all! what higher praise?
What stronger demonstration of the right?
The present all their care; the future his.
When public welfare calls, or private want,
They give to fame; his bounty he conceals.
Their virtues varnish nature; his exalt.
Mankind's esteem they court; and he his own,
Theirs the wild chase of false felicities;.
His, the compos'd possession of the true.
Alike throughout in his consistent piece
All of one colour, and an even thread;
While party-colour'd shreds of happiness,.
With hideous gaps between,patch up
for them
A madman's robe; each puff of fortune blows
The tatters by, and shews their nakedness.

He sees with other eyes than theirs: Where they Behold a sun, he spies a Deity:

What makes them only smik, makes him adore.
Where they see mountains, he but atoms sees,;
An empire in his balance, weighs a grain..
They things terrestrial worship, as divine ::
His hopes immortal blow them by, as dust,
That dims his sight, and shortens his survey,
Which longs, in infinite, to lose all bound.
Titles and honours (if they prove his fate),
He lays aside to find his dignity;

No dignity they find in aught besides.
They triumph in externals, (which conceal!

as man:

Man's real glory,) proud of an eclipse:
Himself too much he prizes to be proud;
And nothing thinks so great in man,
Too dear he holds his int'rest, to neglect
Another's welfare, or his right invade ;
Their int'rest, like a lion, lives on prey.
They kindle at the shadow of a wrong;
Wrong he sustains with temper, looks on heav'n,
Nor stoops to think his injurer his foe ;
Nought, but what wounds his virtue, wounds his
peace.

A cover'd heart their character defends
A cover'd heart denies him half his praise.
With nakedness his innocence agrees,
While their broad foilage testifies their fall!
Their no joys end, where his full feast begins::
His joys create, theirs murder, future bliss.
To triumph in existence, his alone;
And his alone triumphantly to think
His true existence is not yet begun..

His glorious course was, yesterday, complete:
Death, then, was welcome; yet still life is sweet.

YOUNG.

XVIII. Douglas to Lord Randolph.

XIX. Othello's Apology.

Thomson. 49

Grainger. 51

Home. 54

Shakespeare. 55