AN EPISTLE ΤΟ A PROTESTANT LADY IN FRANCE. MADAM, A STRANGER'S purpose in these lays Is to congratulate, and not to praise. To give the creature her Creator's due Were sin in me, and an offence to you. From man to man, or ev'n to woman paid, Praise is the medium of a knavish trade, A coin by craft for folly's use designed, Spurious, and only current with the blind. The path of sorrow, and that path alone, Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown; No traveller ever reached that blest abode, Who found not thorns and briars in his road. The world may dance along the flowery plain, To rescue from the ruins of mankind, prove, Called for a cloud to darken all their years, Oh salutary streams that murmur there, These flowing from the fount of grace above, And sudden sorrow nips their springing joys, An envious world will interpose its frown But ills of every shape and every name Ah, be not sad, although thy lot be cast Thy tears all issue, from a source divine, And every drop bespeaks a Saviour. thine "Twas thus in Gideon's fleece the dews were found, And drought on all the drooping herbs around. VOL. I. 2 F TO THE RÉV. W. CAWTHORNE UNWIN. I. UNWIN, I should but ill repay The kindness of a friend, Whose worth deserves as warm a lay As ever friendship penned, Thy name omitted in a page, That would reclaim a vicious age. III. The bud inserted in the rind, The bud of peach or rose, Adorns, though differing in its kind, The stock whereon it grows, With flower as sweet, or fruit as fair, As if produced by nature there. IV. Not rich, I render what I may, I seize thy name in haste,' And place it in this first essay, Lest this should prove the last. "Tis where it should be-in a plan That holds in view the good of man. V. The poet's lyre, to fix his fame, Should be the poet's heart; Affection lights a brighter flame |