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Or, at his peril, imitate his God?

Since virtue fometimes ruins us on earth,
Or both are true, or man furvives the

grave.
Qr man furvives the grave, or own, Lorenzo,
Thy boast fupreme a wild abfurdity.

Dauntless thy fpirit; cowards are thy fcorn.
Grant man immortal, and thy fcorn is just.
The man immortal, rationally brave,

Dares rush on death, because he cannot dies
But if man lofes all when life is loft,
He lives a coward, or a fool expires.
A daring infidel, (and fuch there are
From, pride, example, lucre, rage, revenge,.
Or pure heroical defect of thought),
Of all earth's madmen, most deserves a chain.
When to the grave we follow the renown'd

For valour, virtue, science, all we love,

And all we praife; for worth, whofe noon-tide beam,. Enabling us to think in higher style,,

Mends our ideas of ethereal pow'rs;

Dream we, that luftre of the moral world
Goes out in ftench, and rottennefs the clofe?
Why was he wife to know, and warm to praise,
And ftrenuous to tranfcribe, in human life,
The mind ALMIGHTY? Could it be, that Fate
Juft when the lineaments began to fhine,
And dawn the DEITY, should snatch the draught,»
With night eternal blot it out, and give
The Akies alarm, left angels too might die?
If human fouls, why not angelic too
Extinguish'd? and a folitary God,

O'er ghaftly ruin, frowning from his throne ?
Shall we, this moment, gaze on GoDin man ?
The next, lofe man for ever in the duft?
From duft we difengage, or man mistakes;
And there, where leaft his judgment fears a flaw.
Wifdom and Worth, how boldly he commends !
Wisdom and Worth, are facred names; rever'd,
Where not embrac'd; applauded, deify'd!

Why not compaffion'd too. If fpirits die,
Both are calamities, inflicted both,
To make us but more wretched.
Acute, for what; To spy more miseries;

Wisdom's eye

And worth, fo recompens'd new-points their ftings.
Or man furmounts the grave, or gain is lofs,
And worth exalted humbles us the more.

Thou wilt not patronize a scheme that makes
Weakness and vice the refuge of mankind.
"Has virtue then no joys?"--Yes, joys dear-bought.
Talk ne'er fo long, in this imperfect state,
Virtue, and Vice, are at eternal war,
Virtue's a combat; and who fights for nought?
Or for precarious, or for fmall reward?
Who Virtue's felf-reward so loud refound,
Would take degrees angelic here below,
And Virtue, while they compliment, betray,
By feeble motives, and unfaithful guards.
The crown, th' unfading crown, her foul infpires:
”Tis that, and that alone, can countervail
The body's treach'ries, and the world's affaults:
On earth's poor pay, our famish'd virtue dies.
Truth inconteftible! in spite of all

A BAYLE has preach'd, or a V— E believ'd.
In man, the more we dive, the more we fee
Heav'ns fignet ftamping, an immortal make.
Dive to the bottom of his foul, the base
Suftaining all; what find we? Knowledge, love.
As light, and heat, effential to the fun,
Thefe to the foul. And why, if fouls expire?
How little lovely here? how little known?
Small knowledge we dig up with endless toil!
And love unfeign'd may purchase perfect hate.
Why ftarv'd on earth, our angel appetites;
While brutal are indulg'd their fulfome fill?
Were then capacities divine conferr'd,
As a mock diadem, in favage fport,
Rank infult of our pompous poverty,

Which reapsbut pain, from fe eming claims fo fairs

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In future age lies no redress; and fhuts
Eternity the door on our complaint?

If fo, for what strange ends were mortals made!
The worst to wallow and the best to weep:
The man who merits most, must most complain.
Can we conceive a difregard in heaven,
What the worst perpetrate, or best endure?

This cannot be. To love, and know, in man
Is boundless appetite, and boundless pow'r ;
And thefe demonftrate boundless objects too.
Objects, pow'rs, appetites, Heav'n fuits in all,
Nor, Nature thro' e'er violates this sweet,
Eternal concord, on her tuneful ftrings.
Is man the foul exception from her laws?
Eternity ftruck off from human hope,
(I fpeak with truth, but veneration too,)
Man is a monster, the reproach of Heav'n,
A ftain, a dark impenetrable cloud

On Nature's beauteous afpect; and deforms,
(Amazing blot!) deforms her with her Lord.
If fuch is man's allotment, what is Heav'n?
Or own the foul immortal, or blafpheme.
Or own the foul immortal, or invert
All order. Go, mock majefty! go, man!
And bow to thy fuperiors of the stall;
Thro' every fcene of fenfe fuperior far!
They graze the turf untill'd; they drink the stream
Unbrew'd, and ever full, and unembitter'd
With doubts, fears, fruitless hopes, regrets, defpairs ;
Mankind's peculiar, Reafon's precious dow'r!
No foreign clime they ranfack for their robes;
. Nor brothers cite to the litigious bar;
Their good is good entire, unmix'd unmarr'd;
They find a paradife in every field,

On boughs forbidden where no curfes hang:
Their ill, no more than ftrikes the fenfe; unftretch'd.
By previous dread, or murmur in the rear ;

When the worst comes, it comes unfear'd; one stroke
Begins, and ends, their woe; they die but once :

Bleft, incommunicable privilege! for which

Proud man, who rules the globe, and reads the stars, Philofopher, or hero, fighs in vain.

Account for this prerogative in brutes.

No day, no glimps of day, to folve the knot,
But what beams on it from eternity,

O fole and fweet folution! that unties
The difficult, and foftens the fevere;
The cloud on Nature's beauteous face difpels;
Reftores bright order; cafts the brute beneath;
And re-inthrones us in fupremacy

Ofjoy, ev'n here: Admit immortal life,
And Virtue is knight-errantry no more;
Each virtue brings in hand a golden dow'r,
Far richer in reverfion: Hope exults;
And tho' much bitter in our cup is thrown,
Predominates, and gives the taite of Heav'n.
O wherefore is the Deity fo kind?
Aftonishing beyond aftonishment?

Heav'n our reward-for Heav'n enjoy'd below!
Still unfubdu'd thy stubborn heart? for there
The traitor lurks who doubts the truth I fing.
Reafon is guiltlefs; Will alone rebels.

What, in that stubborn heart, if I fhould find
New, unexpected witaeffes against thee?

Ambition, Pleafure, and the Love of Gain!

Canft thou fufpect that thefe, which make the Soul*
The flave of earth, fhould own her heir of Heav'n?
Canft thou fufpect what makes us difbelieve
Our immortality, fhould prove it fure?

First, then, Ambition fummon to the bar.
Ambition's fhame, extravagance, difgufi,
And inextinguishable nature, speak.
Each much depofes; hear them in their turn.
Thy foul, how paffionately fond of fame!
How anxious, that fond paffion to conceal!
We blufh, detected in defigns on praise,
Tho' for beft deeds, and from the best of men ;
And why? because immortal. Art divine

N

Has made the body tutor to the foul;
Heav'n kindly gives our blood a moral flow;
Bids it afcend the glowing cheek, and there
Upbraid that little heart's inglorious aim,
Which stoops to court a character from man;
While o'er us, in tremendous judgment fit
Far more than man, with endless praise and blame.
Ambition's boundless appetite out-fpeaks

The verdict of its fame.

When fouls take fire
At high prefumption of their own defert,

One age is poor applaufe; the mighty fhout,
The thunder by the living few begun,
Late time muft echo; worlds unborn, refound,
We wish our names eternally to live:

Wild dream! which ne'er had haunted human thought
Had not our natures been eternal too.
Inftinct points out an int'reft in hereafter;
But our blind reafon fees not where it lies;
Or feeing, gives the fubftance for the fhade.
Fame is the fhade of immortality.

And in itself a fhadow. Soon as caught,
Contemn'd; it fhrinks to nothing in the grasp.
Confult th' ambitious, 'tis ambition's cure.
"And is this all ?" cry'd Cafar at his height,
Difgufted. This third proof ambition brings
Of immortality. The firft in fame,
Obferve him near, your envy will abate:
Sham'd at the difproportion vaft, between
The paffion and the purchase, he will figh
At fuch fuccefs, and blufh at his renown.
And why? Because far richer prize invites
His heart; far more illuftrious glory calls:
It calls in whifpers; yet the deafelt here.

And can ambition a fourth proof fupply?
It
can, and ftronger than the former three;
Yet quite o'erlook'd by fome reputed wife.
Tho' difappointments in ambition pain,
And tho' fuccefs difgufts; yet ftill, LOR ENZO
In vain we ftrive to pluck it from our hearts;

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