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There's a text, it is true, and that text is from God,
But we live by the comment, and not by the code.
Our particular aims give the doctrine its tone;
Each man has a Bible and Creed of his own;

Believes, difbelieves, as the motives draw near,
Takes the one up thro' Vice, and the other thro' Fear:
Deift, orthodox, sceptic, the turbulent elf

Is at war with all nature, his God, and himself.

In a word, 'twere no less than the labour of years To defcribe every shape in which madness appears:

As foon might I count the men, women, and maids, In a feafon whom Graham has fent to the fhades; +Of his pupils how many Tenducci has brought To perform in a way one would never have thought.

A Zealot, 'tis faid, with a foul all on fire, Conceived himself one of the heavenly choir; In the fymphony joined with extatic delight, Or fang hallelujahs from morning to night;

Quot Themifon ægros Autumno occiderit uno.

+

Quot Difcipulos inclinet Hamillus.

Monro

Monro was called in, and, howe'er it fell out,
By art, or by accident, brought him about:
His fervice acknowledged, the Patient quite free,
The Doctor of courfe held his hand for the fee-
"A fee, Sir !—No, no-Have I cause to rejoice?
"Alas! I have now neither fiddle nor voice."

But enough-in this place, I my Author must quit; Convinced that I want both his patience and wit: I leave him to prefs, as he does very hard, On the Mifer, the Prodigal, Gamefter, and Bard, On the Poet! I wonder he touched on that ftring, A Rhyme, good or bad, is so pleasant a thing; With exception for this, I agree from my foul, And am ready with him to conclude on the whole, That Mankind are all mad, and with all their address, Are diftinguished alone by the more or the less.

NOTES.

NOTE S.

NOTE I.

Ah the Graces!.

T was the Paffion of a late Noble Author, to

IT

introduce into this Country a Refinement of Manners. Had he fubftituted Elegance, it had been a better proof of his Tafte; and more acceptable to the Graces, the Saints of his Idolatry.

The Manners are fimple, in the ftricteft fenfe, when they spring from the impulse of Paffion, or Self-love, without regard to the confequence or import Such are the Manners of Achilles and Agamemnon in the opening of the Iliad. This degree of Simplicity will be better diftinguished, if we call it-Rudeness.

In a state of Rudeness, Men live for themselves; In a state of Refinement, they affect to live for others.

As a total inattention to the feelings of others is offenfive; the abfolute facrifice of our own is un

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natural;

natural; and therefore cannot be pleasing; fince it must appear to be, what it really is, the triumph of Vanity, or of Art, over fimpler Manners.

The Medium between thefe extremes, is that Elegance of conduct, by which we render our focial qualities moft pleafing, our selfish, leaft offenfive. All beyond this is Refinement; betrays a defign; and counter-acts the first principle of the Noble Author, Self-interest.

His Doctrine on the Subject of Politenefs would divide Mankind into Knaves and Dupes: they had better continue as they are-Have nothing to do with it, like the English; or reduce it into inno cent forms, like the French.

NOTE

NOTE II.

Thy Language is chafte, without aims or pretence ! 'Tis a fweetness of breath from a foundness of fenfe.

S-"They faw, that to live by one Man's will, became the caufe of all Men's mi

sery !"

Again

"The general and perpetual Voice of Men is, << as the Sentence of God himself. For that which "all men have at all times learned, Nature herself "muft needs have taught. And God being the "Author of Nature, her Voice is but his inftru"ment."

He rifes in Beauty, but never fteps out of Nature. "Of Law there can be no lefs acknowledged, than "that her feat is the bofom of God; her Voice the "harmony of the world: All things in Heaven and "Earth do her homage; the very leaft as feeling "her care, and the greatest as not exempted from "her power: both Angels, and Men, and Crea"tures

4.

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