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If he fair liberty and law

By ruffian pow'r expiring draw,
The keener passions then engage
Aright, and sanctify their rage;
If he attempt disastrous love,

We hear those 'plaints that wound the grove.
Within the kinder passions glow,
And tears distill'd from pity flow."
From the bright vision I descend,
And my deserted theme attend.

Me never did ambition seize,
Strange fever most inflam'd by ease!
The active lunacy of pride,
That courts jilt Fortune for a bride,
· This par'dise-tree, so fair and high,
I view with no aspiring eye:

Like aspen shake the restless leaves,
And Sodom-fruit our pains deceives,
Whence frequent falls give no surprise,
But fits of Spleen, call'd growing wise.
Greatness in glitt'ring forms display'd
Affects weak eyes much us'd to shade,
And by its falsely-envied scene
Gives self-debasing fits of Spleen.
We should be pleas'd that things are so,
Who do for nothing see the show,
And, middle-siz'd, can pass between
Life's hubbub safe, because unseen,
And midst the glare of greatness trace
A wat'ry sunshine in the face,
And pleasure fled to, to redress
The sad fatigue of idleness.

Contentment, parent of delight,
So much a stranger to our sight,
Say, goddess, in what happy place
Mortals behold thy blooming face;
Thy gracious auspices impart,

And for thy temple choose my heart.
They, whom thou deignest to inspire,
Thy science learn, to bound desire;
By happy alchymy of mind

They turn to pleasure all they find;
They both disdain in outward mien
The grave and solemn garb of Spleen,
And meretricious arts of dress,
To feign a joy, and hide distress;
Unmov'd when the rude tempest blows,
Without an opiate they repose;
And, cover'd by your shield, defy
The whizzing shafts, that round them fly:
Nor meddling with the god's affairs,
Concern themselves with distant cares;
But place their bliss in mental rest,
And feast upon the good possess'd.

Forc'd by soft violence of pray'r,
The blithesome goddess soothes my care.
I feel the deity inspire,

And thus she models my desire.
Two hundred pounds half-yearly paid,
Annuity securely made,

A farm some twenty miles from town,
Small, tight, salubrious, and my own;
Two maids, that never saw the town,
A serving-man, not quite a clown;
A boy to help to tread the mow,
And drive, while t'other holds the plow;
A chief, of temper form'd to please,
Fit to converse, and keep the keys;

And better to preserve the peace,
Commission'd by the name of niece.
With understandings of a size
To think their master very wise.
May Heav'n (it's all I wish for) send
One genial room to treat a friend,
Where decent cupboard, little plate,
Display benevolence, not state.
And may my humble dwelling stand
Upon some chosen spot of land:

A pond before full to the brim,

Where cows may cool, and geese may swim;
Behind, a green-like velvet neat,
Soft to the eye, and to the feet;
Where od'rous plants in evening fair
Breathe all around ambrosial air;
From Eurus, foe to kitchen ground,
Fenc'd by a slope with bushes crown'd,
Fit dwelling for the feather'd throng,
Who pay their quit-rents with a song;
With op'ning views of hill and dale,
Which sense and fancy too regale,
Where the half-cirque, which vision bounds,
Like amphitheatre surrounds;

And woods impervious to the breeze,
Thick phalanx of embodied trees,
From hills through plains in dusk array
Extended far, repel the day.

Here stillness, height, and solemn shade
Invite, and contemplation aid:
Here nymphs from hollow oaks relate
The dark decrees and will of Fate,
And dreams beneath the spreading beecn
Inspire, and docile fancy teach;
While soft as breezy breath of wind,
Impulses rustle through the mind.
Here Dryads, scorning Phoebus' ray
While Pan melodius pipes away,
In measur'd motions frisk about,
Till old Silenus puts them out.
There see the clover, pea, and bean,
Vie in variety of green;

Fresh pastures speckled o'er with sheep,
Brown fields their fallow sabbaths keep,
Plump Ceres golden tresses wear,
And poppy top-knots deck her hair,
And silver streams through meadows stray,
And Naïads on the margin play,
And lesser nymphs on side of hills
From plaything urns pour down the rills.
Thus shelter'd, free from care and strife,
May I enjoy a calm through life;
See faction, safe in low degree,
As men at land see storms at sea,
And laugh at miserable elves,
Not kind, so much as to themselves,
Curs'd with such souls of base alloy,
As can possess, but not enjoy;
Debarr'd the pleasure to impart
By av'rice, sphincter of the heart,
Who wealth, hard-earn'd by guilty cares
Bequeath untouch'd to thankless heirs.
May I, with look ungloom'd by guile,
And wearing Virtue's liv'ry-smile,
Prone the distressed to relieve,
And little trespasses forgive,
With income not in Fortune's pow'r,
And skill to make a busy hour,

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height.

For who, thongh thir gun ale.
Dare sunbeam-vallen anths tenv
And greenbe pain summon sense
On the earsar utenca

That moetition nava realt
And club is with those use.
I many a notion alte 3 ask.
Made tradțiul se traOE-TUSK.
Thue arrible, masm sf the und
Jer and certainty I ind.
Smee optic mason shows me plain.
I fragded mentres of the brain;
And legendary fears are one.
Tongh in senacions chudannd w
Vine a sitions I commenes

ranhnidar in the griper BAILAR.
And seiner mit nor service to,
The anmage & pretender show,
10in boast themaeizer by purons al
Lonte of the manor of the ani:
Pralarning sense fem chin that's hare,
To nenes hrond in whisker i hair.
To thee, Creator mereate,
O Entium Ene! divinely great-
Hold, M.se, nor melting pinione try,
Now near the Mazing glory by
Now stratung break thy fechie how,
Unfeatherd are far to throw:
Through falde anitnown nor madly stray
Where no ideas mark the way.
With tender eyes, and colors faint,

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kad se ti tuttanes ir be vang
Ee år us features must ferr
More momines in users.

Cr je supposert a trance.
Carons unce
And to me, when age mes

Canse tumeness is ruininess errs
Thus hus seer ny juk, mi sui
Cnnel woh gentle pre

A heim i nate ny reason sc
My w of suns ui momis.

fart and seng ve some lights
Philosomy me irá her igo-
Emerence holds the cantous glass.
Tin de raters, as I pase.
Auf frequent brows the wary lead,
To see what inngers may be but:
And once seven years I'm seen
At Bach Tmcridge, to careen.
Though pleas'd to see the dolphins plus
I mind my campus and my wa7.
With store muthcient for reisef
And wiseiv sti. prepard to reef.
Not wanting the daperave bowl
Of cloudy weather in the soul.
I make, may Heav'n propitious send
Soch wind and weather to the end,
Neither becaim'd, nor over-blown
Life's voyage to the world unknoW?

ON BARCLAY'S APOLOGY FOR THE QUAKERS.*

THESE sheets primeval doctrines yield,
Where revelation is reveal'd;
Soul-phlegm from literal feeding bred,
Systems lethargic to the head
They purge, and yield a diet thin,
That turns to Gospel-chyle within.
Truth sublimate may here be seen
Extracted from the parts terrene.
In these is shown, how men obtain
What of Prometheus poets feign:
To Scripture plainness dress is brought,
And speech, apparel to the thought.
They hiss from instinct at red coats,
And war, whose work is cutting throats,
Forbid, and press the law of love;
Breathing the spirit of the dove.
Lucrative doctrines they detest,
As manufactur'd by the priest;

And throw down turnpikes, where we pay
For stuff, which never mends the way;

And tythes, a Jewish tax, reduce,
And frank the Gospel for our use.
They sable standing armies break;
But the militia useful make:

Since all unhir'd may preach and pray,
Taught by these rules as well as they;
Rules, which, when truths themselves reveal,
Bid us to follow what we feel.

The world can't hear the small still voice,
Such is its bustle and its noise;
Reason the proclamation reads,
But not one riot passion heeds.
Wealth, honor, power, the graces are,
Which here below our homage share:
They, if one votary they find
To mistress more divine inclin'd,
In truth's pursuit, t cause delay,
Throw golden apples in his way.

Place me, O Heav'n, in some retreat;
There let the serious death-watch beat,
There let me self in silence shun,
To feel thy will, which should be done.
Then comes the Spirit to our hut,
When fast the senses' doors are shut;
For so divine and pure a guest
The emptiest rooms are furnish'd best.
O Contemplation! air serene!
From damps of sense, and fogs of spleen!
Pure mount of thought! thrice holy ground,
Where grace, when waited for, is found.

This celebrated book was written by its author, both in Latin and English, and was afterwards translated into High Dutch, Low Dutch, French, and Spanish, and proba. bly into other languages. It has always been esteemed a very ingenious defence of the principles of Quakerism, even by those who deny the doctrines which it endeavors to establish. The author was born at Edinburgh in 1648, and received part of his education at the Scots College in Paris, where his uncle was principal. His father became one of the earliest converts to the new sect, and from his example, the son seems to have been induced to tread in his steps. He died on the 3d of October, 1690, in the 42d year of his age

Here 'tis the soul feels sudden youth,
And meets exulting, virgin Truth;
Here, like a breeze of gentlest kind,
Impulses rustle through the mind:
Here shines that light with glowing face,
The fuse divine, that kindles grace;
Which, if we trim our lamps, will last,
Till darkness be by dying past.
And then goes out at end of night,
Extinguish'd by superior light.

Ah me! the heats and colds of life,
Pleasure's and pain's eternal strife,
Breed stormy passions, which confin'd,
Shake, like th' Eolian vale, the mind,
And raise despair; my lamp can last,
Plac'd where they drive the furious blast.

False eloquence! big empty sound!
Like showers that rush upon the ground!
Little beneath the surface goes,
All streams along, and muddy flows.
This sinks, and swells the buried grain,
And fructifies like southern rain.

His art, well hid in mild discourse,
Exerts persuasion's winning force,
And nervates so the good design,
That king Agrippa's case is mine.

Well-natur'd, happy shade forgive!
Like you I think, but cannot live.
Thy scheme requires the world's contempt,
That from dependence life exempt;
And constitution fram'd so strong,
This world's worst climate cannot wrong
Not such my lot, not Fortune's brat,
I live by pulling off the hat;
Compell'd by station every hour
To bow to images of power;
And in life's busy scenes immers'd,
See better things, and do the worst.

Eloquent Want, whose reasons sway,
And make ten thousand truths give way,
While I your scheme with pleasure trace.
Draws near, and stares me in the face.
"Consider well your state," she cries,

Like others kneel, that you may rise;
Hold doctrines, by no scruples vex'd,
To which preferment is annex'd;
Nor madly prove, where all depends,
Idolatry upon your friends.

See, how you like my rueful face,
Such you must wear, if out of place.
Crack'd is your brain to turn recluse
Without one farthing out at use.

They, who have lands, and safe bank-stock,
With faith so founded on a rock,

May give a rich invention ease,
And construe Scripture how they please.

"The honor'd prophet, that of old Us'd Heav'n's high counsels to unfold, Did, more than courier angels, greet The crows, that brought him bread and meat

THE SEEKER.

WHEN I first came to London, I rambled about,
From sermon to sermon, took a slice and went out
Then on me, in divinity bachelor, tried
Many priests to obtrude a Levitical bride;

And urging their various opinions, intended To make me wed systems, which they recommended.

Said a lech'rous old friar skulking near Lincoln'sinn,

(Whose trade's to absolve, but whose pastime's to sin;

Who, spider-like, seizes weak Protestant flies, Which hung in his sophistry cobweb he spies ;) "Ah! pity your soul; for without our church pale, If you happen to die, to be damn'd you can't fail; The Bible, you boast, is a wild revelation: Hear a church that can't err, if you hope for salvation."

Said a formal non-con, (whose rich stock of grace Lies forward expos'd in shop-window of face,) Ah! pity your soul: come, be of our sect: For then you are safe, and may plead you're elect. As it stands in the Acts, we can prove ourselves

saints,

Being Christ's little flock everywhere spoke against."
Said a jolly church parson, (devoted to ease,
While penal-law dragons guard his golden fleece,)
'If you pity your soul, I pray listen to neither;
The first is in error, the last a deceiver:

That our's is the true church, the sense of our tribe is,

And surely in medio tutissimus ibis."

Said a yea and nay Friend, with a stiff hat and band,

(Who while he talk'd gravely would hold forth his hand,)

"Dominion and wealth are the aim of all three, Though about ways and means they may all dis

agree;

Then prithee be wise, go the Quaker's by-way, "Tis plain, without turnpikes, so nothing to pay."

THE GROTTO,*

WRITTEN BY MR GREEN, UNDER THE NAME OF PETER DRAKE, A FISHERMAN OF BRENTFORD.

Printed in the year 1732, but not published.

Scilicet hic possis curvo dignoscere rectum, Atque inter silvas Academi quærere verum.

Say, father Thames, whose gentle pace
Gives leave to view what beauties grace
Your flow'ry banks, if you have seen
The much-sung Grotto of the queen.
Contemplative, forget awhile

Oxonian towers, and Windsor's pile,
And Wolsey's pridet (his greatest guilt)
And what great William since has built,
And flowing fast by Richmond scenes,
(Honor'd retreat of two great queens)
From Sion-House, whose proud survey
Browbeats your flood, look 'cross the way,
And view, from highest swell of tide,
The milder scenes of Surrey side.

Though yet no palace grace the shore,
To lodge that pair you should adore;
Nor abbeys, great in ruin, rise,
Royal equivalents for vice;
Behold a grot, in Delphic grove,
The Graces' and the Muses' love.
(0, might our laureate study here,
How would he hail his new-born year!)
A temple from vain glories free,
Whose goddess is Philosophy,
Whose sides such licens'd idols crown
As Superstition would pull down:
The only pilgrimage I know,
That men of sense would choose to go:
Which sweet abode, her wisest choice,
Urania cheers with heavenly voice,
While all the Virtues gather round,
To see her consecrate the ground.
If thou, the god with winged feet,
In council talk of this retreat,
And jealous gods resentment show
At altars rais'd to men below;
Tell those proud lords of Heaven, 'tis fit
Their house our heroes should admit;
While each exists, as poets sing,

A lazy, lewd immortal thing,
They must (or grow in disrepute)
With Earth's first commoners recruit.

Needless it is in terms unskill'd
To praise whatever Boyle § shall build ;
Needless it is the busts to name
Of men, monopolists of fame;
Four chiefs adorn the modest stone,T
For virtue as for learning known;
The thinking sculpture helps to raise
Deep thoughts, the genii of the place:

Hor.

Our wits Apollo's influence beg,
The Grotto makes them all with egg:
Finding this chalkstone in my nest,
I strain, and lay among the rest.

ADIEU awhile, forsaken flood,
To ramble in the Delian wood,
And pray the god my well-meant song
May not my subject's merit wrong.

* A building in Richmond Gardens, erected by Queen Caroline, and committed to the custody of Stephen Duck. At the time this poem was written, many other verses appeared on the same subject.

† Hampton Court, begun by Cardinal Wolsey, and improved by King William III.

Queen Anne, consort to King Richard II. and Queen Elizabeth, both died at Richmond.

Sion-House is now a seat belonging to the Duke of Northumberland.

§ Richard Boyle, Earl of Burlington, a nobleman remark. able for his fine taste in architecture. "Never were protection and great wealth more generously and judiciously diffused than by this great person, who had every quality of a genius and artist, except envy." He died December 4, 1753.

The author should have said five; there being the busts of Newton, Locke, Wollaston, Clarke, and Boyle

To the mind's ear, and inward sight,
Their silence speaks, and shade gives light:
While insects from the threshold preach,
And minds dispos'd to musing teach:
Proud of strong limbs and painted hues,
They perish by the slightest bruise;
Or maladies, begun within,
Destroy more slow life's frail machine;
From maggot-youth through change of state,
They feel like us the turns of fate;
Some born to creep have liv'd to fly,
And change earth-cells for dwellings high;
And some that did their six wings keep,
Before they died been forc'd to creep;
They politics like ours profess,
The greater prey upon the less:
Some strain on foot huge loads to bring,
Some toil incessant on the wing,
And in their different ways explore
Wise sense of want by future store;
Nor from their vigorous schemes desist
Till death, and then are never miss'd.
Some frolic, toil, marry, increase,

Are sick and well, have war and peace,
And, broke with age, in half a day
Yield to successors, and away.

Let not profane this sacred place,
Hypocrisy with Janus' face;

Or Pomp, mixt state of pride and care;
Court Kindness, Falsehood's polish'd ware;
Scandal disguis'd in Friendship's veil,
That tells, unask'd, th' injurious tale;
Or art politic, which allows

The Jesuit-remedy for vows;

Or priest, perfuming crowned head,
"Till in a swoon Truth lies for dead;
Or tawdry critic, who perceives
No grace, which plain proportion gives,
And more than lineaments divine
Admires the gilding of the shrine;
Or that self-haunting spectre Spleen,
In thickest fog the clearest seen;
Or Prophecy, which dreams a lie,
That fools believe and knaves apply;
Or frolic Mirth, profanely loud,
And happy only in a crowd;
Or Melancholy's pensive gloom,
Proxy in Contemplation's room.

O Delia! when I touch this string,
To thee my Muse directs her wing.
Unspotted fair! with downcast look
Mind not so much the murm'ring brook;
Nor fixt in thought, with footsteps slow
Through cypress alleys cherish woe:
I see the soul in pensive fit,
And moping like sick linnet sit.
With dewy eye, and moulting wing,
Unperch'd, averse to fly or sing;
I see the favorite curls begin
(Disus'd to toilet discipline)

To quit their post, lose their smart air,
And grow again like common hair;
And tears, which frequent kerchiefs dry,
Raise a red circle round the eye;
And by this bur about the Moon,
Conjecture more ill weather soon.
Love not so much the doleful knell :
And news the boding night-birds tell;

Nor watch the wainscot's hollow blow;
And hens portentous when they crow;
Nor sleepless mind the death-watch beat;
In taper find no winding-sheet:
Nor in burnt coal a coffin see,
Though thrown at others, meant for thee:
Or when the coruscation gleams,
Find out not first the bloody streams;
Nor in imprest remembrance keep
Grim tap'stry figures wrought in sleep;
Nor rise to see in antique hall
The moonlight monsters on the wall,
And shadowy spectres darkly pass
Trailing their sables o'er the grass,
Let vice and guilt act how they please
In souls, their conquer'd provinces;
By Heaven's just charter it appears,
Virtue's exempt from quartering fears,
Shall then arm'd fancies fiercely drest,
Live at discretion in your breast?
Be wise, and panic fright disdain,
As notions, meteors of the brain;
And sights perform'd, illusive scene!
By magic-lantern of the Spleen.
Come here, from baleful cares releas'd,
With Virtue's ticket, to a feast,
Where decent Mirth and Wisdom, join'd
In stewardship, regale the mind.
Call back the Cupids to your eyes,

I see the godlings with surprise,
Not knowing home in such a plight,
Fly to and fro, afraid to light.-

Far from my theme, from method far,
Convey'd in Venus' flying car,

I go compell'd by feather'd steeds,
That scorn the rein, when Delia leads.
No daub of elegiac strain
These holy wars shall ever stain;
As spiders Irish wainscot flee,
Falsehood with them shall disagree;
This floor let not the vulgar tread,
Who worship only what they dread:
Nor bigots who but one way see
Through blinkers of authority.
Nor they who its four saints defame
By making virtue but a name;
Nor abstract wit, (painful regale
To hunt the pig with slippery tail!)
Artists, who richly chase their thought,
Gaudy without, but hollow wrought,
And beat too thin, and tool'd too much
To bear the proof and standard touch.
Nor fops to guard this sylvan ark,
With necklace bells in treble bark:
Nor cynics growl and fiercely paw,
The mastiffs of the moral law.
Come, nymph, with rural honors drest,
Virtue's exterior form confest,
With charms untarnish'd, innocence
Display, and Eden shall commence ;
When thus you come in sober fit,
And wisdom is preferr'd to wit;
And looks diviner graces tell,

Which don't with giggling muscles dwell,
And Beauty like the ray-clipt Sun,
With bolder eye we look upon;
Learning shall with obsequious mien
Tell all the wonders she has seen;

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