And, since 'tis foresight sows success for man,
Let Reason ('tis her office) shape your plan.
With caution step when Prudence bids you fear,
But speed with spirit when her path is clear;
Pause where you're ignorant-what you wish to know,
To learn delay not—hence your life shall flow
On Fortune's tide, and give your coming days
The truest pleasure and the purest praise.
Your mind and body must accord as friends,
Or hope not Wisdom can secure her ends;
For when the body droops beneath disease,
The social spirit cannot act with ease.

The path to mental peace is clear'd by toil,
And Temp'rance beautifies e'en Virtue's smile.
Clean, not luxurious, be your due repast,
And, scorning meanness, shun dishonest waste.
Impurity's debasement fly, nor deign
Sickly to sink in Delicacy's train.

Fearful of Envy, prudently forbear

From ought that pains by Ostentation's glare.
Cherish the small, sweet streams which only flow
From modest aims-nor sweeter hope to know.
Regard the coming evils in their course,

And check your bearing with becoming force;
What smiles at present often ends in tears,
But Fortune crowns the man that wisely fears.
Ere Morpheus wave his wand about your eyes,
The various actions of the day revise,
Omitted duties, sins committed see,

In what your actions with your rules agree
Examine well, and, if your conscious heart
Declare that Virtue has forborne her part,

A

Be griev'd-rejoicing, should the just review
Pronounce your conduct to your duty true.
Oh! by that Being, who to man has given
To taste th' immortalizing fount of Heav'n,
Be this due task assign'd your closing day;
A sacred practice, and shall smooth your way
To Glory's temple, to the secret shrine
Where Virtue's self presents her form divine.
But ere you hope man's happiest state to share,
Advancing, ask celestial aid by prayer;
Hence on your spirit shall the light descend
Of moral truth, and taught your being's end,
You, by vain hopes no longer led astray,
Shall cheerly tread your heav'n-appointed way.
Then shall you mark, and, marking, blush for man,
Who, form'd for foresight, lives without a plan,
Humour's poor slave, the prey to discontent,
Or gull'd by joys which finally torment.
Ah! senseless race, scarce wishing to be wise,
Who rue the want of what you still despise,
Who worship for your God the demon Pride,
The contests act that man from man divide-
Benighted wand'rers to your perils run,
And weep the mis'ries you have pow'r to shun.
But you, whom Wisdom has inform'd aright,
Proceed, exulting in your godlike might ;
You ne'er shall feel the sorrows which attend
The wretch whose vices are his rule and end
;
And when your beauteous toils in death shall cease,
Your spirit pure shall wing away with ease

Escap'd its prison, to the realms above,
Where Wisdom joys eternally with Love.

AN

IRONICAL ABUSE

OF

POETRY.

Spoken at a public school-exhibition, in the character of OLD PLUM, of Cheapside.

[Holding a news-paper in his hand]

LET me see, let me see—what is here advertis'd—
More poetical trash-and is such reading priz'd?
Whose are these? oh! some poems, at R-

-g g school spoken,
Of the Rev. G. B.-and his head should be broken
For a fool's, who writes verse, since he certainly knows
That his line's all awry when it wriggles from prose—
And the great ones, from whom all preferments proceed,
Look at nothing but what whilst they run they can read.

'Twas when Time was a greenhorn, and docile as young, That the booby was brib'd into sense with a song; But, since modern life's a great counting-house grown, Men, at length unbemus'd, can take care of their own, And, releas'd from your fanciful preachers in verse, Duly scorn e'ery jingle but that of the purse. Besides, where's the merit? e'en I could find rhyme, And, if I may guess from the bards of the time, The metre is not such a difficult thing,

But the bard who can say, may be soon brought to sing ;

Unoriginal thought, so the subject supplies,

That, unty'd from the verse, away Pegasus flies.
Yet, I've heard that of old, were the verse rent away,
Still the nag of Apollo would oftentimes stay.
Thus by metre and rhyme, rather injur❜d than aided,
A poem is nothing but prose masqueraded;

'Tis the jig of a fool, when a wise man would walk ;
'Tis a puppy that chatters, when prudent men talk;
'Tis an art soon acquir'd, and esteem'd a fine trick,
Making oft the nice nymph sensibility-sick,
Who, elate with disease, loves to read or to write
What's by any miss felt-any soon can endite.
But if one or two bards now a-days have the force
To whirl us along on their fancy-flogg'd course,
And, escap'd from their bedlam, a Seward and Barbauld,
A Cowper, a Hayley, and Mason have far haul'd
From his reason the dolt in their vortices caught,

And shatter'd his brains in their frisk of fine thought-
Worse and worse!-for, I vow, 'tis a madman that flies
Mother Earth for the domes which are built in the skies.
But the wise have the Critic's strait waistcoat appointed,
To re-settle the soul which the Muse has disjointed.
And, ye peers of Great-Britain, your wisdom I praise,
That no longer ye wear in your bosoms the bays,
But despise a poor gift which is not worth a straw,
And the song-simple times when the poets gave law,
When an Addison wound his smooth way into place,
And a Chancellor* smack'd of poetical grace.

* Lord Somers.

'Ware, Thurlow,* 'ware, Thurlow, for Rumour hath said,

That you have a touch of this stum in your head;
Tis a spot in the sun, drive it out then from thence,
Lest your country should rue the eclipse of your sense.
Then a fig for your poets, and poetry too,

'Tis a strut, and a crow, and a mere doodle doo !

Yet it seems that some ask, can the matter be worse
For the diction, and cadence, and graces of verse?
But at this rate e'en rhet'ric itself is defended,

As a cooking of words by which wisdom is mended;
And a Mason's mild hash, and a Gray's lump of spice-
Gramercy's as wholesome as Cocker and Price.

Pshaw! the roast beef of truth is the viand for me,
And my palate recoils from the bard's fricassee.

Oh! the fools, those old Spartans, when down in the dumps,
Whom the clang of Tyrtæus refix'd on their stumps,
Which had ne'er been, had not the strange statutes of Sparta
Plac'd in Poverty's self her supreme magna charta,
Whence the belly of Reason, depriv'd of its fare,
Grew bloated and big with the stuffage of air.

[Reads the news-paper again]

Let me see what is this? oh! the Laureat is dead

Bays without and within his nonsensical head;

And with him it were well to let poetry die,

Nor our stomachs still fire with a pepper-strong Pye, †

These lines have been inserted since the resignation of one who ought to be remembered as a distinguished patron of literary merit.

The new Laureat.