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And hiftrionic mummery, that let down

The pulpit to the level of the stage;

Drops from the lips a difregarded thing.

The weak perhaps are moved, but are not taught, While prejudice in men of stronger minds

Takes deeper root, confirmed by what they fee. A relaxation of religion's hold

Upon the roving and untutored heart

Soon follows, and, the curb of conscience snapt,
The laity run wild.—But do they now?
Note their extravagance, and be convinced.

As nations, ignorant of God, contrive
A wooden one; fo we, no longer taught
By monitors, that mother church supplies,
Now make our own. Pofterity will atk
(If e'er pofterity fee verse of mine)
Some fifty or an hundred luftrums hence,
What was a monitor in George's days?
My very gentle reader, yet unborn,

Of whom I needs muft augur better things,
Since heaven would fure grow weary of a world
Productive only of a race like our's,

A monitor is wood-plank shaven thin.

We wear it at our backs. There, closely braced And neatly fitted, it compreffes hard

The prominent and moft unfightly bones,
And binds the fhoulders flat. We prove its ufe
Sovereign and most effectual to secure
A form, not now gymnaftic as of yore,
From rickets and distortion, else our lot.
But thus admonished, we can walk erect—
One proof at least of manhood! while the friend
Sticks clofe, a Mentor worthy of his charge.
Our habits, coftlier than Lucullus wore,
And by caprice as multiplied as his,

Juft please us while the fashion is at full,
But change with every moon. The fycophant,
Who waits to drefs us, arbitrates their date;
Surveys his fair reversion with keen eye;
Finds one ill made, another obfolete,

This fits not nicely, that is ill conceived;
And, making prize of all that he condemns,
With our expenditure defrays his own.
Variety's the very spice of life,

That gives it all its flavour. We have run

Through every change, that fancy at the loom

Exhausted has had genius to fupply;

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And, ftudious of mutation ftill, difcard

A real elegance, a little used,

For monftrous novelty and ftrange disguise.
We facrifice to drefs, till household joys

And comforts cease. Dress drains our cellar dry,
And keeps our larder lean; puts out our fires;
And introduces hunger, froft, and woe,

Where peace and hospitality might reign.

What man that lives, and that knows how to live,
Would fail to exhibit at the public shows
A form as fplendid as the proudeft there,
Though appetite raife outcries at the coft?

A man of the town dines late, but soon enough,
With reasonable forecaft and dispatch,

To infure a fide box ftation at half price.
You think perhaps fo delicate his dress,
His daily fare as delicate. Alas!

He picks clean teeth, and, busy as he seems
With an old tavern quill, is hungry yet!
The rout is folly's circle, which the draws
With magic wand. So potent is the fpell,
That none, decoyed into that fatal ring,
Unless by heaven's peculiar grace, escape.
There we grow early gray, but never wife;

There form connexions, but acquire no friend; Solicit pleasure hopeless of fuccefs;

Wafte youth in occupations only fit

For fecond childhood, and devote old age
To sports, which only childhood could excuse.
There they are happieft, who diffemble best
Their wearinefs; and they the most polite,
Who fquander time and treasure with a smile,
Though at their own deftruction. She, that afks
Her dear five hundred friends, contemns them all,
And hates their coming. They (what can they lefs?)
Make juft reprisals; and with cringe and shrug
And bow obfequious, hide their hate of her.
All catch the frenzy, downward from her grace,
Whose flambeaux flash against the morning fkies,
And gild our chamber ceilings as they pass,
To her, who frugal only that her thrift
May feed exceffes fhe can ill afford,

Is hackneyed home unlacqueyed; who in hafte
Alighting turns the key in her own door,
And, at the watchman's lantern borrowing light,
Finds a cold bed her only comfort left.

Wives beggar hufbands, hufbands ftarve their wives,
On fortune's velvet altar offering up

Their laft poor pittance-fortune, most severe

Of goddeffes yet known, and coftlier far

Than all, that held their routs in Juno's heaven.— So fare we in this prifon-house the world;

And 'tis a fearful spectacle to see

So many

maniacs dancing in their chains.

They gaze upon the links, that hold them faft,
With eyes of anguish, execrate their lot,
Then shake them in despair, and dance again!

Now basket up the family of plagues,
That waste our vitals; peculation, fale
Of honour, perjury, corruption, frauds
By forgery, by fubterfuge of law,

By tricks and lies as numerous and as keen
As the neceffities their authors feel;
Then caft them, closely bundled, every brat
At the right door. Profufion is the fire.
Profufion unreftrained, with all that's base
In character, has littered all the land,
And bred, within the memory of no few,
A priesthood, fuch as Baal's was of old,
A people, fuch as never was till now.
It is a hungry vice:-it eats up all,

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