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Mysterious are His ways, whose power
Brings forth that unexpected hour,
When minds that never met before,
Shall meet, unite, and part no more:
It is the allotment of the skies,
The hand of the Supremely Wise,
That guides and governs our affections,
And plans and orders our connexions:
Directs us in our distant road,

And marks the bounds of our abode.
Thus we were settled when you found us,
Peasants and children all around us,
Not dreaming of so dear a friend,
Deep in the abyss of Silver-End.
Thus Martha, even against her will,
Perched on the top of yonder hill;
And you, though you must needs prefer
The fairer scenes of sweet Sancerre,
Are come from distant Loire to chuse
A cottage on the banks of Ouse.
This page of Providence quite new,
And now just opening to our view,
Employs our present thoughts and pains
To guess and spell what it contains:
But day by day, and year by year,
Will make the dark enigma clear;
And furnish us, perhaps, at last,
Like other scenes already past,
With proof, that we, and our affairs,
Are part of a Jehovah's cares;
For God unfolds by slow degrees
The purport of His deep decrees;
Sheds every hour a clearer light
In aid of our defective sight;
And spreads, at length, before the soul,
A beautiful and perfect whole,
Which busy man's inventive brain
Toils to anticipate, in vain.

Say, Anna, had you never known
The beauties of a rose full blown,
Could you, though luminous your eye,
By looking on the bud, descry,
Or guess, with a prophetic power,
The future splendour of the flower?
Just so the Omnipotent, who turns
The system of a world's concerns,
From mere minutiæ can educe
Events of most important use,
And bid a dawning sky display
The blaze of a meridian day.
The works of man tend, one and all,

As needs they must, from great to small;

And vanity absorbs at length
The monuments of human strength.
But who can tell how vast the plan
Which this day's incident began?
Too small, perhaps, the slight occasion
For our dim-sighted observation;
It passed unnoticed, as the bird
That cleaves the yielding air unheard,
And yet may prove, when understood,
A harbinger of endless good.

Not that I deem, or mean to call,
Friendship a blessing cheap or small :
But merely to remark, that ours,
Like some of Nature's sweetest flowers,
Rose from a seed of tiny size,

That seemed to promise no such prize;
A transient visit intervening,

And made almost without a meaning,
(Hardly the effect of inclination,
Much less of pleasing expectation,)
Produced a friendship, then begun,
That has cemented us in one;
And placed it in our power to prove,
By long fidelity and love,

That Solomon has wisely spoken,—
"A threefold cord is not soon broken."

17th Dec. 1781.

THE FLATTING MILL.

AN ILLUSTRATION.

WHEN a bar of pure silver or ingot of gold
Is sent to be flatted or wrought into length,
It is passed between cylinders often, and rolled
In an engine of utmost mechanical strength.
Thus tortured and squeezed, at last it appears
Like a loose heap of ribbon, a glittering show,
Like music it tinkles and rings in your ears,

And warmed by the pressure, is all in a glow.

This process achieved, it is doomed to sustain
The thump after thump of a gold-beater's mallet,
And at last is of service in sickness or pain
To cover a pill for a delicate palate.

Alas for the poet! who dares undertake
To urge reformation of national ill-

His head and his heart are both likely to ache
With the double employment of mallet and mill.

If he wish to instruct, he must learn to delight;
Smooth, ductile, and even, his fancy must flow,
Must tinkle and glitter like gold to the sight,
And catch in its progress a sensible glow.

After all, he must beat it as thin and as fine

As the leaf that enfolds what an invalid swallows; For truth is unwelcome, however divine,

And unless you adorn it, a nausea follows.

TO THE REV. MR. NEWTON,

RECTOR OF ST. MARY WOOLNOTH.

SAYS the Pipe to the Snuff-box, "I can't understand
What the ladies and gentlemen see in your face,
That you are in fashion all over the land,

And I am so much fallen into disgrace.

"Do but see what a pretty contemplative air

I give to the company,-pray do but note 'em,—

You would think that the wise men of Greece were all there, Or, at least, would suppose them the wise men of Gotham.

66

My breath is as sweet as the breath of blown roses, While you are a nuisance where'er you appear; There is nothing but snivelling and blowing of noses, Such a noise as turns any man's stomach to hear."

Then, lifting his lid in a delicate way,

And opening his mouth with a smile quite engaging, The Box in reply was heard plainly to say,

"What a silly dispute is this we are waging!

"If you have a little of merit to claim,

You may thank the sweet-smelling Virginian weed; And I, if I seem to deserve any blame,

The before-mentioned drug in apology plead.

"Thus neither the praise nor the blame is our own, No room for a sneer, much less a cachinnus;

We are vehicles, not of tobacco alone,

But of any thing else they may choose to put in us."

May 28, 1782.

A SIMILE LATINISED.

SORS adversa gerit stimulum, sed tendit et alas:
Pungit api similis, sed velut ista fugit.

VERSES TO THE MEMORY OF DR. LLOYD,*

SPOKEN AT THE WESTMINSTER ELECTION NEXT
AFTER HIS DECEASE.

ABIIT senex! periit senex amabilis !
Quo non fuit jucundior.
Lugete vos, ætas quibus maturior
Senem colendum præstitit;
Seu quando, viribus valentioribus
Firmoque fretus pectore,

Florentiori vos juventute excolens
Curâ fovebat patriâ ;

Seu quando, fractus, jamque donatus rude
Vultu sed usque blandulo,

Miscere gaudebat suas facetias
His annuis leporibus.

Vixit probus, purâque simplex indole,
Blandisque comis moribus,

Et dives æquâ mente-charus omnibus,
Unius auctus munere.

Ite tituli meritis beatioribus

Aptate laudes debitas!

Nec invidebat ille, si quibus favens
Fortuna plus arriserat.
Placide senex! levi quiescas cespite,

Etsi superbum nec vivo tibi

Decus sit inditum, nec mortuo
Lapis notatus nomine.

THE SAME IN ENGLISH.

OUR good old friend is gone, gone to his rest,
Whose social converse was, itself, a feast.
O ye of riper age, who recollect

How once ye loved, and eyed him with respect,
Both in the firmness of his better day,

While yet he ruled you with a father's sway,
And when, impaired by time and glad to rest,
Yet still with looks in mild complacence drest,

* I make no apology for the introduction of the following lines, though I have never learned who wrote them. Their elegance will sufficiently recommend them to persons of classical taste and erudition, and I shall be happy if the English version that they have received from me be found not to dishonour them. Affection for the memory of the worthy man whom they celebrate alone prompted me to this endeavour.-W. CowPER.

He was Usher and Under-master of Westminster nearly fifty years, and retired from his occupation when he was near seventy, with a handsome pension from the king. [Hayley.]

He took his annual seat and mingled here
His sprightly vein with yours-now drop a tear.
In morals blameless as in manners meek,

He knew no wish that he might blush to speak,
But, happy in whatever state below,

And richer than the rich in being so,

Obtained the hearts of all, and such a meed

*

At length from one, as made him rich indeed.
Hence, then, ye titles; hence, not wanted here;
Go, garnish merit in a brighter sphere,

The brows of those whose more exalted lot

He could congratulate, but envied not.

Light lie the turf, good senior! on thy breast,
And tranquil as thy mind was be thy rest!

Though, living, thou hadst more desert than fame,
And not a stone now chronicles thy name.

FRIENDSHIP.

WHAT Virtue, or what mental grace,

But men unqualified and base

Will boast it their possession?

Profusion apes the noble part
Of Liberality of heart,

And Dulness of Discretion.

If every polished gem we find,
Illuminating heart or mind,
Provoke to imitation,

No wonder friendship does the same,
That jewel of the purest flame,

Or rather constellation.

No knave but boldly will pretend
The requisites that form a friend,
A real and a sound one;
Nor any fool he would deceive,
But prove as ready to believe,

And dream that he had found one.

Candid, and generous, and just,
Boys care but little whom they trust,-
An error soon corrected;
For who but learns in riper years
That man, when smoothest he appears,
Is most to be suspected?

But here again a danger lies,
Lest, having misapplied our eyes,
And taken trash for treasure,
We should unwarily conclude
Friendship a false ideal good,
A mere Utopian pleasure.
An acquisition rather rare
Is yet no subject of despair;
Nor is it wise complaining,
If either on forbidden ground,
Or where it was not to be found,
We sought without attaining.
No Friendship will abide the test
That stands on sordid interest,

Or mean self-love erected;
Nor such as may a while subsist
Between the sot and sensualist,

For vicious ends connected.

Who seeks a friend should come dis-
posed

To exhibit, in full bloom disclosed,
The graces and the beauties
That form the character he seeks;
For 'tis a union that bespeaks
Reciprocated duties.

* See the note to the Latin copy.

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