Abfurd the fam'd advice to Pyrrhus given,

More prais'd, than ponder'd; fpecious, but unfound;
Sooner that hero's fword the world had quell'd,
Than reafon, his ambition. Man must foar.
An obftinate activity within,

An infuppreffive spring, will tofs him up

In spite of fortune's load. Not kings alone,
Each villager has his ambition too;

No Sultan prouder than his fetter'd slave:
Slaves build their little Babylons of straw,
Echo the proud Affyrian in their hearts,
And cry,
"Behold the wonders of my might!"
And why? Because immortal as their lord;
And fouls immortal muft for ever heave

At fomething great; the glitter, or the gold;
The praise of mortals, or the praise of heaven.
Nor abfolutely vain is human praife,

When human is fupported by divine.
I'll introduce Lorenzo to Himself;

390

395

400

Pleasure and pride (bad masters !) fhare our hearts, 405

As love of pleasure is ordain'd to guard

And feed our bodies, and extend our race;

The love of praise is planted to protect,
And propagate the glories of the mind.

What is it, but the love of praise, infpires,
Matures, refines, embellishes, exalts,
Earth's happiness? From that, the delicate,
The grand, the marvellous, of civil life,
Want and convenience, under-workers, lay
The basis, on which love of glory builds.

410

415

Nor

Nor is thy life, O virtue! lefs in debt

To praife, thy fecret ftimulating friend.
Were men not proud, what merit should we mifs!
Pride made the virtues of the pagan world.
Praise is the falt that seasons right to man,
And whets his appetite for moral good.
Thirst of applaufe is virtue's fecond guard;
Reason, her firft; but reason wants an aid;
Our private reason is a flatterer;

Thirst of applaufe calls public judgment in,
To poife our own, to keep an even scale,
And give endanger'd virtue fairer play.

Here a fifth proof arifes, ftronger ftill:

420

425

Why this fo nice conftruction of our hearts?

Thefe delicate moralities of fenfe;

430

This conflitutional referve of aid

To fuccour virtue, when our reafon fails;

If virtue, kept alive by care and toil,
And, oft, the mark of injuries on earth,
When labour'd to maturity (its bill

435

Of difciplines, and pains, unpaid) muft die?

Why freighted-rich, to dash against a rock?
Were man to perish when most fit to live,
O how mif-spent were all these ftratagems,
By skill divine invowen in our frame!
Where are heaven's holiness and mercy fled?

Laughs heaven, at once, at virtue, and at man?
If not, why that difcourag'd, this destroy'd?

Thus far ambition. What fays avarice?

440

This her chief maxim, which has long been Thine: 445

VOL. II.

N

. The

"The wife and wealthy are the fame,"-I grant it.
To store up treasure, with inceffant toil,
This is man's province, this his highest praise.
To this great end keen infiinct ftings him on.
To guide that instinct, reason! is thy charge;
'Tis thine to tell us where true treafure lies:
But, reason failing to discharge her trust,
Or to the deaf discharging it in vain,
A blunder follows; and blind industry,

450

Gall'd by the fpur, but stranger to the course,

455

(The course where stakes of more than gold are won)

O'er-loading, with the cares of distant age,

The jaded spirits of the prefent hour,

Provides for an eternity below.

"Thou shalt not covet," is a wife command;

460

But bounded to the wealth the fun furveys:

Look farther, the command stands quite revers'd,
And avarice is a virtue moft divine.

Is faith a refuge for our happiness?

Moft fure and is it not for reason too?

465

Nothing this world unriddles, but the next.

Whence inextinguishable thirst of gain?

From inextinguishable life in man:

Man, if not meant, by worth, to reach the skies,

Had wanted wing to fly fo far in guilt.

470

Sour grapes, I grant, ambition, avarice,

Yet ftill their root is immortality:

Thefe its wild growths fo bitter, and so bafe, (Pain and reproach!) religion can reclaim,

Refine, exalt, throw down their poisonous lee,

475 And

And make them sparkle in the bowl of bliss.

See, the third witness laughs at bliss remote,
And falfely promises an Eden here :

Truth she shall speak for once, though prone to lye,
A common cheat, and Pleasure is her name.
To pleasure never was Lorenzo deaf;

Then hear her now, now first thy real friend.

Since nature made us not more fond than proud
Of happiness (whence hypocrites in joy!
Makers of mirth! artificers of fmiles!)

Why should the joy most poignant sense affords
Burn us with blushes, and rebuke our pride?—
Those heaven-born blushes tell us man descends,
Ev'n in the zenith of his earthly bliss:
Should reafon take her infidel repose,

This honeft infine speaks our lineage high;
This inftinct calls on darkness to conceal
Our rapturous relation to the stalls.

480

485

490

Our glory covers us with noble shame,

And he that's unconfounded, is unmann’d.

495

The man that blushes is not quite a brute.

Thus far with Thee, Lorenzo! will I close,
Pleafure is good, and man for pleasure made;
But pleasure full of glory, as of joy;
Pleasure, which neither blushes, nor expires.

The witneffes are heard; the caufe is o'er;
Let confcience file the fentence in her court,
Dearer than deeds that half a realm convey:
Thus feal'd by truth, th' authentic record runs.

N 2

500

"Know,

"Know, All; know, infidels,-unapt to know! 505 "Tis immortality your nature folves;

""Tis immortality decyphers man,

"And opens all the mysteries of his make.
"Without it, half his inftincts are a riddle;
"Without it, all his virtues are a dream.
"His very crimes atteft his dignity;

"His fatelefs thirft of pleafure, gold, and fame,
"Declares him born for bleffings infinite:

"What lefs than infinite makes un-abfurd

510

"Paffions, which all on earth but more inflames? 515 "Fierce paffions, so mif-meafur'd to this scene, "Stretch'd out, like eagles wings, beyond our neft, "Far, far beyond the worth of all below, "For earth too large, prefage a nobler flight, "And evidence our title to the fkies."

Ye gentle theologues, of calmer kind! Whofe conftitution dictates to your pen,

520

Who, cold yourselves, think ardour comes from hell! Think not our paffions from corruption fprung,

Though to corruption now they lend their wings; 525 That is their mistress, not their mother. All (And jufly) reafon deem divine: I fee,

I feel a grandeur, in the pallians too,

Which speaks their high defcent, and glorious end; Which speaks them rays of an eternal fire.

530

In Paradife itself they burnt as ftrong,

Ere Adam fell; though wiser in their aim,

Like the proud Eaftern, ftruck by providence,

What though our passions are run mad, and stoop