Lorenzo! pride repress; nor hope to find
A friend, but what has found a friend in thee.
All like the purchase; few the price will pay :
And this makes friends such miracles below.

Patience.

Beware of desp❜rate steps. The darkest day
(Live till to-morrow) will have pass'd away.
Luxury.
O luxury!

Bane of elated life, of affluent states,
What dreary change, what ruin is not thine!
How doth thy bowl intoxicate the mind?
To the soft entrance of thy rosy cave,

How dost thou lure the fortunate and great!
Dreadful attraction!

Virtuous activity.

Seize, mortals! seize the transient hour;
Improve each moment as it flies:
Life's a short summer-man a flow'r;
He dies-Alas!-how soon he dies!

The source of happiness.

Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense,
Lie in three words, health, peace, and competence :
But health consists with temperance alone;
And peace, O virtue! Peace is all thy own.

Placid emotion.

Who can forbear to smile with nature? Can
The stormy passions in the bosom roll,
While ev'ry gale is peace, and ev'ry grove
Is melody

Solitude.*

O sacred solitude; divine retreat!

Choice of the prudent! envy of the great!
By thy pure stream, or in thy waving shade,
We court fair wisdom, that celestial maid:
The genuine offspring of her lov'd embrace,
(Strangers on earth,) are innocence and peace,
There from the ways of men laid safe ashore,
We smile to hear the distant tempest roar,
There bless'd with health, with bus'ness unperplex'd,
This life we relish, and ensure the next.

*By solitude here is meant, a temporary seclusion from the world.

Presume not on to-morrow.

In human hearts what bolder thoughts can rise,
Than man's presumption on to-morrow's dawn?
Where is to-morrow? In another world.
For numbers this is certain; the reverse
Is sure to none.

Dum vivimus vivamus.

Whilst we live let us live.

"Live while you live," the epicure would say, "And seize the pleasures of the present day." Live, while you live," the sacred preacher cries; "And give to God each moment as it flies." Lord! in my views, let both united be; 1 live in pleasure, when I live to thee!

SECTION IV.

VERSES IN VARIOUS FORMS.

The security of Virtue.

Let coward guilt, with pallid fear,
To shelt'ring caverns fly,

And justly dread the vengeful fate,
That thunders through the sky.
Protected by that hand, whose law,
The threat'ning storms obey,
Intrepid virtue smiles secure,
As in the blaze of day.

Resignation.

And O! by error's force subdu'd,
Since oft my stubborn will
Preposterous shuns the latent good,
And grasps the specious ill.

Not to my wish, but to my want,
Do thou thy gifts apply;

Unask'd, what good thou knowest grant:
What ill, though ask'd, deny.

Compassion.

I have found out a gift for my fair;

DODDRIDGE.

I have found where the wood pigeons breed:

But let me that plunder forbear!

She will say, 'tis a barbarous deed.

For he ne'er can be true, she averr'a,

Who can rob a poor bird of its young;

And I lov'd her the more when I heard
Such tenderness fall from her tongue.
Epitaph.

Here rests his head upon the lap of earth,
A youth to fortune and to fame unknown;
Fair science frown'd not on his humble birth,
And melancholy marked him for her own.
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere;
Heaven did a recompence as largely send;
He gave to misery all he had-a tear;

He gain'd from Heav'n, ('twas all he wish'd) a friend, No further seek his merits to disclose,

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,

(There they alike in trembling hope repose,) The bosom of his father and his God.

Joy and sorrow connected.

Still, where rosy pleasure leads,
See a kindred grief pursue;

Behind the steps that mis'ry treads,
Approaching comforts view.

The hues of bliss more brightly glow,
Chastis'd by sable tints of wo;

And blended form, with artful strife,
The strength and harmony of life.
The golden mean.

He that holds fast the golden mean,
And lives contentedly between

The little and the great,

Feels not the wants that pinch the poor,
Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door,
Imbitt'ring all his state.

The tallest pines feel most the pow'r
Of wintry blast; the loftiest tow'r
Comes heaviest to the ground.

The bolts that spare the mountain's side,
His cloud-cap eminence divide;

And spread the ruin round.

Moderate views and aims recommended.
With passions unruffled, untainted with pride,
By reason my life let me square;

The wants of my nature are cheaply supplied;
And the rest are but folly and care.

How vainly, through infinite trouble and strife,
The many their labours employ !

Since all that is truly delightful in life,
Is what all, if they please, may enjoy.
Attachment to life.

The tree of deepest root is found
Least willing still to quit the ground;
"Twas therefore said, by ancient sages,
That love of life increas'd with years,
So much, that in our latter stages,
When pains grow sharp, and sickness rages,
The greatest love of life appears.

Virtue's address to pleasure.*

Vast happiness enjoy thy gay allies!

A youth of follies, an old age of cares; Young yet enervate, old yet never wise,

Vice wastes their vigour, and their mind impairs. Vain, idle, delicate, in thoughtless ease,

Reserving woes for age, their prime they spend ;

All wretched, hopeless in the evil days,

With sorrow to the verge of life they tend.

Griev'd with the present, of the past asham'd,

They live and are despis'd; they die, no more are nam'd.

SECTION V..

VERSES IN WHICH SOUND CORRESPONDS TO SIGNIFICATION.

Smooth and rough verse.

SOFT is the strain when zephyr gently blows,

And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows.
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,

The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar.
Slow motion imitated.

When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move slow.

Swift and easy motion.

Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,

Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.
Felling trees in a wood.

Loud sounds the axe, redoubling strokes on strokes ;
On all sides round the forest hurls her oaks

Sensual Pleasure.
U

Headlong. Deep echoing groan the thickets brown;
Then rustling, crackling, crashing, thunder down.
Sound of a bowstring.

The string let fly

Twang'd short and sharp, like the shrill swallows cry.
The Pheasant.

See from the brake the whirring pheasant springs,
And mounts exulting on triumphant wings.
Scylla and Charybdis.

Dire Scylla there a scene of horror forms,
And here Charybdis fills the deep with storms.
When the tide rushes from her rumbling caves.
The rough rock roars; tumultuous boil the waves.
Boisterous and gentle sounds.
Two craggy rocks projecting to the main,
The roaring winds tempestuous rage restrain :
Within, the waves in softer murmurs glide;
And ships secure without their halsers ride.
Laborious and impetuous motion.

With many a weary step, and many a groan,
Up the high hill he heaves a huge round stone;
The huge round stone resulting with a bound,
Thunders impetuous down, and smokes along the ground,
Regular and slow movement.

First march the heavy mules securely słow;
O'er hills, o'er dales, o'er crags, o'er rocks they go.
Motion slow and difficult.

A needless Alexandrine ends the song,

That like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
A rock torn from the brow of a mountain.

Still gath'ring force, it smokes, and urg'd amain,
Whirls, leaps, and thunders down, impetuous to the plain,
Extent and violence of the waves.

The waves behind impel the waves before,

Wide rolling, foaming high, and tumbling to the shore. Pensive numbers.

In these deep solitudes and awful cells,

Where heav'nly pensive contemplation dwells,
And ever-musing melancholy reigns.