And feed their boys with notes and rules,
Those tedious recipes of schools,
To cure ambition: I can learn
With greater ease the great concern
Of mortals; how we may despise
All the gay things below the skies.
• Methinks a mould'ring pyramid
Says all that the old sages said;
For me these shatter'd tombs contain
More morals than the Vatican.
The dust of heroes cast abroad,
And kick'd, and trampled in the road,
The relics of a lofty mind,
That lately wars and crowns design'd,
Tost for a jest from wind to wind,
Bid me be humble; and forbear
Tall monuments of fame to rear,
They are but castles in the air.
The towering heights, and frightful falls,
The ruin'd heaps, and funerals,
Of smoking kingdoms and their kings,
Tell me a thousand mournful things
In melancholy silence.........
That living could not bear to see
An equal, now lies torn and dead;
Here his pale trunk, and there his head:
Great Pompey! while I meditate,
With solemn horror thy sad fate,
Thy carcass scatter'd on the shore
Without a name, instructs me more
Than my whole library before.
'Lie still, my Plutarch, then, and sleep ; And my good Seneca may keep
Your volumes clos'd for ever too;
I have no further use for you:
For when I feel my virtue fail,
And my ambitious thoughts prevail,
I'll take a turn among the tombs,
And see whereto all glory comes:
There the vile foot of every
clown
Tramples the sons of honour down;
Beggars with awful ashes sport,
And tread the Cæsars in the dirt.'
A DIALOGUE BETWEEN THE WORLD, A PILGRIM, AND VIRTUE.
WHAT darkness clouds my senses! Hath the day
Forgot his season, and the Sun his way?
Doth God withdraw his all-sustaining might,
And works no more with his fair creature, Light,
While Heav'n and Earth for such a loss complain,
And turn to rude unformed heaps again?
My paces with entangling briers are bound,
And all this forest in deep silence drown'd,
Here must my labour and my journey cease,
By which in vain I sought for rest and peace,
But now perceive that man's unquiet mind
In all his ways can only darkness find.
Here must I starve and die, unless some light
Point out the passage from this dismal night.
World.
Distressed pilgrim, let no causeless fear
Depress thy hopes, for thou hast comfort near,
Which thy heart with splendour shall inspire,
And guide thee to the period of desire.
Clear up thy brows, and raise thy fainting eyes,
See how my glitt'ring palace open lies
For weary passengers, whose desp❜rate case
I pity, and provide a resting place.
O thou whose speeches sound, whose beauties shine,
Not like a creature, but some pow'r divine, Teach me thy style, thy worth and state declare, Whose glories in this desert hidden are.
I am thine end, Felicity my name;
The best of wishes, pleasures, riches, fame,
Are humble vassals, which my throne attend,
And make you mortals happy when I send :
my left hand delicious fruits I hold,
To feed them who with mirth and ease grow old:
Afraid to lose the fleeting days and nights,
They seize on time, and spend it in delights.
My right hand with triumphant crowns is stor❜d,
Which all the kings of former times ador'd:
These gifts are thine: then enter where no strife,
No grief, no pain, shall interrupt thy life.
Stay, hasty wretch! here deadly serpents dwell And thy next step is on the brink of Hell: Would'st thou, poor weary man, thy limbs repose? Behold my house, where true contentment grows:
Not like the baits which this seducer gives,
Whose bliss a day, whose torment ever lives.
World.
Regard not these vain speeches, let them go
This a poor worm is, my contemned foe,
Bold threadbare Virtue; who dare promise more
From empty bags, than I from all my store:
Whose counsels make men draw unquiet breath,
Expecting to be happy after death.
Canst thou now make, or hast thou ever made,
Thy servants happy in those things that fade?
Hear this my challenge: one example bring
Of such perfection; let him be the king
Of all the world, fearing no outward check,
And guiding others by his voice and beck:
Yet shall this man at ev'ry moment find
More gall than honey in his restless mind.
Now, monster, since my words have struck thee
dumb,
Behold this garland, whence such virtues come,
Such glories shine, such piercing beams are thrown,
As make thee blind, and turn thee to a stone.
And thou, whose wand'ring feet were running
down
Th' infernal steepness, look upon this crown:
Within these folds lie hidden no deceits,
No golden lures, on which perdition waits :
But when thine eyes the prickly thorns have past,
See in the circle boundless joys at last.
These things are now most clear, thee I embrace:
Immortal wreath! let worldlings count thee base: Choice is thy matter, glorious is thy shape,
Fit crown for them who tempting dangers 'scape, Sir John Beaumont,
DEFECTS OF CONVERSATION.
Obscenity-Habit of swearing.-Disputation.-Pasitiveness.-Point of honour.-Narration.-Smokers.-Fops.-Ill health.--Bashfulness.--Foxhunter.-Power of fashion.—Instance of happy conversation.
THOUGH nature weigh our talents, and dispense
To ev'ry man his modicum of sense;
And conversation, in its better part,
May be esteem'd a gift, and not an art;
Yet much depends, as in the tiller's toil,
On culture, and the sowing of the soil.
Words learn'd by rote a parrot may rehearse,
But talking is not always to converse;
Not more distinct from harmony divine,
The constant creaking of a country sign.
As alphabets in ivory employ,
Hour after hour, the yet unletter'd boy,
Sorting and puzzling with a deal of glee
Those seeds of science called his A B C ;
So language in the mouths of the adult.
Witness its insignificant result;
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