III.-Oh! might these sighs and tears return again Mourn with some fruit, as I have mourn'd in vain; Mine eyes did waste? what griefs my heart did rent? Th' hydroptic drunkard, and night-scouting thief, No ease; for long, yet vehement, grief hath been V. I am a little world made cunningly Of elements and an angelic spright; But black sin hath betrayed to endless night My world's both parts, and, oh! both parts must dic. And burn me, O Lord, with a fiery zeal Of thee and thy house, which doth in eating heal. VI. This is my play's last scene, here heavens appoint Then as my soul to heav'n, her first seat, takes flight, So fall my sins, that all may have their right, For thus I leave the world, the flesh, the devil. VII. At the round earth's imagined corners blow Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go, Despair, law, chance, hath slain; and you, whose eyes But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space; 'Tis late to ask abundance of thy grace, When we are there. Here on this holy ground As if thou had'st seal'd my pardon with thy blood. VIII. If faithful souls be alike glorified As angels, then my father's soul doth see, And adds this ev'n to full felicity, That valiantly I hell's wide mouth o'erstride : But if our minds to these souls be descry'd By circumstances and by sighs, that be Apparent in us not immediately, How shall my mind's white truth by them be tried? They see idolatrous lovers weep and mourn, And style blasphemous conjurers to call On Jesus' name, and pharisaical Dissemblers feign devotion. Then turn, IX. If poisonous minerals, and if that tree, To God, in his stern wrath, why threatens he? And my tears, make a heav'nly Lethean flood, That thou remember them, some claim as debt; X.--Death, be not proud, though some have called thee For those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow, Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow: Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die. XI-Spit in my face, you Jews, and pierce my side, XII.-Why are we by all creatures waited on! Dissemble weakness, and by one man's stroke die, XIII.—What if this present were the world's last night? Whether his countenance can thee affright! Tears in his eyes quench the amazing light, Blood fills his frowns, which from his pierced head fell. Which pray'd forgiveness for his foes' fierce spite ? I said to all my profane mistresses, Beauty of pity, foulness only is A sign of rigour; so I say to thee; To wicked spirits are horrid shapes assign'd, XIV. Batter my heart, three-person'd God; for you As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend; XV.--Wilt thou love God, as he thee? then digest, How God the Spirit, by angels waited on XVI.-Father, part of his double interest Unto thy kingdom thy Son gives to me; His jointure in the knotty Trinity He keeps, and gives to me his death's conquest. This Lamb, whose death with life the world hath bless'd, Was from the world's beginning slain; and he Hath made two wills, which, with the legacy Of his and thy kingdom, thy sons invest: [SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE, who filled the distinguished post of King's Advocate in Scotland, was born at Dundee in 1636, and died in 1691. He has the reputation of being amongst the first Scotsmen who wrote the English language with purity. The following extract is from a treatise published after his death, and dedicated by him to the University of Oxford, entitled, The Moral History of Frugality.'] One might reasonably have thought that as the world grew older luxury would have been more shunned; for the more men multiplied, and the greater their dangers grew, they should have been the more easily induced to shun all expense, that they might the more successfully provide against those inconveniences. But yet it proved otherwise, and luxury was the last of all vices that prevailed over mankind; for after riches had been hoarded up, they rotted, as it were, into luxury; and after that tyranny and ambition had robbed many poor innocents, luxury, more cruel than they, was made use of by Providence to revenge their quarrel, and so triumphed over the conquerors. Thus, when Rome had by wit and courage subdued the world, it was drowned in that inundation of riches which these brought upon it. This vice has its own masks and disguises too; for it transforms itself into virtue, whilst, like that, it runs faster from avarice, and laughs more loudly at it than liberality itself does, and to that height that it seems to be angry at liberality, as being only a kind of niggardliness. It pretends to keep open table to those who starve, and to have an open purse always for men of merit. Beauty and learning are its pensioners, and all manner of divertisements are still in his retinue. It obliges the peaceable to favour it, as an enemy to every thing that is uneasy; and it engages men of parts to speak for it, because, whilst it lavishes the treasures others have hoarded up, it feeds the hope and expectations of such as were provided by Nature of nothing but a stock of wit. And there being seldom other matches betwixt liberality and prodigality but such as are to be measured by exact reflections upon the estates of the spenders, it sometimes praises that as liberality which ought to be condemned as luxury; and even where the transgression may be discerned, the bribed and interested multitude will not acknowledge that liberality, by exceeding its bounds, has lost its name. Some, also, from the same principle, authorise this vice by the pretext of law, crying out that every man should have liberty to dispose of his own as he pleases, and by the good of commerce, saying, with a serious face, that frugality would ruin all trade, and if no man spent beyond his measure riches would not circulate; nor should virtuous, laborious, or witty men find in this circulation occasions to excite or reward their industry. And from this, probably, flows the law of England's not interdicting prodigals, denying him the administration of his own estate, as the laws of all other nations do. The great arguments that weigh with me against luxury are, first, that luxury disorders, confounds, and is inconsistent with that just and equal economy, whereby God governs the world as his own family, in which all men are but children or servants; for as the avaricious hoards up for one that which should be distributed 3RD QUARTER. F |