Such honour how fhall we repay?

How treat our guest divine?

The facrifice fupreme be flain!
Let felf-will die: Refign.

Thus far, at large, on our disease ;
Now let the cause be shown,
Whence rifes, and will ever rife,
The difmal human groan :

What our fole fountain of diftrefs?
Strong paffion for this scene ;
That trifles makes important, things
Of mighty moment mean:

When earth's dark maxims poifon shed

On our polluted fouls,

Our hearts and interefts fly as far

Afunder, as the poles;

Like princes in a cottage nurs'd,

Unknown their royal race,

With abject aims, and fordid joys,
Our grandeur we disgrace ;

O for an Archimedes new,
Of moral powers poffefs'd,
The world to move, and quite expel

That traitor from the breast.

No small advantage may be reap'd

From thought whence we descend; From weighing well, and prizing weigh'd Our origin, and end :

From far above the glorious fun

To this dim fcene we came;
And may, if wise, for ever bask,
In great Jehovah's beam :

Let that bright beam on Reafon rouz'd
In awful luftre rise,

Earth's giant-ills are dwarf'd at once,
And all difquiet dies :

Earth's glories too their fplendour lofe,
Thofe phantoms charm no more;
Empire's a feather for a fool,

And Indian mines are poor :

Then level'd quite, whilft yet alive,
The monarch and his flave;
Nor wait enlighten'd minds to learn
That leffon from the grave:

A George the Third would then be low

As Lewis in renown,

Could he not boaft of glory more

Than fparkles from a crown.

When human glory rifes high
As human glory can;

When, though the King is truly great,

Still greater is the Man;

The man is dead, where virtue fails;
And though the Monarch proud
In grandeur fhines, his gorgeous robe
Is but a gaudy shroud.

Wisdom!

Wifdom! where art thou? None on earth,
Though grafping wealth, fame, power,
But what, O death! through thy approach,
Is wifer every hour;

Approach how fwift, how unconfin'd!.
Worms feast on viands rare,

Thofe little epicures have kings
To grace their bill of fare:

From kings what refignation due
To that almighty will,

Which thrones bestows, and, when they fail,.
Can throne them higher still?

Who truly great? The good and brave,

The mafters of a mind

The will divine to do refolv'd,

To fuffer it refign'd.

Madam! if that may give it weight,

The trifle you receive

Is dated from a folemn fcene,

The border of the grave;

Where strongly strikes the trembling foul

Eternity's dread power,

As bursting on it through the thin

Partition of an hour;

Hear this, Voltaire! but this from me,

Runs hazard of your frown;

However, fpare it; ere you die,

Such thoughts will be your own.

In

In mercy to yourself forbear

My notions to chastise,

Left unawares the gay Voltaire

Should blame Voltaire the wife :

Fame's trumpet rattling in your ear,
Now, makes us difagree;
When a far louder trumpet sounds,
Voltaire will clofe with me:

How fhocking is that modefty,
Which keeps fome honeft men
From urging what their hearts fuggeft,
When brav'd by folly's pen
Affaulting truths, of which in all
Is fown the facred feed!

Our conftitution 's orthodox,

And clofes with our creed:

What then are they, whofe proud conceits

Superior wifdom boast?

Wretches, who fight their own belief,

And labour to be loft!

Though Vice, by no fuperior joys
Her heroes keeps in pay;
Through pure difinterested love

Of ruin they obey!

Strict their devotion to the wrong,

Though tempted by no prize;

Hard their commandments, and their creed

A magazine of lyes

From

From fancy's forge: gay fancy smiles

At reafon plain, and cool;

Fancy, whofe curious trade it is

To make the fineft fool.

Voltaire! long life 's the greatest curse

That mortals can receive,
When they imagine the chief end
Of living is to live;

Quite thoughtless of their day of death,
That birth-day of their forrow;

Knowing, it may be distant far,

Nor crush them till-to-morrow..

Thefe are cold, northern thoughts, conceiv'd

Beneath an humble cot;

Not mine, your genius, or your state,

No caftle is my lot:

But foon, quite level fhall we lie;

And, what pride most bemoans,

Our parts, in rank so distant now,
As level as our bones;

Hear you that found? Alarming found!

Prepare to meet your fate!

One, who writes Finis to our works,

Is knocking at the gate;

Far other works will foon be weigh'd;
Far other judges fit;

Far other crowns be loft or won,

Than fire ambitious wit:

* Letter to Lord Lyttelton.

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