Such was the scorn that filled the sage's mind, Renewed at every glance on human kind; How just that scorn ere yet thy voice declare, Search every state, and canvass every prayer.

Unnumbered suppliants crowd preferment's gate, Athirst for wealth, and burning to be great; Delusive fortune hears the incessant call, They mount, they shine, evaporate, and fall. On every stage the foes of peace attend, Hate dogs their flight, and insult mocks their end. Love ends with hope, the sinking statesman's door Pours in the mourning worshipper no more; For growing names the weekly scribbler lies, To growing wealth the dedicator flies; From every room descends the painted face That hung the bright palladium of the place, And, smoked in kitchens, or in auctions sold, To better features yields the frame of gold; For now no more we trace in every line Heroic worth, benevolence divine; The form distorted justifies the fall, And detestation rids the indignant wall.

But will not Britain hear the last appeal, Sign her foes' doom, or guard the favorite's zeal ? Through freedom's sons no more remonstrance rings,

Degrading nobles and controlling kings;

Our supple tribes repress their patriot throats,
And ask no questions but the price of votes;
With weekly libels and septennial ale,
Their wish is full to riot and to rail.

In full-flown dignity see Wolsey stand, Law in his voice, and fortune in his hand;

To him the church, the realm, their powers consign,

Through him the rays of regal bounty shine,
Turned by his nod the stream of honor flows,
His smile alone security bestows;

Still to new heights his restless wishes tower,
Claim leads to claim, and power advances power;
Till conquest unresisted ceased to please,
And rights submitted left him none to seize;
At length his sovereign frowns-the train of state
Mark the keen glance, and watch the sign to hate;
Where'er he turns, he meets a stranger's eye,
His suppliants scorn him, and his followers fly;

Now drops at once the pride of awful state,
The golden canopy, the glittering plate,
The regal palace, the luxurious board,
The liveried army, and the menial lord;
With age, with cares, with maladies oppressed,
He seeks the refuge of monastic rest;
Grief aids disease, remembered folly stings,
And his last sighs reproach the faith of kings.

Speak, thou whose thoughts at humble peace repine,

Shall Wolsey's wealth with Wolsey's end be thine?
Or liv'st thou now, with safer pride content,
The wisest justice on the banks of Trent?
For why did Wolsey, near the steeps of fate,
On weak foundations raise the enormous weight?
Why but to sink beneath misfortune's blow,
With louder ruin to the gulfs below?

What gave great Villiers to the assassin's knife, And fixed disease on Harley's closing life? What murdered Wentworth, and what exiled Hyde; By kings protected, and to kings allied? What but their wish indulged in courts to shine, And power too great to keep or to resign?

When first the college rolls receive his name, The young enthusiast quits his ease for fame; Resistless burns the fever of renown, Caught from the strong contagion of the gown; O'er Bodley's dome his future labors spread, And Bacon's mansion trembles o'er his head. Are these thy views? Proceed, illustrious youth, And virtue guard thee to the throne of truth! Yet should thy soul indulge the generous heat Till captive science yields her last retreat; Should reason guide thee with her brightest ray, And pour on misty doubt resist less day; Should no false kindness lure to loose delight, Nor praise relax, nor difficulty fright; Should tempting novelty thy cell refrain, And sloth effuse her opiate fumes in vain; Should beauty blunt on fops her fatal dart, Nor claim the triumph of a lettered heart; Should no disease the torpid veins invade, Nor melancholy's phantoms haunt thy shade; Yet hope not life from grief or danger free, Nor think the doom of man reversed for thee.

Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes,
And pause awhile from letters to be wise;
There mark what ills the scholar's life assail,
Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.
See nations, slowly wise and meanly just,

To buried merit raise the tardy bust.
If dreams yet flatter, yet again attend,
Hear Lydiat's life, and Galileo's end.

Nor deem, when learning her last prize bestows, The glittering eminence exempt from foes; See, when the vulgar 'scapes, despised or awed, Rebellion's vengeful talons seize on Laud.

From meaner minds though smaller fines content, The plundered palace or sequestered rent,

723

Behold surrounding kings their powers combine, And one capitulate, and one resign:

Peace courts his hand, but spreads her charms in vain;

"Think nothing gained," he cries, "till naught remain,

On Moscow's walls till Gothic standards fly,
And all be mine beneath the polar sky!"
The march begins in military state,
And nations on his eye suspended wait;
Stern famine guards the solitary coast,
And winter barricades the realms of frost;
He comes, nor want nor cold his course de-
lay;-

Hide, blushing glory, hide Pultowa's day:

And shows his miseries in distant lands;
Condemned a needy suppliant to wait,
While ladies interpose, and slaves debate.
But did not chance at length her error mend?
Did no subverted empire mark his end?
Did rival monarchs give the fatal wound?
Or hostile millions press him to the ground i
His fall was destined to a barren strand,
A petty fortress, and a dubious hand;

He left the name, at which the world grew pale,

To point a moral, or adorn a tale.

All times their scenes of pompous woes afford, From Persia's tyrant to Bavaria's lord.

In gay hostility and barbarous pride,
With half mankind embattled at his side,
Great Xerxes comes to seize the certain prey,
And starves exhausted regions in his way;
Attendant flattery counts his myriads o'er,
Till counted myriads soothe his pride no more;
Fresh praise is tried till madness fires his mind,
The waves he lashes, and enchains the wind,
New powers he claims, new powers are still be-
stowed,

Till rude resistance lops the spreading god.
The daring Greeks deride the martial show,
And heap their valleys with the gaudy foe;
The insulted sea with humbler thought he gains,
A single skiff to speed his flight remains;

The encumbered oar scarce leaves the dreaded

coast

Through purple billows and a floating host.

The bold Bavarian, in a luckless hour,
Tries the dread summits of Cæsarean power,
With unexpected legions bursts away,
And sees defenceless realms receive his sway;
Short sway! fair Austria spreads her mournful
charms,

The queen, the beauty, sets the world in arms;
From hill to hill the beacon's rousing blaze
Spreads wide the hope of plunder and of praise ;
The fierce Croatian and the wild Hussar,
With all the sons of ravage crowd the war;
The baffled prince, in honor's flattering bloom
Of hasty greatness, finds the fatal doom,
His foes' derision, and his subjects' blame,
And steals to death from anguish and from shame.

"Enlarge my life with multitude of days!"
In health, in sickness, thus the suppliant prays;
Hides from himself its state, and shuns to know
That life protracted is protracted woe.
Time hovers o'er, impatient to destroy,
And shuts up all the passages of joy.

In vain their gifts the bounteous seasons pour,
The fruit autumnal and the vernal flower;
With listless eyes the dotard views the store,
He views, and wonders that they please no more;
Now pall the tasteless meats, and joyless wines,
And luxury with sighs her slave resigns.
Approach, ye minstrels, try the soothing strain,
Diffuse the tuneful lenitives of pain;

No sounds, alas! would touch the impervious ear,
Though dancing mountains witnessed Orpheus

near;

Nor lute nor lyre his feebler powers attend,
Nor sweeter music of a virtuous friend;
But everlasting dictates crowd his tongue,
Perversely grave, or positively wrong.
The still returning tale and lingering jest
Perplex the fawning niece and pampered guest,

But unextinguished avarice still remains,
And dreaded losses aggravate his pains;

He turns, with anxious heart and crippled hands,

His bonds of debt, and mortgages of lands;
Or views his coffers with suspicious eyes,
Unlocks his gold, and counts it till he dies.

But grant, the virtues of a temperate prime Bless with an age exempt from scorn or crime; An age that melts with unperceived decay, And glides in modest innocence away; Whose peaceful day benevolence endears, Whose night congratulating conscience cheers; The general favorite as the general friend; Such age there is, and who shall wish its end?

Yet even on this her load misfortune flings, To press the weary minutes' flagging wings; New sorrow rises as the day returns, A sister sickens, or a daughter mourns; Now kindred merit fills the sable bier, Now lacerated friendship claims a tear; Year chases year, decay pursues decay, Still drops some joy from withering life away; New forms arise, and different views engage, Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage, Till pitying nature signs the last release, And bids afflicted worth retire to peace.

But few there are whom hours like these await,

Who set unclouded in the gulfs of fate, From Lydia's monarch should the search descend,

By Solon cautioned to regard his end,

In life's last scene what prodigies surprise,
Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise:

sneer,

And scarce a legacy can bribe to hear;

The watchful guests still hint the last offence; The daughter's petulance, the son's expense; Improve his heady rage with treacherous skill, And mould his passions till they make his will.

Unnumbered maladies his joints invade, Lay siege to life, and press the dire blockade;

flow,

And Swift expires a driveller and a show!

The teeming mother, anxious for her race, Begs for each birth the fortune of a face; Yet Vane could tell what ills from beauty spring;

And Sedley cursed the form that pleased a king.

Ye nymphs of rosy lips and radiant eyes,
Whom pleasure keeps too busy to be wise;
Whom joys with soft varieties invite,
By day the frolic, and the dance by night;
Who frown with vanity, who smile with art,
And ask the latest fashion of the heart;
What care, what rules, your heedless charms shall

save,

Each nymph your rival, and each youth your slave?

Against your fame with fondness hate combines,
The rival batters, and the lover mines:
With distant voice neglected virtue calls,

Less heard and less, the faint remonstrance falls;

Tired with contempt, she quits the slippery reign,

And pride and prudence take her seat in vain.
In crowd at once, where none the pass defend,
The harmless freedom, and the private friend;
The guardians yield, by force superior plied:
To interest, prudence; and to flattery, pride.
Here beauty falls betrayed, despised, distressed,
And hissing infamy proclaims the rest.

Where then shall hope and fear their objects find?

Must dull suspense corrupt the stagnant mind?
Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate,

Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate?

Must no dislike alarm, no wishes rise,

No cries invoke the mercies of the skies?

Inquirer, cease; petitions yet remain

Which Heaven may hear, nor deem religion vain.

Still raise for good the supplicating voice,

But leave to Heaven the measure and the choice.
Safe in His power whose eyes discern afar
The secret ambush of a specious prayer,
Implore His aid, in His decisions rest,
Secure, whate'er He gives, He gives the best.
Yet, when the sense of secret presence fires,
And strong devotion to the skies aspires,
Pour forth thy fervors for a healthful mind,
Obedient passions, and a will resigned;
For love, which scarce collective man can fill;
For patience, sovereign o'er transmuted ill;
For faith, that, panting for a happier seat,
Counts death kind nature's signal of retreat.

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These goods for man the laws of heaven ordain; These goods he grants, who grants the power to gain;

With these celestial wisdom calms the mind,
And makes the happiness she does not find.

SAMUEL JOHNSON.

Without and Within.

My coachman, in the moonlight there,
Looks through the side-light of the door;

I hear him with his brethren swear,
As I could do,- but only more.

Flattening his nose against the pane, He envies me my brilliant lot, Breathes on his aching fists in vain,

And dooms me to a place more hot.

He sees me in to supper go,

A silken wonder by my side, Bare arms, bare shoulders, and a row Of flounces, for the door too wide.

He thinks how happy is my arm
'Neath its white-gloved and jewelled load;
And wishes me some dreadful harm,
Hearing the merry corks explode.

Meanwhile I inly curse the bore
Of hunting still the same old coon,
And envy him, outside the door,

In golden quiets of the moon.

The winter wind is not so cold

As the bright smile he sees me win, Nor the host's oldest wine so old As our poor gabble sour and thin.

I envy him the ungyved prance
By which his freezing feet he warms,
And drag my lady's chains, and dance
The galley-slave of dreary forms.

Oh, could he have my share of din,
And I his quiet! — past a doubt
"Twould still be one man bored within,
And just another bored without.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

Wejection: an Ode.

Late, late yestreen I saw the new moon,
With the old moon in her arm,
And I fear, I fear, my master dear!
We shall have a deadly storm.

BALLAD OF SIR PATRICK SPENCE.

Hence all you bain melights.

HENCE all you vain delights,
As short as are the nights
Wherein you spend your folly!
There's naught in this life sweet,
If man were wise to see 't,

But only melancholy;
Oh sweetest melancholy!
Welcome folded arms and fixed eyes,
A sigh that, piercing, mortifies,

A look that's fastened to the ground,
A tongue chained up without a sound!
Fountain heads and pathless groves;
Places which pale passion loves;
Moonlight walks, when all the fowls
Are warmly housed, save bats and owls;
A midnight bell, a parting groan
These are the sounds we feed upon;
Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley.
Nothing's so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy.
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

I.

WELL! if the bard was weather-wise, who made
The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence,
This night, so tranquil now, will not go hence
Unroused by winds that ply a busier trade
Than those which mould yon cloud in lazy flakes,
Or the dull sobbing draft that moans and rakes
Upon the strings of the Eolian lute,
Which better far were mute.
For lo! the new-moon, winter-bright,
And overspread with phantom light-
With swimming phantom light o'erspread,
But rimmed and circled by a silver thread!
I see the old moon in her lap, foretelling
The coming on of rain and squally blast.
And oh! that even now the gust were swelling,
And the slant night-shower driving loud and
fast!

Those sounds, which oft have raised me whilst they awed,

And sent my soul abroad,