While meaner efforts thy laft hand enjoy ?
Or, if abortively, poor man must die,
Nor reach, what reach he might, why die in dread?
Why curft with forefight? Wife to misery?
Why of his proud prerogative the prey?
Why lefs pre-eminent in rank, than pain?
His immortality alone can tell;
Full ample fund to balance all amifs,
And turn the scale in favour of the just !
His immortality alone can folve
The darkest of aænigmas, human hope;
Of all the darkest, if at death we die.
Hope, eager hope, th' affaffin of our joy,
All prefent bleffings treading under foot,
Is fcarce a milder tyrant than despair.
With no paft toils content, ftill planting new,
Hope turns us o'er to death alone for ease.
Poffeffion, why more tasteless than pursuit?
Why is a wifh far dearer than a crown?
That with accomplish'd, why, the grave of blifs
Because, in the great future bury'd deep,
Beyond our plans of empire, and renown,
Lies all that man with ardor should pursue ;
And HE who made him, bent him to the right.
Man's heart th' ALMIGHTY to the future sets,
By fecret and inviolable springs;
And makes his hope his fublunary joy.
Man's heart eats all things, and is hungry ftill;
"More, more!" the glutton cries: For fomething new So rages appetite, if man can't mount,
He will defcend. He ftarves on the poffeft.
Hence, the world's master, from ambition's spire,
In Caprea plung'd; and div'd beneath the brute.
In that rank fty why wallow'd empire's fon
Supreme? Because he could no higher fly;
His riot was ambition in despair.
Old Rome confulted birds; LORENZO! thou
With more fuccefs, the flight of hope survey;
Of restless hope, for ever on the wing.
High-perch'd o'er ev'ry thought that falcon fits,
To fly at all that rises in her fight;
And never ftooping, but to mount again
Next moment, she betrays her aim's mistake,
And owns her quarry lodg'd beyond the grave.
There should it fail us (it must fail us there,
If being fails) more mournful riddles rife,
And virtue vies with hope in mystery.
Why virtue? Where its praise, its being, fled?
Virtue is true self-intereft pursu'd :
What true felf-interest of quite-mortal man?
To close with all that makes him happy here.
If vice (as fometimes) is our friend on earth,
Then vice is virtue; 'tis our fov'reign good.
In felf-applaufe is virtue's golden prize;
No self-applause attends it on thy scheme:
Whence felf-applause? From confcience of the right.
And what is right, but means of happiness ?
No means of happiness when virtue yields;
That bafis failing, falls the building too,
And lays in ruin ev'ry virtuous joy.
The rigid guardian of a blameless heart,
So long rever'd, fo long reputed wife,
Is weak; with rank knight-errantries o'er-run.
Why beats thy bofom with illuftrious dreams
Of felf-expofure, laudable, and great?
Of gallant enterprize, and glorious death?
Die for thy country!-Thou romantic fool!
Seize, feize the plank thyself, and let her fink:
Thy country! what to Thee?-The Godhead, what?
(I speak with awe !) tho' He should bid thee bleed?
If, with thy blood, thy final hope is fpilt,
Nor can Omnipotence reward the blow,
Be deaf; preferve thy being; disobey.
Nor is it difobedience: Know, LORENZO!
Whate'er th' ALMIGHTY's fubfequent command,
His first command is this :-" Man, love thyfelf."
In this alone, free-agents are not free.
Existence is the bafis, blifs the prize;
If virtue costs existence, 'tis a crime;
Bold violation of our law fupreme,
Black fuicide; tho' nations, which confult
Their gain, at thy expence, refound applause.
Since virtue's recompence is doubtful, here,
If man dies wholly, well may we demand,
Why is man fuffer'd to be good in vain ?
Why to be good in vain, is man injoin'd?
Why to be good in vain, is man betray'd?
Betray'd by traitors lodg'd in his own breast,
By fweet complacencies from virtue felt?
Why whispers nature lyes on virtue's part?
Or if blind instinct (which affumes the name
Of facred confcience) plays the fool in man,
Why reafon made accomplice in the cheat?
Why are the wifeft loudeft in her praise ?
Can man by reafon's beam be led astray?
Or, at his peril, imitate his God?
Since virtue fometimes ruins us on earth,
Or both are true; or, man furvives the grave.
Or man furvives the grave, or own, LORENZO,
Thy boaft fupreme, a wild abfurdity.
Dauntless thy fpirit; cowards are thy fcorn.
Grant man immortal, and thy scorn is just.
The man immortal, rationally brave,
Dares rush on death-because he cannot die.
But if man lofes All, when life is loft,
He lives a coward, or a fool expires.
A daring infidel (and fuch there are,
From pride, example, lucre, rage, revenge,
Or pure heroical defect of thought),
Of all earth's madmen, moft deserves a chain.
When to the grave we follow the renown'd
For valour, virtue, science, all we love,
And all we praise; for worth, whose noon-tide beam,
Enabling us to think in higher style,
Mends our ideas of ethereal powers;
Dream we, that luftre of the moral world
Goes out in ftench, and rottennefs the clofe?
Why was he wife to know, and warm to praise,
And ftrenuous to tranfcribe, in human life,
The Mind ALMIGHTY? Could it be, that fate,
Juft when the lineaments began to fhine,
And dawn the DEITY, fhould fnatch the draught,
With night eternal blot it out, and give
The skies alarm, left angels too might die?
If human fouls, why not angelic too
Extinguish'd? and a folitary Gon,
O'er ghaftly ruin, frowning from his throne?
Shall we this moment gaze on God in man?
The next, lofe man for ever in the duft?
From duft we difengage, or man mistakes;
And there, where least his judgment fears a flaw.
Wisdom and worth, how boldly he commends!
Wisdom and worth, are facred names; rever'd,
Where not embrac'd; applauded! deify'd!
Why not compaffion'd too? If fpirits die,
Both are calamities, inflicted both,
To make us but more wretched: Wisdom's eye
Acute, for what? To fpy more miferies;
And worth, fo recompens'd, new-points their ftings.
Or man furmounts the grave, or gain is lofs,
And worth exalted humbles us the more.
Thou wilt not patronize a scheme that makes
Weakness, and vice, the refuge of mankind.
“Has virtue, then, no joys ?"-Yes, joys dear-bought. Talk ne'er fo long, in this imperfect state,
Virtue and vice are at eternal war,
Virtue's a combat; and who fights for nought?
Or for precarious, or for small reward?
Who virtue's felf-reward fo loud refound,
Would take degrees angelic here below,
And virtue, while they compliment, betray,
By feeble motives, and unfaithful guards.
The crown, th' unfading crown, her foul inspires:
'Tis That, and That alone, can countervail
The body's treacheries, and the world's affaults:
On earth's poor pay our famifht virtue dies.
Truth inconteftable! In fpite of all
A BAYLE has preach'd, or a V—
E believ'd.
In man the more we dive, the more we fee
Heav'ns fignet ftamping an immortal make.
Dive to the bottom of his foul, the base
Sustaining all; what find we? Knowledge, Love.
As light and heat, effential to the fun,
These to the foul. And why, if fouls expire?
How little lovely here? How little known?
Small knowledge we dig up with endless toil;
And love unfeign'd may purchase perfect hate.
Why ftarv'd, on earth, our angel appetites;
While brutal are indulg'd their fulfome fill?
Were then capacities divine conferr'd,
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