The chariots bounding in uer wheel-worn streets,
Her vaults below, where every vintage meets;
Her theatres, her revels, and her sports;
The scenes to which not youth alone resorts,
But age. in spite of weakness and of pain,
Still haunts, in hope to dream of youth again;
All speak her happy; let the muse look round
From East to West, no sorrow can be found;
Or only what, in cottages confined,
Sighs unregarded to the passing wind.
Then wherefore weep for England? What ap-
pears

In England's case to move the muse to tears?

The prophet wept for Israel; wish'd his eyes Were fountains fed with infinite supplies; For Israel dealt in robbery and wrong; There were the scorner's and the slanderer's tongue;

Oaths, used as playthings or convenient tools,
As interest biass'd knaves, or fashion fools;
Adultery, neighing at his neighbor's door;
Oppression laboring hard to grind the poor;
The partial balance and deceitful weight;
The treacherous smile, a mask for secret hate;
Hypocrisy, formality in prayer,
And the dull service of the lip were there.
Her women, insolent and self-caress'd,
By Vanity's unwearied finger dress'd,
Forgot the blush that virgin fears impart
To modest cheeks and borrow'd one from art;
Were just such trifles, without worth or use,
As silly pride and idleness produce;
Curl'd, scented. furbelow'd. and flounced around,
With feet too delicate to touch the ground. [eye,
They stretch'd the neck, and roll'd the wanton
And sigh'd for every fool that flutter'd by.

He saw his people slaves to every lust,
Lewd, avaricious. arrogant, unjust;
He heard the wheels of an avenging God
Groan heavily along the distant road;
Saw Babylon set wide her two-leaved brass
To let the military deluge pass;
Jerusalem a prey, her glory soil'd,
Her princes captive, and her treasures spoil'd;
Wept till all Israel heard his bitter cry,
Stamp'd with his foot, and smote upon his thigh;
But wept, and stamp'd, and smote his thigh in
vain,
Pleasure is deaf when told of future pain,
And sounds prophetic are too rough to suit
Ears long accustom'd to the pleasing lute:
They scorn'd his inspiration and his theme,
Pronounc'd him frantic, and his fears a dream;
With self-indulgence wing'd the fleeting hours,
Till the foe found them, and down fell the

towers.

Long time Assyria bound them in her chain, Till penitence had purged the public stain, And Cyrus with relenting pity moved, Return'd them happy to the land they loved; There proof against prosperity. awhile They stood the test of her ensnaring smile, And had the grace in scenes of peace to show The virtue they had learn'd in scenes of woe. But man is frail, and can but ill sustain A long immunity from grief and pain; And. after all the joys that Plenty leads, With tiptoe step Vice silently succeeds When he that ruled them with a shepherd's In form a man in dignity a God, Came, not expected in that humble guise, To sift and search them with unerring eyes,

[rod,

He found, conceal'd beneath a fair outside,
The filth of rottenness and worm of pride;
Their piety a system of deceit,
Scripture employ'd to sanctify the cheat;
The Pharisee the dupe of his own art,
Self-idolized, and yet a knave at heart.

When nations are to perish in their sins, 'Tis in the church the leprosy begins; The priest, whose office is, with zeal sincere, To watch the fountain, and preserve it clear, Carelessly nods and sleeps upon the brink, While others poison what the flock must drink; Or, waking at the call of lust alone, Infuses lies and errors of his own: His unsuspecting sheep believe it pure; And, tainted by the very means of cure, Catch from each other a contagious spot, The foul forerunner of a general rot. Then truth is hush'd, that Heresy may preach; And all is trash that reason cannot reach; Then God's own image on the soul impress'd Becomes a mockery, and a standing jest; And faith, the root whence only can arise The graces of a life that wins the skies, Loses at once all value and esteem, Pronounced by graybeards a pernicious dreain: Then Ceremony leads her bigots forth, Prepared to fight for shadows of no worth; While truths, on which eternal things depend, Find not, or hardly find, a single friend: As soldiers watch the signal of command, They learn to bow, to kneel, to sit, to stand; Happy to fill religion's vacant place; With hollow form, and gesture, and grimace. Such. when the Teacher of his church was there,

People and priest the sons of Israel were;
Stiff in the letter, lax in the design
And import of their oracles divine;
Their learning legendary, false, absurd,
And yet exalted above God's own word;
They drew a curse from an intended good,
Puff'd up with gifts they never understood.
He judg'd them with as terrible a frown,
As if not love but wrath, had brought him down
Yet he was gentle as soft summer airs,
Had grace for others' sins, but none for theirs ;
Through all he spoke a noble plainness ran—
Rhetoric is artifice, the work of man;
And tricks and turns that fancy may devise,
Are far too mean for Him that rules the skies.
The astonish'd vulgar trembled while he tore
The mask from faces never seen before;
He stripp'd the impostors in the noonday sun,
Show'd that they follow'd all they seem'd te
shun;

Their prayers made public. their excesses kept
As private as the chambers where they slept;
The temple and its holy rites profaned

By mummeries He that dwelt in it disdain'd;
Uplifted hands, that at convenient times
Could act extortion and the worst of crimes,
Wash'd with a neatness scrupulously nice,
And free from every taint but that of vice.
Judgment however tardy, mends her pace
When obstinacy once has conquered grace.
They saw distemper heal'd. and life restor❜d,
In answer to the fiat of his word
Confessed the wonder, and with daring tongue
Blasphemed the authority from which it sprung
They knew, by sure prognostics seen on high,
The future tone and temper of the sky;