And varying schemes of life do more

Distract the lab’ring will.
In silence hush'd to reason's voice,

Attends each mental pow'r :
Come, dear Emilia, and enjoy

Reflection's fav’rite hour, Come ; while the peaceful scene invites,

Let's search this ample round ; Where shall the lovely fleeting form

Of happiness be found ?
Does it amidst the frolic mirth

Of gay assemblies dwell;
Or hide beneath the solemn gloom,

That shades the hermit's cell ?
How oft the laughing brow of joy

A sick’ning heart conceals !
And, through the cloister's deep recess

Invading sorrow steals,
In vain, through beauty, fortune, wit,

The fugitive we trace ;
It dwells pot in the faithless smile

That brightens Clodia's face.
Perhaps the joy to these deny'd,

The beart in friendship finds :
Ah ! dear delusion, gay conceit

Of visionary minds !
Howe'er our varying notions rove,

Yet all agree in one,
To place its being in some state,

At distance from our own.
O blind to each indulgent aim,

Of power supremely wise,
Who fancy happiness in aught

The hand of Heaven denies ! Vain is alike the joy we seek,

And vain what we possess,
Unless harmonious reason tunes

The passions into peace.
To temper'd wishes, just desires,

Is happiness confind;

And, deaf to folly's call, attends

The music of the inind.-CARTER.

SECTION VIII.

The Fire-Side,
Dear Chloe, while the busy crowd,
The vain, the wealthy, and the proud,

In folly's maze advance ;
Tho' singularity and pride
Be call'd our choice, we'll step aside,

Nor join the giddy dance.
From the gay world, we'll oft retire
To our own family and fire,

Where love our hours employs;
No noisy neighbour enters here,
No intermeddling stranger near,

To spoil our heart-felt joys.
If solid happiness we prize,
Within our breast this jewel lies;

And they are fools who roam :
The world has nothing to bestow;
From our own selves our joys must flow

And that dear hut, our home.
Of rest was Noah's dove bereft,
When with impatient wing she left

That safe retreat, the ark ;
Giving her vain excursion o’er,
The disappointed bird once more

Explor'd the sacred bark.
Tho' fools spurn Hymen's gentle pow'rs
We, who improve his golden hours,

By sweet experience know,
That marriage rightly understood,
Gives to the tender and the good

A paradise below.
Our babes shall richest comfort bring ;
If tutor'd right, they'll prove a spring

Whence pleasures ever rise :
We'll form their minds, with studious care,
To all that's manly, good, and fair, i

And train them for the skies,

While they our wisest hours engage,
They'll joy our youth, support our age,

And crown our hoary hairs :
They'll grow in virtue ev'ry day,
And thus our fondest lores repay,

And recompense our cares.
No borrow'd joys! they're all our own,
While to the world we live unknown,

Or by the world forgot:
Monarchs ! we envy not your state ;
We look with pity on the great,

And bless our humbler lot.
Our portion is not large, indeed!
But then how little do we need !

For nature's calls are few :
In this the art of living lies,
To want no more than may suffice,

And make that little do.
We'll therefore relish, with content,
What'er kind Providence has sent,

Nor aim beyond our pow'r; For if our stock be very small, 'Tis prudence to enjoy it all,

Nor lose the present hour.
To be resign'd, when ills betide,
Patient when favours are denied,

And pleas’d with favours giv’n :
Dear Chloe, this is wisdom's part ;
This is that incense of the heart,

Whose fragrance smells to heaven.
We'll ask no long protracted treat,
Since winter-life is seldom sweet;

But when our feast is o’er,
Grateful from table we'll arise,
Nor grudge our sons, with envious eyes,

The relics of our store.
Thus, hand in band, thro' life we'll go;
Its checker'd paths of joy and wo,

With cautious steps, we'll tread ;
Quit its vain scenes without a tear,
Without a trouble or a fear

Apd mingle with the dead.

While conscience, like a faithful friend,
Shall thro' the gloomy vale attend,

And cheer our dying breath ;
Shall, when all other comforts cease,
Like a kind angel whisper peace,

And smooth the bed of death,-COTTON.

SECTION IX.

Providence vindicated in the present state of man. Heaved from all creatures bides the book of fate, All but the page prescrib’d, their present state ; From brutes what men, from men what spirits knows Or who could suffer being here below ? The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had be thy reason, would be skip and play! Pleas’d to the last, he crops the low'ry food, And licks the hand just rais'd to shed bis blood. Ob blindness to the future ! kindly giv’n, That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heaven; Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall; Atome

or systems into ruin burld, And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

Hope bumbly then ; with trembling pinions soar ;
Wait the great teacher Death ; and God adore.
What future bliss he gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never is, but always To Be blest.
The soul, uneasy, and confin'd from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come,

Lo the poor Indian ! whose untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul proud science never taugbt to stray
Far as the Solar Walk or Milky Way ;
Yet simple nature to his bope has givin,
Behind the cloud-topt bill, a humbler heaven ;
Some safer world in depth of woods embrac d,
Some happier island in the wat'ry waste ;
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
To be, contents his patural desire ;
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire :

But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear bim company.

Go, wiser thou ! and in thy scale of sense,
Weigh thy opinion against Providence;
Call imperfection what thou fanciest such;
Say here he gives too little, there too much.-
In pride, in reas'ning pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.
Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes ;
Men would be angels, angels would be gods.
Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell,
Aspiring to be angels, men rebel :
And who but wishes to invert the laws
Of ORDER, sins against th’ ETERNAL CAUSE.POPE.

SECTION X

Selfishness reproved. Has God, thou fool! work'd solely for thy good, Thy joy, thy pastime, thy attire, thy food? Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn, For him as kindly spreads the flow'ry lawn. Is it for thee the lark ascends and sings ?. Joy tones his voice, joy, elevates his wings. Is it for thee the linnet pours his throat ? Loves of his own, and captures swell the note. The bounding steed you pompously bestride, Shares with his lord the pleasure and the pride. Is thine alone the seed that strews the plain ? The birds, of heaven shall vindicate their graiq. Thine the full harvest of the golden year? Part pays, and justly, the deserving steer. The hog, that ploughs not, nor obeys thy call, Lives on the labours of this lord of all,

Know, nature's children all divide her care ; The fur that warms a monarch, warm’d bear. While man exclaims, " See all things for my use ! " See man for mine !" replies a pamper'd goose : And just as short of reason be must fall, Who thinks all made for one, not one for all.

Grant that the powerful still the weak control; Be man the wit and tyrant of the whole : Nature that tyrant checks; he only knows, And helps another creature's wants and woes.

a