Like rich old wardrobes, things extremely rare, None starve, none furfeit fo. But (oh) we allow Within the vast reach of th' huge statutes jawes. SATIRE SATIRE III. VERSIFIED by Dr PARNEL. OMPASSION Checks my spleen, yet Scorn denies Co To laugh or weep at fins might idly show Is not Religion (Heav'n-defcended dame) 5 When the best Heathens faw by doubtful day? 10 20 Oh! if thy temper fuch a fear can find, This fear were valour of the nobleft kind. Dar'ft thou provoke, when rebel fouls afpire, 25 The Maker's vengeance, and thy monarch's ire? 30 Or live entomb'd in fhips, thy leader's prey, 35 Some loofe-gown'd dame; O courage made of ftraw! Thus, defp'rate coward! would'ft thou bold appear, 41 Know thy own foes; th' apoflate angel, he You ftrive to please, the foremost of the three; He makes the pleafures of his realm the bait, But can be give for love, that acts in hate? The world's thy fecond love, thy fecond foe, 45 The world, whose beauties perish as they blow: They fly, fhe fades herfelf, and at the best You grafp a wither'd ftrumpet to your breast. The flesh is next, which in fruition waftes, High flush'd with all the fenfual joys it tastes, 50 While men the fair, the goodly foul destroy, From whence the flesh has pow'r to taste a joy, Seek't thou Religion, primitively found---Well, gentle friend, but where may fhe be found? By faith Implicit blind Ignaro led, 55 Thinks the bright feraph from bis country fied, And feeks her feat at Rome, because we know She there was seen a thousand years ago; And And loves her relic rags, as men obey The foot-cloth where the prince fat yesterday. 60 Thefe pageant forms are whining Obed's fcorn, Who feeks Religion at Geneva born, A fullen thing, whose coarseness fuits the crowd; 'Tho' young, unhandfome; tho' unhandfome, proud: Thus, with the wanton, fome perverfely judge 65 All girls unhealthy but the country-drudge. No foreign schemes make eafy Capio roam, He grants falvation centers in his own, 71 From youth to age he grafps the proffer'd dame, 80 The charms of all obfequious Courtly ftrike; 85 On each he dotes, on each attends alike; And thinks, as diff'rent countries deck the dame, The dreffes altering, and the sex the fame; So fares Religion, chang'd in outward how, But 'tis religion ftill, where'er we go: This blindness fprings from an excess of light, And men embrace the wrong to chuse the right. 90 But But thou of force must one religion own, And only one, and that the right alone. To find that right one, ask thy rev'rend fire; 95 Let him of his, and him of his inquire; 100 Tho' Truth and Falsehood feem as twins ally'd, 105 On a large mountain, at the bafis wide, Steep to the top, and craggy at the fide, Sits facred Truth enthron'd; and he who means To reach the fummit, mounts with weary pains, Winds round and round, and ev'ry turn effays Where fudden breaks refift the fhorter ways. 110 Yet labour fo, that, ere faint age arrive, Thy fearching foul poffefs her reft alive; To work by twilight were to work to late, And age is twilight to the night of Fate. To will alone, is but to mean delay; To work at present is the use of day, 115 For man's employ much thought and deed remain, 126 Or |