SECTION VII.

Reflections on a future state, from a review of winter.
'Tis done! dread winter spreads his latest glooms,
And reigns tremendous o'er the conquer'd year.
Hoir dead the vegetable kingdom lies!
How dumb the tuneful! Horror wide extends
His desolate domain. Behold, fond man!
See here thy pictur'd life : pass some few years,
Thy flow'ring spring, thy summer's ardent strength,
Thy sober autumn fading into age,
And pale concluding winter comes at last,
And shuts the scene. Ah! whither now are fled
Those dreams of greatness ? those unsolid hopes
Of happiness ? those longings after fame?
Those restless cares ? those busy bustling days ?
Those gay-spent, festive nights ? those veering thoughu
Lost between good and ill, that shar'd thy life?
All now are vanish'd! Virtne sole survives,
Immortal, never-fiuiling friend of man,
His guide to happiness on high. And see !
'Tis come, the glorious morn! the second birth
Of heav'n and earth! awak’ning nature hears
The new.creating word ; and starts to life,
In ev'ry heighten'd form, from pain and death
For ever free. The great eternal scheme,
Involving all, and in a perfect whole
Liniting as the prospect vrider spreads,
To reason's eye refin'd clears up apace.
Ye vainiu wise : Ye blind presumptuous ! ROW,
Confounded in the dust, adore that Power,
And Wisdom oft arraign'd: see now the cause
!Vhy unassuming worth in secret liv’d,
And died neglected : why the good man's share
In life was gall, and bitterness of soul :
Why the lone widow and her orphans pin'd
In starving solitude ; while luxury,
In palaces lay straining her low thought,
To form unreal wants : why heav'n-born truth.
And moderation fair, wore the red marks
Of superstition's scourge : why licens’d pain,
That cruel spoiler, that embosoin'd toe,
Imbitter'd all our bliss. Ve good distress'd !

Ye noble few! who bere unbending stand
Beneath life's pressure, yet bear up awhile,
And what your bounded view which only saw
A little part, deem'd evil, is no more :
The storms of wint'ry time will quickly pass,
And one unbounded spring encircle all.--THOMSON

SECTION VIII.
Idum's advice to Eve, to avoid lemptation.
“O woman, best are all things as the will
Of God ordain'd them ; his creating hand
Nothing imperfect or deficient left
Of all that he created, much less man,
Or aught that might his happy state socure,
Secure from outward force. Within himself
The danger lies, yet lies within his powr:
Against his will he can receive no harm.
But God left free the will ; for what 'obeys
Renson, is free, and reason he made right ;
B:ut bid her well beware, and still erec:,
Lest, by some fair appearing good surpris'd,
She dictate false, and misinform the will
To do what God expressly hath forbid.
Not then mistrust, but tender love, enjoins
That I should mind thee oft : and mind thou me.
Firm we subsist, yet possible to swerve,
Since reason not impossibly may meet
Some specious object by the foe suborn'd,
And fall into deception unaware,
Not keeping strictest watch, as she was ward'd.
Seek not temptation then, which to avoid
Were better, and most likely if from me
Thou sever not; trial will come unsought.
Wouldst thou approve thy constancy ? approve
First thy obedience ; th' other who can know,
Not seeing thee attempted, who attest?
But if thou think, trial unsought may find
Us both securer than thus warn'd thou seem'st,
Go; for thy stay, not frec, absents thee more ·
Go in thy native innocence ; rely
On what thou hast of virtue, sunmon all;
For God towards th.ce hath done his part; do thine.*

MILTOX

SECTION IX.

On procrastination.
Be wise to-day ; 'tis madness to defer
Next day the fatal precedent will plead ,
Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life.
Procrastination is the thief of time.
Year after year it steals, till all are fled;
And, to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vast concerns of an eternal scene.

Of man's miraculous mistakes, this bears
T'he paim, " That all men are about to live :S
For ever on the brink of being born.
All pay themselves the compliment to think,
They, one day, shall not drivel ; and their pride
On this reversion takes up ready praise';
At least, their own ; their future selves applauds ;
How excellent that life they ne'er will lead :
Time lodrd in their own hands is folly's vails ;
That lody'd in fate's, to wisdom they consign ;
The thing they can't but purpose, they postpone.
'Tis not in folly, not to scorn a fool ;
And scarce in human wisdom to do inore.
All promise is poor dilatory man;
And that thro' ev'ry stage. When young, indeed,
In full content, we sometimes nobly rest,
Unanxious for ourselves ; and only wish,
As duteous sons, our fathers were more svise.
At thirty, man suspects himself a foo!
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan ,
At fifty, cbides his infamous delay;
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve ;
In all the magnanimity of thought,
Resolves, and re-resolves, then dies the same.

And why? Because he thinks himself immortal.
All men think all men mortal, but themselves ;
Themselves, when some alarming shock of fate
Strikes thro' their wounded hearts the sudden dread
But their hearts wounded. like the wounded air,
Soon close ; where, past the shaft, no trace 13 found
As from the wing no scar the sky retains
The parted wave no surrow from the keel;
40 dies human hearts the thought of deatb

$ 2

Ev'n with the tender tear which Nature sheds
O'er thore we love, we drop it in thei: grave.--YOUNG.

SECTION X.
That philosophy, which stops at secondary causes, reproved

Happy the man who sees a God employ'd
In all the good and ili that checker life!
Resolving all events, with their effects
And manifold results, into the will
And arbitration wise of the Supreme.
Did not his eye rule all things, and intend
The least of our concerns ; (since froin the least
The greatest oft originate ;) could chance
Find place in his dominion, or dispose
One lawless particle to thwart his plan ;
Then God might be surpris'd, and unforeseen
Contingence might alarm him, and disturb
The smooth and equal course of his affairs.
This truth, philosophy, though eagle-ey'd
In nature's tendencies, oft o'erlooks ;
And having found his intrustment, forgets
Or disregards, or, more presumptuous still,
Denies the pow'r that wields it. God proclaims
His hot displeasure against foolish men
That live an atheist life ; involves the hear'u
In tempests ; quits his grasp upon the winds,
And gives them all their fury ; bids a plague
Kindle a fiery boil upon the skin,
And putrefy the breath of blooming health ;
He calls for famine, and the meagre fiend
Blows mildew from between his shrivel'd lips,
And taints the golden car; he springs his mines
And desolates a nation at a blast :
Forth steps the spruce philosopher, and tells
Of homogeneul and discordant springs
And principles ; of causes, how they work
By necessary laws their sure effects,
Of action and re-action. He has found
The source of the disease that nature feels ;
And bids the world take heart and banish fear.
Thou fool! will thy discov'ry of the cause
Suspend th' effect, or heal it? Has not God
till wrought by means since first he made the world!
d did be not of old emplox hie ma

To drown it? What is his creation less
Than a capacious reservoir of' means,
Form'd for his use, and ready at his will ?
Go, dress thine eyes with eye-salve ; ask of him,
Or ask of whomsoever he has taught ;
And learn, though late, the genuine cause of all.-COWPER.

SECTION XI.
Indignant sentiments on national prejudices and hatred ; and

on slavery.
OH, for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more! My ear is paia:d,
My soul is sick with ev'ry day's report
Of wrong and outrage with which earth is fill'd.
There is no flesh in man's abdurate heari ;
It does not feel for man. The nat'ral bond
Of brotherhood is sever'd, as the flax
That falls asunder at the touch of fire.
He finds his fellow guilty of a skin
Not colour'd like his own ; and having pow'r
T'enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause
Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey.
Lands intersected by a narrow frith
Abhor each other. Mountains interpos'd,
Make enemies of nations, who had else,
Like kindred drops, been mingled into one.
Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys ;
And worse than all, and most to be deplor'd,
As human nature's broadest, foulest blot,
Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat
With stripes, that Mercy, with a bleeding heart,
Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast.
Then what is man! And what man seeing this,
And having human feelings, does not blush
And hang his head, to think himself a man?
I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earp'd.
No: dear as freedom is, and in my hoart's

at natirantiad oriz'd above all prica i