But thou of force must one religion own, And only one, and that the right alone. To find that right one, afk thy rev'rend fire; Let him of his, and him of his inquire; Tho' Truth and Falfehood feem as twins ally'd, There's eldership on Truth's delightful fide, Her feek with heed----who feeks the foundeft first, Is not of no religion, nor the worst. T'adore, or fcorn an image, or protest, May all be bad, doubt wifely for the best; 'Twere wrong to fleep, or headlong run aftray; It is not wand'ring, to inquire the way.

100

95

105

On a large mountain, at the basis 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 essays 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 prefent is the use of day, For man's employ much thought and deed remain, High thoughts the foul, hard deeds the body ftrain: And mystries ask believing, which to view Like the fair fun, air plain, but dazzling too. 120

115

Be Truth, fo found, with facred heed poffeft, Not kings have pow'r to tear it from thy breast. By no blank charters harm they where they hate, Nor are they vicars, but the hands of Fate. Ah! fool and wretch, who lett'ft thy foul be ty’d To buman laws! or must it fo be try'd;

126 OF

130

Or will it boot thee, at the latest day,
When judgment fits, and justice afks thy plea,
What Philip that, or Greg'ry taught thee this,
Or John or Martin? all may teach amiss:
For, ev'ry contrary in each extreme
This holds alike, and each may plead the same.
Would't thou to pow'r a proper duty fhew?
'Tis thy first task the bounds of pow'r to know;
The bounds once past, it holds the name no more,
Its nature alters, which it own'd before, 136
Nor were fubmiffion humbleness expreft,
But all a low idolatry at best.

Pow'r, from above fubordinately spread,
Streams like a fountain from th' eternal head; 140
There, calm and pure the living waters flow,
But roar a torrent or a flood below;
Each flow'r, ordain'd the margins to adorn,
Each native beauty from its roots is torn,
And left on deferts, rocks, and fands, or toft 145
All the long travel, and in ocean loft:

So fares the foul, which more that pow'r reveres
Man claims from God, than what in God inheres.

SATIRE

SATIRE IV.

ELL, if it be my time to quit the stage,

of

I die in charity with fool and knave,
Secure of peace at least beyond the grave.
I've had my Purgatory here betimes,
And paid for all my fatires, all my rhymes.
The poet's Hell, its tortures, fiends, and flames,
To this were trifles, toys, and empty names.

SATIRE IV.

"ELL; I may now receive, and die. My fin Indeed is great, but yet I have been in A purgatory, fuch as fear'd Hell is A recreation, and scant map of this.

NOTES.

Ver. 3 I die in charity with fool and knave,] We verily think he did. But of the caufe of his death, not only the doctors, but other people differed. His family fuggefts, that a general decay of nature, which had been long coming on, ended with a dropfy in the breaft. The gentlemen of the Dunciad maintain, that he fell by the keen pen of our redoubtable Laureat. We ourselves fhould be inclined to this latter opinion, for the fake of ornamenting his ftory; and that we might be able to say, that he died, like his immortal namefake, Alexander the Great, by a drug of fo deadly cold a nature, that, as Plutarch and other grave writers tell us, it could be contained in nothing but the fcull of an afs.---This is a grievous error. It was the hoof of an als; a much likelier vehicle of mischief.

15

With foolish pride my heart was never fir'd,
Nor the vain itch t' admire, or be admir'd;
I hop'd for no commiffion from his Grace;
I bought no benefice, I begg'd no place;
Had no new verfes, nor new fuit to fhow;
Yet went to Court!----the Dev'l would have it fo.
But, as the fool that in reforming days
Would go to Mass in jeft (as ftory fays)
Could not but think, to pay his fine was odd,
Since 'twas no form'd defign of ferving God;
So was I punish'd, as if full as proud,
As prone to ill, as negligent of good,
As deep in debt, without a thought to pay,
As vain, as idle, and as falfe, as they
Who live at Court, for going once that way!
Scarce was I enter'd, when, behold! there came
A thing which Adam had been pos'd to name;

10

20

My mind, neither with pride's itch, nor hath

been

Poifon'd with love to fee or to be seen,
I had no new fuit there, nor new fuit to show,
Yet went to court; but as glare which did go
To Mafs in jeft, catch'd, was fain to disburse
Two hundred marks, which is the statutes curfe,
Before he fcap'd; fo it pleas'd my destiny
(Guilty of my fin of going) to think me
As prone to all ill, and of good as forget-
Full, as proud, luftful, and as much in debt,
As vain, as witlefs, and as false, as they
Which dwell in court, for once going that way.

Therefore I fuffer'd this; towards me did run
A thing more strange, than on Nile's slime the fun

Noah

Noah had refus'd it lodging in his ark,
Where all the race of reptiles might embark:
A verier monster, than on Afric's fhore
The fun e'er got, or flimy Nilus bore,

Or Sloane or Woodward's wond'rous shelves contain,

31

Nay, all that lying travellers can feign.
The watch would hardly let him pass at noon,
At night, would fwear him dropt out of the moon.
One whom the Mob, when next we find or make
A Popish plot, fhall for a Jefuit take,
And the wife Juftice starting from his chair
Cry, By your priesthood tell me what you are?

35

C

Such was the wight; Th' apparel on his back, Tho' coarfe, was rev'rend, and tho' bare, was

26

black;

The fuit, if by the fashion one might guess,
Was velvet in the youth of good Queen Befs,

40

E'er bred, or all which into Noah's ark came :
A thing which would have pos'd Adam to name :
Stranger than feven antiquaries ftudies,
Than Afric monsters, Guianeas rarities,
Stranger than ftrangers: one who, for a Dane,
In the Danes maffacre had fure been flain,
If he had liv'd then; and without help dies.
When next the prentices 'gainst strangers rise;
One whom the watch at noon lets fcarce go by;
One, to whom the examining Justice sure would
cry,

Sir, by your priesthood tell me what you are? His clothes were ftrange, tho' courfe, and black, though bare,

But