65

A fullen thing, whofe coarseness fuits the crowd,
Tho' young, unhandsome; tho' unhandsome, proud:
Thus, with the wanton, fome perversely judge
All girls unhealthy but the Country drudge.`
No foreign schemes make eafy Capio roam,
The man contented takes his Church at home;
Nay should some Preachers, fervile bawds of gain,
Should fome new Laws, which like new-fashions reign,
Command his faith to count Salvation ty'd

To vifit his, and vifit none befide,

He grants Salvation centers in his own,
And grants it centers but in his alone:

From youth to age he grafps the proffer'd dame,
And they confer his Faith, who give his Name:
So from the Guardian's hands, the Wards who live
Enthrall'd to Guardians, take the wives they give.
From all profeffions careless Airy flies,
For, all profeffions can't be good, he cries,
And here a fault, and there another views,
And lives unfix'd for want of heart to chufe:

So men, who know what fome loofe girls have done,
For fear of marrying fuch, will marry none.

The Charms of all, obfequious Courtly strike;
On each he doats, on each attends alike;

And thinks, as diff'rent countries deck the dame,
The dreffes altering, and the fex the fame;
So fares Religion, chang'd in outward fhow,

But 'tis Religion ftill, where'er we go:

71

75

80

85

90

This blindness fprings from an excess of light,
And men embrace the wrong to chuse the right.
But thou of force muft one Religion own,
And only one, and that the Right alone.
To find that Right one, afk thy Rev'rend Sire;
Let him of his, and him of his enquire;
Tho' Truth and Falfhood feem as twins ally'd,
There's Eldership on Truth's delightful fide,
Her feek with heed-who seeks the foundest 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.

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 every turn effays
Where fudden breaks refift the shorter ways.

Yet labour fo, that, e're faint age arrive,
Thy fearching foul poffefs her Reft alive;
To work by twilight were to work too 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:

For man's employ much thought and deed remain,
High Thoughts the Soul, hard deeds the body ftrain:

And Myft'ries afk believing, which to View
Like the fair Sun, are plain, but dazzling too.

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.

120

Ah! fool and wretch, who let'ft thy foul be ty'd 125
To human Laws! Or muft it fo be try'd?
Or will it boot thee, at the latest day,
When Judgment fits, and Juftice asks thy plea,
That Philip that, or Greg'ry taught thee this,
Or John or Martin? All may teach amifs :
For, every contrary in each extream
This hold alike, and each may plead the fame.

Would'st thou to Pow'r a proper duty shew?

130

'Tis thy first task the bounds of pow'r to know;
The bounds once paft, it holds the name no more, 135
Its nature alters, which it own'd before,

Nor were fubmiffion humbleness exprest,
But all a low Idolatry at best.

Pow'r, from above fubordinately spread,
Streams like a fountain from th' eternal head;
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,

140

And left on Deserts, Rocks, and Sands, 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.

This noble Similitude, with which the Satire concludes, Dr. Parnell did not seem to understand, and fo was not able to exprefs, in its original force. Dr. Donne fays,

"As ftreams are, power is, those bleft flowers that dwell "At the rough ftreams calm head, thrive, and do well; "But having left their roots, and themselves given "To the streams tyrannous rage, alas, are driven "Through mills, rocks, and woods, and at last, almost "Confum'd in going, in the Sea are lost.

"So perish Souls, etc.

Dr. Donne compares Power or Authority to Streams; and Souls to Flowers; but not being fo explicite in the latter, Dr. Parnell overlooked that part of the Simile, and fo has hurt the whole thought, by making the Flowers paffive; whereas the Original 'fays they leave their roots, and give themselves to the stream: that is, wilfully prefer human Authority to divine; and this makes them the object of his Satire; which they would not have been, were they irrefiftibly carried away, as the Imitation supposes.

S

SATIRE II.

IR; though (I thank God for it) I do hate
Perfectly all this town; yet there's one state

In all ill things fo excellently best,

That hate towards them, breeds pity towards the rest. Though Poetry, indeed, be fuch a fin,

As, I think, that brings dearth and Spaniards in: Though like the pestilence, and old-fashion'd love Ridlingly it catch men, and doth remove

Never, till it be starv'd out; yet their state

Is poor, difarm'd, like Papists, not worth hate.

One (like a wretch, which at barre judg'd as dead, Yet prompts him which stands next, and cannot read, And faves his life) gives Idiot Actors means, (Starving himself) to live by's labour'd fcenes. As in fome Organs, Puppits dance above

And bellows pant bellow, which them do move.