But he can draw a pattern, make a tart,
And has the ladies etiquette by heart.

Go fool; and, arm in arm with Clodio, plead
Your caufe before a bar you little dread;

But know, the law, that bids the drunkard die,
Is far too juft to pass the trifler by.

Both baby featured, and of infant fize,
Viewed from a diftance, and with heedlefs eyes,
Folly and innocence are so alike,

The difference, though effential, fails to ftrike.
Yet folly ever has a vacant stare,

A fimpering countenance, and a trifling air;
But innocence, fedate, ferene, ere&t,
Delights us, by engaging our respect.
Man, nature's gueft by invitation sweet,
Receives from her both appetite and treat;
But, if he play the glutton and exceed,
His benefact refs blufhes at the deed,

For nature, nice, as liberal to dispense,

Made nothing but a brute the flave of fenfe.

Daniel ate pulfe by choice-example rare!

Heaven bleffed the youth, and made him fresh and fair
Gorgonius fits, abdominous and wan,

Like a fat fquab upon a Chinese fan :
He fnuffs far off the anticipated joy;

Turtle and venifon all his thoughts employ;

Prepares for meals as jockies take a sweat,
Oh, nauseous!—an emetic for a whet!
Will Providence overlook the wafted good?
Temperance were no virtue if he could.

That pleasures, therefore, or what fuch we call,
Are hurtful, is a truth confessed by all.
And fome, that seem to threaten virtue less,
Still hurtful in the abuse, or by the excess.
Is man then only for his torment placed
The centre of delights he may not tafte?
Like fabled Tantalus, condemned to hear
The precious ftream ftill purling in his ear,
Lip-deep in what he longs for, and yet curft
With prohibition, and perpetual thirst?
No, wrangler-deftitute of shame and sense,
The precept, that enjoins him abftinence,
Forbids him none but the licentious joy,
Whose fruit, though fair, tempts only to destroy
Remorfe, the fatal egg by pleasure laid

In every bofom where her neft is made,
Hatched by the beams of truth denies him reft,
And proves a raging scorpion in his breast.
No pleasure? Are domeftic comforts dead?
Are all the nameless sweets of friendship fled?
Has time worn out, or fashion put to shame,
Good fenfe, good health, good confcience, and good
fame?

All these belong to virtue, and all prove
That virtue has a title to your love.
Have you no touch of pity, that the poor
Stand ftarved at your inhospitable door?
Or if yourself too scantily supplied
Need help, let honest industry provide.
Earn, if you want; if you abound, impart
These both are pleasures to the feeling heart.
No pleasure has fome fickly eaftern wafte
Sent us a wind to parch us at a blaft?
Can British paradise no scenes afford
To please her fated and indifferent lord?
Are sweet philosophy's enjoyments run
Quite to the lees? And has religion none?
Brutes capable would tell you 'tis a lie,
And judge you from the kennel and the stye.
Delights like these, ye fenfual and profane,
Ye are bid, begged, befought to entertain
;
Called to these crystal streams, do ye turn off
Obfcene to fwill and fwallow at a trough?
Envy the beaft then, on whom heaven beftows
Your pleasures, with no curfes in the close.
Pleasure admitted in undue degree
Enflaves the will, nor leaves the judgment free.
"Tis not alone the grape's enticing juice,

Unnerves the moral powers, and mars their use;

Ambition, avarice, and the luft of fame,
And woman, lovely woman, does the fame.
The heart, furrendered to the ruling power
Of fome ungoverned paffion every hour,
Finds by degrees the truths, that once bore fway,
And all their deep impreffions, wear away;
So coin grows fmooth, in traffic current paffed,
Till Cæfar's image is effaced at laft.

The breach, though small at first, foon opening wide,
In rushes folly with a full-moon tide,
Then welcome errors of whatever fize,
To juftify it by a thousand lies.

As creeping ivy clings to wood or ftone,
And hides the ruin that it feeds upon :
So fophiftry cleaves close to and protects
Sin's rotten trunk, concealing its defects.
Mortals, whofe pleasures are their only care,
First wish to be imposed on, and then are.
And, left the fulsome artifice should fail,
Themselves will hide its coarseness with a veil.
Not more induftrious are the juft and true
To give to virtue what is virtue's due-
The praise of wisdom, comeliness, and worth,
And call her charms to public notice forth→→→
Than vice's mean and difingenuous race
To hide the shocking features of her face.

Her form with drefs and lotion they repair;
Then kifs their idol, and pronounce her fair.
The facred implement I now employ
Might prove a mischief, or at beft a toy;
A trifle, if it move but to amuse;

But, if to wrong the judgment and abuse,
Worfe than a poignard in the baseft hand,
It ftabs at once the morals of a land.

Ye writers of what none with fafety reads;
Footing it in the dance that fancy leads ;
Ye novelists, who mar what ye would mend,
Snivelling and drivelling folly without end;
Whose correfponding miffes fill the ream
With fentimental frippery and dream,
Caught in a delicate soft filken net

By fome lewd earl, or rake-hell baronet :
Ye pimps, who, under virtue's fair pretence,
Steal to the clofet of young innocence,
And teach her, unexperienced yet and green,
To fcribble as you scribbled at fifteen ;
Who, kindling a combuftion of defire,
With fome cold moral think to quench the fire;
Though all your engineering proves in vain,
The dribbling ftream never puts it out again :
Oh that a verse had power, and could command
Far, far away these flesh-flies of the land;