And filent weep-that while the deathless Muse Shall fing the juft, shall o'er their head diffuse • Perfumes with lavish hand, she shall proclaim Thy crimes alone; and to thy evil fame

Impartial, scatter damps and poisons on thy name.'
Awaking therefore, as who long had dream'd,

Much of my women and their gods afham'd,
From this abyss of exemplary vice

Refolv'd, as time might aid my thought, to rife,
Again I bid the mournful goddess write

The fond purfuit of fugitive delight;

Bid her exalt her melancholy wing;

And, rais'd from earth, and fav'd from paffion, fing
Of human hope by crofs event destroy'd,

Of useless wealth, and greatness unenjoy'd;

Of luft and love, with their fantastick train,

Their wishes, fmiles, and looks-deceitful all and yain.

Solomon confiders man through the feveral ftages and conditions of life, and concludes, in general, that we are all miferable. He reflects more particularly, upon the trouble and uncertainty of greatnefs and power; gives fome instances thereof from Adam down to himself; and ftill concludes that ALL IS VANITY. He reafons again upon life, death, and a future being; finds human wisdom too imperfect to refolve his doubts; has recourse to religion; is informed by an angel what fhall happen to himself, his family, and his kingdom, till the redemption of Ifrael: and, upon the whole, refolves to fubmit his inquiries and anxieties to the will of his Creator.

COME, then, my foul! I call thee by that name ;

Thou bufy thing, from whence I know I am:

For knowing that I am, I know thou art;

Since that muft needs exift, which can impart !

But

}

But how thou cam'ft to be, or whence thy fpring è
For various of thee priefts and poets fing.

Hear'ft thou, fubmiffive, but a lowly birth,
Some separate particles of finer earth;
A plain effect which Nature must beget,

As motion orders, and as atoms meet;

Companion of the body's good or ill,

From force of instinct more than choice of will;
• Confcious of fear or valour, joy or pain,
As the wild courfes of the blood ordain :
Who as degrees of heat and cold prevail,
In youth doft flourish, and with age fhalt fail;
Till mingled with thy partner's latest breath,
Thou fly'ft diffolv'd in air and loft in death?

Or if thy great exiftence would afpire

To causes more fublime, of heav'nly fire?
Wer't thou a spark ftruck off, a sep'rate ray,
Ordain'd to mingle with terrestrial clay;
• With it condem'd for certain years to dwell,
To grieve it's frailties, and it's pains to feel;
To teach it good and ill, difgrace or fame,
• Pale it with rage, or redden it with shame;
To guide it's actions with informing care,
In peace to judge, to conquer in the war;
Render it agile, witty, valiant, fage,
As fits the various course of human age;
Till as the earthly part decays and falls,
The captive breaks her prison's mould'ring walls,
Hovers a while upon the fad remains,
Which now the pile or fepulchre contains,
And thence with liberty unbounded flies,
Impatient to regain her native skies?

• Whate'er thou art, where'er ordain'd to go,

(Points which we rather may dispute than know)

Come on, thou little inmate of this breaft;

Which, for thy fake, from paffions I diveft:

For

6

For thefe, thou fay'ft, raife all the ftormy ftrife
Which hinder thy repofe, and trouble life!
Be the fair level of thy actions laid,

As temp'rance wills, and prudence may perfuade;
Be thy affections undisturb'd and clear,
Guided to what may great or good appear,

And try if life be worth the liver's care.
Amafs'd in man there juftly is beheld
What thro' the whole creation has excell'd;

The life and growth of plants, of beafts the sense,
The angels forecaft and intelligence:

Say, from thefe glorious feeds what harvest flows;

• Recount our bleffings, and compare our woes?
In it's true light let cleareft Reason fee

The man dragg'd out to act, and forc'd to be ;
Helpless and naked, on a woman's knees
To be expos'd or rear'd as the may please,
Feel her neglect, and pine from her difeafe:
His tender eye by too direct a ray
Wounded, and flying from unpractis'd day ;
His heart affaulted by invading air,
And beating fervent to the vital war ;

To his young fense how various forms appear,
That ftrike his wonder and excite his fear :
By his distortions he reveals his pains;
He by his tears and by his fighs complains;
Till time and use affift the infant wretch,
By broken words and rudiments of speech,
His wants in plainer characters to show,
And paint more perfect figures of his woe:
Condemn'd to facrifice his childish years
To babbling ign'rance and to empty fears;
To pafs the riper period of his age,
Acting his part upon a crouded stage;
To lafting toils expos'd, and endless cares,
To open dangers, and to fecret fnares ;

}

• To

To malice which the vengeful foe intends,
And the more dang'rous love of feeming friends.
His deeds examin'd by the people's will,

• Prone to forget the good, and blame the ill;

Or, fadly cenfur'd in their curs'd debate,

• Who in the fcorner's or the judge's feat

• Dare to condemn the virtue which they hate.
• Or would he rather leave this frantick scene,
• And trees and beafts prefer to courts and men;
• In the remoteft wood and lonely grot
• Certain to meet that worst of evils, Thought;
Diff'rent ideas to his mem'ry brought-

Some intricate, as are the pathless woods,
• Impetuous fome, as the defcending floods;
With anxious doubts, with raging paffions torn,
• No sweet companion near with whom to mourn,
'He hears the echoing rock return his fighs,

And from himself the frighted hermit flies.

Thus, thro' what path foe'er of life we rove, Rage companies our hate, and grief our love; • Vex'd with the prefent moment's heavy gloom, Why feek we brightness from the years to come? • Disturb'd and broken, like a fick man's fleep, Our troubled thoughts to diftant profpects leap, 'Defirous ftill what flies us to o'ertake;

For hope is but the dream of those that wake: But, looking back, we fee the dreadful train • Of woes a-new, which, were we to sustain, 'We should refuse to tread the path again;

'Still adding grief, ftill counting from the first,

Judging the latest evil ftill the worst,

And fadly finding each progreffive hour

Heighten their number and augment their pow'r; • Till by one countless sum of woes opprefs'd, Hoary with cares, and ignorant of rest,

}

}

}

• We

We find the vital springs relax'd and worn,

Compell'd our common impotence to mourn.

Thus thro' the round of age to childhood we return;
Reflecting find, that naked from the womb.

• We yesterday came forth; that in the tomb

• Naked again we must to-morrow lie,

Born to lament, to labour, and to die.

Pafs we the ills which each man feels or dreads,
The weight or fall'n or hanging o'er our heads;
The bear, the lion, terrors of the plain,
The fheepfold scatter'd, and the shepherd flain;
The frequent errors of the pathlefs wood,
The giddy precipice, and the dang'rous flood;
The noifome peft'lence, that in open war

Terrible, marches thro' the mid-day air,

And fcatters death; the arrow that, by night,
• Cuts the dank mift, and fatal wings it's flight;
The billowing fnow, and violence of the shower,
That from the hills difperfe their dreadful store,
And o'er the vales collected ruin pour;

The worm that gnaws the ripening fruit, fad gueft; • Canker or locuft, hurtful to infest

• The blade; while husks elude the tiller's care,
• And eminence of want diftinguishes the year.
Pafs we the flow disease, and fubtle pain,
• Which our weak frame is deftin'd to fuftain ;
< The cruel ftone, with congregated war

Tearing his bloody way; the cold catarrh,

• With frequent impulse and continu'd strife,
Weak'ning the wasted seats of irksome life;
The gout's fierce rack, the burning fever's rage,
The fad experience of decay; and Age,
Herself the foreft ill; while Death and Eafe,
Oft and in vain invok'd, or to appease

• Or end the grief, with hafty wings recede
From the vex'd patient and the fickly bed.

}

}

• Nought