Extreme, at once rapacious and profuse;
Frequent in park, with lady at his side,
Ambling, and prattling scandal as he goes:
But rare at home, and never at his books
Or with his pen, save when he scrawls a card;
Constant at routs, familiar with a round
Of ladyships, a stranger to the poor;
Ambitious of preferment for its gold,
And well prepar'd by ignorance and sloth,
By infidelity and love o' the world,

To make God's work a sinecure: a slave
To his own pleasures and his patron's pride-
From such apostles, O ye mitred heads,
Preserve the church! and lay not careless hands
On skulls that cannot teach, and will not learn.

COWPER.

LESSON

XXIX.

THE FOPPISH CLERGYMAN.

POLLIO must needs to penitence excite;
For see, his scarf is rich, and gloves are white;
Behold his notes display'd, his body rais'd;
With what a zeal he labours to be prais'd!
No stubborn sinner able to withstand

The force and reasoning of his wig and hand :-
Much better pleas'd, so pious his intent,
With five who laugh than fifty who repent:

II. On moral duties when his tongue refines,
Tully and Plato are his best divines:

What Matthew says, or Mark, the proof but small;
What Locke or Clarke asserts, good scripture all:
Touch'd with each weakness, which he does arraign,
With vanity he talks against the vain;
With ostentation does to meekness guide,
Proud of his periods levell'd against pride;
Ambitiously the love of glory slights,

And damns the love of fame-for which he writes,

LET pride be stifled in the bud;
The haughty-how unlike to God !
Abhorr❜d by every virtuous mind,
As creatures of the meanest kind.
This worst of evils oft appears

In swelling words and scornful jeers,
And with its foul and rancorous breath,
Shoots pois'nous arrows, fire and death;
While some low minds their pride express
In the vain fopperies of their dress.

II. Pride, like a ruthless tyrant, reigns,
And binds its slaves in fatal chains;
Makes them to truth and duty blind,
Against religion bars the mind.
Proud men, their wisdom deify,
And the most sacred truths deny :
This evil hath its thousands driven
From virtue's blessed path, and heaven.
Would you that place of glory find?
Be meek and humble in your mind.
The mesk, the Saviour's image bear-
This is the robe which angels wear.
Of what have fallen men to boast?
Involv'd in guilt, by nature lost--
Their bodies form'd a brittle frame,
Bound to the dust from whence they came

LESSON XXXI.

THE COUNTRY CLERGYMAN.

wild

WEAR yonder copse, where once the garden smil'd,
And still, where many a garden flower grows
There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose,
The village preacher's modest mansion rose.
man he was to all the country dear,

passing rich-with forty pounds a year.

train

Remote from towns he ran his godly race;
Nor e'er had chang'd, nor wish'd to change, his place :
Unpractis'd he to fawn or seek for power,
By doctrines fashion'd to the varying hour:
Far other aims his heart had learn'd to prize,
More skill'd to raise the wretched than to rise.
II. His house was known to all the
vagrant
He chid their wanderings, but reliev'd their pain.
The long remember'd beggar was his guest,
Whose beard descending swept his aged breast;
The ruin'd spendthrift, now no longer proud,
Claim'd kindred there, and had his claims allow'd.
The broken soldier kindly bade to stay,
Sat by his fire and talk'd the night away;

Wept o'er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done, Shoulder'd his crutch, and show'd how fields were won. Pleas'd with his guests, the good man learn'd to glow, And quite forgot their vices in their woe;

Careless their merits or their faults to scan,

His pity gave, ere charity began.

III. Thus, to relieve the wretched was his pride;
And e'en his failings lean'd to virtue's side:
But, in his duty prompt at every call,

He watch'd and wept, he pray'd and felt for all.
And, as a bird, each fond endearment tries
To tempt its new fledg'd offspring to the skies,
He tried each art, reprov'd each dull delay,
Allur'd to brighter worlds, and led the way.
Beside the bed, where parting life was laid,
And sorrow, guilt and pain, by turns dismay'd,
The reverend champion stood. At his control,
Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul:
Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise ;
And his last faultering accents whisper'd praise.

IV. At church, with meek and unaffected grace,
His looks adorn'd the venerable place;
Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway,
And fools, who came to scoff, remain'd to pray.
The service past, around the pious man,
With steady zeal, each honest rustick ran;
E'en children follow'd with endearing wile,

And pluck'd his gown to share the good man's smile

Hisready smile a parent's warmth express'd;
Their welfare pleas'd him, and their cares distress'd':
To them, his heart, his love, his griefs were giv'n;
But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven,-
As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form,

Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm,
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.

GOLDSMITH

LESSON XXXIII..

THE SABBATH.

WISE

In all thy sacred institutions, Lord,

Thy SABBATHS with peculiar wisdom shine ;-
First and high argument, creation done,

Of thy benign solicitude for man,

Thy chiefest favourite creature.

Time is thine :

How just to claim a part who giv'st the whole;
But oh! how gracious to assign that part
To man's supreme behoof, his soul's best good:
His moral and his mental benefit ;

His body's genial comfort! Savage else,
Untaught, undisciplin'd, in shaggy pride

He'd rov'd the wild, amidst the brutes, a brute
Ferocious; to the soft civilities

Of cultivated life, religion, truth,

A barbarous stranger. To thy Sabbaths-then,
All hail, wise Legislator! 'Tis to these
We owe at once the memory of thy works,
Thy mighty works of nature and of grace
We owe divine RELIGION; and to these
The decent comeliness of social life.
Revere, ye earthly magistrates, who wield
The sword of heaven-the wisdom of heaven's plan,
And sanctify the Sabbaths of your God.

LESSON XXXIV.

TIME

THE clock strikes one: We take no note of time,
But from its loss. To give it then a tongue,

Is wise in man.

As if an angel spoke,

I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright,

It is the knell of my departed hours;

Where are they with the years beyond the flood;
It is the signal that demands despatch;

How much is to be done! my hopes and fears
Start up
alarm'd, and o'er life's narrow verge.
Look down on what? a fathomless abyss ;
A dread eternity! how surely mine!

And can eternity belong to me,

Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?

HOW poor! how rich! how abject! how august!
How complicate! how wonderful is man!
How passing wonder HE who made him such!
Who centred in our make such strange extremes !
From different natures, marvellously mix'd,
Connection exquisite of distant worlds!
Distinguish'd link in beings's endless chain!
Midway from nothing to the Deity!
A beam ethereal, sullied and absorb'd!
Tho' sullied and dishonour'd still divine!
Dim miniature of greatness absolute !

II. An heir of glory! a frail child of dust!
Helpless immortal! insect infinite!

A worm! a god! I tremble at myself,
And in myself am lost! at home a stranger,
Thought wanders up and down, surpris'd, aghast,
And wondering at her own: how reason reels!
O what a miracle to man is man!

Triumphantly distress'd, what joy, what dread!
Alternately transported and alarm'd !

What can preserve my life? or what destroy?
An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave;
Legions of angels can't confine me the.

YOUNG.

YOUNG.