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THE COUNTRY PARSON.

PARSON, these things in thy poffeffing
Are better than the bishop's bleffing.
A wife that makes conferves; a steed
That carries double when there's need:
October ftore, and best Virginia,
Tythe-pig, and mortuary guinea:
Gazettes fent gratis down, and frank'd,
For which thy patron's weekly thank'd;
A large concordance, bound long fince;
Sermons to Charles the First, when prince:
A chronicle of ancient standing;
A Chryfoftom to smooth thy band in.
The Polyglott-three parts,-my text,
Howbeit-likewife-now to my next.
Lo here the Septuagint-and Paul,
To fum the whole,-the close of all.

He that has thefe, may pass his life,
Drink with the 'fquire, and kifs his wife、
On Sundays preach, and eat his fill;
And faft on Fridays-if he will;
Toaft church and queen, explain the news,
Talk with church-wardens about

Pray heartily for fome new gift,
And shake his head at Doctor S.

13

pews,

t.

IBID. P. 13.

MAN.

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AWAKE, my St. John! leave all meaner things
To low ambition, and the pride of Kings.
Let us (fince life can little more fupply
Than just to look about us, and to die)
Expatiate free o'er all this fcene of Man;
A mighty maze! but not without a plan;
A wild, where weeds and flow'rs promiscuous

shoot;

Or garden, tempting with forbidden fruit.
Together let us beat this ample field,

Try what the open, what the covert yield!
The latent tracts, the giddy heights, explore
Of all who blindly creep, or fightless foar;
Eye Nature's walks, fhoot Folly as it flies,
And catch the Manners living as they rife;
Laugh where we muft, be candid where we can ;
But vindicate the ways of God to Man.

Say firft, of God above, or Man below, What can we reason, but from what we know? Of Man, what fee we but his ftation here, From which to reason, or to which refer? Thro' worlds unnumber'd tho' the God be known, 'Tis ours to trace him only in our own. He, who thro' vaft immenfity can pierce, See worlds on worlds compofe one universe,

Obferve

Obferve how fyftem into fyftem runs,
What other planets circle other funs,
What vary'd Being peoples ev'ry ftar,
May tell why Heav'n has made us as we are.
But of this frame the bearings and the ties,
The ftrong connections, nice dependencies,
Gradations juft, has thy pervading foul
Look'd thro'? or can a part contain the whole

Is the great chain, that draws all to agree, And drawn fupports, upheld by God, or thee?

Prefumptuous Man! the reafon wouldst thou find, Why form'd fo weak, fo little, and fo blind? First, if thou canft, the harder reafon guess, Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less. Ask of thy mother Earth, why oaks are made Taller and ftronger than the weeds they fhade; Or afk of yonder argent fields above, Why Jove's Satellites are lefs than Jove?

Of Syftems poffible, if 'tis confest, That Wisdom infinite must form the best, Where all must full, or not coherent be, And all that rifes, rife in due degree; Then, in the scale of reas'ning life, 'tis plain, There must be, fomewhere, fuch a rank as Man: And all the queftion (wrangle e'er fo long) Is only this, if God has plac'd him wrong?

Refpecting

Refpecting Man, whatever wrong we call
May, must be right, as relative to all.

In human works, though labour'd on with pain,
A thousand movements fcarce one purpose gain :
In God's, one fingle can its end produce;
Yet ferves to fecond too fome other ufe.
So Man, who here feems principal alone,
Perhaps acts fecond to some sphere unknown,
Touches fome wheel, or verges to fome goal;
'Tis but a part we fee, and not a whole.

When the proud fteed fhall know why man restrains

His fiery courfe, or drives him o'er the plains;
When the dull Ox, why now he breaks the clod,
Is now a victim, and now Egypt's God;
Then shall Man's pride and dullness comprehend
His actions', paffions', being's, use and end;
Why doing, fuff'ring, check'd, impell'd; and why
This hour a flave, the next a deity.

Then say not Man's imperfect, Heav'n in fault:
Say rather, Man's as perfect as he ought;
His knowledge meafur'd to his ftate and place;
His time a moment, and a point his space.
If to be perfect in a certain fphere,

What matter, foon or late, or here or there?
The bleft to-day is as completely fo,
As who began a thousand years ago.

Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of Fate, All but the page prescrib'd, their present state; From brutes what men, from men what fpirits know: Or who could fuffer Being here below?

The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the laft, he crops the flow'ry food,
And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly giv'n,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n :
Who fees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,

Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,

And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions foar; Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore. What future blifs, he gives not thee to know, But gives that Hope to be thy bleffing now. Hope fprings eternal in the human breaft: Man never Is, but always To be bleft: The foul, uneafy, and confin'd from home, Refts and expatiates in a life to come.

Lo, the poor Indian; whofe untutor'd mind Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind; His foul, proud Science never taught to ftray Far as the folar walk, or milky way; Yet fimple Nature to his hope has giv'n, Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heav'n ;

Some

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