He, for each triumph you shall thus decline,
Shall give ten opportunities to fhine:
He fees, fince once you own'd him to excel,
That 'tis his intereft you should reason well;
And tho' when roughly us'd, he's full of choler,
As bluft'ring By to a brother scholar,
Yet by degrees, inure him to submit,
He's tame, and in his mouth receives the bit.
But chiefly against trifling contefts guard,
"Tis here submission seems to man most hard :
Nor imitate that refolute old fool",
Who undertook to kick against his mule.
But those who will not by instruction learn,
How fatal trifles prove, let story warn.
Panthus and Euclio, link'd by friendship's tie,
Liv'd each for each, as each for each wou'd die;
Like objects pleas'd them, and like objects pain'd ;
'Twas but one foul that in two bodies reign'd.
One night, as usual 'twas their nights to pass,
They ply'd the cheerful, but ftill temp'rate glass,
When lo! a doubt is rais'd about a word:
A doubt that must be ended by the sword:
One falls a victim, mark, O man, thy fhame,
Because their gloffaries were not the fame.
Cou'd Ba-1-y's felf more tenderness have shown
For his two tomes of words, tho' half his own?
For what remains of failings without end,
Morals muft fome, and fome the laws must mend.
While others in fuch monftrous forms appear,
As tongue-ty'd fournefs, fly fufpicion's leer,
Free-fifted rudeness, dropfical pretence,
Proteus' caprice, and elbowing infolence;
No caution to avoid them they demand,
Like wretches branded by the hangman's hand.
If faith to fome philofophers be given,
Man, that great lord of earth, that heir of heav'n,
Savage at first, inhabited the wood,
And fcrambled with his fellow-brutes for food;
No focial home he knew, no friendship's tie,
Selfish in good, in ill without ally;
Till fome in length of time, of ftronger nerve,
And greater cunning, forc'd the rest to serve
One common purpose, and, in nature's spite,
Brought the whole jarring fpecies to unite.
But might we not with equal reason say,
That ev'ry single particle of clay,
Which forms our body, was at first design'd
To lie for ever from the reft disjoin'd?
Can this be faid, and can it be allow'd
'Twas with its powers for no one end endow'd ?
If fo; we own that man, at first, by art
Was footh'd to act in focial life a part.
'Tis true, in fome the feeds of discord feem
To contradict this all-uniting fcheme:
But that no more hurts nature's general course,
Than matter found with a repelling force.
Turn we awhile on lonely man our eyes,
And fee what frantick fcenes of folly rife:
In fome dark monaftery's gloomy cells,
Where formal felf-prefuming Virtue dwells,
Bedoz'd with dreams of grace-diftilling caves,
Of holy puddles, unconfuming graves,
Of animated plaifter, wood, and ftone,
And mighty cures by fainted finners done.
Permit me, Mufe, ftill farther to explore,
And turn the leaves of fuperftition o'er;
Where wonders upon wonders ever grow,
Chaos of zeal and blindness, mirth and woe;
c Vifions of devils into monkeys turn'd,
That hot from hell roar at a finger burn'd;
Bottles of precious tears that faints have wept,
e And breath a thousand years in phials kept.;
f Sun-beams fent down to prop one friar's staff,
And hell broke loose to make another laugh;
St. Dominick, vide Janfenius (Nic.)
• Of our Saviour and others, vide Ferrand.
Of Jofeph, vide Molineum.
f St. Cathro's, vide Colganum.
n Obedient fleas, and i fuperftitious mice;
* Confeffing wolves, and fanctifying lice;
m Letters and houfes by an angel carried;
n And, wondrous! virgin nuns to JESUS married.
One monk, not knowing how to spend his time,
Sits down to find out some unheard-of crime;
Increases the large catalogue of fins,
And where the fober finifh, there begins.
Of death eternal his decree is past,
For the firft crime, as fix'd as for the last.
While that, as idle, and as pious too,
Compounds with false religion for the true;
He, courtly usher to the blest abodes,
Weighs all the niceties of forms and modes;
And makes the rugged paths so smooth and even,
None but an ill-bred man can mifs of heav'n.
One heav'n-inspir'd invents a frock, or hood:
The taylor now cuts out, and men grow good.
Another quits his ftockings, breeches, shirt,
Because he fancies virtue dwells with dirt:
Vide life of St. Colman by Colganus, i The fame life by the fame author. Vide fpeculum vitæ fan&ti Francifci.
1 St. Munnu gathered those that dropt from him, and put them in their place again, vide A&t. San&torum.
m From St. Firman to St. Columba, vide Colganum. Chapel of Loretto.
n Maria de la Vifitation, vide her life by Lufignam.
While all concur to take away the stress
From weightier points, and lay it on the lefs.
Anxious each paltry relique to preserve
Of him, whofe hungry friends they leave to starve,
Harrafs'd by watchings, abftinence, and chains;
Strangers to joys, familiar grown with pains;
To all the means of virtue they attend
With ftrictest care, and only miss the end.
Can fcripture teach us, or can fense perfuade,
That man for fuch employments e'er was made ?
Far be that thought! but let us now relate
A character as oppofite, as great,
In him, who living gave to Athens fame,
And, by his death, immortaliz'd her fhame.
Great fcourge of fophifts! he from heaven brought down,
And plac'd true wisdom on th' ufurper's throne :
Philofopher in all things, but pretence;
He taught what they neglected, common fenfe.
They o'er the ftiff Lyceum form'd to rule;
He, o'er mankind; all Athens was his fchool.
The fober tradefman, and fmart petit-maitre,
Great lords, and wits, in their own eyes ftill greater,
With him grew wife; unknowing they were taught;
He spoke like them, tho' not like them he thought:
Nor wept, nor laugh'd, at man's perverted ftates
But left to women this, to ideots that.
View him with fophifts fam'd for fierce contest,
Or crown'd with roses at the jovial feast;
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