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Of Effex from inveterate ills revive
At pure Montpelier or Bermuda caught.
But, if the raw and oozy heaven offend,
Correct the foil and dry the fources up
Of wat'ry exhalation; wide and deep
Conduct your trenches thro' the quaking bog;
Solicitous, with all your winding arts,
Betray th' unwilling lake into the stream;
And weed the foreft, and invoke the winds
To break the toils where ftrangled vapours lie;
Or thro' the thickets fend the crackling flames.
Meantime at home with cheerful fires difpel
The humid air: and let your table smoke
With folid roaft or bak'd; or what the herds
Of tamer breed supply; or what the wilds
Yield to the toilfome pleafures of the chace.
Generous your wine, the boaft of rip'ning years,
But frugal be your cups; The languid frame,
Vapid and funk from yesterday's debauch,
Shrinks from the cold embrace of wat'ry hea-
But neither thefe, nor all Apollo's arts, [vens.
Difarm the dangers of the dropping fky,
Unless with exercife and manly toil [blood.
You brace your nerves, and fpur the lagging
The fatt ning clime let all the fons of eafe
Avoid; if indolence would wish to live,
Go, yawn and loiter out the long flow year
In fairer fkies. If droughty regions parch [blood,
The fkin and lungs, and bake the thick'ning
Deep in the waving foreft choose your seat,
Where fuming trees refresh the thirsty air;
And wake the fountains from their fecret beds,
And into lakes dilate the rapid stream.
Here fpread your gardens wide; and let the cool,
The moist relaxing vegetable store
Prevail in each repaft: your food fupplied
By bleeding life, be gently wafted down,
By foft decoction and a mellowing heat,
To liquid balm; or if the folid mafs
You choose, tormented in the boiling wave;
'That thro' the thirfty channels of the blood
A fmooth diluted chyle may ever flow.
The fragrant dairy from its cold recess
Its nectar acid or benign will pour
To drown your thirst; or let the mantling bowl
Of keen fherbet the fickle tafte relieve.
For with the vicious blood the fimple ftream
Will hardly mingle; and fermented cups
Oft diffipate more moisture than they give.
Yet when pale feafons rife, or winter rolls
His horrors o'er the world, thou may'ft indulge
In feast more genial, and impatient broach
The mellow cafk. Then too the fcourging air
Provokes to keener toils than fultry droughts
Allow. But rarely we fuch fkies blafpheme.
Steep'd in continual rains, or with raw fogs
Bedew'd, our feafons droop: incumbent ftill
A pond'rous heaven o'erwhelms the finking foul:
Lab'ring with ftorms, in heapy mountains rife
The embattled clouds, as if the Stygian fhades
Had left the dungeon of eternal night,
Till black with thunder all the South defcends.

Scarce in a fhow'rlefs day the heavens indulge
Our melting clime; except the baleful East
Withers the tender fpring, and fourly checks
The fancy of the year. Our fathers talk
Of fummers, balmy airs, and fkies ferene.
Good Heaven! for what unexpiated crimes
This difmal change! The brooding elements
Do they, your pow'rful minifters of wrath,
Prepare fome fierce exterminating plague?
Or is it fix'd in the decrees above
That lofty Albion melt into the main?
Indulgent nature! O diffolve this gloom!
Bind in eternal adamant the winds
That drown or wither: give the genial West
To breathe, and in its turn the sprightly North;
And may once more the circling feafons rule
The year; not mix'd in ev'ry monftrous day!

Meantime, the moift malignity to fhun [paign
Of burthen'd fkies, mark where the dry cham-
Swells into cheerful hills; where marjorum
And thyme, the love of bees, perfume the air;
And where the cynorrhodon with the rofe
For fragrance vies; for in the thirsty foil
Moft fragrant breathe the aromatic tribes.
There bid thy roofs high on the baking steep
Afcend; there light thy hospitable fires,
And let them fee the winter morn arife;
The fummer evening blufhing in the west:
While with umbrageous oaks the ridge behind
O'erhung, defends you from the bluft'ring
north,

And bleak affliction of the peevish eaft.
Oh! when the growling winds contend, and all
The founding foreft fluctuates in the ftorm;
To fink in warm repose, and hear the din
Howl o'er the fteady battlements, delights
Above the luxury of vulgar fleep.

The murmuring rivulet, and the hoarfer strain
Of waters rufhing o'er the flippery rocks,
Will nightly lull you to ambrofial rest.
To pleafe the fancy is no trifling good,
Where health is ftudied; for whatever moves
The mind with calm delight, promotes the juft
And natural movements of th harmonious frame
Befides the fportive brook for ever shakes
The trembling air, that floats from hill to hill,
From vale to mountain, with inceflant change
Of pureft element, refreshing ftill
Your airy feat, and uninfected gods.
Chiefly for this I praife the man who builds
High on the breezy ridge, whofe lofty fides
Th ethereal deep with endless billows chafes,
His purer manfion nor contagious years
Shall reach, nor deadly putrid airs annoy.

But may no fogs, from lake or fenny plain,
Involve my hill! And wherefoe'er you build;
Whether on fun-burnt Epfom, or the plains
Wash'd by the filent Lee; in Chelsea low,
Or high Blackheath with wint'ry winds affail'd,
Dry be your houfe; but airy more than warm,
Elfe ev'ry breath or ruder wind will strike
Your tender body thro' with rapid pains!

The wild rose, or that which grows on the common brier.

Fierce coughs will tease you, hoarfenefs bind | Daily with fresh materials to repair

your voice,

Or moist Gravedo load your aching brows.
Thefe to defy, and all the fates that dwell
In cloifter'd air, tainted with steaming life,
Let lofty cielings grace your ample rooms;
And til at azure noontide may your dome
At ev'ry window drink the liquid sky.

Need we the funny fituation here,
And theatres open to the fouth, commend!
Here, where the morning's mifty breath infefts
More than the torrid noon? How fickly grow,
How pale, the plants in thofe ill-fated vales
That, circled round with the gigantic heap
Of mountains, never felt, nor ever hope
To feel, the genial vigour of the fun!
While on the neighb'ring hill the rofe inflames
The verdant fpring; in virgin beauty blows
The tender lily, languifhingly fweet;
O'er ev'ry hedge the wanton woodbine roves,
And autumn ripens in the fummer's ray.
Nor lefs the warmer living tribes demand
The foft'ring fun; whofe energy divine
Dwells not in mortal fire; whofe gen'rous heat
Glows thro' the mafs of grofler elements,
And kindles into life the pond'rous fpheres.
Cheer'd by the fond invigorating warmth,
We court thy beams, great majelty of day!
If not the foul, the regent of this world,
Firit-born of heaven, and only lefs than God!

BOOK II. DIET.

ENOUGH of Air. A defert fubject now,
Rougher and wilder, rifes to my fight.
A barren wafte, where not a garland grows
To bird the Mufe's brow; nor even a proud
Stupendous folitude frowns o'er the heath,
To roufe a noble horror in the foul:
But rugged paths fatigue, and error leads
Thro' endless labyrinths the devious feet.
Farewell, ethereal fields! the humbler arts
Ot life: the Table and the homely Gods
Demand my fong. Elyfian gales, adieu! [flow,
The blood, the fountain whence the fpirits
The gen'rous ftream that waters ev'ry part,
And motion, vigour, and warm life conveys
To every particle that moves or lives;
This vital fluid, through unnumber'd tubes
Pour'd by the heart, and to the heart again
Refunded; fcourg'd for ever round and round:
Enrag'd with heat and toil, at laft forgets
Its balmy nature; virulent and thin

It grows; and now, but that a thousand gates
Are open to its flight, it would deftroy
The parts it cherith'd and repair'd before.
Befides, the flexible and tender tubes
Melt in the mildest most nectareous tide
That ripening nature rolls; as in the stream
Its crumbling banks: but what the vital force
Of plastic fluids hourly batters down,
That very force, thofe plaftic particles
Rebuild: fo mutable the itate of man.
For this the watchful appetite was given,

This unavoidable expence of life,

This neceflary wafte of flesh and blood.
Hence the concoctive pow'rs, with various art,
Subdue the cruder aliments to chyle;
The chyle to blood; the foamy purple tide
To liquors, which thro' finer arteries
To different parts their winding courfe pursue;
To try new changes, and new forms put on,
Or for the public, or fome private ufe.

Nothing fo foreign but th' athletic hind
Can labour into blood. The hungry meal
Alone he fears, or aliments too thin;
By vi'lent powers too easily subdued,
Too foon expell'd. His daily labour thaws
To friendly chyle the most rebellious mais
That falt can harden, or the fmoke of years;
Nor does his gorge the rancid bacon rue,
Nor that which Ceftria fends, tenacious pafte
Of folid milk. But ye of fofter clay,
Infirm and delicate! and ye who waite
With pale and bloated floth the tedious day!
Avoid the ftubborn element, avoid
The full repaft; and let fagacions age
Grow wifer, leffon'd by the dropping teeth.
Half fubtiliz'd to chyle, the liquid food
Readieft obeys th' affimilating powers;
And foon the tender vegetable mafs
Relents; and foon the young of those that tread
The ftedfaft earth, or cleave the green abyfs,
Or pathlefs fky. And if the fleer must fall,
In youth and fanguine vigour let him die;
Nor ftay till rigid age or heavy ails
Abfolve him ill-requited from the yoke.
Some with high forage and luxuriant cafe
Indulge the veteran ox; but wifer thou,
From the bald mountain or the barren downs
Expect the flocks by frugal nature fed;
A race of purer blood, with exercife
Refin'd, and fcanty fare: for, old or young
The tall'd are never healthy, nor the cramm'd.
Not all the culinary arts can tame
To wholfome food th' abominable growth
Of rest and gluttony; the prudent talle
Rejects like bane fuch loathfome luiciousness.
The languid ftomach curies even the pure
Delicious fat, and all the race of oil:
For more the oily aliments relax
Its feeble tone; and with the eager lymph
(Fond to incorporate with all it meets)
Coyiy they mix, and fhun with flipp'ry wies
The woo'd embrace. The irrefoluble oil,
So gentle late and blasdishing, in floods
Of rancid bile o'erflows: whit tumulis hence,
What horrors rife, were naufcous to relate.
Choofe leaner viands, ye whofe jovi il make
Too faft the gummy nutriment imbibes:
Choose fober meals, and roule to active life
Your cumbrous clay; nor on th' enfeebling
Irrefolute, protract the morning hours. [down,
But let the man, whole bones are thinly clad,
With cheerful eafe and fucculent repait
Improve his flender habit. Each extreme
From the bieft mean of fanity departs.

I could

I could relate what table this demands
Or that complexion; what the various pow'rs
Of various foods; but fifty years would roll,
And fifty more, before the tale were done.
Befides, there often lurks fome nameless, ftrange,
Peculiar thing; nor on the fkin difplay'd,
Felt in the pulfe, nor in the habit feen;
Which finds a poifon in the food that most
The temp'rature affects. There, are, whofe blood
Impetuous rages thro' the turgid veins,
Who better bear the fiery fruits of Ind
Than the moist Melon, or pale Cucumber.
Of chilly nature others fly the board
Supplied with flaughter; and the vernal pow'rs
For cooler, kinder, fuftenance implore.
Some ev'n the gen'rous nutriment detest
Which in the hell, the fleeping embryo rears.
Some, more unhappy ftill, repent the gifts
Of Pales-foft, delicious, and benign;
The balmy quinteffence of ev'ry flow'r,
And ev'ry grateful herb that decks the fpring;
The foft'ring dew of tender fprouting life;
The best refection of declining age;
The kind restorative of those who lie
Half dead, and panting from the doubtful ftrife
Of nature struggling in the grasp of death.
Try all the bounties of this fertile globe,
There is not fuch a falutary food
As fuits with ev'ry ftomach. But (except
Amid the mingled mass of fish and fowl,
And boil'd and bak'd, you hefitate by which
You funk opprefs'd, or whether not by all).
Taught by experience, foon you may difcern
What pleafes; what offends. Avoid the cates
That lull the ficken'd appetite too long;
Or heave with feverish flufhings all the face,
Burn in the palms, and parch the rough'ning
tongue;

Or much diminish or too much increase
Th' expence, which nature's wife œconomy,
Without or waste or avarice, maintains.
Such cates abjur'd, let prowling hunger loose,
And bid the curious palate roam at will;
They scarce can err amid the various stores
That burit the teeming entrails of the world.
Led by fagacious talte, the ruthlefs king
Of beasts on blood and flaughter only lives;
The tiger, form'd alike to cruel meals,
Would at the manger farve: of milder feeds,
The generous horse to herbage and to grain
Coufines his with; tho' fabling Greece refound
The Thracian fteeds with human carnage wild.
Prompted by instinct's ever-erring pow'r
Each creature knows its proper aliment;
But man, th' inhabitant of ev'ry clime,
With all the commoners of nature feeds.
Directed, bounded, by this pow'r within,
Their cravings are well aim'd: voluptuous Man
Is by fuperior faculties misled,

Mined from pleasure e'en in queft of joy.
Sated with nature's boons, what thousands feek,
With dishes tortur'd from their native taste,
And mad variety, to fpur beyond
Its wifer will the jaded appetite!

Is this for pleafure? Learn a jufter tafte;
And know that temperance is true luxury.
Or is it pride? Purfue fome nobler aim:
Difmifs your parafites, who praise for hire;
And earn the fair efteem of honeft men, [yours,
Whole praife is fame. Form'd of such clay as
The fick, the famifh'd, shiver at your gates.
Even modeft want may blefs your hand unfeen,
Tho' huth'd in patient wretchedness at home,
Is there no virgin grac'd with ev'ry charm
But that which binds the mercenary vow?
No youth of genius, whofe neglected bloom
Unfofter'd fickens in the barren fhade?
No worthy man, by fortune's random blows,
Or by a heart too gen'rous and humane,
Conftrain'd to leave his happy natal feat,
And figh for wants more bitter than his own?
There are, while human miferies abound,
A thousand ways to waste fuperfluous wealth,
Without one fool or flatterer at your board,
Without one hour of fickness or difguft.

But other ills th' ambiguous fealt purfue,
Befides provoking the lafcivious taste.
Such various foods, tho' harmlefs each alone,
Each other violate; and oft we fee
What ftrife is brew'd, and what pernicious bane,
From combinations of innoxious things.
Th' unbounded taste I mean not to confine
To hermit's diet, neediefsly fevere.
But would you long the fweets of health enjoy,
Or hufband pleafure; at one impious meal
Exhauft not half the bounties of the year,
Of ev'ry reahn. It matters not meanwhile
How much to-morrow differ from to-day;
So far indulge: 'tis fit, befides, that man,
To change obnoxious, be to change mur'd.
But ftay the curious appetite, and tafte
With caution fruits you never tried before.
For want of use, the kindeft aliment
Sometimes offends; while cuftom tames the rage
Of poison to mild amity with life.

So Heaven has form'd us to the general tafte
Of all its gifts, fo custom has improv'd
This bent of nature, that few fimple foods,
Of all that earth, or air, or ocean yield,
But by excefs offend. Beyond the fenfe
Of light refection, at the genial board
Indulge not often; nor protract the feast
To dull fatiety; till foft and flow
A drowly death creeps on, th' expansive foul
Opprefs'd, and fmother'd the celestial fire.
The ftomach, urg'd beyond its active tone,
Hardly to nutrimental chyle fubdues
The fofteft food; unfinish'd and deprav'd,
The chyle in all its future wand'rings owns
Its turbid fountain; not by purer ftreams
So to be clear'd, but foulnefs will remain.
To fparkling wine what ferment can exalt
Th' unripen'd grape Or what mechanic skill
From the crude ore can fpin the ductile gold

Grofs riot treasures up a wealthy fund
Of plagues; but more immedicable ills
Attend the lean extreme. For phyfic knows
How to difburden the too tumid veins,

Ev'n how to ripen the half-labour'd blood:
But to unlock the elemental tubes,
Collaps'd and fhrunk with long inanity,
And with balfamic nutriment repair
The dried and worn out habit, were to bid
Old age grow green, and wear a fecond fpring;
Or the tall afh, long ravish'd from the foil,
Thro' wither'd veins imbibe the vernal dew.
When hunger calls, obey; nor often wait
Till hunger fharpen to corrofive pain:
For the keen appetite will feaft beyond
What nature well can bear; and one extreme
Ne'er without danger meets its own reverse.
Too greedily th' exhaufted veins abforb
The recent chyle, and load enfeebled pow'rs
Oft to th' extinction of the vital flame.
To the pale cities, by the firm- fet fiege
And famine humbled, may this verte be borne.
And hear, ye hardiest fons that Albion breeds!
Long tofs'd and famifh'd on the wint'ry main;
The war fhook off, or hospitable shore
Attain'd,with temp'rance bear the fhock of joy;
Nor crown with feftive rights th' aufpicious day:
Suchfeafts might prove morefatal than the waves,
Than war or famine. While the vital fire
Burns feebly, heap not the green fuel on;
But prudently foment the wand'ring spark
With what the foonest feels its kindred touch:
Be frugal e'en of that; a little give
At first: that kindled, add a little more;
Till by delib'rate nourishing, the flame
Revivid with all its wonted vigour glows.

Influenc'd by both; a middle regimen
Impofe. Thro' autumn's languishing domain
Defcending, nature by degrees invites
To growing luxury. But from the depth
Of winter when th' invigorating year
Emerges; when Favonius, fiuth'd with love
Toyful and young, in ev'ry breeze defcends
More warm and wanton on his kindling bride;
Then, thepherds, then begin to fpare your flocks;
And learn, with wife humanity, to check
The luft of blood. Now pregnant earth commits
A various offspring to th' indulgent fky:
Now bounteous nature feeds with lavish hand
The prone creation; yields what once fuffic'd
Their dainty fov'reign, when the world was

young,

Ere yet the barb'rous thirst of blood had seiz'd
The human breaft. Each rolling month matures
The food that fuits it most; fo does each clime.
Far in the horrid realms of winter, where
Th' eftablish'd ocean heaps a monstrous waste
Of fhining rocks and mountains to the pole,
There lives a hardy race, whofe plaineft wants
Relentless earth, their cruel ftep mother,
Regards not. On the wafte of iron fields,
Untam'd, intractable, no harvests wave;
Pomona hates them, and the clownish god
Who tends the garden. In this frozen world
Such cooling gifts were vain: a fitter meal
Is earn'd with cafe; for here the fruitful fpawn
Of Ocean fwarms, and heaps their genial board
With gen'rous fare and luxury profufe.
Thefe are their bread, the only bread they know;
Thefe, and their willing flave, the deer that crops
The fhrubby herbage on their meagre hills.
Girt by the burning zone, not thus the South
Her fwarthy fons in either Ind maintains;
Or thirty Libya, from whofe fervid loins
The lion burfts, and ev'ry fiend that roams
Th' affrighted wildernefs. The mountain herd,
Aduft and dry, no fweet repaft affords;
Nor does the tepid main fuch kinds produce,
So perfect, fo delicious, as the fhoals
Of icy Zembla. Rafhly where the blood [tain
Brews fev'rifh frays; where fcarce the tubes fuf-
Its tumid fervour and tempestuous course,
Kind Nature tempts not to fuch gifts as these.
But here in livid ripenefs melts the grape;
Here, finish'd by invigorating funs,
Thro' the green fhade the golden orange glows!
Spontaneous here the turgid melon yields
A gen'rous pulp; the coco fwells on high
With milky riches; and in horrid mail'
The crifp ananas wraps its poignant (weets:
Earth's vaunted progeny; in ruder air
Too coy to flourish, ev'n too proud to live,
il fires, Or hardly rais'd by artificial fire
us board, To vapid life. Here, with a mother's fmile,
er fare; Glad Amalthea pours a copious horn:

But tho' the two (the full and the jejune)
Extremes have each their vice; it much avails
Ever with gentle tide to ebb and flow
From this to that: fo nature learns to bear
Whatever chance or headlong appetite
May bring. Befides, a meagre day fubdues
The cruder clods by floth or luxury
Collected, and unloads the wheels of life.
Sometimes a coy aversion to the feast
Comes on, while yet no blacker omen low'rs;
Then is a time to fhun the tempting board,
Were it your natal or your nuptial day.
Perhaps a faft fo feasonable ftarves

The latent feeds of woe, which rooted once
Might coft you labour. But, the day return'd
Of feftal luxury, the wife indulge
Moff ** tender vegetable breed:

T

hen the fummer beams inflame
gens, or angry Sirius fheds
thro' the till gulph of air,
viands then, and flowing cup
th dairy-virin's lib'ral hand,
our head f

rld

aded * (

mid V

meal:

ad longs is quak Ther

, tho' round the

ne to cheer Here buxom Ceres reigns: th' atumnal sea hich divide In boundlefs billows fluctuates o'er their pla her claim'd, What suits the climate beft, what suits

The burning Fever.

Nature profufes moft, and moft the tafte
Demands. The fountain, edg'd with racy wine
Or acid fruit, bedews their thirsty fouls.
The breeze eternal breathing round their limbs
Supports in elfe intolerable air;

While the cool palm, the plantain, and the grove
That waves on gloomy Lebanon, affuage
The torrid hell that beams upon their heads.
Now come, ye Naiads, to the fountains lead;
Now let me wander thro' your gelid reign.
I burn to view th' enthufiaftic wilds
By mortal elfe untrod. I hear the din
Of waters thund'ring o'er the ruin'd cliffs.
With holy rev'rence I approach the rocks [fong.
Whence glide the ftreams renown'd in ancient
Here from the defert down the rumbling steep
First fprings the Nile; here bursts the founding Po
In angry waves; Euphrates hence devolves
A mighty flood to water half the east;
And there, in Gothic folitude reclin'd,
The cheerlefs Tanais pours his hoary urn.
What folemn twilight, what ftupendous fhades,
Enwrap thefe infant floods! Thro' ev'ry nerve
A facred horror thrills, a pleafing fear
Glides o'er my frame. The foreft deepens round;
And, more gigantic ftill, th' impending trees
Stretch their extravagant arms athwart thegloom.
Are these the confines of some fairy world,
A land of Genii? Say, beyond these wilds
What unknown nations, if indeed beyond
Aught habitable lies? And whither leads,
To what ftrange regions, or of blifs or pain,
That fubterraneous way? Propitious maids,
Conduct me, while with fearful steps I tread
This trembling ground. The task remains to fing
Your gifts (fo Paan, fo the pow'rs of health
Command) to praise your cryftal element:
The chief ingredient in Heaven's various works;
Whofe flexile genius fparkles in the gem,
Grows firm in oak, and fugitive in wine;
The vehicle, the fource, of nutriment
And life to all that vegetate or live.

The choice of water. Thus the Coan * fagé
Opin'd, and thus the learn'd of ev'ry school:
What leaft of foreign principles partakes
Is beft, the lighteft then; what bears the touch
Of fire the leaft, and foonest mounts in air;
The most infipid, the most void of smell,
Such the rude mountain from its horrid fides
Pours down; fuch waters in the fandy vale
For ever boil, alike of winter frofts
And fummer's heat fecure. The crystal stream,
Through rocks refounding, or for many a mile
O'er the chaf'd pebbles húrld, yields wholesome,
[thaws,

pure,

And mellow draughts; except when winter
And half the mountains melt into the tide.
Tho' thirft were ne'er fo refolute, avoid
The fordid lake, and all fuch drowsy floods
As fill from Lethe Belgia's flow canals
With reft corrupt, with vegetation green;
Squalid with generation, and the birth
Of little moniters, till the pow'r of fire
Has from profane embraces difengag'd
The violated lymph. The virgin ftream,
In boiling, waftes its finer foul in air.

Nothing like fimple element dilutes
The food, or gives the chyle so soon to flow.
But where the ftomach, indolently given,
Toys with its duty, animate with wine
Th' infipid ftream: tho' golden Ceres yields
A more voluptuous, a more fprightly draught;
Perhaps more active. Wine unmix'd, and all
The gluey floods that from the vex'd abyss
Of fermentation fpring; with spirit fraught,
And furious with intoxicating fire;
Retard concoction, and preferve unthaw'd
Th'embodied mafs. You fee what countlessyears,
Embalm'd in fiery quinteffence of wine,
The puny wonders of the reptile world,
The tender rudiments of life, the flim
Unravellings of minute anatomy,
Maintain their texture, and unchang'd remain.

We curfe not wine; the vile excefs we blame, More fruitful than th' accumulated board Of pain and mifery. For the subtle draught Fafter and furer fwells the vital tide; And with more active poison, than the floods Of groffer crudity convey, pervades

Ah! fly deceiver! branded o'er and o’er, Yet ftill believ'd! exulting o'er the wreck Of fober vows! But the Parnaffian Maids Another time, † perhaps, fhall fing the joys, The fatal charms, the many woes, of wine; Perhaps its various tribes and various pow'rs.

O comfortable streams! With eager lips, And trembling hand, the languid thirty quaff New life in you: freth vigour fills their veins. No warmer cups the rural ages knew ; None warmer fought the fires of human kind Happy in temperate peace! Their equal daysThe far remote meanders of our frame. Felt not th' alternate fits of fev'rish mirth And fick dejection. Still ferene and pleas'd, They knew no pains but what the tender foul With pleafure yields to, and would ne'er forget. Bleft with divine immunity from ails, Long centuries they liv'd; their only fate Was ripe old age, and rather sleep than death. Meantime, I would not always dread the bowl, Oh! could thofe worthies from the world of gods Nor ev'ry trefpafs thun. The fev'rifh ftrife, Return to vifit their degen'rate fons, Rous'd by the rare debauch, fubdues, expels How would they fcorn the joys of modern time, The loit'ring crudities that burthen life; With all our art and toil improv'd to pain! And, like a torrent full and rapid, clears Too happy they! But wealth brought luxury, Th' obftructed tubes. Befides, this reftlefs world And luxury on floth begot difeafe. [difdain Is full of chances, which by habit's pow'r Learn temp'rance, friends; and hear without To learn to bear, is eafier than to hun.

* Hippocrates.

+ Sec Book IV.

Ah!

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