And, wondering man could want the larger pile,
Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile.

My soul, turn from them: turn we to survey Where rougher climes a nobler race display ; Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansions tread, And force a churlish soil for scanty bread. No product here the barren hills afford But man and steel, the soldier and his sword; No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array, But winter lingering chills the lap of May; No zephyr fondly sues the mountain's breast, But meteors glare, and stormy glooms invest.

Yet still, even here, content can spread a charm, Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm. Tho' poor the peasant's hut, his feast tho' small, He sees his little lot the lot of all;

Sees no contiguous palace rear its head,

To shame the meanness of his humble shed;
No costly lord the sumptuous banquet deal,
To make him loathe his vegetable meal :
But calm, and bred in ignorance and toil,
Each wish contracting, fits him to the soil.
Cheerful at morn, he wakes from short repose,
Breathes the keen air, and carols as he goes;
With patient angle trolls the finny deep;
Or drives his venturous ploughshare to the steep;
Or seeks the den where snow-tracks mark the way
And drags the struggling savage into day.

At night returning, every labour sped,
He sits him down the monarch of a shed;
Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys
His children's looks, that brighten at the blaze;

While his loved partner, boastful of her hoard,
Displays her clean.y platter on the board :
And haply too some pilgrim thither led
With many a tale repays the nightly bed.

Thus ev'ry good his native wilds impart Imprints the patriot passion on his heart; And e'en those hills, that round his mansion rise, Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies: Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms, And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms; And as a child, when scaring sounds molest, Clings close and closer to the mother's breast,So the loud torrent and the whirlwind's roar But bind him to his native mountains more.

Such are the charms to barren states assign'dTheir wants but few, their wishes all confined; Yet let them only share the praises due,

If few their wants, their pleasures are but few;

For every want that stimulates the breast
Becomes a source of pleasure when redress'd.
Whence from such lands each pleasing science flies,
That first excites desire, and then supplies.
Unknown to them, when sensual pleasures cloy,
To fill the languid pause with finer joy;

Unknown those powers that raise the soul to flame,
Catch every nerve and vibrate through the frame :
Their level life is but a smouldering fire,
Unquench'd by want, unfann'd by strong desire ;
Unfit for raptures, or, if raptures cheer
On some high festival of once a year,
In wild excess the vulgar breast takes fire,
Till, buried in debauch, the bliss expire.

But not their joys alone thus coarsely flow,
Their morals, like their pleasures, are but low;
For, as refinement stops, from sire to son,
Unalter'd, unimproved, the manners run;
And love's and friendship's finely pointed dart
Fall blunted from each indurated heart.

Some sterner virtues o'er the mountain's breast
May sit like falcons cowering on the nest;

But all the gentler morals, such as play

Through life's more cultured walks, and charm the way- These, far dispersed, on timorous pinions fly,

To sport and flutter in a kinder sky.

To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign,

I turn; and France displays her bright domain.*

* "I passed among the harmless peasants of Flanders; and among such of the French as were poor enough to be merry, . . . . whenever I approached a peasant's home towards nightfall, I played one of my most merry tunes," &c.-The Vicar of Wakefield, Chap. 20.

Gay, sprightly land of mirth and social ease!
Pleased with thyself, whom all the world can please;
How often have I led thy sportive choir,

With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire !
Where shading elms along the margin grew;
And, freshen'd from the wave, the zephyr flew !
And haply, though my harsh touch, faltering still,
But mock'd all tune, and marr'd the dancer's skill,
Yet would the village praise my wondrous power,
And dance, forgetful of the noontide hour.

Alike all ages. Dames of ancient days

Have led their children through the mirthful maze ; And the gay grandsire, skill'd in gestic lore,

Has frisk'd beneath the burden of threescore.