Who own wine's old prophetic aid,
And love the mitre Bacchus made,
Forbid the faithful to depend
On half-pint drinkers for a friend,
And in whofe gay red-letter'd face
We read good-living more than grace:
Nor they fo pure, and fo precife,
Immac'late as their white of eyes,
Who for the spirit hug the Spleen,
Phylacter'd throughout all their mien,
Who their ill-tasted home-brew'd pray'r
To the state's mellow forms prefer;
Who doctrines, as infectious, fear,
Which are not steep'd in vinegar,
And famples of heart-chefted grace
Expofe in fhew-glafs of the face,
Did never me as yet provoke,
Either to honour band and cloak,
Or deck my hat with leaves of oak.
I rail not with mock-patriot grace
At folks, because they are in place;
Nor, hir'd to praise with stallion pen,
Serve the ear-lechery of men;
But to avoid religious jars
The laws are my expofitors,
Which in my doubting mind create
Conformity to church and state.
I go, pursuant to my plan,
To Mecca with the caravan,
And think it right in common sense
Both for diverfion and defence.
Reforming schemes are none of mine;
To mend the world's a vaft defign:
Like theirs, who tug in little boat,
To pull to them the ship afloat,
While to defeat their labour'd end,
At once both wind and stream contend:
Succefs herein is feldom feen,
And zeal, when baffled, turns to Spleen.
Happy the man, who, innocent,
Grieves not at ills he can't prevent;
His skiff does with the current glide,
Not puffing pull'd against the tide.
He, paddling by the fcuffling crowd,
Sees unconcern'd life's wager row'd,
And when he can't prevent foul play,
Enjoys the folly of the fray.
We're bound our great light to display,
And Indian darkness drive away,
Yet none but drunken watchmen fend,
And scoundrel link-boys for that end;
When they cry up this holy war,
Which every chriftian fhould be for,
Yet fuch as owe the law their ears,
We find employ'd as engineers:
This view my forward zeal fo fhocks,'
In vain they hold the money-box.
At fuch a conduct, which intends
By vicious means fuch virtuous ends,
I laugh off Spleen, and keep my pence
From spoiling Indian innocence.
Yet philofophic love of ease
I fuffer not to prove disease,
But rise up in the virtuous caufe
Of a free press, and equal laws.
The press restrain'd! nefandous thought!
In vain our fires have nobly fought:
While free from force the prefs remains,
Virtue and Freedom cheer our plains,
And Learning largeffes bestows,
And keeps uncenfur'd open house.
We to the nation's public mart
Our works of wit, and schemes of art,
And philofophic goods this way,
Like water carriage, cheap convey.
This tree, which knowledge fo affords,
Inquifitors with flaming fwords
From lay-approach with zeal defend,
Left their own paradife should end.
The prefs from her fecundous womb
Brought forth the arts of Greece and Rome;
Her offspring, skill'd in logic war,
Truth's banner wav'd in open air
The monster Superstition fled,
And hid in fhades its Gorgon head;
And lawless pow'r, the long-kept field,
By reafon quell'd, was forc'd to yield.
This nurse of arts, and freedom's fence
To chain, is treafon against sense;
And, Liberty, thy thousand tongues
None filence, who design no wrongs;
For those, that use the gag's restraint,
First rob, before they stop complaint.
Since disappointment galls within,
And fubjugates the foul to Spleen,
Most schemes, as money-fnares, I hate,
And bite not at projector's bait.
Sufficient wrecks appear each day,
And yet fresh fools are caft away.
Ere well the bubbled can turn round,
Their painted veffel runs aground;
Or in deep feas it oversets
By a fierce hurricane of debts;
Or helm-directors in one trip,
Freight first embezzled, fink the ship.
Such was of late a corporation,
The brazen ferpent of the nation,
Which, when hard accidents distress'd,
The poor muft look at to be bleft,
And thence expect, with paper feal'd
By fraud and us'ry, to be heal'd.
I in no foul-consumption wait
Whole years at levees of the great,
And hungry hopes regale the while
On the spare diet of a smile.
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