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Or who have forc'd fair Science into fight
Long loft in darkness, and afraid of light?
O'er all fuperior, like the folar ray

First Bacon usher'd in the dawning day,
And drove the mifts of fophiftry away;
Pervaded nature with amazing force,
Following experience ftill throughout his course,
And finishing at length his deftin'd way,

To Newton he bequeath'd the radiant lamp of day.
Illuftrious fouls! if any tender cares

Affect angelic breasts for man's affairs,
If in your present happy heav'nly state,
You're not regardless quite of Britain's fate,
Let this degen'rate land again be blest

With that true vigour, which fhe once poffeft;
Compel us to unfold our flumb'ring eyes,
And to our ancient dignity to rife.

Such wond'rous pow'rs as these must sure be given
For most important purposes by heaven;
Who bids these stars as bright examples fhine
Befprinkled thinly by the hand divine,

To form to virtue each degenerate time,
And point out to the foul its origin fublime.

That

That there's a felf which after death shall live,
All are concern'd about, and all believe;

That fomething's ours, when we from life depart,
This all conceive, all feel it at the heart;
The wife of learn'd antiquity proclaim

This truth, the public voice declares the fame;
No land fo rude but looks beyond the tomb
For future profpects in a world to come.
Hence, without hopes to be in life repaid,
We plant flow oaks pofterity to fhade;
And hence vast pyramids aspiring high
Lift their proud heads aloft, and time defy.
Hence is our love of fame, a love so strong,
We think no dangers great, or labors long,
By which we hope our beings to extend,
And to remotest times in glory to defcend.

For fame the wretch beneath the gallows lyes,
Difowning every crime for which he dies;
Of life profuse, tenacious of a name,
Fearless of death, and yet afraid of fhame,
Nature has wove into the human mind
This anxious care for names we leave behind,
T'extend our narrow views beyond the tomb,
And give an earnest of a life to come:

For,

For, if when dead, we are but duft or clay,
Why think of what pofterity shall say?
Her praise, or cenfure cannot us concern,
Nor ever penetrate the silent urn.

What mean the nodding plumes, the fun'ral train,

And marble monument that speaks in vain,
With all thofe cares, which every nation pays
To their unfeeling dead in diff'rent ways!

Some in the flow'r-ftrewn grave the corpfe have lay'd,
And annual obfequies around it pay'd,
As if to please the poor departed fhade;
Others on blazing piles the body burn,
And store their afhes in the faithful urn;
But all in one great principle agree
'To give a fancy'd immortality.

Why should I mention those, whofe ouzy foil
Is render'd fertile by th' o'erflowing Nile?
Their dead they bury not, nor burn with fires,
No
graves they dig, erect no fun'ral pires,
But, washing first th' embowel'd body clean,
Gums, fpice, and melted pitch they pour within;
Then with ftrong fillets bind it round and round,
To make each flaccid part compact, and found;

VOL. VI.

F

And

And lastly paint the varnish'd furface o'er
With the fame features which in life it wore:
So ftrong their prefage of a future ftate,.

And that our nobler part furvives the body's fate.
Nations behold remote from reafon's beams,
Where Indian Ganges rolls his fandy streams,
Of life impatient rush into the fire,
And willing victims to their Gods expire!
Perfuaded the loose foul to regions flies
Bleft with eternal fpring, and cloudless skies.
Nor is lefs fam'd the oriental wife

For ftedfast virtue, and contempt of life :
These heroines mourn not with loud female cries
Their husbands loft, or with o'erflowing eyes,
But, ftrange to tell! their funeral piles afcend,
And in the fame fad flames their forrows end;
In hopes with them beneath the fhades to rove,
And there renew their interrupted love.

In climes where Boreas breathes eternal cold,
See numerous nations, warlike, fierce, and bold,
To battle all unanimously run,

Nor fire, nor fword, nor inftant death they shun:

Whence

Whence this difdain of life in every breast,
But from a notion on their minds impreft,
That all, who for their country die, are bleft?
Add too to these the once prevailing dreams,
Of sweet Elyfian groves, and Stygian streams:
All fhew with what confent mankind agree
In the firm hope of Immortality.

Grant these th' inventions of the crafty prieft,
Yet fuch inventions never could fubfift,
Unless some glimmerings of a future state
Were with the mind coæval, and innate :
For every fiction, which can long perfuade,
In truth must have its firft foundations laid.
Because we are unable to conceive,

How unembody'd fouls can act, and live,

The vulgar give them forms, and limbs, and faces,
And habitations in peculiar places;

Hence reafoners more refin'd, but not more wife,
Struck with the glare of fuch abfurdities,
Their whole exiftence fabulous fufpect,
And truth and falfhood in a lump reject;
Too indolent to learn what may be known,
Or elfe too proud that ignorance to own.

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