reafon or colour, not to the devil himself, for what he does; he is a flave to Mammon without wages. The firft makes a fhift to be beloved; ay, and envied too by fome people; the fecond is the universal object of hatred and contempt. There is no vice has been fo pelted with good fentences, and especially by the poets, who have purfued it with ftories, and fables, and allegories, and allufions; and moved, as we fay, every stone to fling at it: among all which, I do not remember a more fine and gentleman-like correction, than that which was given it by one line of Ovid:

"Defunt luxuriæ multa, avaritiæ omnia."

Much is wanting to luxury, all to avarice,

To which faying, I have a mind to add one member, and render it thus :
Poverty wants fome, luxury many, avarice all things.

Somebody fays of a virtuous and wife man "that having nothing, he has all :" this is juft his antipode, who, having all things, yet has nothing. He is a guardian eunuch to his beloved gold:"audivi eos amatores effe maximos, fed nil poteffe." They are the fondeft lovers, but impotent to enjoy.

And, oh, what man's condition can be worse

Than his, whom plenty ftarves, and bleffings curfe;

The beggars but a common fate deplore,

The rich poor man's emphatically poor.

I wonder how it comes to pafs, that there has never been any law made against him: against him do I fay? I mean, for him: as there are public provifions made for all other madmen: it is very reasonable that the king fhould appoint fome persons (and I think the courtiers would not be against this propofition) to manage his eftate during his life (for his heirs commonly need not that care): and out of it to make it their bufinefs to fee, that he should not want alimony befitting his condition, which he could never get out of his own cruel fingers. We relieve idle vagrants, and counterfeit beggars; but have no care at all of thefe really poor men, who are, methinks, to be refpectfully treated, in regard of their quality. I might be endless against them, but I am almoft choaked with the fuper-abundance of the matter; too much plenty impoverishes me, as it does them. I will conclude this odious fubject with part of Horace's firit fatire, which take in his own familiar ftyle:

I admire, Mæcenas, how it comes to pass,
That no man ever yet contented was,
Nor is, nor perhaps will be, with that state
In which his own choice plants him, or his fate.
Happy the merchant, the old foldier cries:
The merchant, beaten with tempeftuous skies,
Happy the foldier! one half-hour to thee
Gives fpeedy death, or glorious victory:
The lawyer, knockt up early from his reft
By reftlefs clients, calls the peasant bleft:
The peafant, when his labours ill fucceed,
Envies the mouth, which only talk does feed.
'Tis not (I think you'll fay) that I want store
Of inftances, if here I add no more;
They are enough to reach, at least a mile,
Beyond long orator Fabius's ftyle.

The author, well acquainted with the tafte of his readers, would not disgust their delicacy by letting them know that this " fomebody" was St. Paul, [2 Cor. vi. 10.]-Though the fenfe and expreffion would have done honour to Plato. HURD.

But hold, ye, whom no fortune e'er endears,
Gentlemen, malecontents, and mutineers,
Who bounteous Jove so often cruel call,
Behold, Jove's now refolved to please you all.
Thou foldier, be a merchant: merchant, thou
A foldier be: and, lawyer to the plough.
Change all your ftations ftrait: why do they stay?
The devil a man will change, now, when he may.
Were I in general Jove's abused cafe,

By Jove I'd cudgel this rebellious race:
But he's too good; be all, then, as ye were ;
However, make the best of what ye are,
And in that state be cheerful and rejoice,
Which either was your fate, or was your choice.
No, they must labour yet, and fweat, and toil,
And very miferable be awhile;

But 'tis with a design only to gain

year,

What may their age with plenteous cafe maintain.
The prudent pifmire does this leffon teach,
And industry to lazy mankind preach:
The little drudge does trot about and sweat,
Nor does he ftra devour all he can get;
But in his temperate mouth carries it home
A ftock for winter, which he knows must come.
And, when the rolling world to creatures here
Turns up the deform'd wrong-fide of the
And fhuts him in, with ftorms, and cold, and wet,
He cheerfully does his paft labours eat :
O, does he fo? your wife example, th' ant,
Does not, at all times, reft and plenty want;
But, weighing juftly a mortal ant's condition,
Divides his life 'twixt labour and fruition.
Thee, neither heat, nor ftorms, nor wet, nor cold,
From thy unnatural diligence can with-hold:
To th' Indies thou would't run, rather than fee
Another, though a friend, richer than thee.
Fond man! what good or beauty can be found
In heaps of treasure, buried under ground?
Which rather than diminish'd e'er to fee,
Thou would't thyfelf, too, buried with them be:
And what's the difference? is 't not quite as bad
Never to use, as never to have had?

In thy vaft barns millions of quarters store;
Thy belly, for all that, will hold no more

Than mine does. Every baker makes much bread:
What then? He's with no more, than others, fed.

Do you within the bounds of nature live,
And to augment your own you need not strive;
One hundred acres will no lefs for you

Your life's whole bufinefs, than ten thoufand, do.

But pleasant 'tis to take from a great ftore.

What, man! though you're refolv'd to take no more
Than I do from a fmall one? If

Be but a pitcher or a pot to fill,

your will

To fome great river for it must you go,

When a clear fpring juft at your feet does flow?

Give me the spring, which does to human use
Safe, eafy, and untroubled ftores produce;

He who fcorns these, and needs will drink at Nile,
Muft run the danger of the crocodile,
And of the rapid ftream itself, which may,
At unawares, bear him perhaps away.
In a full flood Tantalus ftands, his fkin
Wafh'd o'er in vain, for ever dry within:
He catches at the stream with greedy lips,
From his toucht mouth the wanton torrent flips:
You laugh now, and expand your careful brow;
'Tis finely faid, but what's all this to you?
Change but the name, this fable is thy ftory,
Thou in a flood of useless wealth doft glory,
Which thou canst only touch, but never taste;
Th' abundance ftill, and ftill the want does last.
The treasures of the gods thou would't not spare:
But when they're made thine own, they facred are,
And must be kept with reverence; as if thou
No other use of precious gold didft know,
But that of curious pictures, to delight,
With the fair ftamp, thy virtuofo fight.
The only true and genuine ufe is this,
To buy the things which nature cannot miss
Without discomfort; oil and vital bread,
And wine, by which the life of life is fed,
And all thofe few things elfe by which we live i
All that remains, is giv'n for thee to give.
If cares and troubles, envy, grief, and fear,
The bitter fruits be, which fair riches bear;
If a new poverty grow out of store;
The old plain way, ye gods! let me be poor.

PARAPHRASE ON HORACE, B. III. Op. xvi,

A TOWER of brafs, one would have said,

And locks, and bolts, and iron bars,

And guards, as strict as in the heat of wars,
Might have preferv'd one innocent maidenhead.
The jealous father thought he well might spare
All further jealous care;

And, as he walk'd, t' himself alone he fmil'd,
To think how Venus' arts he had beguil'd ;
And, when he flept, his reft was deep:

But Venus laugh'd to see and hear him sleep.
She taught the amorous Jove

A magical receipt in love,

Which arm'd him ftronger, and which help'd him more,
Than all his thunder did, and his almighty-fhip before.

She taught him love's elixir, by which art

His godhead into gold he did convert :

Ccz

No guards did then his paffage ftay,
He pafs'd with eafe; gold was the word;
Subtle as lightning, bright, and quick, and fierce,
Gold through doors and walls did pierce.
The prudent Macedonian king,

To blow up towns, a golden mine did spring.
He broke through gates with his petar;

'Tis the great art of peace, the engine 'tis of war;
And fleets and armies follow it afar :

The enfign 'tis at land, and 'tis the feaman's star.

Let all the world flave to this tyrant be,
Creature to this difguifed deity,

Yet it shall never conquer me.

A guard of virtues will not let it pafs,
And wisdom is a tower of ftronger brass.
The Mufes' laurel, round my temples spread,
Does from this lightning's force fecure my head:
Nor will I lift it up fo high,

As in the violent meteor's way to lie.

Wealth for its power do we honour and adore?

The things we hate, ill-fate, and death, have more.
From towns and courts, camps of the rich and great,'
The vaft Xerxean army, I retreat,
And to the fmall Laconic forces fly,
Which hold the ftraits of poverty.
Cellars and granaries in vain we fill,
With all the bounteous fummer's ftore,
If the mind thirft and hunger ftill:

The

poor rich man's emphatically poor.
Slaves to the things we too much prize,
We mafters grow of all that we despise.

A field of corn, a fountain, and a wood,
Is all the wealth by nature understood.
The monarch, on whom fertile Nile bestows
All which that grateful earth can bear,
Deceives himself, if he fuppofe

That more than this falls to his share.
Whatever an eftate does beyond this afford,
Is not a rent paid to the lord;

But is a tax illegal and unjust,
Exacted from it by the tyrant luft.

Much will always wanting be,

To him who much defires. Thrice happy he

To whom the wife indulgency of Heaven,
With sparing hand, but just enough has given.

VIII.

THE DANGERS OF AN HONEST MAN IN MUCH COMPANY.

F twenty thousand naked Americans were not able to refift the affaults of but twenty well-armed Spaniards, I fee little poffibility for one honeft man to defend himself against twenty thousand knaves who are all furnished cap à pé, with the de

fenfive arms of worldly prudence, and the offenfive too of craft and malice. He will find no lefs odds than this against him, if he have much to do in human affairs. The only advice therefore which I can give him is, to be fure not to venture his person any longer in the open campaign, to retreat and entrench himself, to ftop up all avenues, and draw up all bridges against fo numerous an enemy.

The truth of it is, that a man in much business muft either make himself a knave, or elfe the world will make him a fool: and, if the injury went no farther than the being laught at, a wife man would content himfelf with the revenge of retaliation; but the cafe is much worfe, for thefe civil cannibals too, as well as the wild ones, not only dance about such a taken ftranger, but at laft devour him. A fober man cannot get too foon out of drunken company, though they be never fo kind and merry among themselves; it is not unpleasant only, but dangerous, to him.

Do ye wonder that a virtuous man should love to be alone? It is hard for him to be otherwise; he is so, when he is among ten thousand: neither is the folitude fo uncomfortable to be alone without any other creature, as it is to be alone in the midst of wild beasts. Man is to man all kind of beafts; a fawning dog, a roaring lion, a thieving fox, a robbing wolf, a diffembling crocodile, a treacherous decoy, and a rapacious vulture. The civileft, methinks, of all nations, are thofe whom we account the most barbarous; there is fome moderation and good-nature in the Toupinambaltians, who eat no men but their enemies, whilst we learned and polite and Chriftian Europeans, like fo many pikes and fharks, prey upon every thing that we can fwallow. It is the great boaft of eloquence and philofophy, that they first congregated men difperfed, united them into focieties, and built up the houfes and the walls of cities. I wish they could unravel all they had woven; that we might have our woods and our innocence again, inftead of our caftles and our policies. They have affembled many thousands of fcattered people into one body: it is true, they have done fo; they have brought them together into cities to cozen, and into armies to murder, one another: they found them hunters and fishers of wild creatures; they have made them hunters and fishers of their brethren: they boaft to have reduced them to a state of peace, when the truth is, they have only taught them an art of war: they have framed, I must confefs, wholefome laws for the refraint of vice, but they raised firft that devil, which now they conjure and cannot bind: though there were before no punishments for wickedness, yet there was lefs committed, because there were no

rewards for it.

But the men, who praise philofophy from this topic, are much deceived; let oratory anfwer for itself, the tinkling perhaps of that may unite a fwarm; it never was the work of philofophy to affemble multitudes, but to regulate only, and govern them, when they were affembled; to make the best of an evil, and bring them, as much as is poffible, to unity again. Avarice and ambition only were the first builders of towns, and founders of empire; they faid, "Go to, let us build us a city and a tower whofe top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name, left we be scattered abroad upon the face of the earth *." What was the beginning of Rome, the metropolis of all the world? What was it, but a concourse of thieves, and a fanctuary of criminals? It was juftly named by the augury of no less than twelve vultures, and the founder cemented his walls with the blood of his brother. Not unlike to this was the beginning even of the firft town too in the world, and fuch is the original fin of moft cities: their actual increase daily with their age and growth; the more people, the more wicked all of them; every one brings in his part to enflame the contagion; which becomes at lalt fo univerfal and fo ftrong, that no precepts can be fufficient prefervatives, nor any thing fecure our fafety, but flight from among the infected.

But

We ought, in the choice of a fituation, to regard above all things the healthfulness of the place, and the healthfulness of it for the mind, rather than for the body. fuppofe (which is hardly to be fuppofed) we had antidote enough againft this poifon; may, fuppofe further, we were always and at all points armed and provided, both,

• Gen. xi. 4.