You ftretch the truth in favour of a friend
Be sure it ever aim at fome good end ;
To cherish growing virtue, vice to fhame,
And turn to noble views the love of fame:
And not, like fawning parafites, unaw'd
By fenfe or truth, be every paffion's bawd.
Be rarely warm in cenfure, or in praise;
Few men deserve our paffion either ways;
For half the world but floats 'twixt good and ill,
As chance disposes objects, these the will:
'Tis but a fee-faw game, where virtue now
Mounts above vice, and then finks down as low.
Befides the wife ftill hold it for a rule,
To truft that judgment moft, that feems most cool:
For all that rifes to hyperbole,
Proves that we err, at leaft in the degree.
But if your temper to extremes fhould lead,
Always upon th' indulging fide exceed;
For though to blame moft lend a willing ear,
Yet hatred ever will attend on fear:
And when a neighbour's dwelling blazes out,
The world will think 'tis time to look about.
Let not the curious from your bofom steal
Secrets, where Prudence ought to fet her feal;
Yet be fo frank and plain, that at one view,
In other things, each man may fee you through:
For if the mask of policy you wear,
The honest hate you, and the cunning fear.
Would you be well receiv'd where'er you go,
Remember each man vanquish'd is a foe.
Refift not, therefore, with your utmost might,
But let the weakest think he's fometimes right;
He, for each triumph you shall thus decline,
Shall give ten opportunities to fhine :
He fees, fince once you own'd him to excel,
That 'tis his intereft you should reason well:
And though when roughly us'd, he's full of choler,
As bluft'ring Bentley to a brother scholar,
Yet by degrees, inure him to fubmit,
He's tame, and in his mouth receives the bit.
But chiefly against trifling contests guard,
'Tis here fubmiffion feems to man moft hard:
Nor imitate that refolute old fool 8,
Who undertook to kick against his mule.
But those who will not by inftruction learn,
How fatal trifles prove, let ftory warn.
Panthus and Euclio, link'd by friendship's tie,
Liv'd each for each, as each for each would die ;
Like objects pleas'd them, and like objects pain'd;
'Twas but one foul that in two bodies reign'd.
One night, as ufual 'twas their nights to pass,
They ply'd the chearful, but still temp'rate glass,
When lo! a doubt is rais'd about a word :
A doubt that must be ended by the sword:
One falls a victim, mark, O man, thy fhame,
Because their gloffaries were not the same.
Could Bailey's felf more tenderness have shown
For his two tomes of words, though half his own?
For what remains of failings without end,
Morals must fome, and fome the laws muft mend.
While others in fuch monftrous forms appear,
As tongue-ty'd fournefs, fly fufpicion's leer,
Free-fifted rudeness, dropfical pretence,
Proteus' caprice, and elbowing infolence;
No caution to avoid them they demand,
Like wretches branded by the hangman's hand.
If faith to fome philofophers be given,
Man, that great lord of earth, that heir of heav'n,
Savage at firft, inhabited the wood,
And scrambled with his fellow-brutes for food;
No focial home he knew, no friendship's tie,
Selfish in good, in ill without ally;
"Till fome in length of time, of ftronger nerve,
And greater cunning, forc'd the rest to serve
One common purpose, and, in nature's spite,
Brought the whole jarring species to unite.
But might we not with equal reason say,
That every fingle particle of clay,
Which forms our body, was at firft defign'd
To lie for ever from the reft disjoin'd ♪
Nathan Bailey, the compiler of a Latin and English Dictionary, and editor of feveral claffics for the ufe of fchools. He died 27 June, 1742.
Can this be faid, and can it be allow'd
'Twas with its powers for no one end endow'd ?
If fo; we own that man, at first, by art
Was footh'd to act in focial life a part.
'Tis true, in fome the feeds of discord feem
To contradict this all-uniting fcheme:
But that no more hurts nature's general course,
Than matter found with a repelling force.
Turn we awhile on lonely man our eyes,
And fee what frantic fcenes of folly rife:
In fome dark monaftery's gloomy cells,
Where formal felf-prefuming Virtue dwells,
Bedoz'd with dreams of grace-diftilling caves,
Of holy puddles, and confuming graves,
Of animated plaitter, wood, and stone,
And mighty cures by fainted finners done.
Permit me, Mufe, ftill farther to explore,
And turn the leaves of fuperftition o'er ;
Where wonders upon wonders ever grow,
Chaos of zeal and blindness, mirth and woe;
i Vifions of devils into monkeys turn'd,
That hot from hell roar at a finger burn'd;
* Bottles of precious tears that faints have wept,
And breath a thousand years in phials kept;
i St. Dominic, vide Janfenius (Nic.)
k of our Saviour and others, vide Ferrand.
! Of Jofeph, vide Molinæum.
Sun-beams fent down to prop one friar's staff, " And hell broke loose to make another laugh; • Obedient fleas, and P fuperftitious mice; 4 Confeffing wolves, and fanctifying lice; Letters and houfes by an angel carried;
And, wond'rous! virgin nuns to Jefus married.
One monk, not knowing how to spend his time,
Sits down to find out fome unheard-of crime;
Increases the large catalogue of fins,
And where the fober finish, there begins.
Of death eternal his decree is past,
For the first crime, as fix'd as for the last.
While that, as idle, and as pious too,
Compounds with falfe religion for the true;
He, courtly usher to the bleft abodes,
Weighs all the niceties of forms and modes ;
And makes the rugged paths fo fmooth and even,
None but an ill-bred man can mifs of heav'n,
m St. Cathro's, vide Colganum.
• Vide life of St. Colman by Colganus.
P The fame life by the fame author.
Vide fpeculum vitæ fancti Francifci.
St. Munnu gathered those that dropt from him, and put them in
their place again, vide Act. Sanctorum.
• From St. Firman to St. Columba, vide Colganum. Chapel of Loretto, Maria de la Vifitation, vide her life by Lufignam.
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