Youth of the quick uncheated fight,

Thy walks, Obfervance, more invite !

O thou, who lov'ft that ampler range,

Where life's wide profpects round thee change,
And, with her mingled fons allied,

Throw'ft the prattling page afide:

To me in converse sweet impart,

To read in man the native heart,
To learn, where Science fure is found,
From Nature as fhe lives around:
And gazing oft her mirror true,
By turns each fhifting image view!
Till meddling Art's officious lore,
Reverse the leffons taught before,
Alluring from a fafer rule,

To dream in her enchanted school;

Thou, heaven, whate'er of great we boast,
Haft bleft this focial science most.

Retiring hence to thoughtful cell, As Fancy breathes her potent spell,

Not

Not vain fhe finds the charmful task,

In pageant quaint, in motley mafk,
Behold, before her mufing eyes,
The countless Manners round her rise ;
While ever varying as they pafs,

To fome Contempt applies her glass:
With these the white-rob'd Maids combine,
And those the laughing Satyrs join!

But who is he whom now the views,
In robe of wild contending hues?
Thou by the paffions nurs'd; I greet
The comic fock that binds thy feet!

O Humour, thou whose name is known,
To Britain's favour'd ifle alone:

Me too amidst thy band admit,

There where the young-eyed healthful Wit,
(Whofe jewels in his crifped hair

Are plac'd each other's beams to share,
Whom no delights from thee divide)
In laughter loos'd attends thy fide!

By

By old Miletus* who fo long
Has ceas'd his love-inwoven fong:
By all you taught the Tufcan maids,
In chang'd Italia's modern fhades:

By him †, whofe Knight's diftinguish'd name
Refin❜d a nation's luft of fame;

Whose tales even now, with hoes fweet,

Caftilia's Moorish hills repeat:

Or him ‡, whom Seine's blue nymphs deplore,

In watchet weeds on Gallia's fhore,

Who drew the fad Sicilian maid,

By virtues in her fire betray'd

O Nature boon, from whom proceed"
Each forceful thought, each prompted deed;
If but from thee I hope to feel,

On all my heart imprint thy feal!

* Alluding to the Milefian tales, fome of the earliest ras

mances.

+ Cervantes.

† Monfieur Le Sage, author of the incomparable adven• : tures of Gil Blas de Santillane, who died in Paris in the year

1745.

5

Let

Let fome retreating Cynic find

Thofe oft-turn'd scrolls I leave behind,
The Sports aud I this hour agree,

To rove thy fcene-full world with thee!

THE

THE PASSION S.

AN ODE FOR MUSIC.

Hen Mufic, heavenly maid, was young,

WH

While yet in early Greece fhe fung,

The Paffions oft, to hear her shell,
Throng'd around her magic cell,
Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
Poffeft beyond the Mufe's painting;
By turns they felt the glowing mind
Disturb'd, delighted, rais'd, refin'd.
Till once, 'tis faid, when all were fir'd,
Fill'd with fury, rapt, infpir'd,

From the fupporting myrtles round
They fnatch'd her inftruments of found,

And as they oft had heard apart

Sweet leffons of her forceful art,

Each, for madnefs rul'd the hour,

Would prove his own expreffive power.