'Twas no court-badge, great scrivener! fired thy Nor lordly luxury, nor city gain :

[brain, No, 'twas thy righteous end, ashamed to see Senates degenerate, patriots disagree, And nobly wishing party-rage to cease, To buy both sides, and give thy country peace. • All this is madness,' cries a sober sage:'But who, my friend, has reason in his rage! The ruling passion, be it what it will, The ruling passion conquers reason still.' Less mad the wildest whimsey we can frame Than e'en that passion, if it has no aim; For though such motives folly you may call, The folly's greater to have none at all.

[sends, Hearthen the truth:-Tis Heaven each passion And different men directs to different ends. Extremes in Nature equal good produce; Extremes in man concur to general use.'

Ask we what makes one keep, and one bestow ?—
That Power who bids the ocean ebb and flow;
Bids seed-time, harvest, equal course maintain,
Through reconciled extremes of drought and rain;
Builds life on death, on change duration founds,
And gives the'eternal wheels to know their rounds.
Riches, like insects, when conceal'd they lie,
Wait but for wings, and in their season fly.
Who sees pale Mammon pine amidst his store,
Sees but a backward steward for the poor;
This year a reservoir to keep and spare,
The next a fountain spouting through his heir,
In lavish streams to quench a country's thirst,
And men and dogs shall drink him till they burst.
Old Cotta shamed his fortune and his birth,
Yet was not Cotta void of wit or worth:

What though (the use of barbarous spits forgot)
His kitchen vied in coolness with his grot?
His court with nettles, moats with cresses stored,
With soups unbought,and salads, bless'd his board?
If Cotta lived on pulse, it was no more
Than bramins, saints, and sages, did before:
To cram the rich was prodigal expense;

And who would take the poor from Providence?
Like some lone chartreux stands the good old hall,
Silence without, and fasts within the wall;
No rafter'd roofs with dance and tabor sound,
No noontide bell invites the country round;
Tenants with sighs the smokeless towers survey,
And turn the' unwilling steeds another way;
Benighted wanderers, the forest o'er,
Curse the saved candle and unopening door;
While the gaunt mastiff, growling at the gate,
Affrights the beggar whom he longs to eat.
Not so his son; he mark'd this oversight,
And then mistook reverse of wrong
for right:
(For what to shun will no great knowledge need,
But what to follow is a task indeed!)
Yet sure, of qualities deserving praise,
More go to ruin fortunes than to raise.

What slaughter'd hecatombs, what floods of wine,
Fill the capacious squire and deep divine!
Yet no mean motive this profusion draws;
His oxen perish in his country's cause;
'Tis George and liberty that crown the cup,
And zeal for that great house which eats him up.
The woods recede around the naked seat,
The silvans groan-no matter-for the fleet:
Next goes his wool-to clothe our valiant bands;
Last, for his country's love, he sells his lands.

To town he comes, completes the nation's hope,
And heads the bold trainbands, and burns a pope.
And shall not Britain now reward his toils,
Britain, that pays her patriots with her spoils !
In vain at court the bankrupt pleads his cause;
His thankless country leaves him to her laws.
The sense to value riches, with the art
To' enjoy them, and the virtue to impart,
Not meanly nor ambitiously pursued,
Not sunk by sloth, nor raised by servitude;
To balance fortune by a just expense,
Join with economy magnificence;

With splendour, charity; with plenty, health;
O teach us, Bathurst! yet unspoil'd by wealth!
That secret rare, between the' extremes to move
Of mad good-nature and of mean self-love.

B. To worth or want well-weigh'd be bounty given,

And ease or emulate the care of Heaven:
(Whose measure full o'erflows on human race)
Mend Fortune's fault, and justify her grace.
Wealth in the gross is death, but life diffused,
As poison heals in just proportion used:
In heaps, like ambergris, a stink it lies,
But well dispersed, is incense to the skies.

P. Who starves by nobles, or with nobles eats? The wretch that trusts them, and the rogue that

cheats.

Is there a lord who knows a cheerful noon
Without a fiddler, flatterer, or buffoon?
Whose table Wit or modest Merit share,
Unelbow'd by a gamester, pimp, or player!
Who copies yours or Oxford's better part,
To ease the oppress'd, and raise the sinking heart?

Where'er he shines, O Fortune! gild the scene, And angels guard him in the golden mean! There English bounty yet awhile may stand, And honour linger ere it leave the land.

But all our praises why should lords engross ?
Rise, honest Muse: and sing the Man of Ross:
Pleased Vaga echoes through her winding bounds,
And rapid Severn hoarse applause resounds.
Who hung with woods yon mountain's sultry brow?
From the dry rock who bade the waters flow?
Not to the skies in useless columns toss'd,
Or in proud falls magnificently lost,

But clear and artless, pouring through the plain
Health to the sick, and solace to the swain.
Whose causeway parts the vale with shady rows?
Whose seats the weary traveller repose?
Who taught that heaven-directed spire to rise?
The Man of Ross,' each lisping babe replies.
Behold the market-place with poor o'erspread!
The Man of Ross divides the weekly bread:
He feeds yon almshouse, neat but void of state,
Where Age and Want sit smiling at the gate:
Him portion'd maids, apprenticed orphans bless'd,
The young who labour, and the old who rest.
any sick? the Man of Ross relieves,
Prescribes, attends, the medicine makes and gives.
Is there a variance? enter but his door,

Is

Balk'd are the courts, and contest is no more:
Despairing quacks with curses fled the place,
And vile attorneys, now an useless race.

B. Thrice happy man, enabled to pursue
What all so wish, but want the power to do!
say, what sums that generous hand supply?
What mines to swell that boundless charity?

P. Of debts and taxes, wife and children clear, This man possess'd five hundred pounds a-year. Blush, grandeur, blush! proud courts, withdraw your blaze;

Ye little stars! hide your diminish'd rays.

B. And what? no monument, inscription, stone, His race, his form, his name almost unknown?

P. Who builds a church to God, and not to Fame,
Will never mark the marble with his name:
Go, search it there, where to be born and die,
Of rich and poor makes all the history;
Enough that virtue fill'd the space between;
Proved by the ends of being to have been.
When Hopkins dies, a thousand lights attend
The wretch who living saved a candle's end:
Shouldering God's altar a vile image stands,
Belies his features, nay, extends his hands;
That live-long wig, which Gorgon's self might own,
Eternal buckle takes in Parian stone.

Behold what blessings wealth to life can lend!
And see what comfort it affords our end.

In the worstinn's worst room, with mat half-hung,
The floors of plaster, and the walls of dung,
On once a flock-bed, but repair'd with straw,
With tape-tied curtains, never meant to draw,
The George and Garter dangling from that bed
Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red,
Great Villiers lies-alas! how changed from him,
That life of pleasure and that soul of whim!
Gallant and gay, in Cliveden's proud alcove,
The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love;
Or just as gay at council, in a ring

Of mimic statesmen, and their merry king.
No wit to flatter, left of all his store!
No fool to laugh at, which he valued more.