Behold the child, by nature's kindly law,
Pleas'd with a rattle, tickled with a straw:
Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight,
A little louder, but as empty quite:
Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage,
And beads and pray'r-books are the toys of age
Pleas'd with this bauble ftill, as that before
'Till tir'd he fleeps, and life's poor play is o'er.
Mean-while opinion gilds with varying rays
Thofe painted clouds that beautify our days;
Each want of happiness by hope fupply'd,
And each vacuity of fenfe by pride :
Thefe build as faft as knowledge can deftroy;
In folly's cup ftill laughs the bubble joy;
One profpect loft, another ftill we gain;
And not a vanity is given in vain :
Ev'n mean felf-love becomes, by force divine,
The scale to measure others wants by thine.
See! and confefs, one comfort ftill must rife;
'Tis this, Tho' man's a fool, yet GOD IS WISE.
ERE then we reft: The Univerfal Caufe
Acts to one end, but acts by various laws."
In all the madness of fuperfluous health,
The trim of pride, the impudence of wealth*,
* Becaufe wealth pretends to be wifdom, wit, learning, honefly, and, in fhort, all the virtues in their turns.
Let this great truth be prefent night and day:
But most be prefent, if we preach or pray.
Look round our world, behold the chain of love
Combining all below and all above.
See plaftic nature working to this end,
The fingle atoms each to other tend,
Attract, attracted to, the next in place
Form'd and impell'd its neighbour to embrace.
See matter next, with various life endu’d,
Prefs to one center ftill, the gen'ral good.
See dying vegetables life sustain,
See life diffolving vegetate again :
All forms that perif other formis fupply,
(By turns we catch the vital breath and die)
Like bubbles on the fea of matter borne,
They rife, they break, and to that fea return.
Nothing is foreign; parts relate to whole;
One all-extending, all-preferving foul
Connects each being, greatest with the least;
Made beaft in aid of man, and man of beast;
All ferv'd, all ferving: nothing ftands alone;
The chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown.
Has God, thou fool! work'd folely for thy good.
Thy joy, thy paftime, thy attire, thy food?
Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn,
For him as kindly spreads the flow'ry lawn :
Is it for thee the lark afcends and fings ?
Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings.
C 2.
Is it for thee the linnet
Loves of his own and raptures fwell the note,
The bounding fleed you pompously bellride,
Shares with his lord the pleasure and the pride.
Is thine alone the feed that firews the plain?
The birds of heav'n fhall vindicate their grain.
Thine the full harveft of the golden year?
Part pays, and juftly, the deferving fleer;
The hog, that plows not, nor obeys thy call,
Lives on the labours of this Lord of all.
Know, nature's children all divide her care;
The fur that warms a monarch, warm'd a bear.
While man exclaims, 'See all things for my use!
See man for mine!' replies a pamper'd goose:
And just as fhort of reason he must fall,
Who thinks all made for one, not one for all.
Grant that the pow'rful fill the weak controul;
Be man the wit, and tyrant of the whole :
Nature that tyrant checks; he only knows,
And helps, another creature's wants and woes.
Say, will the falcon, flooping from above,
Smit with her varying plumage, fpare the dove?
Admires the jay the infct's gilded wings?
Or hears the hawk when Philomela fings?
Man cares for all: to birds he gives his woods,
To beafts his paftures, and to fifh his floods:
For fome h's int'reft prompts him to provide,
For more his pleasure, yet for more his pride:
All feed on one vain Patron, and enjoy
Th' extenfive bleffing of his luxury,
life his learned hunger craves,
He faves from famine, and the favage faves;
Nay, feafts the animal he dooms his feaft,
And, 'till he ends the being, makes it bleft ;
Which fees no more the ftroke, nor feels the pain,
Than favor'd man by touch ethereal flain.
The creature had his feaft of life before;
Thou too muft perifh, when thy feaft is o'er!
To each unthinking being, heav'n a friend,
Gives not the useless knowledge of its end:
To man imparts it; but with fuch a view
As, while he dreads it, makes him hope it too;
The hour conceal'd and fo remote the fear,
Death ftill draws nearer, never feeming near.
Great flanding miracle! that heav'n affign'd
Its only thinking thing this turn of mind.
II. Whether with reafon, or with instinct bleft,
Know, all enjoy that pow'r which faits them beft:
To blifs alike by that direction tend,
And find the means proportion'd to their end.
Say, where full inftinet is th' unerring guide,
What Pope or Council can they need beside?
Reason, however able, cool at beft,
Cares not for fervice, or but ferves when preft,
Stays till we call, and then not often near ;
But honeft inftinct comes a volunteer,
C 3
Sure ne'er to o'er-fhoot, but just to hit s
While fill too wide or fhort is human wit;
Sure by quick nature happiness to gain,
Which heavier reafon labours at in vain.
This too ferves always, reafon never long;
One must go right, the other may go wrong,
See then the acting and comparing pow'rs
One in their nature, which are two in ours ;.
And reafon raise a'er inftinet as you can,
In this 'tis God directs, in that 'tis man.
Who taught the nations of the field, and wood
To fhun their poifon, and to chufe their food;
Prefcient, the tides or tempefts to withstand,
Build on the wave, or arch beneath the fand ?
Who made the spider parallels defign,
Sure as Demoivre, without rule or line?
Who bid the flork, Columbus-like, explore
Heav'ns not his own, and worlds unknown before?
Who calls the council, flates the certain day,
Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way?
III. God, in the nature of each being, founds
Its proper blifs, and fets its proper bounds.:.
But as he fram'd a whole, the whole to bless,
On mutual wants built mutual happiness :
So from the firft, eternal QRDER ran,
And creature link'd to creature, man to man..
Whate'er of life all quick'ning æther keeps,
Or breathes thro' air, or boots beneath the deops,
|