Blest is the Poet in his Ode to Hope,
The hangman in his prowess o'er a rope;
Blest may the Painter in his visions be,
The grocer in his superfine bohea.

Wrapt in their calling, still themselves they scan
As artist, tradesman, poet, more than man.
And deem ye then, in various garb array'd,
The inward soul is therefore of a trade?
Thought is expell'd from Life's still-varying stage,
In different modes by every different age.
Away it floats on Childhood's buoyant mirth,
Youth's stormy passions hunt it o'er the earth ;
In plotting manhood is th' intruder lost,
Then lock'd in apathy by age's frost.
Thus, till its death, for ever outward hurl'd,
Thought leaves within an undiscover'd world.
Ye sage geographers the chart explore!
What, silent?-Not the unletter'd peasant more!
Go, trace its orbit, ye who map the skies!
Yours prove no better than a cobbler's eyes.
To inward knowledge Learning's self
may
Not less than Ignorance may blunt the mind.
Has he, who classes insects, birds, and flowers,
Order'd his heart, or ranged his mental powers?
The subtle chemist Nature may control,
But what alembic shall distil the soul?

blind,

Th' expert physician nerves and veins may trace,
But not the spirit to her hiding-place.

Vain, too, the scheme philosophers can build,
Deep-read in others, in themselves unskill'd.
Nor may this wisdom reach the prudent sconce,—
The pupil of the world is still a dunce;

By soft Self-love Experience is beguil'd,

And oldest Vanity remains a child.

Trace we thy varied modes to lull the breast?
Of all thy friends, Illusion serves thee best.
As in a crystal brook, so bright, so clear,
It only seems a purer atmosphere,

Self-love, in thy fond mirror, things are shewn
In softer tints and beauty not their own.
There mortals, gazing with enrapt amaze,
Narcissus-like, grow amorous as they gaze.
Nor only lovely objects seem more fair;
Deformity itself turns beauty there.
Hence all our motives wear a painted hue,
And springs, that prompt our action, shun our view.
No charms for man has undissembling Sin,
She wins to conquer, veils herself to win.
Hell's crafty fiends alarm not, but entice,
And Self-delusion ruins more than vice.
Hence patriot Cromwell, pure as yet in thought,
For Duty's shrine Ambition's altar sought.
The costly sacrifice behold him bring-
A guiltless mortal, but a guilty king!

Check the sweet tear, repress the human sigh,
Thou Brutus of thy country's liberty!

Compassion pleads;-her heavenly voice control,

And nobly triumph o'er thy better soul!

'Tis done-Why mourn'st thou o'er thy monarch's bier? 'Tis Nature speaks, and Nature is sincere.

Yet all thy woe let midnight darkness hide,

Thy virtue be thy shame, thy shame thy pride.

The tyrant is no more!-Is England free?
Alas, the more than tyrant lives in thee!

Through humbler life the dear delusion runs ;
Amelia beats her daughter, starves her sons,
And yet no self-upbraiding thought she smothers,
When, pleased, she hails herself the best of mothers!
Celia, a scold, a termagant, and shrew,

Says she's good-temper'd,-and she thinks so too.
Is there would risk his soul's repose and health,
And take Egenor's conscience with his wealth?
Ah, sure the widow's groan, the orphan's cry,
Ring in his ears, and drown the voice of joy!
He comes abroad! His brow looks wondrous clear!
He speaks-where only Heaven and we can hear.
"Thank God," he cries, " I ne'er the poor opprest,
Nor pride, nor malice, rankle in my breast.
To the Lord's table I can bring a mind

In perfect amity with all mankind.

Still true to Wisdom's text, where'er I roam,
I make my charity begin at home.

What if the poor complain ?-A canting train!
Give what you may, they ever will complain.
What if my milk no sturdy pauper swigs?
Good Heaven, 'twere cruel to defraud my pigs!
What if the lawsuit stripp'd my kinsman bare?
I weep the justice due unto my heir!
A mourning token in my will he'll find ;-
And then my yearly tribute to the blind!"
"For shame! you are not orthodox, good sir!
These sin not, if through ignorance they err."
Your pardon, Doctor; ignorance is sin,

When knowledge cries without and pleads within.
Well, well! to gentler errors let us glide,
From happy knaves to fools self-satisfied.
Lo, what a goodly crowd distract the choice,
And ask Linnæan eyes-Homeric voice!
As different soils a different crop impart,
Self-love springs various from the various heart;
In some 'tis seen reserved, in others free,
Here all vain mirth, there all solemnity.

Now wild it prates, now once a-fortnight speaks,
Here struts important, there most slily sneaks;

Now shrinks from note, now courts it ev'n with blame,

Now tremblingly alive, now dead to shame.

Her names, too, vary with the breasts she rules,-
Thus Vanity is but the Pride of fools.

If bashfulness-conceit-the thing we call,
'Tis still but Self-applause betray'd in all.
As glasses shew, yet shield with jealous care,
The plant we name the sensitive, from air,
Thus what lies outward, and betray'd to sense,
Is Self-love's revelation and defence.
Not only careful to provide us joy,

She fondly guards us from all rude annoy,
And, kind as Nature, on each tribe bestows
Appropriate methods to repel its foes.

When storms assail, Pride meets them as a rock,
Vanity, reed-like, rises from the shock.
The hedgehog, Obstinacy, tries her foe;
Wrath, a roused lion, kills him at a blow.
Presumption routs his enemies in mass,
Like Samson, with the jaw-bone of an ass;

Conceit first catches, then returns the shaft,
Huge Arrogance runs down the petty craft;
While Self-complacency turns smoothly off
From her sleek bosom Scorn's unhallow'd scoff:
As when two drakes contend upon a brook,
The vanquish'd rises with a victor's look,
Replumes his feathers, claps his sounding wings,
And far away the idle deluge flings.

Self-flattery to the wounded proffers aid,

And heals with balm the wounds which Truth had made. What though defect creeps in on all we do?

Our friendly organs are defective too.

Still perfect to ourselves our deeds appear,
As discord tuneful to the tuneless ear.
Ourselves we measure by ourselves alone,
Or by a folly greater than our own.

Hence Self-conceit, with blinking visage dun,
Mistakes his farthing taper for the sun;

Where Locke keeps silence, speaks unblushing out,

And boldly certain, solves a Newton's doubt.
Hence Prejudice, with many a sapient saw,
Remains unalter'd as a Persian law;

And grave Importance strokes his paunch and sighs,
Profoundly foolish, ignorantly wise.

Sure one of these enough for man may be,
But happy Oliver unites the three;

Still on one datum pores his filmy sight,

All, all are wrong,-I only in the right!"

At monstrous theories he rails all day,

Yet frames his own ;-ye gods, how monstrous they!
So dearly obstinate, if once he please

To tell you that the moon is made of cheese,

Though Herschel's self, you would harangue in vain,
Green cheese it is, and ever must remain.
All argument he meets with one rebuff,—
The fancy-killing interjection-" Stuff!"
Sweet Contradiction is his own pet lamb,
Conceit her sire, and Ignorance her dam.
If haply you exclaim, "How dark the night!"
He swears the sun has never shone so bright;
Lauds all you blame, blames all that you approve;
Loves what you hate, and hates whate'er you love.
Yet, while his notions, like the oak's firm root,
Grow by resistance, harden by dispute,
If once you yield, the work is still to do;
For, lo, he alters his opinion too!

With some few maxims as his conduct's rule,
Cull'd choicely from his copy-book at school,
From this to that, from that to this, he ranges,
And rings th' unchanging, everlasting changes.
What though his rules conduct to blank disgrace,
Though sad conviction stare him in the face,
Dumb be his throat, and blister'd be his tongue,
Ere they recant and own him in the wrong!
Go! couch the eye that never saw the day!
Thou canst not purge wise Folly's film away !
Alas! nor precepts nor persuasion reach
The harden'd fool Experience cannot teach!
When Ignorance fails her glaring rule to hide
O'er thrice-dull dunces, she becomes their pride.
Had they till'd Eden, beyond all dispute,
The tree of knowledge had preserved its fruit.

In shades Baotian glide their lives away;-
If Ignorance be bliss, how blest are they!
Thus, good Sir Simon, as is right and fit,
Flies from that rabid animal-a wit;

Aud, when small wisdom sets his face astare,
Thanks God he's "not so wise as some folks are !"
To one sad tribe, opprest with constant fears,
Self-love a churlish step-mother appears.
So much they look for universal scorn,
Almost her very nature seems forsworn.
Yet prove they more, than ev'n the tranquil kind,
How precious Self-content to every mind.
So dear the gem, it keeps them on the rack,
And calls them to defence before attack.
Thus every whisper turns Antonio pale,
And every laugh comes death-fraught on the gale,
As if the world—O, admirable whim—
Had nothing else to do but think of him!

Anna, why trembling join the social ring?
Blush when you speak, and falter when you sing?
You deem you're timid ;-ah, you do not see
How well Self-love can ape timidity!

How lowly fear th' ambitious aim can hide,
And false humility be genuine pride!

Humility all notice would decline,

Pride mars her brilliance by the wish to shine:

Humility is modest, Pride is shy,

That hath a calm, and this an anxious eye.

The question-" What will others think of me?"

Is ask'd by Pride, and not Humility.

Virtue, like gracefulness, consists in ease,

Alike unconscious of her power to please.

These snail-like tribes each threaten'd touch will shun; Others, rhinoceros-like, are moved by none.

No Irish duellist could Puff offend :

You're not his foe, for all mankind's his friend.
With adamantine walls encircled round,
Self-love like his can never feel a wound.
Not a new Dunciad, thundering o'er his rest,
Could shake the soft conviction of his breast.
If, like a noon-day owl, he rove abroad,
A moving satire on the reigning mode,
He but mistakes the cause of men's amaze,
The stare of wonder for the stare of praise.
He'll tell you all the gibing world exprest,
And smiling say,-" Of course, 'twas all in jest."
You talk of fools;-his case you fail to hit,

Whose deeds are wisdom, and whose words are wit
You hint at vanity-why, then, 'tis plain,

Whose worth is infinite can ne'er be vain.
Ev'n satires on Self-love no pang can yield,
Self-love herself his panoply and shield;

And, should this portrait chance to meet his view,
The less he'll know it his-the more 'tis true.
Fraught with desires unbounded as our lot,
Self-adoration can content us not.

Where'er we turn, the world, with all its arms,
Must hold its huge reflector to our charms.
Here, too, Illusion cheats the willing mind,
By gazing on itself grown'worse than blind:
Our thoughts are traitors, and we labour thus
To make ourselves at last-ridiculous.

As vast our aim at perfect Self-content,

We most would shine in what is least our bent.
Here lies our foible, this our tenderest side,
For Vanity is sooner touch'd than Pride;

Acknowledged claims from further strife may cease,
But dubious titles are the curse of peace.

Blockheads turn critics, ploughmen read the news,
The deaf love music, and the blind fine views;
The cobbler soars on Pegasean wings,
The lame man dances, the duenna sings;
The stammering tongue in senates loves to speak,
And the soft ogle strains the eye oblique.
Merit herself will foreign aims pursue,
Unheeding praise which justly is her due.
In vain a thousand charms adorn the breast;
The one that's wanting poisons all the rest.
Wits will be heroes, heroes will be beaux,
Tully turns Homer, Horace vaunts his prose.
Stupendous Johnson, with discordant scream,
Puffs at the pipe-a second Polypheme.
Paul preaches well, but music is his art;
Paul in the pulpit, but at home Mozart.
Thy pencil, Crito, half creation's mine,
Is Britain's glory, while to dance is thine.
Fools, have ye never mark'd the water's queen
O'er her own province glide in state serene,
Arch her white neck, her billowy wings expand?
But how she waddles, when she walks on land!
Pyrrho for penetration claims renown,
And reads all characters-except his own.
Once in the senate he essay'd his skill,
And all the politician haunts him still.

With what keen intellect, what vigorous thought,
He sees and guesses every thing that's not!
How well he knows-a gosling from a hen,
And baffles all the plots-of honest men!
Great powers in logic he reveals, in sooth,
And reasons well-without a grain of truth!
Still on his guard, the villain's veriest tool,
Despising folly, duped by every fool;
Sad without sorrow, poor without expense,
From very wisdom lost to common sense.
O, Pyrrho, cease to weave with toil and pain
These fine-spun cobwebs of the subtle brain!
Be all thyself! defeat not Nature's plan!
Step forth a simple, plain, good-natured man!
Poor Siro reckons still without his host,
And so unbounded knowledge is his boast.

Through untried streets, whole weary hours he'd stray,
Too proud to turn, too wise to ask his way;

Ev'n to a stranger unresolved to shew

His ignorance of what he could not know.

Preserve me, Heaven, from those deliberate fools,
Who measure all things with their lines and rules;
Whose solemn air and self-important mien,
Like empty houses, cry, " Enquire within!"
You knock; some oracle rewards your pains-
""Tis heavy travelling after pouring rains!"
O, novel fact! indisputably true!
Yet not so heavy as to talk with you!
With all his little might Verbosus tries
To look emphatic, dignified, and wise,