Elegant as fimplicity, and warm

As ecstasy, unmanacled by form,

Not prompted, as in our degen'rate days,
By low ambition and the thirst of praise,
Was natural as is the flowing ftream,

And yet magnificent-a God the theme!
That theme on earth exhausted, though above
'Tis found as everlasting as his love,

Man lavish'd all his thoughts on human things-
The feats of heroes, and the wrath of kings:
But ftill, while virtue kindled his delight,
The fong was moral, and fo far was right.

'Twas thus till luxury feduc'd the mind
To joys less innocent, as lefs refin'd;

Then genius danc'd a bacchanal; he crown'd
The brimming goblet, feiz'd the thyrfus, bound

His brows with ivy, rush'd into the field
Of wild imagination, and there reel'd,

The victim of his own lafcivious fires,

And, dizzy with delight, profan'd the facred wires.

Anacreon, Horace, play'd in Greece and Rome

This Bedlam part; and others nearer home.

When Cromwell fought for pow'r, and while he reign'd

The proud protector of the pow'r he gain'd,

Religion harth, intolerant, austere,

Parent of manners like herself severe,
Drew a rough copy of the Christian face

Without the fmile, the sweetness, or the

gre

The dark and fullen humour of the time
Judg'd ev'ry effort of the mufe a crime;

Verfe, in the finest mould of fancy cast,

Was lumber in an age so void of taste :

But, when the fecond Charles affum'd the sway,
And arts reviv'd beneath a fofter day,

Then, like a bow long forc'd into a curve,

The mind, releas'd from too constrain'd a nerve,
Flew to its first position with a spring

That made the vaulted roofs of pleasure ring.

His court, the diffolute and hateful school

Of wantonnefs, where vice was taught by rule,

Swarm'd with a fcribbling herd, as deep inlaid
With brutal luft as ever Circe made.

From these a long fucceffion, in the rage
Of rank obfcenity, debauch'd their age;

Nor ceas'd, 'till, ever anxious to redress
Th' abuses of her facred charge, the prefs,
The muse instructed a well nurtur'd train
Of ablerotaries to cleanse the ftain,
And claim the palm for purity of fong,
That lewdness had ufurp'd and worn fo long.
Then decent pleasantry and sterling sense,
That neither gave nor would endure offence,
Whipp'd out of fight, with fatire just and keen,
The puppy pack that had defil'd the scene.

In front of these came Addifon. In him

Humour in holiday and fightly trim,
Sublimity and attic taste, combin'd,

To polish, furnish, and delight, the mind.
Then Pope, as harmony itself exact,

In verse well disciplin'd, complete, compact,

Gave virtue and morality a grace,

That, quite eclipfing pleasure's painted face,
Levied a tax of wonder and applause,

Ev'n on the fools that trampled on their laws.
But he (his musical fineffe was fuch,

So nice his ear, fo delicate his touch)
Made poetry a mere mechanic art;

And ev'ry warbler has his tune by heart.
Nature imparting her fatiric gift,

Her serious mirth, to Arbuthnot and Swift,

With droll fobriety they rais'd a fmile

At folly's coft, themselves unmov'd the while.

That conftellation fet, the world in vain

Muft hope to look upon their like again. {

A. Are we then left-B. Not wholly in the dark; Wit now and then, ftruck fmartly, fhows a spark,

Sufficient to redeem the modern race

From total night and abfolute difgrace.

While fervile trick and imitative knack

Confine the million in the beaten track,

Perhaps fome courfer, who difdains the road,

Snuffs

up the wind, and flings himself abroad.

Contemporaries all surpass'd, see one;

Short his career, indeed, but ably run;
Churchill; himself unconscious of his pow'rs,
In penury confum'd his idle hours;

And, like a scatter'd seed at random sown,
Was left to fpring by vigour of his own.
Lifted at length, by dignity of thought
And dint of genius, to an affluent lot,
He laid his head in luxury's foft lap,
And took, too often, there his eafy nap.
If brighter beams than all he threw not forth,
'Twas negligence in him, not want of worth.
Surly and flovenly, and bold and coarse,

Too proud for art, and trusting in mere force,
Spendthrift alike of money and of wit,
Always at speed, and never drawing bit,

He ftruck the lyre in fuch a careless mood,

And fo difdain'd the rules he understood,