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THE

PROGRESS OF ERROR.

Si quid loquar audiendum.-HOR. Lib. 4. Od. 2.

SING, muse (if such a theme, so dark, so long, May find a muse to grace it with a song)

By what unseen and unsuspected arts

The

serpent error twines round human hearts;

Tell where she lurks, beneath what flowery shades,
That not a glimpse of genuine light pervades,
The poisonous, black, insinuating worm
Successfully conceals her loathsome form.
Take, if ye can, ye careless and supine,
Counsel and caution from a voice like mine!
Truths, that the theorist could never reach,
And observation taught me, I would teach.

Not all, whose eloquence the fancy fills, Musical as the chime of tinkling rills,

Weak to perform, though mighty to pretend,
Can trace her mazy windings to their end;
Discern the fraud beneath the specious lure,
Prevent the danger, or prescribe the cure.
The clear harangue, and cold as it is clear,
Falls soporific on the listless ear;

Like quicksilver, the rhetoric they display
Shines as it runs, but grasped at slips away.

Placed for his trial on this bustling stage,
From thoughtless youth to ruminating age,
Free in his will to choose or to refuse,

Man may improve the crisis, or abuse;

Else, on the fatalist's unrighteous plan,

Say to what bar amenable were man?
With nought in charge he could betray no trust;

And, if he fell, would fall because he must;
If love reward him, or if vengeance strike,

His recompense in both unjust alike.

Divine authority within his breast

Brings every thought, word, action, to the test; Warns him or prompts, approves him or restrains, As reason, or as passion, takes the reins.

Heaven from above, and conscience from within, Cries in his startled ear-Abstain from sin!

The world around solicits his desire,

And kindles in his soul a treacherous fire;
While, all his purposes and steps to guard,
Peace follows virtue as its sure reward;

And pleasure brings as surely in her train
Remorse, and sorrow, and vindictive pain.

Man, thus endued with an elective voice,
Must be supplied with objects of his choice;
Wherever he turns, enjoyment and delight,
Or present, or in prospect, meet his sight;
Those open on the spot their honeyed store;
These call him loudly to pursuit of more.
His unexhausted mine the sordid vice

Avarice shows, and virtue is the price.

Here various motives his ambition raise

Power,pomp,and splendour, and the thirst of praise; There beauty wooes him with expanded arms; Even bacchanalian madness has its charms.

Nor these alone, whose pleasures less refined Might well alarm the most unguarded mind, Seek to supplant his inexperienced youth, Or lead him devious from the path of truth; Hourly allurements on his passions press,

Safe in themselves, but dangerous in the excess. Hark! how it floats upon the dewy air!

O what a dying, dying close was there!

'Tis harmony from yon sequestered bower,

Sweet harmony, that sooths the midnight hour!
Long ere the charioteer of day had run

His morning course, the enchantment was begun;
And he shall gild yon mountain's height again,
Ere yet the pleasing toil becomes a pain.
Is this the rugged path, the steep ascent,
That virtue points to? Can a life thus spent

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