Strike up the fiddles, let us all be

gay,

Laymen have leave to dance, if parsons play.
Oh Italy!-thy sabbaths will be soon

Our sabbaths, closed with mummery and buffoon.
Preaching and pranks will share the motley scene,
Our's parcelled out, as thine have ever been,
God's worship and the mountebank between.
What says the prophet? Let that day be blest
With holiness and consecrated rest.

Pastime and business both it should exclude,
And bar the door the moment they intrude;
Nobly distinguished above all the six

By deeds, in which the world must never mix.
Hear him again. He calls it a delight,

A day of luxury, observed aright,

When the glad soul is made heaven's welcome

guest,

Sits banquetting, and God provides the feast.
But triflers are engaged and cannot come;

Their answer to the call is-Not at home.

Oh the dear pleasures of the velvet plain, The painted tablets, dealt and dealt again.

Cards, with what rapture, and the polished die,
The yawning chasm of indolence supply!

Then to the dance, and make the sober moon
Witness of joys that shun the sight of noon.
Blame, cynic, if you can, quadrille or ball,
The snug close party, or the splendid hall,
Where night, down-stooping from her ebonthrone,
Views constellations brighter than her own.

'Tis innocent, and harmless, and refined,

The balm of care, elysium of the mind.
Innocent! Oh if venerable time

Slain at the foot of pleasure be no crime,

Then, with his silver beard and magic wand,
Let Comus rise Archbishop of the land;
Let him your rubric and your feast prescribe,
Grand metropolitan of all the tribe.

Of manners rough, and coarse athletic cast, The rank debauch suits Clodio's filthy taste.

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR. LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATION:

-folly

simpering countenance, and a trifting air; But innocence, sedate, serene erecto,

Delights us, by engaging

Pub. by Johnson London March 1 1807.