Rate not th' extenfion of the human mind By the plebeian standard of mankind,

But by the fize of those gigantic few,

Whom Greece and Rome ftill offer to our view;
Or Britain well-deferving equal praise,
Parent of heroes too in better days.

Why fhould I try her num'rous fons to name
By verfe, law, eloquence, confign'd to fame?
Or who have forc'd fair Science into fight
Long loft in darkness, and afraid of light?
O'er all fuperior, like the folar ray,
First Bacon ufher'd in the dawning day,
And drove the mists of fophiftry away;
Fervaded nature with amazing force,

Following experience ftill throughout his course,
And finishing at length his destin'd way,

To Newton he bequeath'd the radiant lamp of day.
Illuftrious fouls! if any tender cares

Affect angelic breasts for man's affairs,
If in your present happy heav'nly state,
You're not regardless quite of Britain's fate,
Let this degen❜rate land again be bleft

With that true vigour, which she once poffeft;
Compel us to unfold our flumb'ring eyes,

And to our ancient dignity to rise.

Such wond'rous powers as these must fure be given.
For most important purposes by heaven ;

}

Who

Who bids thefe ftars as bright examples fhine
Befprinkled thinly by the hand divine,
To form to virtue each degenerate time,
And point out to the foul its origin fublime.
That there's a felf which after death shall live,
All are concern'd about, and all believe;
That fomething's ours, when we from life depart,
This all conceive, all feel it at the heart;
The wife of learn'd antiquity proclaim

This truth, the public voice declares the fame;
No land fo rude but looks beyond the tomb
For future profpects in a world to come.
Hence, without hopes to be in life repaid,
We plant flow oaks pofterity to fhade;
And hence vaft pyramids afpiring high
Lift their proud heads aloft, and time defy.
Hence is our love of fame, a love fo strong,
We think no dangers great, or labours long,
By which we hope our beings to extend,
And to remotest times in glory to descend.

For fame the wretch beneath the gallows lies,
Difowning every crime for which he dies;
Of life profufe, tenacious of a name,
Fearless of death, and yet afraid of shame.
Nature has wove into the human mind
This anxious care for names we leave behind,
T'extend our narrow views beyond the tomb,
And give an earnest of a life to come:

For,

For, if when dead we are but dust or clay,
Why think of what pofterity shall say?
Her praise or cenfure cannot us concern,
Nor ever penetrate the filent urn.

What mean the nodding plumes, the fun'ral train,
And marble monument that speaks in vain,
With all thofe cares, which every nation pays
To their unfeeling dead in diff'rent ways!

Some in the flower-ftrewn grave the corpfe have lay'd,
And annual obfequies around it pay'd,
As if to please the poor departed fhade;
Others on blazing piles the body burn,
And store their afhes in the faithful urn:
But all in one great principle agree
To give a fancy'd immortality..

Why should I mention thofe, whofe ouzy foil
Is render'd fertile by th' o'erflowing Nile?
Their dead they bury not, nor burn with fires,
No graves they dig, erect no fun'ral pires;
But, washing first th' embowel'd body clean,
Gums, fpice, and melted pitch, they pour within
Then with strong fillets bind it round and round,
To make each flaccid part compact, and found;
And lastly paint the varnifh'd furface o'er
With the fame features which in life it wore :
So strong their prefage of a future state,
And that our nobler part furvives the body's fate.

}

Nations

Nations behold remote from reafon's beams,
Where Indian Ganges rolls his fandy streams,
Of life impatient, rush into the fire,
And willing victims to their Gods expire!
Perfuaded the loose foul to regions flies
Bleft with eternal spring, and cloudless skies.
Nor is lefs fam'd the oriental wife

For ftedfaft virtue, and contempt of life:
"Thefe heroines mourn not with loud female cries
Their husbands loft, or with o'erflowing eyes;
But, ftrange to tell! their funeral piles afcend,
And in the fame fad flames their forrows end;
In hopes with them beneath the shades to rove,
And there renew their interrupted love.

In climes where Boreas breathes eternal cold,
See numerous nations, warlike, fierce, and bold,
To battle all unanimously run,

Nor fire, nor fword, nor instant death they fhun.
Whence this difdain of life in every breaft,
But from a notion on their minds impreft,
That all, who for their country die, are bleft?
Add too to these the once prevailing dreams
Of fweet Elyfian groves, and Stygian streams:
All fhew with what confent mankind agree
In the firm hope of Immortality.

Grant thefe th' inventions of the crafty prieft;
Yet fuch inventions never could subsist,

}

Unless

Unless fome glimmerings of a future state
Were with the mind coæval, and innate:
For every fiction, which can long perfuade,
In truth must have its first foundations laid.
Because we are unable to conceive,
How unembodied fouls can act, and live,

The vulgar give them forms, and limbs, and faces,
And habitations in peculiar places;

Hence reasoners more refin'd, but not more wife,
Struck with the glare of fuch abfurdities,
Their whole existence fabulous fufpect,
And truth and falfhood in a lump reject;
Too indolent to learn what may be known,
Or elfe too proud that ignorance to own.
For hard's the task the daubing to pervade
Folly and fraud on Truth's fair form have laid;
Yet let that task be ours; for great the prize;
Nor let us Truth's celestial charms despise,
Because that priefts, or poets, may disguise.

That there's a God, from Nature's voice is clear:
And yet
what errors to this truth adhere!
How have the fears and follies of mankind
Now multiply'd their Gods, and now fubjoin'd
To each the frailties of the human mind!
Nay, fuperftition spread at length so wide,
Beasts, birds, and onions too were deify'd.
Th' Athenian fage, revolving in his mind
This weakness, blindness, madness of mankind,

F 2

}

}

Foretold,