The inomentary buzz of vain renown!

A name! a mortal immortality'

Or (meaner still) instead of grasping air, For sordid lucre plunge we in the mire?

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Drudge, sweat, through every shame, for every gain·
For vile contaminating trash! throw up

Our hope in Heaven, our dignity with man,
And deify the dirt matured to gold?

Ambition, Avarice, the two demons these

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Which goad through every slough our human herd, Hard-travel'd from the cradle to the grave.

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How low the wretches stoop! how steep they climb. These demons burn mankind, but most possess Lorenzo's bosom, and turn out the skies.

Is it in time to hide eternity?

And why not in an atom on the shore

To cover occan? or a mote, the Sun ?

Glory and wealth! have they this blinding power? 230 What if to them I prove Lorenzo blind?

Would it surprise thee? be thou then surprised;

Thou neither know'st: their nature learn from me.

Mark well, as foreign as these subjects seem,

What close connexion ties them to my theme.

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First, what is true ambition? The pursuit
Of glory nothing less than man can share.
Were they as vain as gaudy-minded man,
As flatulent with fumes of self-applause,
Their arts and conquests animals might boast,
And claim their laurel-crowns as well as we;
But not celestial. Here we stand alone,

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As in our form distinct, preeminent :

If prone in thought, our stature is our shame ;

And man should blush, his forehead meets the skies.

The visible and present are for brutes:

A slender portion, and a narrow bound!

These Reason, with an energy divine,

O'erleaps, and claims the future and upseen

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The vast unseen! the future fathomless!

When the great soul buoys up to this high point,
Leaving gross Nature's sediments below,
Then, and then only, Adam's offspring quits
The sage and hero of the fields and woods,
Asserts his rank, and rises into man.
This is ambition; this is human fire!

Can parts or place (two bold pre.enders) make
Lorenzo great, and pluck him from the throng?
Genius and art, ambition's boasted wings,
Our boast but ill deserve: a feeble aid!
Dedalian enginery! If these alone

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Assist our flight, Fame's flight is Glory's fall.
Heart merit wanting, mount we ne'er so high,
Our height is but the gibbet of our name.

A celebrated wretch when I behold,

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When I behold a genius bright and base,

Of towering talents and terrestrial aims,

Methinks I see, as thrown from her high sphere,

The glorious fragments of a soul immortal,

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With rubbish mix'd, and glittering in the dust:
Struck at the splendid melancholy sight,
At once compassion soft and envy rise-
But wherefore envy? Talents angel-bright,
If wanting worth, are shining instruments
In false Ambition's hand, to finish faults
Illustrious, and give Infamy renown.

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Great ill is an achievement of great powers.

Plain sense but rarely leads us far astray.

Reason the means, Affections choose our end.

Means have no merit, if our end amiss.

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If wrong our hearts, our heads are right in vain.
What is a Pelham's head to Pelham's heart?

Hearts are proprietors of all applause.

Right ends and means make wisdom, worldly-wise

Is but half witted at its nighest praise.

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Let genius, then, despair to make thee great; Nor flatter station. What is station high?

'Tis a proud mendicant: it boasts and begs;
It begs an alms of homage from the throng,
And oft the throng denies its charity.
Monarchs and ministers are awful names!

Whoever wear them challenge our devoir.
Religion, public Order, both exact

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External homage and a supple knee,

To beings pompously set up, to serve

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The meanest slave: all more is Merit's due,

Her sacred and inviolable right;

Nor ever paid the monarch, but the man.

Our hearts ne'er bow but to superior worth;
Nor ever fail of their allegiance there.

300

Fools, indeed, drop the man in their account,
And vote the mantle into majesty.
Let the small savage boast his silver fur,
His royal robe unborrow'd, and unbought,
His own, descending fairly from his sires;
Shall man be proud to wear his livery,
And souls in ermine scorn a soul without?
Can place or lessen us or aggrandize?

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Pigmies are piginies still, though perch'd on Alps,
And pyramids are pyramids in vales.

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Each man makes his own stature, builds himself.

Virtue alone outbuilds the pyramids;

Her monuments shall last, when Egypt's fall.

Of these sure truths dost thou demand the cause? The cause is lodged in immortality. Hear, and assent. Thy bosom burns for power; What station charms thee? I'll install thee there; "Tis thine. And art thou greater than before? Then thou before wast something less than man. Has thy new post betray'd thee into pride? That treacherous pride betrays thy dignity; That pride defames humanity, and calls

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The being mean which staffs or strings can raise :
That pride, like hooded hawks, in darkness soars,
From blindness bold, and towering to the skies.

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Tis born of Ignorance, which knows not man :
An angel's second, nor his second long.
A Nero, quitting his imperial throne,
And courting glory from the tinkling string,
But faintly shadows an immortal soul,
With empire's self to pride or rapture fired.
If nobler motives minister no cure,
E'en vanity forbids thee to be vain.

83

High worth is elevated place: 'tis more, It makes the post stand candidate for thee;

335

Makes more than monarchs, makes an honest man.

Though no Exchequer it commands, 'tis wealth;
And though it wears no ribband, 'tis renown:

Renown, that would not quit thee though disgraced, Nor leave thee pendent on a master's smile.

340

Other ambition Nature interdicts;

Nature proclaims it most absurd in man,

By pointing at his origin and end;

Milk and a swathe, at first, his whole demand;

His whole domain, at last, a turf or stone;

346

To whom, between, a world may seem too small.
Souls, truly great, dart forward on the wing

Of just Ambition, to the grand result,

The curtain's fall; there see the buskin'd chief

Unshod behind this momentary scene,

350

Reduced to his own stature, low or high,

As vice or virtue sinks him, or sublimes;
And laugh at this fantastic mummery,
This antic prelude of grotesque events,
Where dwarfs are often stilted, and betray
A littleness of soul by worlds o'errun,
And nations laid in blood. Dread saerifice

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To Christian pride! which had with horror shock'd

The darkest Pagans, offer'd to their gods.

O thou Most Christian enemy to peace!

Again in arms? again provoking Fate?
That prince, and that alone, is truly great,
Who draws the sword reluctant, gladly sheaths;

360

On empire builds what empire far outweighs,
And makes his throne a scaffold to the skies'

Why this so rare ?--because, forgot of all
The day of death, that venerable day

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Which sits as judge; that day, which shall pronounce
On all our days, absolve them, or condemn.
Lorenzo! never shut thy thought against it:
Be levees ne'er so full, afford it room;
And give it audience in the cabinet.
That friend consulted, flatteries apart,
Will tell thee fair if thou art great or mean.

To dote on aught may leave us, or be left,
Is that ambition? then let, flames descend,
Point to the centre their inverted spires,
And learn humiliation from a soul
Which boasts her lineage from celestial fire.
Yet these are they the world pronounces wise;

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The world, which cancels Nature's right and wrong,

And casts new wisdom: e'en the grave man lends
His solemn face to countenance the coin.
Wisdom for parts is madness for the whole.

This stamps the paradox, and gives us leave
To call the wisest weak, the richest poor,
The most ambitious unambitious, mean,
In triumph mean, and abject on a throne.
Nothing can make it less than mad in man
To put forth all his ardour, all his art,
And give his soul her full unbounded flight,
But reaching Him who gave her wings to fly.
When blind Ambition quite mistakes her road,

And downward pores for that which shines above,
Substantial happiness and true renown;

Then, like an idiot gazing on the brook,

We leap at stars, and fasten in the mud ;

At glory grasp, and sink in infamy.

Ambition powerful source of good and ill!

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Thy strength in man, like length of wing in birds 400 When disengaged from earth with greater case,