That none, decoy'd into that fatal ring, Unless by heaven's peculiar grace, escape.
There we grow early gray, but never wife; There form connexions, but acquire no friend;
Solicit pleasure, hopeless of fuccess;
Waste youth in occupations only fit
For fecond childhood, and devote old age To fports which only childhood could excuse. There they are happiest who dissemble best Their weariness; and they the most polite Who squander time and treasure with a smile, Though at their own destruction. She, that asks Her dear five hundred friends, contemns them all, And hates their coming. They (what can they lefs?) Make just reprisals; and, with cringe and shrug, And bow obfequious, hide their hate of her. All catch the frenzy, downward from her grace, Whose flambeaux flash against the morning skies, And gild our chamber ceilings as they pass, To her who, frugal only that her thrift
May feed excesses she can ill afford,
Is hackney'd home unlacquey'd; who, in hafte
Alighting, turns the key in her own door, And, at the watchman's lantern borrowing light, Finds a cold bed her only comfort lefe.
Wives beggar husbands, husbands starve their wives, On fortune's velvet altar off 'ring up
Their last poor pittance-fortune, most severe
Of goddeffes yet known, and costlier far
Than all that held their routs in Juno's heav'n.
So fare we in this prifon-house the world.
Andetis a fearful spectacle to fee
So many maniacs dancing in their chains.
They gaze upon the links that hold them faft With eyes of anguish, execrate their lot, Then shake them in despair, and dance again!
Now bafket up the family of plagues
That waste our vitals; peculation, fale Of honour, perjury, corruption, frauds
By forgery, by fubterfuge of law,
By tricks and lies as num'rous and as keen As the neceffities their authors feel;
Then caft them, closely bundled, ev'ry brat At the right door. Profufion is the fire. Profufion unrestrain'd, with all that's base In character, has litter'd all the land, And bred, within the mem'ry of no few, A priesthood fuch as Baal's was of old, A people fuch as never was till now. It is a hungry vice:-it eats up all That gives society its beauty, strength, Convenience, and security, and use: Makes men mere vermin, worthy to be trapp'd And gibbetted as fast as catchpole claws Can seize the flipp'ry prey: unties the knot Of union, and converts the sacred band That holds mankind together to a scourge. Profusion, deluging a state with lufts Of grossest nature and of worst effects,
Prepares it for its ruin: hardens, blinds, And warps, the confciences of public men, Till they can laugh at virtue; mock the fools That trust them; and, in th' end, disclose a face That would have shock'd credulity herfelf, Unmask'd, vouchsafing this their fole excufe- Since all alike are felfish, why not they? This does profufion, and th' accurfed cause Of fuch deep mischief has itself a caufe.
In colleges and halls, in ancient days, When learning virtue, piety, and truth, Were precious, and inculcated with care, There dwelt a fage call'd Difcipline. His head, Not yet by time completely filver'd o'er, Bespoke him paft the bounds of freakish youth, But strong for service still, and unimpair'd. His eye was meek and gentle, and a smile Play'd on his lips, and in his speech was heard
Paternal sweetness, dignity, and love.
The occupation dearest to his heart
Was to encourage goodness. He would stroke
The head of modest and ingenuous worth,
That blum'd at its own praise; and press the youth
Close to his fide that pleas'd him. Learning grew, Beneath his care, a thriving vig'rous plant; The mind was well inform'd, the paffions held. Subordinate, and diligence was choice. If e'er it chanc'd, as fometimes chance it must, That one among fo many overleap'd The limits of controul, his gentle eye Grew stern, and darted a fevere rebuke: His frown was full of terror, and his voice Shook the delinquent with such fits of awe As left him not, till penitence had won Loft favour back again, and clos'd the breach. But Difcipline, a faithful servant long,
Declin'd at length into the vale of years :
A palsy struck his arm; his sparkling eye
Was queneh'd in rheums of age; his voice, unstrung,
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