With all the fimple and unlettered poor,
Admire his learning, and almoft adore.
Whoever errs, the priest can never be wrong,
With fuch fine words familiar to his tongue.

Ye ladies! (for indifferent in your cause,
I should deferve to forfeit all applause)
Whatever shocks or gives the least offence
To virtue, delicacy, truth, or fense,
(Try the criterion, 'tis a faithful guide)
Nor has, nor can have, scripture on its fide.
None but an author knows an author's cares,
Or fancy's fondness for the child she bears.
Committed once into the public arms,

The baby feems to smile with added charms,
Like fomething precious ventured far from shore,
'Tis valued for the danger's fake the more.
He views it with complacency fsupreme,
Solicits kind attention to his dream;

And daily more enamoured of the cheat,
Kneels, and asks heaven to bless the dear deceit.
So one, whose story serves at least to show
Men loved their own productions long ago,
Wooed an unfeeling statue for his wife,
Nor refted till the gods had given it life.
If fome mere driveller fuck the fugared fib,
One that ftill needs his leading ftring and bib,

And praise his genius, he is foon repaid

In praise applied to the fame part-his head,
For 'tis a rule, that holds for ever true,
Grant me difcernment, and I grant it you.
Patient of contradiction as a child,
Affable, humble, diffident, and mild;

Such was fir Ifaac, and fuch Boyle and Locke :
Your blunderer is as fturdy as a rock.
The creature is fo fure to kick and bite,
A muleteer's the man to fet him right.
Firft appetite enlifts him truth's fworn foe,
Then obftinate felf-will confirms him fo.
Tell him he wanders; that his error leads
To fatal ills; that, though the path he treads
Be flowery, and he fee no cause of fear,
Death and the pains of hell attend him there;
In vain ; the flave of arrogance and pride,
He has no hearing on the prudent fide.
His ftill refuted quirks he ftill repeats;
New raised objections with new quibbles meets ;
Till, finking in the quickfand he defends,
He dies difputing, and the conteft ends-
But not the mifchiefs; they, ftill left behind
Like thiftle-feeds, are fown by every wind.
Thus men go wrong with an ingenious skill;
Bend the ftraight rule to their own crooked will;

And with a clear and fhining lamp fupplied,
Firft put it out, then take it for a guide.
Halting on crutches of unequal fize,
One leg by truth fupported, one by lies;
They fidle to the goal with awkward pace,
Secure of nothing-but to lose the race.

Faults in the life breed errors in the brain:
And these reciprocally thofe again.
The mind and conduct mutually imprint
And ftamp their image in each other's mint:
Each, fire and dam, of an infernal race,
Begetting and conceiving all that's bafe.

None fends his arrow to the mark in view, Whofe hand is feeble, or his aim untrue, For though, ere yet the shaft is on the wing, Or when it firft forfakes the elastic string, It err but little from the intended line, It falls at laft far wide of his defign: So he, who feeks a manfion in the sky, Muft watch his purpose with a stedfaft eye; That prize belongs to none but the fincere, The leaft obliquity is fatal here.

With caution tafte the fweet Circean cup : He that fips often, at last drinks it up. Habits are foon affum'd; but when we ftrive To ftrip them off, 'tis being flayed alive.

Called to the temple of impure delight,
He that abftains, and he alone, does right.
If a wish wander that way, call it home;
He cannot long be fafe whose wishes roam.
But, if you pass the threshold, you are caught;
Die then, if power Almighty save you not.
There hardening by degrees, till double fteeled,
Take leave of nature's God, and God revealed;
Then laugh at all you trembled at before;
And, joining the free-thinkers brutal roar,
Swallow the two grand noftrums they difpenfe-
That scripture lies, and blasphemy is sense.
If clemency revolted by abuse

Be damnable, then damned without excufe.

Some dream that they can filence, when they will, The ftorm of paffion, and say, Peace, be still; But "Thus far and no farther," when addressed To the wild wave, or wilder human breaft, Implies authority that never can,

That never ought to be the lot of man.

But mufe forbear; long flights forebode a fall;
Strike on the deep-toned chord the fum of all.
Hear the juft law-the judgment of the skies!
He that hates truth shall be the dupe of lies:
And he that will be cheated to the laft,
Delufions ftrong as hell shall bind him fast.

But if the wanderer his mistake difcern,
Judge his own ways, and figh for a return,
Bewildered once, muft he bewail his lofs
For ever and for ever? No-the cross!
There and there only (though the deift rave,
And atheist, if earth bear fo base a slave);
There and there only is the power to fave.
There no delufive hope invites despair;
No mockery meets you, no deception there.
The fpells and charms, that blinded you before,
All vanish there, and fascinate no more.

I am no preacher, let this hint fuffice-
The crofs once feen is death to every vice:
Elfe he that hung there fuffered all his pain,
Bled, groaned, and agonized, and died, in vain.