'The sun now rolling down the western way,
A blaze of fires, renews the fading day;
Unnumber'd barks the regal barge enfold,
Bright'ning the twilight with it's beamy gold;
Less thick the fiany shoals, a countless fry,
Before the whale or kingly dolphin fly;
In one vast shout he seeks the crowded strand,
And in a peal of thunder gains the land.

Welcome, great stranger! to our longing eyes, Oh! king desir'd, adopted Albion cries. For thee the East breath'd out a prosp'rous breeze, Bright were the suns, and gently swell'd the seas. Thy presence did each doubtful heart compose, And factions wonder'd that they once were foes; That joyful day they lost each hostile name, The same their aspect, and their voice the same.

So two fair twins, whose features were design'd At one soft moment in the mother's mind, Show each the other with reflected grace, And the same beauties bloom in either face; The puzzled strangers which is which inquire; Delusion grateful to the smiling sire.

From that fair hill, where hoary sages boast
To name the stars, and count the heavenly host,
By the next dawn doth great Augusta rise,
Proud town! the noblest scene beneath the skies.
O'er Thames her thousand spires their lustre shed,
And a vast navy hides his ample bed-

A floating forest! From the distant strand
A line of golden cars strikes o'er the land:
Britannia's peers in pomp and rich array,
Before their king, triumphant, led the way.
Far as the eye can reach, the gaudy train,
A bright procession, shines along the plain.

So haply thro' the heav'n's wide pathless ways A comet draws a long-extended blaze;

From cast to west burns through th' ethereal frame, And half heav'n's convex glitters with the flame.

Flamstead house.

Now to the regal towers securely brought, He plans Britannia's glories in his thought, Resumes the delegated power he gave, Rewards the faithful, and restores the brave. Whom shall the Muse from out the shining throng Select, to heigthen and adorn her song? Thee, Halifax. To thy capacious mind, O man approv'd, is Britain's wealth consign'd. Her coin (while Nassau fought) debas'd and rude, By thee in beauty and in truth renew'd, An arduous work! again thy charge we see, And thy own care once more returns to thee. O! form'd in every scene to awe and please, Mix wit with pomp, and dignity with ease: Tho' call'd to shine aloft, thou wilt not scorn To smile on arts thyself did once adorn : For this thy name succeeding time shall praise, And envy less thy garter than thy bays.

The Muse, if fir'd with thy enliv'ning beams, Perhaps shall aim at more exalted themes; Record our monarch in a nobler strain, And sing the op'ning wonders of his reign; Bright Carolina's heavenly beauties trace, Her valiant consort, and his blooming race. A train of kings their fruitful love supplies, A glorious scene to Albion's ravish'd eyes; Who sees by Brunswick's hand her sceptre sway'd, And through his line from age to age convey'd'

No 621. WEDNESDAY, NOV. 17, 1714.

-Postquam se lumine puro

Implevit, stellasque vágas miratur, et astra
Fixa polis, vidit quanta sub nocte jaceret
Nostra dies, risitque sui ludibria—

LUCAN. ix. Il.

Now to the blest abode, with wonder fill'd,
The sun and moving planets he beheld;
Then, looking down on the sun's feeble ray,
Survey'd our dusky, faint, imperfect day,
And under what a cloud of night we lay.

ROWE.

THE following letter having in it some observations out of the common road, I shall make it the entertainment of this day.

MR. SPECTATOR,

THE common topics against the pride of man, which are laboured by norid and declamatory writers, are taken from the baseness of his original, the imperfections of his nature, or the short duration of those goods in which he makes his boast. Though it be true that we can have nothing in us that ought to raise our vanity, yet a consciousness of our own merit may be sometimes laudable. The folly therefore lies here: we are apt to pride ourselves in worthless, or perhaps, shameful things; and on the other hand count that disgraceful which is our truest glory.

Hence it is, that the lovers of praise take wrong measures to attain it. Would a vain man consult his own heart, he would find that if others knew his

weakness as well as he himself doth, he could not have the impudence to expect the public esteem. Pride therefore flows from want of reflection, and ignorance of ourselves. Knowledge and humility come upon us together.

The proper way to make an estimate of ourselves, is to consider seriously what it is we value or despise in others. A man who boasts of the goods of fortune, a gay dress, or a new title, is generally the mark of ridicule. We ought therefore not to admire in ourselves what we are so ready to laugh at in other men.

Much less can we with reason pride ourselves in those things, which at some time of our life we shall certainly despise. And yet, if we will give ourselves the trouble of looking backward and forward on the several changes which we have already undergone, and hereafter must try, we shall find that the greater degrees of our knowledge and wisdom serve only to show us our own imperfec tions.

As we rise from childhood to youth, we look with contempt on the toys and trifles which our hearts have hitherto been set upon. When we advance to manhood, we are held wise, in proportion to our shame and regret for the rashness and extravagance of youth. Old age fills us with mortifying reflections upon a life mis-spent in the pursuit of anxious wealth, or uncertain honour. Agreeable to this gradation of thought in this life, it may be reasonably supposed that, in a future state, the wisdom, the experience, and the maxims, of old age, will be looked upon by a separate spirit in much the same light as an ancient man now sees the little follies and toyings of infants. The pomps, the honours, the policies, and arts, of mortal men, will X

VOL. XV.

be thought as trifling as hobby-horses, mock battles, or any other sports that now employ all the cunning and strength, and ambition, of rational beings from four years old to nine or ten.

If the notion of a gradual rise in beings from the meanest to the Most High be not a vain imagination, it is not improbable that an angel looks down upon a man as a man doth upon a creature which approaches the nearest to the rational nature. By the same rule, if I may indulge my fancy in this particular, a superior brute looks with a kind of pride on one of an inferior species. If they could reflect, we might imagine, from the gestures of some of them, that they think themselves the sove reigns of the world, and that all things were made for them. Such a thought would not be more absurd in brute creatures than one which men are apt to entertain, namely, that all the stars in the firmament were created only to please their eyes and amuse their imaginations. Mr. Dryden, in his fable of the Cock and the Fox, makes a speech for his hero the cock, which is a pretty instance for this purpose.

"Then turning, said to Partlet, See, my dear,
How lavish nature hath adorn'd the year;
How the pale primrose and the violet spring,
And birds essay their throats, disus'd to sing:
All these are ours, and I with pleasure see
Man strutting on two legs and aping me."

'What I would observe from the whole is this, that we ought to value ourselves upon those things only which superior beings think valuable, since that is the only way for us not to sink in our own esteem hereafter.'

I