Drops from the lips a difregarded thing.

The weak perhaps are mov'd, but are not taught, While prejudice in men of stronger minds

Takes deeper root, confirm'd by what they see. A relaxation of religion's hold

Upon the roving and untutor'd heart

Soon follows, and, the curb of confcience snapt,
The laity run wild.--But do they now?
Note their extravagance, and be convincd.

As nations, ignorant of God, contrive
A wooden one, fo we, no longer taught
By monitors that mother church fupplies,
Now make our own. Pofterity will ask
(If e'er pofterity fee verfe of mine)
Some fifty or an hundred luftrums hence,
What was a monitor in George's days?
My very gentle reader, yet unborn,

Of whom I needs muft augur better things,

Since heav'n would fure grow weary of a world Productive only of a race like our's,

A monitor is wood-plank fhaven thin.

We wear it at our backs.

There, closely brac'd

And neatly fitted, it compreffes hard

The prominent and moft unfightly bones,

And binds the shoulders flat. We prove its use

Sov'reign and most effectual to secure

A form, not now gymnaftic as of yore,

From rickets and distortion, elfe our lot.
But, thus admonifh'd, we can walk erect-

One proof at least of manhood! while the friend
Sticks clofe, a Mentor worthy of his charge.
Our habits, coftlier than Lucullus wore,
And by caprice as multiplied as his,
Juft pleafe us while the fafhion is at full,
But change with ev'ry moon. The fycophant,
Who waits to drefs us, arbitrates their date;
Surveys his fair reverfion with keen eye;
Finds one ill made, another obfolete,
This fits not nicely, that is ill conceiv'd;
And, making prize of all that he condemns,
With our expenditure defrays his own.
Variety's the very fpice of life,

That gives it all its flavour.

We have run

Through ev'ry change that fancy at the loom,

Exhaufted, has had genius to fupply;

And, ftudious of mutation, still, discard

A real elegance, a little us'd,

For monftrous novelty and strange disguise.
We facrifice to dress, till household joys

And comforts ceafe. Drefs drains our cellar dry,
And keeps our larder lean; puts out our fires ;

And introduces hunger, froft, and woe,

Where peace and hofpitality might reign.

What man that lives, and that knows how to live, Would fail t' exhibit at the public shows

A form as fplendid as the proudeft there,
Though appetite raife outcries at the coft?
A man o' th' town dines late, but soon enough,
With reasonable forecast and dispatch,
T'enfure a fide-box ftation at half price.
You think, perhaps, fo delicate his dress,
His daily fare as delicate. Alas!

He picks clean teeth, and, bufy as he seems
With an old tavern quill, is hungry yet!
The rout is folly's circle, which she draws
With magic wand. So potent is the fpell,
That none, decoy'd into that fatal ring,
Unless by heaven's peculiar grace, efcape.
There we grow early gray, but never wife;
There form connexions, but acquire no friend;
Solicit pleasure, hopeless of fuccefs;

Waste youth in occupations only fit

For fecond childhood, and devote old age
To fports which only childhood could excufe.
There they are happiest who diffemble best
Their wearinefs? and they the most polite
Who fquander time and treafure with a fmile,

Though at their own deftruction. She, that asks
Her dear five hundred friends, contemns them all,
And hates their coming. They (what can they lefs?)
Make juft reprisals; and, with cringe and fhrug,
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 exceffes fhe can ill afford,

Is hackney'd home unlacquey'd; who, in haste
Alighting, turns the key in her own door,
And, at the watchman's lantern borrowing light,
Finds a cold bed her only comfort left.

Wives beggar husbands, husbands ftarve their wives,
On fortune's velvet altar off'ring up

Their laft poor pittance-fortune, most severe
Of goddeffes yet known, and coftlier far

Than all that held their routs in Juno's heav'n.--
So fare we in this prifon-house the world.
And 'tis a fearful fpectacle to fee

So many maniacs dancing in their chains.
They gaze upon the links that hold them fast
With eyes of anguish, execrate their lot,
Then shake them in defpair, and dance again!

Now basket 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, clofely bundled, ev'ry brat
At the right door. Profufion is the fire.
Profufion unreftrain'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 fociety its beauty, ftrength,
Convenience, and fecurity, and ufe:

Makes men mere vermin, worthy to be trapp'd
And gibbeted as fast as catchpole claws

Can feize the flipp'ry prey: unties the knot
Of union, and converts the facred band
That holds mankind together to a scourge.
Profufion, deluging a state with lufts
Of groffeft nature and of worst effects,
Prepares it for its ruin: hardens, blinds,
And warps, the confciences of public men,