1821, after his death, of Travels in New England and New York. Southey, who saw in the four well filled volumes admirable material for the history of a new state, what Miss Martineau has since called "world making," in the natural history observations, the sketches of Indian life, the notices of education, domestic manners, and social progress, pronounces this "the most important of Dwight's writings, a work which will derive additional value from time, whatever may become of his poetry and of his sermons.”*

Dwight's House in New Haven.

In 1816 Dwight was seized with the illnessan alarming affection of the bladder-which, though it was partially relieved by a surgical operation, caused his death the year after, January 11, 1817, in his sixty-fifth year. He employed the last months of his life in compositions on the evidences of revelation, and in the completion of a poem of fifteen hundred lines, the description of a contest between Genius and Common Sense.

The personal influence of Dwight should not be overlooked in an estimate of his position. He appears to have been "every inch a president. His popularity with the students was unbounded, and was maintained by no sacrifice of selfrespect, for Dwight was always courtly and dignified. A lady, who saw him in her youth, when he visited an old college companion, her father, the Rev. Joseph Buckminster, Mrs. Lee, says that when he entered the humble parsonage, he appeared to her youthful observation to possess lofty politeness, the priestly dignity of the Bishop of London, as made known by the pen of Hannah More." The portrait by Trumbull exhibits

The Quarterly Review, Oct. 1823, Art. 1.

"the

+ Memoirs of the Rev. Joseph Buckminster, by Eliza Buckminster Lee. Dr. Sprague, in his Memoir in Sparks's series, describes his form as "stately and majestic, and every way well proportioned. His features were regular, his eye black and piercing, yet benignant, and his countenance altogether indicative of a high order of mind. His voice was rich and melodious, adapted alike to music and oratory." An incidental trait is in accordance with this description. His hand-writing was so elegant that there are portions of it which cannot readily be distinguished from the finest copper-plate engraving. One of the very last acts of his life, in his dying hours, was an exhibition of gentlemanly courtesy. His family around him, distracted by their grief, had failed to notice two ladies who came to visit him. He spoke to them, and directed one of his children to "hand chairs." It was, as Dr. Sprague, who has preserved the anecdote, remarks, "the instinctive prompting of that inwrought sense of propriety that had constituted through life a leading element both of his popularity and usefulness."

this ease and self-command, which was built up upon some noble traits of character, a sense of duty, a higher order of industry, and an ardent fire of genius in youth. In Dwight's early poems we see a heat of honest enthusiasm sufficient to warm the faculties through life. These productions have been hardly dealt with. They are worth something more than to furnish a dull jest at epic failures. The Conquest of Canaan, it should be remembered, was the production of a youth hardly out of college, and should be looked at as a series of poetic sketches, not over nice in rhetorical treatment or obedience to the laws of Aristotle. In that view it contains much pleasing writing, but the word epic should never be brought in contact with it. His biographer thinks its reception was marred by the general prevalence of infidelity at the time of its publication.* If so, the injury may have been somewhat abated by the appearance, soon after, of the Triumph of Infidelity, an anonymous poem from his pen, which dealt some trenchant blows at scoffers in high places. But the truth is, that no amount of religious belief held in its utmost purity can entirely overcome the indifference of readers as they make their way through the long monotonous pages of the Conquest of Canaan. The lines are sounding in couplets; the cæsura gives breath and the rhymes ring well, but little impression is made upon the mind. The characters are too little discriminated, and the manners have too little exactness to fix the attention. The warriors are numerous, and one warrior is like another. The lovers, Irad and Selima, are exemplary; one is brave and the other virtuous, but their conversation is tedious. The action has not the merit of a close adherence to the original; so history is damaged without poetry being much the gainer. The interpolations of the combats of the American Revolution in the wars of the Israelites had, doubtless, a sound patriotic intention, but would be fatal to a better poem. Yet we may find many vigorous passages in the volume, which show a fine glow of the imagination. The similes are numerous, and many of them are striking. He thus treats Niagara in a comparison of the onset of battle:

Mean time from distant guards a cry ascends, And round the camp the dinning voice extends; Th' alarming trump resounds; the martial train Pour from the tents, and crowd th' accustom'd plain, In mazy wanderings, thickening, darkening, roll, Fill all the field, and shade the boundless pole. As where proud Erie winds her narrowing shores, And o'er huge hills a boiling ocean pours, The long white-sheeted foam, with fury hurl'd, Down the cliffs thundering, shakes the stable world. In solemn grandeur clouds of mist arise, Top the tall pines, and heavy seek the skies: So spread the volumes of the dust afar; So roar the clamors of commencing war.

This prophetic passage, in which the author evidently has America in view, may boast at least one fine couplet:

Then o'er wide lands, as blissful Eden bright, Type of the skies, and seats of pure delight,

Memoirs of the Life of the Author, prefixed to the Theology.

Our sons, with prosperous course, shall stretch their

sway,

And claim an empire, spread from sea to sea:
In one great whole th' harmonious tribes combine;
Trace Justice' path, and choose their chiefs divine;
On Freedom's base erect the heavenly plan;
Teach laws to reign, and save the rights of man.
Then smiling Art shall wrap the fields in bloom,
Fine the rich ore, and guide the useful loom;
Then lofty towers in golden pomp arise;
Then spiry cities meet auspicious skies:
The soul on Wisdom's wing sublimely soar,
New virtues cherish, and new truths explore:
Thro' time's long tract our name celestial run,
Climb in the cast, and circle with the sun;
And smiling Glory stretch triumphant wings
O'er hosts of heroes, and o'er tribes of kings.

The birds crowning the jubilee of returning day after a storm are introduced with beauty in the following scene, which glitters with sunshine:

Then gentler scenes his rapt attention gain'd,
Where God's great hand in clear effulgence reign'd,
The growing beauties of the solemn even,
And all the bright sublimities of heaven.
Above tall western hills, the light of day
Shot far the splendors of his golden ray;
Bright from the storm, with tenfold grace he smil'd,
The tumult soften'd and the world grew mild.
With pomp transcendant, rob'd in heavenly dyes,
Arch'd the clear rainbow round the orient skies;
Its changeless form, its hues of beam divine,
Fair type of truth, and beauty endless shine,
Around th' expanse, with thousand splendors rare ;
Gay clouds sail'd wanton through the kindling air;
From shade to shade, unnumber'd tinctures blend;
Unnumber'd forms of wondrous light extend;
In pride stupendous, glittering walls aspire,
Grac'd with bright domes, and crown'd with towers
of fire.

On cliffs cliffs burn; o'er mountains mountains roll:
A burst of glory spreads from pole to pole:
Rapt with the splendor, every songster sings,
Tops the high bough, and claps his glistening wings:
With new-born green, reviving nature blooms,
And sweeter fragrance freshening air perfumes.

The gentle Cowper, who wrote a favorable critique on the poem in the Analytical Review,* notices this description of Night as "highly poetical."

Now Night, in vestments rob'd, of cloudy dye, With sable grandeur cloth'd the orient sky, Impell'd the sun, obsequious to her reign, Down the far mountains to the western main; With magic hand, becalm'd the solemn even, And drew day's curtain from the spangled heaven. At once the planets sail'd around the throne: At once ten thousand worlds in splendor shone: Behind her car, the moon's expanded eye Rose from a cloud, and look'd around the sky: Far up th' immense her train sublimely roll, And dance, and triumph, round the lucid pole. Faint shine the fields, beneath the shadowy ray: Slow fades the glimmering of the west away; To sleep the tribes retire; and not a sound Flows through the air, or murmurs on the ground. There is a glowing picture of the millennium. Indeed, the reader is oppressed by the uniform

*Southey's Works of Cowper, Ed. 1826, vii. 814.

eloquence of the description. It is too florid. The natural powers of the writer appear in the poem, injured by the study of Pope's declamatory pieces.

It is said to have been at the suggestion of the poet Trumbull, his fellow tutor at the time in the college, that Dwight wrote the animated description of the battle lighted by the burning city of Ai, in the seventh book. The author of M'Fingal had another hint in his own humorous way for the laborious young poet. In allusion to the number of thunder-storms described in the portion of the poem handed him to read, he requested that when he sent in the remainder, a lightning rod might be included.

Dwight's literary compositions are represented by two leading idea-his religion and his patriotism. The former is sustained in his Theology and in his Triumph of Infidelity, and in some fine passages in Greenfield Hill; the latter in his remarks on the Review of Inchiquin's Letters, and in many pages of his travels. In the poem on Infidelity, and his passage with the Quarterly Review, he does not mince matters, but shows the hand of a bold vigorous pamphleteer. The Triumph of Infidelity; a Poem. Printed in the World, 1788: was sent forth with no other title. It is an octavo of forty pages, levelled at the unbelieving spirit of the century then drawing to its close. It is dedicated to Mons. de Voltaire: "Sir, your Creator endued you with shining talents, and cast your lot in a field of action, where they might be most happily employed: In the progress of a long and industrious life, you devoted them to a single purpose, the elevation of your character above his. For the accomplishment of this purpose, with a diligence and uniformity which would have adorned the most virtuous pursuits, you opposed truth, religion, and their authors, with sophistry, contempt, and obloquy; and taught, as far as your example or sentiments extended their influence, that the chief end of man was, to slander his God, and abuse him for ever. To whom could such an effort as the following be dedicated, with more propriety than to you."

The satire is full of indignation; with more polish, it could not fail to have become widely celebrated. Here are a few of its strong lines:

THE SMOOTH DIVINE

There smil'd the smooth Divine, unus'd to wound
The sinner's heart, with hell's alarming sound.
No terrors on his gentle tongue attend;
No grating truths the nicest ear offend.
That strange new-birth, that methodistic grace,
Nor in his heart, nor sermons found a place.
Plato's fine tales he clumsily retold,
Trite, fireside, moral seesaws, dull as old;
His Christ, and bible, plac'd at good remove,
Guilt hell-deserving, and forgiving love.
"Twas best, he said, mankind should cease to sin;
Good fame requir'd it; so did peace within:
Their honours, well he knew, would ne'er be driven.
But hop'd they still would please to go to heaven.
Each week, he paid his visitation dues;
Coax'd, jested, laugh'd; rehears'd the private news;
Smoak'd with each goody, thought her cheese ex-

cell'd;

Her pipe he lighted, and her baby held.

Or plac'd in some great town, with lacquer'd shoes, Trim wig, and trimmer gown, and glistening hose,

He bow'd, talk'd politics, learn'd manners mild;
Most meekly question'd, and most smoothly smil'd;
At rich men's jests laugh'd loud, their stories prais'd;
Their wives' new patterns gaz'd, and gaz'd, and
gaz'd;

Most daintily on pamper'd turkies din'd;
Nor shrunk with fasting, nor with study pin'd:
Yet from their churches saw his brethren driven,
Who thunder'd truth, and spoke the voice of heaven,
Chill'd trembling guilt, in Satan's headlong path,
Charm'd the feet back, and rous'd the ear of death.
"Let fools," he cried, "starve on, while prudent I
Snug in my nest shall live, and snug shall die."*

The picture of the good divine in Greenfield Hill, the opposite of this rough outline, is highly pleasing.

When the malignant review of Inchiquin's Letters appeared in the (London) Quarterly for Jan. 1814, its bitterness and contempt were so unsparing and its falsehood so gross, that Dwight, though its abuse was partly directed against Jefferson and others whom he did not hold in particular favor, thought it necessary to reply. His work, an octavo of one hundred and seventy-six pages, was entitled, Remarks on the Review of Inchiquin's Letters, published in the Quarterly Review; addressed to the Right Honorable George Canning, Esq., by an Inhabitant of New England; and was published in Boston in 1815. It carries the war into Africa, contrasting every defect urged against America with a corresponding iniquity in England, and exonerating his countrymen from many of the charges as utterly unfounded. It meets the reviler with language as loud and with facts severer than his own. It shows that under his polished exterior the fires of his youth still glowed in the college President.

Greenfield Hill is an idyllic poem of rare merit. A little more nicety of execution and a better comprehension of the design at the outset, would doubtless have improved it; but the spirit is there. It is noticeable that it was undertaken as an imitation or adaptation of different English poets; but the author found the labor of pursuing this plan too great, and fell off, or rather rose to original invention. This has often happened in English literature, and some of the best successes are due to this effort, which the genius of the writer has soon transcended; as in the Castle of Indolence and the Splendid Shilling, to which may be added Trumbull's M'Fingal. Thus Dwight, commencing with Beattie and Goldsmith, soon runs into measures and incidents of his own; or turns the contrast of American manners to happy account, as in his picture of "the Flourishing Village" of Greenfield, where he finds in the allotment of estates and the absence of manorial privileges, the opposite of "the Deserted Village." The general plan of the poem is thus sketched by the author in his "Introduction :”

In the Parish of Greenfield, in the town of Fairfield, in Connecticut, there is a pleasant and beautiful eminence, called Greenfield Hill; at the distance of three miles from Long Island Sound. On this eminence, there is a small but handsome village, a church, academy, &c., all of them alluded to in the fol

The Triumph of Infidelity was never acknowledged by the author, but never denied by him. It was well understood to be from his pen.

lowing poem. From the highest part of the eminence, the eye is presented with an extensive and delightful prospect of the surrounding country, and of the Sound. On this height, the writer is supposed to stand. The first object, there offering itself to his view, is the landscape; which is accordingly made the governing subject of the first part of the Poem. The flourishing and happy condition of the inhabitants very naturally suggested itself next; and became of course the subject of the Second Part. The town of Fairfield, lying in full view, and, not long before the poem was begun and in a great measure written out, burnt by a party of British troops, under the command of Governor Tryon, furnished the theme of the Third Part. A field, called the Pequod Swamp, in which most of the warriors of that nation who survived the invasion of their country by Capt. Mason, were destroyed, lying about three miles from the eminence above-mentioned, and on the margin of the Sound, suggested, not unnaturally, the subject of the Fourth Part.

As the writer is the minister of Greenfield, he cannot be supposed to be uninterested in the welfare of his parishioners. To excite their attention to the truths and duties of religion (an object in such a situation instinctively rising to his view) is the design of the Fifth Part; and to promote in them just sentiments and useful conduct, for the present life, (an object closely connected with the preceding one) of the Sixth.

The landscape, the characters, and the ideas of the poem are American; the language in a few instances belongs to English poets; but the author has handsomely acknowledged the obligation in his notes. Of the more characteristic portions, the description of the school, the affectionate picture of the village clergyman, the Indian war, the Connecticut farmer's prudential maxims, with the whole scope of the political reflections, are purely American.

Several members of the Dwight family have appeared as authors. The brother of the President, Theodore Dwight, occupied for a long time a distinguished part in the affairs of the country. He was born at Northampton in 1765, and studied law after the Revolution with his uncle Judge Pierpont Edwards. He had a hand in the poetical and political essays of the Echo, in the Hartford Mercury, in common with Hopkins and Alsop. He was an eminent Federalist, and was chosen the secretary of the Hartford Convention. In 1815, he commenced the Albany Daily Advertiser with the support of the leading politicians of his party in the state; and in 1817 engaged in the publication and editorship of the New York Daily Advertiser, which he continued till 1835, when he retired to Hartford. In 1833, his History of the Hartford Convention appeared at New York; and in 1839, his Character of Thomas Jefferson as exhibited in his own writings, at Boston-a book of a partisan political character. He died June 11, 1846.

His son, Theodore Dwight, is the author of a History of Connecticut, in 1841, and of a volume on the Revolution of 1848. He is a resident of New York.

In 1829, a son of the president, Henry E. Dwight, published a volume in New York of Travels in the North of Germany, in the years 1825 and 1826; presenting a view of the religious, literary, and political institutions of north

66

ern Germany, and their influence on society; the arts, the present state of religion, schools, and universities."

Another son of the president, Sereno E. Dwight, was author of the Life of Jonathan Edwards. A volume of his sermons has been published with a Memoir, by the Rev. William Dwight, of Portland, Maine.

COLUMBIA.

Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise,

The queen of the world, and child of the skies!
Thy genius commands thee; with rapture behold,
While ages on ages thy splendours unfold.
Thy reign is the last, and the noblest of time,
Most fruitful thy soil, most inviting thy clime;
Let the crimes of the east ne'er encrimson thy name,
Be freedom, and science, and virtue, thy fame.
To conquest, and slaughter, let Europe aspire:
Whelm nations in blood, and wrap cities in fire:
Thy heroes the rights of mankind shall defend,
And triumph pursue them, and glory attend.
A world is thy realm: for a world be thy laws,
Enlarg'd as thine empire, and just as thy cause;
On Freedom's broad basis, that empire shall rise,
Extend with the main, and dissolve with the skies.
Fair Science her gates to thy sons shall unbar,
And the east see thy morn hide the beams of her star.
New bards, and new sages, unrival'd shall soar
To fame unextinguish'd when time is no more;
To thee, the last refuge of virtue design'd,
Shall fly from all nations the best of mankind;
Here, grateful to heaven, with transport shall bring
Their incense, more fragrant than odours of spring.
Nor less shall thy fair ones to glory ascend,
And Genius and Beauty in harmony blend;
The graces of form shall awake pure desire,
And the charms of the soul ever cherish the fire;
Their sweetness unmingled, their manners refin'd,
And Virtue's bright image instamp'd on the mind,
With peace
and soft rapture shall teach life to glow,
And light up a smile in the aspect of woe.
Thy fleets to all regions thy pow'r shall display,
The nations admire, and the oceans obey;
Each shore to thy glory its tribute unfold,

And the east and the south yield their spices and gold.

As the day-spring unbounded, thy splendour shall flow,

And earth's little kingdoms before thee shall bow;
While the ensigns of union, in triumph unfurl'd,
Hush the tumult of war, and give peace to the world.

Thus, as down a lone valley, with cedars o'erspread,
From war's dread confusion I pensively stray'd-
The gloom from the face of fair heav'n retir'd;
The winds ceas'd to murmur; the thunders expir'd;
Perfumes, as of Eden, flow'd sweetly along,
And a voice, as of angels, enchantingly sung:
"Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise,

The queen of the world, and the child of the skies."

THE TRAVELLED APE-FROM AN EPISTLE TO COL. HUMPHREYS, 1785.

Oft has thine eye, with glance indignant seen
Columbia's youths, unfolding into men,
Their minds to improve, their manners to adorn,
To Europe's climes by fond indulgence borne;
Oft hast thou seen those youths, at custom's shrine,
Victims to pride, to folly, and to sin,
Of worth bereft, of real sense forlorn,

Their land forget, their friends, their freedom, spurn;
Each noble cause, each solid good desert

For splendour happiness, and truth for art;
The plain, frank manners of their race despise,
Fair without fraud, and great without disguise;
Where, thro' the life the heart uncover'd ran,
And spoke the native dignity of man.

For these, the gain let Virtue blush to hear,
And each sad parent drop the plaintive tear!
Train'd in foul stews, impoison'd by the stage,
Hoyl'd into gaming, Keyser'd into age,
To smooth hypocrisy by Stanhope led,
To truth an alien, and to virtue dead,
Swoln with an English butcher's sour disdain,
Or to a fribble dwindled from a man,
Homeward again behold the jackdaw run,
And yield his sire the ruins of a son!

What tho' his mind no thought has e'er perplex'd,
Converse illum'd, or observations vex'd;
Yet here, in each debate, a judge he shines,
Of all, that man enlarges, or refines;
Religion, science, politics, and song;

A prodigy his parts; an oracle his tongue.
Ope wide your mouths; your knees in homage bend;
Hist! hist! ye mere Americans attend;
While Curl discloses to the raptur'd view
What Peter, Paul, and Moses, never knew;
The light of new-born wisdom sheds abroad,
And adds a leanto to the word of God.
What Creole wretch shall dare, with home-made
foils,

Attack opinions, brought three thousand miles;
Sense, in no common way to mortals given,
But on Atlantic travellers breath'd by Heaven;
A head, en queue, by Monsieur Frizzle dress'd;
Manners, a Paris tailor's arts invest;

Pure criticism, form'd from acted plays;
And graces, that would even a Stanhope grace?
Commercial wisdom, merchants here inhale
From him, whose eye hath seen the unfinish'd bale;
Whose feet have pass'd the shop, where pins were
sold,

The wire was silver'd, and the heads were roll'd!
Conven'd, ye lawyers, make your humblest leg!
Here stands the man has seen Lord Mansfield's wig!
Physicians hush'd, hear Galen's lips distil,
From Buchan's contents, all the Art to hea!!
Divines, with reverence, cease your Scripture whims,
And learn this male Minerva's moral schemes;
Schemes theologic found in Drury-lane,
That prove the Bible false, and virtue vain!
Heavens! shall a child in learning, and in wit,
O'er Europe's climes, a bird of passage flit;
There, as at home, his stripling self unknown,
By novel wonders stupified to stone,
Shut from the wise, and by no converse taught,
No well-read day, nor hour of serious thought,
His head by pleasure, vice, and hurry, turn'd,
All prudence trampled, all improvements spurn'd;
Shall he, with less of Europe in his cap,
Than satchell'd school-boy guesses from the map,
On every subject struttingly decree,
Ken the far shore, and search the unfathom'd sea,
Where learning has her lamp for ages oil'd,
Where Newton ponders, and where Berkeley toil'd!
Of all the plagues, that rise in human shape,
Good Heaven, preserve us from the travell'd Ape!

FALL OF EMPIRE-FROM GREENFIELD HILL.

Ah me! while up the long, long vale of time,
Reflection wanders towards th' eternal vast,
How starts the eye, at many a change sublime,
Unbosom'd dimly by the ages pass'd!
What Mausoleums crowd the mournful waste!

An awkward addition to a dwelling-house, very common in New England.

Soon fleets the sunbright Form, by man ador'd.
Soon fell the Head of gold, to Time a prey;

The Arms, the Trunk, his cankering tooth devour'd:
And whirlwinds blew the Iron dust away.
Where dwelt imperial Timur?-far astray,
Some lonely-musing pilgrim now enquires:
And, rack'd by storms, and hastening to decay,
Mohammed's Mosque foresees its final fires;
And Rome's more lordly Temple day by day expires.
As o'er proud Asian realms the traveller winds,
His manly spirit, hush'd by terror, falls;
When some deceased town's lost site he finds,
Where ruin wild his pondering eye appals;
Where silence swims along the moulder'd walls,
And broods upon departed Grandeur's tomb.
Through the lone, hollow aisles sad Echo calls,
At each slow step: deep sighs the breathing gloom,
And weeping fields, around, bewail their Empress'
doom.

Where o'er an hundred realms, the throne uprose,
The screech-owl nests, the panther builds his home;
Sleep the dull newts, the lazy adders doze,

Where pomp and luxury danc'd the golden room.
Low lies in dust the sky-resembled dome;
Tall grass around the broken column waves;
And brambles climb, and lonely thistles bloom;
The moulder'd arch the weedy streamlet laves,
And low resound, beneath, unnumber'd sunken
graves.

Soon fleets the sun-bright Form, by man ador'd;
And soon man's dæmon chiefs from memory fade.
In musty volume, now must be explor'd,
Where dwelt imperial nations, long decay'd.
The brightest meteors angry clouds invade;
And where the wonders glitter'd, none explain.
Where Carthage, with proud hand, the trident
sway'd,

Now mud-wall'd cots sit sullen on the plain,

And wandering, fierce, and wild, sequester'd Arabs reign.

In thee, O Albion! queen of nations, live Whatever splendours earth's wide realms have known;

In thee proud Persia sees her pomp revive;

And Greece her arts; and Rome her lordly throne:
By every wind, thy Tyrian fleets are blown;
Supreme, on Fame's dread roll, thy heroes stand;
All ocean's realms thy naval sceptre own;
Of bards, of sages, how august thy band!

And one rich Eden blooms around thy garden'd land. But O how vast thy crimes! Through heav'n's great year,

When few centurial suns have trac'd their way;
When southern Europe, worn by feuds severe;
Weak, doting, fallen, has bow'd to Russian sway;
And setting Glory beam'd her farewell ray;
To wastes, perchance, thy brilliant fields shall turn;
In dust, thy temples, towers, and towns decay;
The forest howl, where London's turrets burn;
And all thy garlands deck thy sad, funereal urn.
Some land, scarce glimmering in the light of fame,
Scepter'd with arts and arms (if I divine),
Some unknown wild, some shore without a name,
In all thy pomp, shall then majestic shine.
As silver-headed Time's slow years decline,
Not ruins only meet th' enquiring eye:

Where round yon mouldering oak vain brambles

twine,

The filial stem, already towering high,

Erelong shall stretch his arms, and nod in yonder sky.

ROUND OF AMERICAN LIFE-FROM GREENFIELD HILL.

In this New World, life's changing round, In three descents, is often found. The first, firm, busy, plodding, poor, Earns, saves, and daily swells, his store; By farthings first, and pence, it grows; In shillings next, and pounds, it flows; Then spread his widening farms, abroad; His forests wave; his harvests nod; Fattening, his numerous cattle play, And debtors dread his reckoning day. Ambitious then t'adorn with knowledge His son, he places him at college; And sends, in smart attire, and neat, To travel, thro' each neighbouring state; Builds him a handsome house, or buys, Sees him a gentleman, and dies.

The second, born to wealth and ease, And taught to think, converse, and please. Ambitious, with his lady-wife,

Aims at a higher walk of life.

Yet, in those wholesome habits train'd,

By which his wealth, and weight, were gain',
Bids care in hand with pleasure go,
And blends economy with show.
His houses, fences, garden, dress,
The neat and thrifty man confess.
Improv'd, but with improvement plain,
Intent on office, as on gain,
Exploring, useful sweets to spy,
To public life he turns his eye.
A townsman first; a justice soon;
A member of the house anon;
Perhaps to board, or bench, invited,
He sees the state, and subjects, righted;
And, raptur'd with politic life,
Consigns his children to his wife.
Of household cares amid the round,
For her, too hard the task is found.
At first she struggles, and contends;
Then doubts, desponds, laments, and bends;
Her sons pursue the sad defeat,
And shout their victory complete;
Rejoicing, see their father roam,
And riot, rake, and reign, at home,
Too late he sees, and sees to mourn,
His race of every hope forlorn,
Abroad, for comfort, turns his eyes,
Bewails his dire mistakes, and dies.
His heir, train'd only to enjoy,
Untaught his mind, or hands t' employ,
Conscious of wealth, enough for life,
With business, care, and worth, at strife,
By prudence, conscience, unrestrain'd,
And none, but pleasure's habits, gain'd,
Whirls on the wild career of sense,
Nor danger marks, nor heeds expense.
Soon ended is the giddy round;
And soon the fatal goal is found.
His lands, secur'd for borrow'd gold,
His houses, horses, herds, are sold.
And now, no more for wealth respected,
He sinks, by all his friends neglected;
Friends, who, before, his vices flatter'd,
And liv'd upon the loaves he scatter'd,
Unacted every worthy part,
And pining with a broken heart,
To dirtiest company he flies