If to the city sped-What waits him there? To see profusion that he must not share; To see ten thousand baneful arts combin'd To pamper luxury, and thin mankind; To see each joy the sons of pleasure know, Extorted from his fellow-creature's woe. Here while the courtier glitters in brocade, There the pale artist plies the sickly trade; Here, while the proud their long-drawn pomps

display,

There the black gibbet glooms beside the way. The dome where pleasure holds her midnight

reign,

Here, richly deckt, admits the gorgeous train; Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing square, The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare.

Ye friends to truth, ye statesman who survey The rich man's joys encrease, the poor's decay, 'Tis yours to judge how wide the limits stand Between a splendid and a happy land.

GOLDSMITH.
Deserted Village.

TAKE physic, pomp;

Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,

That thou may'st shake the superflux to them,.

And shew the heavens more just.

SHAKESPEAR.

Lear, act ii.

AH little think the gay licentious proud,

Whom pleasure, power, and affluence surround;

They They who their thoughtless hours in giddy mirth, And wanton, often cruel riot waste;

Ah little think they, how many feel, this very

moment, death,

And all the sad variety of pain :

How many pine in want, and dungeon glooms,
Shut from the common air, and common use
Of their own limbs: how many drink the cup
Of Baleful grief, or eat the bitter bread
Of misery: sore pierc'd by wintry winds,
How many shrink into the sordid hut

Of cheerless poverty :-Thought fond man
Of these-

The conscious heart of charity would warm,
And her wide wish benevolence dilate;

The social tear would rise, the social sigh;
And into clear perfection, gradual bliss,
Refining still, the social passions work.

THOMSON.

:

i

Seasons: Winter

1

THEIR'S is yon house that holds the parish

poor,

Whose walls of mud scarce bear the broken door; There where the putrid vapours flagging play, And the dull wheel hums doleful through the :day:

There children dwell who know no parents care,
Parents, who know no children's love, dwell there;

Heart-broken matrons on their joyless bed,
Forsaken wives, and mothers never wed;
Dejected widows with unheeded tears,

14

1

Dejected widows with unheeded tears,
And crippled age with more than childhood fears !
The lame, the blind, and far the happiest they !
The moping ideot and the nadman gay.

Here too the sick their final doom receive, Here brought, amid the scenes of grief, to grieve: Where the loud groans from some sad chamber

flow

Mixt with the clamours of the crowd below,
Here sorrowing, they each kindred sorrow scan,
And the cold charities of man to man:
Whose laws indeed for ruin'd age provide,
And strong compulsion plucks the scrap from

pride;

But still that scrap is bought with many a sigh,
And pride embitters what it can't deny.

Say ye, opprest by some fantastic woes,
Some jarring nerve that baffles your repose;
Who press the downy couch, while slaves advance
With timid eye, to read the distant glance;
Who with sad prayers the weary doctor tease,
To naine the nameless ever-new disease;
Who with mock patience dire complaints endure,
Which real pain and that alone can cure ;
How would ye bear in real pain to lie,

Despis'd, neglected, left alone to die?

How would ye bear to draw your latest breath,
Where all that's wretched paves the way for death?
Such is that room which one rude beam divides,
And naked rafters form the sloping sides;
Where the vile bands that bind the thatch are seen,
And lath and mud are all that lie between;

20

Save one dull pane, that, coarsely patch'd, gives

way

To the rude tempest, yet excludes the day :
Here, on a matted flock, with dust o'erspread,
The drooping wretch reclines his languid head;
For him no hand the cordial cup applies,
Nor wipes the tear that stagnates in his eyes;
No friends with soft discourse his pain beguile,
Nor promise hope till sickness wears a smile.

THE first person, who, having inclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying, This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, battles, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes would not that man have saved mankind, who should have pulled up the stakes, or filled up the ditch, crying out to his fellows, "Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and that the earth belongs to nobody."

ROUSSEAU.

Inegalite des Hommes, part ii.

THE poets, whom Plato would have excluded from his republic, appear to have understood better than the majority of philosophers and legislators, the origin, operation, and progress of the sentiments of the human heart. They have styled the golden age that happy period when individual property was unknown; sensible that the distinction