But his own fimple pleasures; now and then
A wrestling match, a foot-race, or a fair;
Is ballotted, and trembles at the news :
Sheepish he doffs his hat, and mumbling swears
A bible-oath to be whate'er they please,
To do he knows not what. The talk performed,
That instant he becomes the serjeant's care,
His pupil, and his torment, and his jeft.
His awkward gait, his introverted toes,
Bent knees, round shoulders, and dejected looks,
Procure him many a curse. By slow degrees,
Unapt to learn, and formed of stubborn stuff,
He yet by Now degrees puts off himself,
Grows conscious of a change, and likes it well :
He ftands erect ; his flouch becomes a walk;
He steps right onward, martial in his air,
His form, and movement; is as smart above
As meal and larded locks can make him ; wears
His hat, or his plumed helmet, with a grace;
And, his three years of herofhip expired,
Returns indignant to the flighted plough.
He hates the field, in which no fife or drum
Attends him; drives his cattle to a march;
And fighs for the smart comrades he has left.
"Twere well if his exterior change were all-

But with his clumsy port the wretch has loft
His ignorance and harmless manners too.
To swear, to game, to drink; to show at home
By lewdness, idleness, and sabbath-breach,
The great proficiency he made abroad;
To astonish and to grieve his gazing friends;
To break fome maiden's and his mother's heart;
To be a pest where he was useful once;
Are his fole aim, and all his glory, now.

Man in society is like a flower Blown in its native bed: 'tis there alone His faculties, expanded in full bloom, Shine out; there only reach their proper use. But man, affociated and leagued with man By regal warrant, or felf-joined by bond For intereft-rake, or fwarming into clans Beneath one head for purposes of war, Like flowers selected from the rest, and bound And bundled close to fill some crowded vase, Fades rapidly, and by compreffion marred Contracts defilement not to be endured. Hence chartered boroughs are such public plagues ; And burghers, men immaculate perhaps In all their private functions, once combined,

Become a loathsome body, only fit
For diffolution, hurtful to the main.
Hence merchants, unimpeachable of fin
Against the charities of domeftic life,
Incorporated seem at once to lose
Their nature; and disclaiming all regard
For mercy and the common rights of man,
Build factories with blood, conducting trade
At the sword's point, and dyeing the white robe
Of innocent commercial juftice red.
Hence too the field of glory, as the world
Misdeems it, dazzled by its bright array,
With all its majesty of thundering pomp,
Enchanting music and immortal wreaths,
Is but a school, where thoughtlessness is taught
On principle, where foppery atones
For folly, gallantry for every vice.

But slighted as it is, and by the great Abandoned, and, which still I more regret, Infected with the manners and the modes, It knew not once, the country wins me ftill. I never framed a wish, or formed a plan, That flattered me with hopes of earthly bliss, But there I laid the scene. There early strayed

My fancy, ere yet liberty of choice
Had found me, or the hope of being free.
My very dreams were rural; rural too
The firft-born efforts of my youthful muse,
Sportive and jingling her poetic bells,
Ere yet her ear was mistrefs of their powers.
No bard could please me but whose lyre was tuned
To Nature's praises. Heroes and their feats
Fatigued me, never weary of the pipe
Of Tityrus, affembling, as he fang,
The ruftic throng beneath his favourite beech.
Then Milton had indeed a poet's charms:
New to my taste his Paradise surpaffed
The struggling efforts of my boyish tongue
To speak its excellence. I danced for joy.
I marvelled much that, at so ripe an age
As twice seven years, his beauties had then firft
Engaged my wonder; and admiring still,
And ftill admiring, with regret supposed
The joy half loft because not sooner found.
There too enamoured of the life I loved,
Pathetic in its praise, in its pursuit
Determined, and poffeffing it at last
With transports, such as favoured lovers feel,
I studied, prized, and wished that I had known,

Ingenious Cowley! and, though now reclaimed
By modern lights from an erroneous tafte,
I cannot but lament thy fplendid wit
Entangled in the cobwebs of the schools.
I still revere thee, courtly though retired;
Though stretched at ease in Chertsey's silent bowers,
Not employed; and finding rich amends
For a loft world in solitude and verse.
"Tis born with all: the love of Nature's works
Is an ingredient in the compound man,
Infused at the creation of the kind.
And, though the Almighty Maker has throughout
Discriminated each from each, by ftrokes
And touches of his hand, with so much art
Diversified, that two were never found
Twins at all points—yet this obtains in all,
That all difcern a beauty in his works,
And all can tafte them: minds, that have been formed
And tutored with a relish more exact,
But none without some relish, none unmoved.
It is a flame, that dies not even there,
Where nothing feeds it: neither business, crowds,
Nor habits of luxurious city-life,
Whatever else they smother of true worth
In human bofoms; quench it or abate.