P. What riches give us, let us then inquire: Meat, fire, and clothes. B. What more? P. Meat, clothes, and fire.

Is this too little? would you more than live?
Alas! 'tis more than Turner finds they give.
Alas! 'tis more than (all his visions past)
Unhappy Wharton, waking, found at last!
What can they give? To dying Hopkins, heirs?
To Chartres, vigour? Japhet, nose and ears?
Can they in gems bid pallid Hippia glow?
In Fulvia's buckle ease the throbs below?
Or heal, old Narses, thy obscener ail,

With all the' embroidery plaster'd at thy tail?—
They might (were Harpax not too wise to spend)
Give Harpax' self the blessing of a friend;
Or find some doctor that would save the life
Of wretched Shylock, spite of Shylock's wife.
But thousands die without or this or that,
Die, and endow a college or a cat.
To some indeed Heaven grants a happier fate
To' enrich a bastard, or a son they hate.

Perhaps you think the poor might have their part? Bond damns the poor, and hates them from his heart. The grave Sir Gilbert holds it for a rule

That every man in want is knave or fool.
'God cannot love (says Blunt, with tearless eyes)
The wretch he starves'-and piously denies:
But the good bishop, with a meeker air,
Admits, and leaves them, Providence's care.
Yet, to be just to these poor men of pelf,
Each does but hate his neighbour as himself:
Damn'd to the mines, an equal fate betides
The slave that digs it and the slave that hides.

you

B. Who suffers thus, mere charity should own, Must act on motives powerful, though unknown. P. Some war, some plague or famine, they foreSome revelation hid from and me. [see, Why Shylock wants a meal the cause is found; He thinks a loaf will rise to fifty pound. What made directors cheat in South-sea year? To live on venison, when it sold so dear. Ask you why Phryné the whole auction buys? Phryné foresees a general excise.

Why she and Sappho raise that monstrous sum?Alas! they fear a man will cost a plum.

Wise Peter sees the world's respect for gold, And therefore hopes this nation may be sold. Glorious ambition! Peter, swell thy store, And be what Rome's great Didius was before. The crown of Poland, venal twice an age, To just three millions stinted modest Gage. But nobler scenes Maria's dreams unfold, Hereditary realms and worlds of gold. Congenial souls! whose life one avarice joins, And one fate buries in the' Asturian mines. Much-injured Blunt! why bears he Britain's hate? A wizard told him in these words our fate;'At length corruption, like a general flood, (So long by watchful ministers withstood) Shall deluge all; and avarice, creeping on, Spread like a low-born mist and blot the sun; Statesman and patriot ply alike the stocks, Peeress and butler share alike the box, And judges job, and bishops bite the town, And mighty dukes pack cards for half a crown: See Britain sunk in lucre's sordid charms, [arms!' And France revenged of Anne's and Edward's

'Twas no court-badge, great scrivener! fired thy Nor lordly luxury, nor city gain :

[brain, No, 'twas thy righteous end, ashamed to see Senates degenerate, patriots disagree, And nobly wishing party-rage to cease, To buy both sides, and give thy country peace. All this is madness,' cries a sober sage:But who, my friend, has reason in his rage! The ruling passion, be it what it will, The ruling passion conquers reason still.' Less mad the wildest whimsey we can frame Than e'en that passion, if it has no aim; For though such motives folly you may call, The folly's greater to have none at all.

[sends, Hear then the truth:-"Tis Heaven each passion And different men directs to different ends. Extremes in Nature equal good produce; Extremes in man concur to general use.'

Ask we what makes one keep, and one bestow?—
That Power who bids the ocean ebb and flow;
Bids seed-time, harvest, equal course maintain,
Through reconciled extremes of drought and rain;
Builds life on death, on change duration founds,
And gives the eternal wheels to know their rounds.
Riches, like insects, when conceal'd they lie,
Wait but for wings, and in their season fly.
Who sees pale Mammon pine amidst his store,
Sees but a backward steward for the poor;
This year a reservoir to keep and spare,
The next a fountain spouting through his heir,
In lavish streams to quench a country's thirst,
And men and dogs shall drink him till they burst.
Old Cotta shamed his fortune and his birth,
Yet was not Cotta void of wit or worth:

What though (the use of barbarous spits forgot)
His kitchen vied in coolness with his grot?
His court with nettles, moats with cresses stored,
With soups unbought, and salads,bless'd his board?
If Cotta lived on pulse, it was no more
Than bramins, saints, and sages, did before:
To cram the rich was prodigal expense;

And who would take the poor from Providence?
Like some lone chartreux stands the good old hall,
Silence without, and fasts within the wall;
No rafter'd roofs with dance and tabor sound,
No noontide bell invites the country round;
Tenants with sighs the smokeless towers survey,
And turn the' unwilling steeds another way;
Benighted wanderers, the forest o'er,
Curse the saved candle and unopening door;
While the gaunt mastiff, growling at the gate,
Affrights the beggar whom he longs to eat,
Not so his son; he mark'd this oversight,
And then mistook reverse of wrong
for right:
(For what to shun will no great knowledge need,
But what to follow is a task indeed!) -
Yet sure, of qualities deserving praise,
More go to ruin fortunes than to raise.
What slaughter'd hecatombs, what floods of wine,
Fill the capacious squire and deep divine!
Yet no mean motive this profusion draws;
His oxen perish in his country's cause;

"Tis George and liberty that crown the cup,

And zeal for that great house which eats him up.

The woods recede around the naked seat,
The silvans groan-no matter-for the fleet:
Next goes his wool-to clothe our valiant bands;
Last, for his country's love, he sells his lands.

To town he comes, completes the nation's hope,
And heads the bold trainbands, and burns a pope.
And shall not Britain now reward his toils,
Britain, that pays her patriots with her spoils !
In vain at court the bankrupt pleads his cause;
His thankless country leaves him to her laws.
The sense to value riches, with the art
To' enjoy them, and the virtue to impart,
Not meanly nor ambitiously pursued,
Not sunk by sloth, nor raised by servitude;
To balance fortune by a just expense,
Join with economy magnificence;

With splendour, charity; with plenty, health;
O teach us, Bathurst! yet unspoil'd by wealth!
That secret rare, between the' extremes to move
Of mad good-nature and of mean self-love.

B. To worth or want well-weigh'd be bounty given,

And ease or emulate the care of Heaven:
(Whose measure full o'erflows on human race)
Mend Fortune's fault, and justify her grace.
Wealth in the gross is death, but life diffused,
As poison heals in just proportion used:
In heaps, like ambergris, a stink it lies,
But well dispersed, is incense to the skies.

P. Who starves by nobles, or with nobles eats? The wretch that trusts them, and the rogue that

cheats.

Is there a lord who knows a cheerful noon
Without a fiddler, flatterer, or buffoon?
Whose table Wit or modest Merit share,
Unelbow'd by a gamester, pimp, or player!
Who copies yours or Oxford's better part,
To ease the oppress'd, and raise the sinking heart?