Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of fate, All but the page prescribed, their present state; From brutes what men, from men what spirits know,

Or who could suffer being here below?

The ram thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleased to the last, he crops the flow'ry food,
And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood.
O blindness to the future! kindly given,

That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n ;
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall;
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,

And now a bubble burst, and now a world.
Lo the poor Indian! whose untutor❜d mind
Sees God in clouds, and hears Him in the wind;
His soul proud science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk, or milky way;

Yet simple nature to his hope has given,
Behind the cloud-topp'd hill, a humbler heav'n;
Some safer world in depths of woods embraced,
Some happier island in the wat❜ry waste,

Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, nor Christians thirst for gold.
To Be, contents his natural desire,

He asks no angel's wing, nor seraph's fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.

F

Yet cry,

Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense Weigh thy opinion against Providence : Call imperfection what thou fanciest such, Say here He gives too little, there too much : Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust, if Man's unhappy, God's unjust; If man alone engross not Heav'n's high care, Alone made perfect here, immortal there; Snatch from His hand the balance and the rod, Re-judge His justice, be the God of God;— In pride, in reasoning pride our error lies : All quit their sphere and rush into the skies. Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes, Men would be angels, angels would be Gods. Aspiring to be Gods, if angels fell, Aspiring to be angels, men rebel : And who but wishes to invert the laws Of Order, sins against th' Eternal cause.

Pope.

I shall not spend any time upon the circumstances of the life of Demosthenes; they are well known. The strong ambition which he discovered to excel in the art of speaking; the unsuccessfulness of his first attempts; his unwearied perseverance in surmounting all the disadvantages that arose from his person and address; his shutting himself up in a cave, that he might study with less distraction; his declaiming by the sea

shore, that he might accustom himself to the noise of a tumultuous assembly; and with pebbles in his mouth, that he might correct a defect in his speech; his practising at home with a naked sword hanging over his shoulder, that he might check an ungraceful motion to which he was subject all these circumstances, which we learn from Plutarch, are very encouraging to such as study eloquence, as they show how far art and application may avail for acquiring an excellence which nature seemed unwilling to grant us.

Blair.

Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way,
With blossom furze unprofitably gay,
There in his noisy mansion skill'd to rule,
The village master taught his little school:
A man severe he was, and stern to view;
I knew him well, and ev'ry truant knew.
Well had the boding tremblers learnt to trace
The day's disasters in his morning face:
Full well they laugh'd with counterfeited glee
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;
Full well the busy whisper circling round
Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd.
Yet he was kind; or, if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault;
The village all declared how much he knew ;
'Twas certain he could write and cipher too;