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The refpite they enjoy but only lent,

The best they have to hope, protracted punishment. Be judge yourself if interest may prevail,

Which motives, yours or mine, will turn the fcale.
While pride and pomp allure, and plenteous ease,
That is, till man's predominant paffions cease,
Admire no longer at my flow increase.

By education most have been mifled;
So they believe, because they so were bred.
The priest continues what the nurse began,
And thus the child impofes on the man.
The reft I nam'd before, nor need repeat:
But intereft is the most prevailing cheat,
The fly feducer both of age and youth;
They study that, and think they study truth.
When intereft fortifies an argument,

Weak reason ferves to gain the will's affent;
For fouls, already warp'd, receive an easy bent.
Add long prescription of eftablish'd laws,
And pique of honor to maintain a cause,
And shame of change, and fear of future ill,
And zeal, the blind conductor of the will;
And chief among the ftill-miftaking crowd,
The fame of teachers obftinate and proud,
And more than all the private judge allow'd;
VOL. II.

G

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Disdain of fathers which the dance began,
And last, uncertain whose the narrower span,
The clown unread, and half-read gentleman.

To this the Panther, with a fcornful fmile :
Yet ftill you travel with unwearied toil,
And range around the realm without controul,
Among my fons for profelytes to prowl,
And here and you snap fome filly foul.
You hinted fears of future change in state;

Pray heaven you did not prophefy your fate.
Perhaps, you think time of triumph near,
But may mistake the season of the year;

your

The Swallow's fortune gives you cause to fear.
For charity, reply'd the matron, tell

What fad mifchance thofe pretty birds befel.

Nay, no mifchance, the favage dame reply'd, But want of wit in their unerring guide, And eager hafte, and gaudy hopes, and giddy pride. Yet wishing timely warning may prevail,

Make

you the moral, and I'll tell the tale. The Swallow, privileg'd above the rest Of all the birds, as man's familiar gueft, Pursues the fun in fummer brisk and bold, But wifely fhuns the perfecuting cold: Is well to chancels and to chimnies known, Tho 'tis not thought the feeds on smoke alone.

}

From hence the has been held of heavenly line, Endu'd with particles of foul divine:

This merry chorifter had long poffefs'd

Her fummer feat, and feather'd well her neft:

Till frowning skies began to change their chear, And time turn'd fide of the year;

up the wrong

The shedding trees began the ground to ftrow With yellow leaves, and bitter blasts to blow. Sad auguries of winter thence the drew, Which by instinct, or prophecy, the knew: When prudence warn'd her to remove betimes, And feek a better heaven, and warmer climes.

Her fons were fummon'd on a steeple's height,
And call'd in common council, vote a flight;
The day was nam'd, the next that should be fair:"
All to the general rendezvous repair,
They try their fluttering wings and trust them-
felves in air.

But whether upward to the moon they go,
Or dream the winter out in caves below,

Or hawk at flies elfewhere, concerns us not to know.

Southwards, you may be fure, they bent their

flight,

And harbour'd in a hollow rock at night:

Next morn they rofe, and fet up every fail;
The wind was fair, but blew a Mackrel gale:
The fickly young fat fhivering on the shore,
Abhor'd falt-water never seen before,

And pray'd their tender mothers to delay
The paffage, and expect a fairer day.
With these the Martin readily concurr'd,
A church-begot, and church-believing bird;
Of little body, but of lofty mind,
Round-belly'd, for a dignity defign'd,
And much a dunce, as Martins are by kind.
Yet often quoted canon-laws, and Code,
And fathers which he never understood:
But little learning needs in noble blood.
For, footh to say, the Swallow brought him in,
Her houfhold chaplain, and her next of kin :
In fuperftition filly to excefs,

And casting schemes by planetary guess:
In fine, short-wing'd, unfit himself to fly,
His fear foretold foul weather in the fky.

Befides, a Raven from a wither'd oak,
Left of their lodging, was observ'd to croak.
That omen lik'd him not; fo his advice
Was prefent fafety, bought at any price;
A feeming pious care, that cover'd cowardice.

To strengthen this he told a boding dream,
Of rifing waters, and a troubled ftream,
Sure figns of anguish, dangers and distress,
With fomething more, not lawful to exprefs:
By which he flily feem'd to intimate
Some fecret revelation of their fate.
For he concluded, once upon a time,
He found a leaf infcrib'd with facred rhyme,
Whose antique characters did well denote
The Sibyl's hand of the Cumaan grot:
The mad divinerefs had plainly writ,
A time fhould come, but many ages yet,
In which, finister deftinies ordain,

A dame should drown with all her feather'd

train,

And feas from thence be call'd the Chelidonian

main.

At this, fome shook for fear, the more devout
Arofe, and blefs'd themfelves from head to foot.
'Tis true, fome stagers of the wiser fort
Made all these idle wonderments their sport:
They faid, their only danger was delay,
And he, who heard what every fool could fay,
Would never fix his thought, but trim his time.

away.

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