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The more you want, why not, with equal ease,
Confess as well your folly as disease?
The heart resolves this matter in a trice,
• Men only feel the smart, but not the vice.'
When golden angels cease to cure the evil,
You give all royal witchcraft to the devil:
When servile chaplains cry that birth and place
Endue a peer with honor, truth, and grace,
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Look in that breast, most dirty Dean ! be fair,
Say, can you find out one such lodger there?
Yet still, not heeding what your heart can teach,
You go to church, to hear these flatt'rers preach.
Indeed, could wealth bestow, or wit, or merit,
A grain of courage, or a spark of spirit,
The wisest man might blush, I must agree,
If D*** lov'd sixpence more than he.

If there be truth in law, and use can give 230
A property, that's yours on which you live.
Delightful Abs-court, if its field afford
Their fruits to you, confesses you its lord:
All Worldly's hens, nay partridge, sold to town,
His ven'son too, a guinea makes your own: 235
He bought at thousands, what with better wit
You purchase as you want, and bit by bit :
Now, or long since, what diff'rence will be found?
You pay a penny, and he paid a pound.

Heathcote himself, and such large-acred men, Lords of fat E'sham, or of Lincoln Fen, 241 Buy ev'ry stick of wood that lends them heat, Buy ev'ry pullet they afford to eat.

Yet these are wights who fondly call their own
Half that the devil o'erlooks from Lincoln town.
The laws of God, as well as of the land,
Abhor a perpetuity should stand:

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Estates have wings, and hang in Fortune's pow'r,
Loose on the point of ev'ry wav'ring hour,
Ready by force, or of your own accord,

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By sale, at least by death, to change their lord. Man? and for ever? wretch! what wouldst thou have?

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Heir
urges heir, like wave impelling wave.
All vast possessions, (just the same the case
Whether you call them Villa, Park, or Chace)
Alas, my Bathurst! what will they avail ?
Join Cotswood hills to Saperton's fair dale;
Let rising granaries and temples, here,
There, mingled farms and pyramids, appear;
Link towns to towns with avenues of oak;
Enclose whole downs in walls; 'tis all a joke!
Inexorable death shall level all,

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And trees, and stones, and farms, and farmer, fall.
Gold, silver, iv'ry vases sculptur'd high,
Paint, marble, gems, and robes of Persian dye,
There are who have not-and, thank Heav'n, there

are

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Who, if they have not, think not worth their care.
Talk what you will of taste, my friend! you'll find
Two of a face as soon as of a mind.
Why of two brothers, rich and restless one
Ploughs, burns, manures,

VOL. III.

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and toils from sun to sun;

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The other slights for women, sports, and wines, All Townshend's turnips, and all Grosvenor's

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Why one, like Bu-, with pay and scorn content, Bows and votes on in court, and parliament; 275 One, driv'n by strong benevolence of soul, Shall fly, like Oglethorpe, from pole to pole ;Is known alone to that directing pow'r, Who forms the genius in the natal hour; That God of Nature, who, within us still, Inclines our action, not constrains our will. Various of temper, as of face or frame, Each individual; his great end the same. Yes, Sir, how small soever be my heap, A part I will enjoy as well as keep. My heir may sigh, and think it want of grace A man so poor would live without a place; But sure no statute in his favor says, How free, or frugal, I shall pass my days; I who at some times spend, at others spare, Divided between carelessness and care. 'Tis one thing, madly to disperse my store, Another, not to heed to treasure more; Glad, like a boy, to snatch the first good day, And pleas'd, if sordid want be far away. • What is't to me (a passenger, God wot) Whether my vessel be first rate, or not? The ship itself may make a better figure, But I that sail, am ueither less, nor bigger,

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I neither strut with ev'ry fav'ring breath,
Nor strive with all the tempest in my teeth;
In pow'r, wit, figure, virtue, fortune, plac'd
Behind the foremost, and before the last.

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But why all this of avarice? I have none. I wish you joy, sir, of a tyrant gone. 305 But does no other lord it, at this hour, As wild and mad? the avarice of pow'r ? Does neither rage inflame, nor fear appal ? Not the black fear of death, that saddens all? With terrors round, can reason hold her throne, Despise the known, nor tremble at th' unknown? Survey both worlds, intrepid and entire,

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In spite of witches, devils, dreams, and fire?
Pleas'd to look forward, pleas'd to look behind,
And count each birth-day with a grateful mind?
Has life no sourness drawn so near its end? 316
Canst thou endure a foe, forgive a friend?
Has age but melted the rough parts away,
As winter-fruits grow mild ere they decay? 319
Or will you think, my friend! your business done,
When of a hundred thorns you pull out one?

Learn to live well, or fairly make your will; You've play'd, and lov❜d, and ate, and drank your fill.

Walk sober off, before a sprightlier age

Comes titt'ring on, and shoves you from the stage Leave such to trifle with more grace and ease 326 Whom folly pleases, and whose follies please,

HORACE, BOOK IV. ODE 1.

TO VENUS.

AGAIN new tumults in my breast?

Ah, spare me, Venus! let me, let me rest!
I am not now, alas! the man

As in the gentle reign of my queen Anne.
Ah! sound no more thy soft alarms,

Nor circle sober fifty with thy charms.

Mother too fierce of dear desires!

Turn, turn, to willing hearts your wanton fires; . To number five direct your doves,

There spread round Murray, all your blooming

loves;

Noble and young, who strikes the heart
With ev'ry sprightly, ev'ry decent part;
Equal the injur'd to defend,

To charm the mistress, or to fix the friend:
He, with a hundred arts refin'd,

Shall stretch thy conquests over half the kind :
To him each rival shall submit,

Make but his riches equal to his wit.

Then shall thy form the marble grace,

(Thy Grecian form) and Chloe lend the face;
His house, embosom'd in the grove,

Sacred to social life, and social love,
Shall glitter o'er the pendent green,

Where Thames reflects the visionary scene;

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