THE REIGNING VICE.

In our June Number of 1827, we reviewed fully and freely a moral satire of great merit, bearing this title, and gave copious extracts. The author has C. N. sent to us the concluding Books, with the following notice.

"In a Preface to the already published Books of The Reigning Vice, the author attempted to explain his design in the following words.

"My aim, in the Poem, is rather to point out a moral disease than a moral sanity; and having established the prevalence of the former, to consider what means of recovery are in our power. My object in these (that is, the published) Books, is to prove that Self-love is universal, and, in our world, disordered. I have pointed out in the First Book many outward exhibitions of human nature, as proving the universality of self-love. In the second, I have traced her to some of her lurking-places, and through some of her modes of action. In the third, I have attempted to delineate her prominent features in the present day. In the fourth, I have shewn her to be the sole cause of human evils, from her identity with Selfishness. In the Books that are to come, I propose to develope the cause and object of her caprices, and finally to consider the means by which her perverted impulse may be turned to its right end and original destination.'

"The Books spoken of in the last paragraph, as 'to come,' are those which are now about to be laid before the public. The two first will develope the cause and object of the caprices' of Self-love, and also of the fluctuations of the darker passions-the two last will suggest the remedy."

THE REIGNING VICE. BOOK V.

As the shell, parted from its parent shore,
Still murmuring, echoes Ocean's boundless roar,
The soul, God's image, wandering far abroad,
Mocks in itself the attributes of God!
Creative energy, discerning sense,
Love, justice, mercy, power, benevolence.
God is all-happy;-to its fountain true,
Th' aspiring soul would be all-happy too.
But say, can man the springs of joy control,
Or can a part be perfect as the whole?
To things created bliss can only fall

From Him who fills, sustains, and governs all:
Man seeks it in himself, with erring bent,
And mortal happiness is self-content.
Yes! self-content is earth's Elysian rest,
Nature's strong cry in every human breast;
This the true aim of all beneath the sun,
The means are different, but the end is one.
Each various object fair or hateful seems,
As it prolongs or dissipates our dreams :
Gold, lineage, fame, are only steps to rise
More in our own than in another's eyes;
And all the stir of action is but dear,
Because it drowns the voice we would not hear.
Yet reason shakes us ;-come then, fond self-love,
In guile the serpent, and in mien the dove;
Bind all thy foes with chains conceal'd in flowers,
And call around thee all thy sister powers!
Should conscience dare her Argus watch to keep,
Charm, one by one, her thousand eyes to sleep!
O'er every mind some spell peculiar fling,
And bid each state its own delusion bring!

Let absolution still the Romish breast,

In some strange penance be the Brahmin blest;
The Indian, in the victim of his hate,

His victim in the smile that conquers fate;
While still shall wave before the Moslem's eyes
The blood-red sword that opens Paradise!

How strong the impulse self-content to gain,
When pleasure thus is snatch'd from depths of pain!

Victorious Instinct, thou canst soar above
The love of life, yea, ev'n a mother's love!
Lo, Indian widows, by thy promise led,
Triumphant hail the bridal of the dead;
And, vow'd to Ganges, new-born infants win
Unholy pardon for their parents' sin.

To common life the searching glance direct ;—
What sweet atonements there, our peace protect!
If deadly sins dispute the way to Heaven,
One monstrous virtue shall outweigh the seven.
What through the stews if married Claudio ran?
He gamed not-therefore was a moral man!
But, should no virtue to our suit be kind,
Defects of heart are paid by gifts of mind.
Good Sense may well good Nature's want supply,
And, pray, what need hath Wit of Honesty?
In every rank, success can gild deceit,

And thieves are proud as patriots when they cheat.
Nay, ev'n the body spreads a decent screen

The soul and her deformities between.

A well-turn'd leg with prudence may dispense,

Bright eyes with thought, fine teeth with common sense.
Great charms the decalogue aside may fling;
"I'm not a saint-but then how well I sing!"
The old still gild the present with the past,
Talk of "my day," and triumph to the last;
And batter'd heroes, veteran beauties, glow
O'er gay campaigns of fifty years ago.

See how each mind, its self-repose to keep,
Hath its own way to lull each fear to sleep!
Some, in youth's vigour, take a sort of pride
In sins, to youth and vigour near allied.

Some, restless, find their own excuse at length
In Nature's weakness, and in Passion's strength.
Others, when pangs intrusive wake within,
Take comfort from the multitude who sin,
And, if their errors too notorious glare,

Thank God-they are not "worse than others are.”
Some mourn the frailties which they never mend,
Their very sorrows with confession end;

They half rejoice to know their passions' force,
And feel a satisfaction in remorse.

Or the same mind may all these means employ
To lay the ghost that haunts forbidden joy.
Professions seem on mortals to confer
The profit of a double character.
In some small matters if the private fail,
The public character shall turn the scale;
If, by hard fate, the public man should err,
Hey, presto! shew the private character!
Each lays the healing unction to his heart
Of playing well his own peculiar part.

Blest is the Poet in his Ode to Hope,
The hangman in his prowess o'er a rope;
Blest may the Painter in his visions be,
The grocer in his superfine bohea.

Wrapt in their calling, still themselves they scan
As artist, tradesman, poet, more than man.
And deem ye then, in various garb array'd,
The inward soul is therefore of a trade?
Thought is expell'd from Life's still-varying stage,
In different modes by every different age.
Away it floats on Childhood's buoyant mirth,
Youth's stormy passions hunt it o'er the earth;
In plotting manhood is th' intruder lost,
Then lock'd in apathy by age's frost.

Thus, till its death, for ever outward hurl'd,
Thought leaves within an undiscover'd world.
Ye sage geographers the chart explore!
What, silent?-Not the unletter'd peasant more!
Go, trace its orbit, ye who map the skies!
Yours prove no better than a cobbler's eyes.
To inward knowledge Learning's self may blind,
Not less than Ignorance may blunt the mind.
Has he, who classes insects, birds, and flowers,
Order'd his heart, or ranged his mental powers?
The subtle chemist Nature may control,

But what alembic shall distil the soul?

Th' expert physician nerves and veins may trace,
But not the spirit to her hiding-place.

Vain, too, the scheme philosophers can build,
Deep-read in others, in themselves unskill'd.

Nor may this wisdom reach the prudent sconce,—
The pupil of the world is still a dunce;

By soft Self-love Experience is beguil❜d,

And oldest Vanity remains a child.

Trace we thy varied modes to lull the breast?
Of all thy friends, Illusion serves thee best.
As in a crystal brook, so bright, so clear,

It only seems a purer atmosphere,

Self-love, in thy fond mirror, things are shewn
In softer tints and beauty not their own.
There mortals, gazing with enrapt amaze,
Narcissus-like, grow amorous as they gaze.
Nor only lovely objects seem more fair;
Deformity itself turns beauty there.
Hence all our motives wear a painted hue,
And springs, that prompt our action, shun our view.
No charms for man has undissembling Sin,
She wins to conquer, veils herself to win.
Hell's crafty fiends alarm not, but entice,
And Self-delusion ruins more than vice.
Hence patriot Cromwell, pure as yet in thought,
For Duty's shrine Ambition's altar sought.
The costly sacrifice behold him bring-
A guiltless mortal, but a guilty king!

Check the sweet tear, repress the human sigh,
Thou Brutus of thy country's liberty!

Compassion pleads;-her heavenly voice control,

And nobly triumph o'er thy better soul!

'Tis done-Why mourn'st thou o'er thy monarch's bier? 'Tis Nature speaks, and Nature is sincere.

Yet all thy woe let midnight darkness hide,

Thy virtue be thy shame, thy shame thy pride.

The tyrant is no more!-Is England free?
Alas, the more than tyrant lives in thee!

Through humbler life the dear delusion runs ;
Amelia beats her daughter, starves her sons,
And yet no self-upbraiding thought she smothers,
When, pleased, she hails herself the best of mothers!
Celia, a scold, a termagant, and shrew,

Says she's good-temper'd,—and she thinks so too.
Is there would risk his soul's repose and health,
And take Egenor's conscience with his wealth?
Ah, sure the widow's groan, the orphan's cry,
Ring in his ears, and drown the voice of joy!
He comes abroad! His brow looks wondrous clear!
He speaks-where only Heaven and we can hear.
"Thank God," he cries, " I ne'er the poor opprest,
Nor pride, nor malice, rankle in my breast.
To the Lord's table I can bring a mind

In perfect amity with all mankind.

Still true to Wisdom's text, where'er I roam,
I make my charity begin at home.

What if the poor complain ?-A canting train!
Give what you may, they ever will complain.
What if my milk no sturdy pauper swigs?
Good Heaven, 'twere cruel to defraud my pigs!
What if the lawsuit stripp'd my kinsman bare?
I weep the justice due unto my heir!

A mourning token in my will he'll find ;-
And then my yearly tribute to the blind!"

"For shame! you are not orthodox, good sir! These sin not, if through ignorance they err." Your pardon, Doctor; ignorance is sin,

When knowledge cries without and pleads within.
Well, well! to gentler errors let us glide,
From happy knaves to fools self-satisfied.
Lo, what a goodly crowd distract the choice,
And ask Linnæan eyes-Homeric voice!
As different soils a different crop impart,
Self-love springs various from the various heart;
In some 'tis seen reserved, in others free,
Here all vain mirth, there all solemnity.

Now wild it prates, now once a-fortnight speaks,
Here struts important, there most slily sneaks;

Now shrinks from note, now courts it ev'n with blame,

Now tremblingly alive, now dead to shame.

Her names, too, vary with the breasts she rules,-
Thus Vanity is but the Pride of fools.

If bashfulness-conceit-the thing we call,
'Tis still but Self-applause betray'd in all.
As glasses shew, yet shield with jealous care,
The plant we name the sensitive, from air,
Thus what lies outward, and betray'd to sense,
Is Self-love's revelation and defence.
Not only careful to provide us joy,

She fondly guards us from all rude annoy,
And, kind as Nature, on each tribe bestows
Appropriate methods to repel its foes.

When storms assail, Pride meets them as a rock,
Vanity, reed-like, rises from the shock.
The hedgehog, Obstinacy, tries her foe;
Wrath, a roused lion, kills him at a blow.
Presumption routs his enemies in mass,
Like Samson, with the jaw-bone of an ass;

Conceit first catches, then returns the shaft,
Huge Arrogance runs down the petty craft;
While Self-complacency turns smoothly off
From her sleek bosom Scorn's unhallow'd scoff:
As when two drakes contend upon a brook,
The vanquish'd rises with a victor's look,
Replumes his feathers, claps his sounding wings,
And far away the idle deluge flings.

Self-flattery to the wounded proffers aid,

And heals with balm the wounds which Truth had made. What though defect creeps in on all we do?

Our friendly organs are defective too.

Still perfect to ourselves our deeds appear,
As discord tuneful to the tuneless ear.
Ourselves we measure by ourselves alone,
Or by a folly greater than our own.

Hence Self-conceit, with blinking visage dun,
Mistakes his farthing taper for the sun;

Where Locke keeps silence, speaks unblushing out,

And boldly certain, solves a Newton's doubt.
Hence Prejudice, with many a sapient saw,
Remains unalter'd as a Persian law;

And grave Importance strokes his paunch and sighs,
Profoundly foolish, ignorantly wise.

Sure one of these enough for man may be,

But happy Oliver unites the three;

Still on one datum pores his filmy sight,

"All, all are wrong,-I only in the right!"

At monstrous theories he rails all day,

Yet frames his own;-ye gods, how monstrous they!
So dearly obstinate, if once he please

To tell you that the moon is made of cheese,

Though Herschel's self, you would harangue in vain,
Green cheese it is, and ever must remain.
All argument he meets with one rebuff,—
The fancy-killing interjection-" Stuff!"
Sweet Contradiction is his own pet lamb,
Conceit her sire, and Ignorance her dam.
If haply you exclaim, “How dark the night!"
He swears the sun has never shone so bright;
Lauds all you blame, blames all that you approve;
Loves what you hate, and hates whate'er you love.
Yet, while his notions, like the oak's firm root,
Grow by resistance, harden by dispute,
If once you yield, the work is still to do;
For, lo, he alters his opinion too!

With some few maxims as his conduct's rule,
Cull'd choicely from his copy-book at school,
From this to that, from that to this, he ranges,
And rings th' unchanging, everlasting changes.
What though his rules conduct to blank disgrace,
Though sad conviction stare him in the face,
Dumb be his throat, and blister'd be his tongue,
Ere they recant and own him in the wrong!
Go! couch the eye that never saw the day!
Thou canst not purge wise Folly's film away!
Alas! nor precepts nor persuasion reach
The harden'd fool Experience cannot teach!
When Ignorance fails her glaring rule to hide
O'er thrice-dull dunces, she becomes their pride.
Had they till'd Eden, beyond all dispute,
The tree of knowledge had preserved its fruit.