In simple manners all the secret lies, Be kind and virtuous, you'll be blest and wise. Few to good breeding make a just pretence: Can wealth give happiness? Look round and see What gay distress! what splendid misery! Think nought a trifle, though it small appear; year, Distrust mankind, with your own heart confer, Oh! sacred Solitude, divine retreat, The man who builds, and wants wherewith to pay, But Florio's fame, the product of a shower, The man who pardons disappoints his foe.. And be this truth eternal ne'er forgot, Solemnity's a cover for a sot. Be wise with speed, A fool at forty is a fool indeed. Though wrong the mode, comply; more sense is shewn In wearing others' follies, than your own. Naked in nothing should a woman be; Women were made to give our eyes delight: O let those tremble who are greatly bless'd! Our greatest good, and what we least can spare, Is Hope; the worst of all our evils, Fear. GOLDSMITH. BLESS'D that abode, where want and pain repair, And ev'ry stranger finds a ready chair; Bless'd be those feasts, with simple plenty crown'd, Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail, And wiser he whose sympathetic mind If countries we compare, And estimate the blessings which they share; Here beggar-pride defrauds her daily cheer, How small, of all that human hearts endure, But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade, Luxury! thou curst by Heav'n's decree, How ill-exchang'd are charities for thee! How do thy potions, with insidious joy, Diffuse their pleasures only to destroy! DR. ROBERTS. Perish the slave, WHOSE venal breath in youth's unpractis'd ear Pours poison'd flattery, and corrupts the soul With vain conceit. On every object through the giddy world, Let not affection's full impetuous tide, When didst thou hear a tender tale of woe, The milk of human kindness? When didst thou, These virtues still be thine, nor ever learn Whose every BEATTIE. FROM THE MINSTREL. There are, who, deaf to mad ambition's call, Would shrink to hear th' obstreperous trump of fame; Supremely blest, if to their portion fall Health, competence, and peace. Liberal, not lavish, is kind nature's hand, Wilt thou debase the heart which GOD refined? No: let thy heaven-taught soul to heaven aspire. |