And strongly preach humility to man.
O how portentous is prosperity!

How, comet-like, it threatens, while it shines! Few years but yield us proof of death's ambition, 5 To cull his victims from the fairest fold,

And sheath his shafts in all the pride of life.
When flooded with abundance, and purpled o'er
With recent honors, bloom'd with ev'ry bliss,
Set up in ostentation, made the gaze,

10 The gaudy centre, of the public eye,

15

When fortune thus has toss'd her child in air,
Snatch'd from the covert of an humble state,
How often have I seen him dropp'd at once,
Our morning's énvy! and our ev'ning's sigh!
Death loves a shining nark, a signal blow;
A blow, which, while it éxecutes, alarms;
And startles thousands with a single fall.
() As when some stately growth of oak or pine,
Which nods aloft, and proudly spreads her shade,
20 The sun's defiance, and the flock's defence;

By the strong strokes of lab'ring hinds subdù'd
Loud groans her last, and rushing from her height,
In cumb'rous ruin, thunders to the ground:
The conscious forest trembles at the shock,

25 And hill, and stream, and distant dale resound.*

EXERCISE 13.

Genius and art, ambition's boasted wings,
Our boast but ill deserve.-

If these alone

Assist our flight, fame's flight is glory's fall.
30 Heart-merit wanting, mount we ne'er so high,
Our height is but the gibbet of our name.
A celebrated wretch when I behold,
When I behold a genius bright, and base,
Of tow'ring talents, and terrestrial aíms;
35 Methinks I see, as thrown from her high sphere,
The glorious fragments of a soul immortal,
With rubbish mixt, and glittering in the dùst.
Struck at the splendid, melancholy sight,

Young

*In the following Exercises, the marks of modulation are occasionally

used.

At once compassion soft, and envy rise-
But wherefore envy? Talents angel-bright,
If wanting worth, are shining instruments
In false ambition's hand, to finish faults
5 Illustrious, and give infamy renown.

Great ill is an achievement of great pow'rs.
Plain sense but rarely leads us far astray.
Means have no merit, if our end amiss.
Hearts are proprietors of all applause.

10 Right ends, and means, make wisdom: Worldly-wise Is but half-witted, at its highest praise.

Let genius then despair to make thee great;
Nor flatter station: What is station high?
'Tis a proud mèndicant; it boasts and begs;
15 It begs an alms of homage from the throng,
And oft the throng denies its charity.

Monarchs and ministers, are awful names;
Whoever wear them, challenge our devoir.
Religion, public order, both exact

20 External homage, and a supple knee,
To beings pompously set up, to serve
The meanest slave; all more is merit's due,
Her sacred and inviolable right,

Nor ever paid the mónarch, but the man,
25 Our hearts ne'er bow but to superior worth;
Nor ever fail of their allegiance there.
Fools, indeed drop the măn in their account,
And vote the màntle into majesty.

Let the small savage boast his silver fur;
30 His royal robe unborrowed and unbought,
His own, descending fairly from his sires.
Shall man be proud to wear his livery,
And souls in ermine scorn a soul without?
Can pláce or lessen us, or aggrandize?

35 Pygmies are pygmies stíll, though perch'd on And pyramids are pyramids in vales.

Alps;

40

Each man makes his own statue, builds himself;
Virtue alone outbuilds the pyramids:

Her monuments shall last when Egypt's fall.

-Thy bosom burns for pow'r;

What station charms thee? I'll install thee there; 'Tis thìne. And art thou greater than before?

Then thou before was something less than man.
Has thy new post betray'd thee into pride?
That treach'rous pride betrays thy dignity;
That pride defames humanity, and calls

5 The being mean, which staffs or strings can raise.
High worth is elevated place: 'Tis mòre;
It makes the post stand candidate for thee;
Makes more than monarchs, makes an honest màn;
Though no exchequer it commands, 'tis wèalth;
10 And though it wears no ríbband, 'tis renòwn;
Renown, that would not quit thee, though disgràc'd,
Nor leave thee pendant on a master's smile.
Other ambition nature interdicts;

Nature proclaims it most absurd in man,

15 By pointing at his origin, and end;

Milk, and a swathe, at first his whole demand;
His whole domain, at last, a turf, or stone;
To whom, between, a wòrld may seem too small.

EXERCISE 14.

Ambition! pow'rful source of good and ill!

Young.

20 Thy strength in man, like length of wing in birds,
When disengag'd from earth, with greater ease
And swifter flight transports us to the skies;
By toys entangled, or in guilt bemir'd,

It turns a curse; it is our chàin, and scourge,
25 In this dark dungeon, where confin'd we lie,
Close grated by the sordid bars of sense;
All prospect of eternity shut out;

And, but for execution, ne'er set free.

In spite of all the truths the muse has sung,

30 Ne'er to be priz'd enough! enough revolv'd!
Are there who wrap the world so close about them,
They see no farther than the clouds? and dance
On heedless vanity's fantastic toe?

Till, stumbling at a straw, in their career,

35 Headlong they plunge, where end both dance and song
Are there on earth,-(let me not call them men,)
Who lodge a soul immortal in their breasts;
Unconscious as the mountain of its ore;

Or rock, of its inestimable gem?

40 When rocks shall melt, and mountains vanish, these

Shall know their treasure; treasure, then, no more. Are there, (still more amazing!) who resist The rising thought? Who smother, in its birth, The glorious truth? Who struggle to be brutes? 5 Who through this bosom-barrier burst their way, And, with revers'd ambition, strive to sink? Who labour downwards, through th' opposing pow' Of instinct, reason, and the world against them, To dismal hopes, and shelter in the shock

10 Of endless night? night darker than the gráve's!
Who fight the proofs of immortality?

With horrid zeal, and execrable arts,
Work all their energies, level their black fires,
To blot from man this attribute divine,

15 (Than vital blood far dearer to the wise)
Blasphemers, and rank atheists to themselves?

66

EXERCISE 15.

Young

He ceas'd; and next him Moloch, scepter'd king
Stood up; the strongest and fiercest Spirit
That fought in Heav'n, now fiercer by despair:
20 His trust was with th' Eternal to be deem'd
Equal in strength, and rather than be less,
Car'd not to be at all; with that care lost
Went all his fear: of God, or Hell, or worse,
He reck'd not, and these words thereafter spake
25 My sentence is for open war; of wiles,
More unexpert, I boast not; them let those
Contrive who need, or when they need, not now;
For, while they sit contriving, shall the rest,
Millions that stand in arms, and, longing wait
30 The signal to ascend, sit ling'ring here
Heav'n's fugitives, and for their dwelling place
Accept this dark opprobrious den of shame,
The prison of his tyranny who reigns

By our delay? No, let us rather choose,
35 Arm'd with Hell-flames and fury, all at once,
O'er heav'n's high tow'rs to force resistless way,
Turning our tortures into horrid arms,
Against the Torturer; when, to meet the noise
Of his almighty engine, he shall hear

40 Infernal thunder, and for lightning, see

Black fire and horror, shot with equal rage Among his Angels, and his throne itself, Mix'd with Tartarean sulphur, and strange fire, His own invented torments. (。) But perhaps 5 The way seems difficult and steep, to scale With upright wing against a higher fóe. Let them bethink them, if the sleepy drench Of that forgetful lake benumb not still, That in our proper motion we ascend '0 Up to our native seat: descent and fall To us is adverse. Who but felt of late, When the fierce foe hung on our broken rear, Insulting, and pursued us through the deep, With what compulsion and laborious flight 15 We sunk thus low? Th' ascent is easy then. Th' event is fear'd; should we again provoke Our stronger some worse way his wrath may find To our destruction, if there bé in Hell

Fear to be worse destroy'd. What can be worse 20 Than to dwell hère, driv'n out from blìss condemn'd In this abhorred deep to utter woe:

Where pain of unextinguishable fire
Must exercise us without hope of end
The vassals of his anger, when the scourge

25 Inexorable, and the torturing hour,

Calls us to penance? More destroy'd than thus,
We should be quite abolish'd, and expire.
What fear we then? what doubt we to incense
His utmost ire? which, to the height enrag'd,
30 Will either quite consume us, and reduce
To nothing this essential, (happier far,
Than miserable, to have eternal being,)
Or, if our substance be indeed divine,
And cannot cease to be, we are at worst
35 On this side nothing; and by proof we feel
Our pow'r sufficient to disturb his Heaven,
And with perpetual inroads to alarm,
Though inaccessible, his fatal throne,
40 Which if not victory, is yet revenge.'

Millon.

EXERCISE 16.

I should be much for open war, O peers!