And lastly, turning inwardly her eyes,
Perceives how all her own ideas rife,

Contemplates what fhe is, and whence she came,
And almost comprehends her own amazing frame.
Can mere machines be with fuch pow'rs endued,
Or confcious of thofe pow'rs, fuppofe they cou'd?
For body is but a machine alone

Mov'd by external force, and impulfe not its own.
Rate not the extenfion of the human mind

By the plebeian standard of mankind,

But by the fize of thofe gigantic few,

Whom Greece and Rome ftill offer to our view;
Or Britain well-deferving equal praise,
Parent of heroes too in better days.

Why should I try her num'rous fons to name
By verfe, law, eloquence confign'd to fame ?
Or who have forc'd fair Science into fight
Long loft in darknefs, and afraid of light.
O'er all fuperior, like the folar ray
First Bacon ufher'd in the dawning day,
And drove the mists of fophiftry away;
Perva led nature with amazing force,

Following experience ftill throughout his course,
And finishing at length his deftin'd way,

To Newton he bequeathed the radiant lamp of day.
Illuftrious fouls! if any tender cares

Affect angelic breafts for man's affairs,

}

If

If in your prefent happy heav'nly state,
You're not regardlefs quite of Britain's fate,
Let this degen'rate land again be bleft

With that true vigour, which the once poffeft;
Compel us to unfold our flumb'ring eyes,
And to our ancient dignity to rife.

Such wond'rous pow'rs as these must fure be given
For most important purposes by heav'n;
Who bids these ftars as bright examples fhine
Befprinkled thinly by the hand divine,
To form to virtue each degenerate time,
And point out to the foul its origin fublime.
That there's a felf which after death fhall live,
All are concern'd about, and all believe;
That something's ours, when we from life depart,
This all conceive, all feel it at the heart;
The wife of learn'd antiquity proclaim

This truth, the public voice declares the fame;
No land fo rude but looks beyond the tomb
For future profpects in a world to come.
Hence, without hopes to be in life repaid,
We plant flow oaks pofterity to shade;
And hence vaft pyramids aspiring high
Lift their proud heads aloft, and time defy.
Hence is our love of fame, a love so strong,
We think no dangers great, or labors long,
By which we hope our beings to extend,
And to remoteft times in glory to defcend.

For

For fame the wretch beneath the gallows lyes,
Difowning every crime for which he dies;
Of life profufe, tenacious of a name,
Fearless of death, and yet afraid of shame.
Nature has wove into the human mind
This anxious care for names we leave behind,
'T' extend our narrow views beyond the tomb,
And give an earnest of a life, to come :
For, if when dead, we are but duft or clay,
Why think of what pofterity fhall fay?
Her praise, or censure cannot us concern,
Nor ever penetrate the filent urn.

What mean the nodding plumes, the fun'ral train,
And marble monument that speaks in vain,

With all those cares, which ev'ry nation pays
To their unfeeling dead in diff'rent ways!

Some in the flow'r-ftrewn grave the corpfe have lay'd;
And annual obfequies around it pay'd,
As if to please the poor departed shade;
Others on blazing piles the body burn,
And store their ashes in the faithful urn;
But all in one great principle agree
To give a fancy'd immortality.

Why should I mention thofe, whofe ouzy foil
Is render'd fertile by th' o'erflowing Nile,
Their dead they bury not, nor burn with fires,
No graves they dig, erect no funʼral pires,

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But,

But, washing first th' embowel'd body clean,
Gums, fpice, and melted pitch they pour within ;
Then with strong fillets bind it round and round,
To make each flaccid part compact, and found;
And lastly paint the varnish'd furface o'er
With the fame features, which in life it wore :
So ftrong their prefage of a future ftate,
And that cur nobler part survives the body's fate.
Nations behold remote from reafon's beams,
Where Indian Ganges rolls his fandy ftreams,
Of life impatient rush into the fire,
And willing victims to their Gods expire!
Perfuaded the loose foul to regions flies
Bleft with eternal spring, and cloudless skies.
Nor is lefs fam'd the oriental wife

For ftedfaft virtue, and contempt of life:
Thefe heroines mourn not with loud female cries
Their husbands loft, or with o'erflowing eyes,
But, ftrange to tell! their funeral piles afcend,
And in the fame fad flames their forrows end;
In hopes with them beneath the fhades to rove,
And there renew their interrupted love.

In climes where Boreas breathes eternal cold,
See numerous nations, warlike, fierce, and bold,
To battle all unanimoufly run,

Nor fire, nor fword, nor instant death they fhun :

Whence

Whence this difdain of life in ev'ry breast,
But from a notion on their minds impreft,
That all, who for their country die, are bleft.
Add too to these the once prevailing dreams,
Of sweet Elyfian groves, and Stygian streams:
All fhew with what confent mankind agree
In the firm hope of Immortality.
Grant these th' inventions of the crafty priest,
Yet fuch inventions never could fubfift.
Unless fome glimmerings of a future state
Were with the mind coæval, and innate :
For every fiction, which can long perfuade,
In truth must have its firft foundations laid.
Because we are unable to conceive,

How unembody'd fouls can act, and live,
The vulgar give them forms, and limbs, and faces,
And habitations in peculiar places;

Hence reafoners more refin'd, but not more wife,
Struck with the glare of fuch abfurdities,
Their whole existence fabulous suspect,
And truth and falfhood in a lump reject;
Too indolent to learn what may be known,
Or else too proud that ignorance to own.
For hard's the task the daubing to pervade

Folly and fraud on Truth's fair form have laid; ›
Yet let that task be ours; for great the prize;
Nor let us Truth's celeftial charms despise,
Because that priefts, or poets may disguise.
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That