Delights like these, ye sensual and profane, Ye are bid, begg'd, besought to entertain; Call'd to these crystal streams, do ye turn off Obscene to swill and swallow at a trough?
Envy the beast then, on whom Heav'n bestows Your pleasures, with no curses in the close. Pleasure admitted in undue degree
Enslaves the will, nor leaves the judgment free. "Tis not alone the grape's enticing juice
Unnerves the moral pow'rs, and mars their
Ambition, av'rice, and the lust of fame,
And woman, lovely woman, does the same. The heart, surrender'd to the ruling pow'r Of some ungovern'd passion ev'ry hour,
Finds by degrees the truths, that once bore
And all their deep impressions, wear away;
So coin grows smooth, in traffic current pass'd,
Till Cæsar's image is effac'd at last.
The breach, though small at first, soon op'ning
In rushes folly with a full-moon tide,
Then welcome errours of whatever size, To justify it by a thousand lies.
As creeping ivy clings to wood or stone, And hides the ruin that it feeds upon; So sophistry cleaves close to and protects Sin's rotten trunk, concealing it's defects. Mortals, whose pleasures are their only care, First wish to be impos'd on, and then are. And, lest the fulsome artifice should fail, Themselves will hide it's coarseness with a
Not more industrious are the just and true, To give to Virtue what is Virtue's due- The praise of wisdom, comeliness, and worth, And call her charms to public notice forth--- Than Vice's mean and disingenuous race, To hide the shocking features of her face.
Her form with dress and lotion they repair; Then kiss their idol, and pronounce her fair. The sacred implement I now employ Might prove a mischief, or at best a toy; A trifle if it move but to amuse;
But, if to wrong the judgment and abuse, Worse than a poniard in the basest hand, It stabs at once the morals of a land.
Ye writers of what none with safety reads, Footing it in the dance that fancy leads: Ye novelists, who mar what ye would mend, Sniv❜lling and driv'lling folly without end; Whose corresponding misses fill the ream With sentimental frippery and dream, Caught in a delicate soft silken net
By some lewd earl, or rakehell baronet:
Ye pimps, who, under Virtue's fair pretence, Steal to the closet of young Innocence, And teach her, unexperienc'd yet and To scribble as you scribbled at fifteen;
Who, kindling a combustion of desire,
With some cold moral think to quench the fire; Though all your engineering proves in vain, 321 The dribbling stream ne'er puts it out again. O that a verse had pow'r, and could command Far, far away, these fleshflies of the land,
Who fasten without mercy on the fair,
And suck, and leave a craving maggot there! Howe'er disguis'd th' inflammatory tale, And cover'd with a finespun specious veil; Such writers, and such readers, owe the gust And relish of their pleasure all to lust.
But the muse, eagle-pinion'd, has in view A quarry more important still than you;
Down, down the wind she swims and sails away, Now stoops upon it, and now grasps the prey. Petronius! all the muses weep for thee;
But ev'ry tear shall scald thy memory: The graces too, while Virtue at their shrine Lay bleeding under that soft hand of thine,
Felt each a mortal stab in her own breast,
Abhorr'd the sacrifice, and curs'd the priest. 340
Thou polish'd and high-finish'd foe to truth,
Graybeard corrupter of our list'ning youth,
and skim away the filth of vice,
That so refin'd it might the more entice, Then pour it on the morals of thy son; To taint his heart, was worthy of thine own! Now, while the poison all high life pervades, Write, if thou canst, one letter from the shades; One, and one only, charg'd with deep regret, That thy worst part, thy principles, live yet: 359 One sad epistle thence may cure mankind
Of the plague spread by bundles left behind.
"Tis granted, and no plainer truth appears, Our most important are our earliest years; The Mind, impressible and soft, with ease Imbibes and copies what she hears and sees, And through life's labyrinth holds fast the clew, That Education gives her, false or true.
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