Ambition's boundless Appetite out-fpeaks
The Verdict of its Shame. When Souls take Fire
At high Presumptions of their own Defert,
One Age is poor Applaufe; the mighty Shout,
The Thunder by the living Few begun,
Late Time must echo; Worlds unborn, refound.
We wish our Names eternally to live:
Wild Dream! Which ne'er had haunted human Thought,
Had not our Natures been eternal too.
Inftinct points out an Int'reft in Hereafter;
But our blind Reafon fees not where it lies;
Or, feeing, gives the Substance for the Shade.
Fame is the Shade of Immortality,
And in itself a Shadow.
Contemn'd; it fhrinks to nothing in the Grafp.
Confult th' Ambitious, 'tis Ambition's Cure.
"And is This all?" cry'd CESAR at his Height,
Difgufted. This Third Proof Ambition brings
Of Immortality. The firft in Fame,
Obferve him near, your Envy will abate :
Sham'd at the Difproportion vaft, between
The Paffion, and the Purchace, he will figh
At fuch Succefs, and blush at his Renown.
And why? Because far richer Prize invites
His Heart; far more illuftrious Glory calls ;
It calls in Whispers, yet the Deafest hear,
And can Ambition a Fourth Proof supply?
can, and ftronger than the former Three;
Yet quite o'er-look'd by fome reputed Wife.
Tho' Difappointments in Ambition pain,
And tho' Succefs difgufts, yet ftill, LORENZO!
In vain we strive to pluck it from our Hearts;
By Nature planted for the nobleft Ends.
Abfurd the fam'd Advice to PYRRHUS giv'n,
More prais'd than ponder'd; fpecious, but unfound:
Sooner that Hero's Sword the World had quell'd,
Than Reafon, his Ambition. Man must foar.
An obftinate Activity within,
An infuppreffive Spring, will tofs him up
In fpite of Fortune's Load. Not Kings alone,]
Each Villager has his Ambition too;
No Sultan prouder than his fetter'd Slave:
Slaves build their little Babylons of Straw,
Echo the proud Affyrian, in their Hearts,
And cry," Behold the Wonders of my Might!"
And why? Because immortal as their Lord;
And Souls immortal muft for ever heave
At fomething Great; the Glitter, or the Gold;
The Praife of Mortals, or the Praife of Heaven.
Nor abfolutely vain is Human Praise,
When Human is fupported by Divine.
I'll introduce LORENZO to Himfelf;
Pleafure and Pride (bad Mafters !) fhare our Hearts.
As Love of Pleafure is ordain'd to guard
And feed our Bodies, and extend our Race;
The Love of Praife is planted to protect
And propagate the Glories of the Mind.
What is it, but the Love of Praise, infpires,
Matures, refines, embellishes, exalts,
Earth's Happiness? From that, the Delicate,
The Grand, the Marvellous, of Civil Life.
Want and Convenience, Under-workers, lay
The Bafis, on which Love of Glory builds.
Nor is thy Life, O Virtue ! lefs in Debt
To Praife, thy fecret-ftimulating Friend.
Were Man not proud, what Merit should we mifs !
Pride made the Virtues of the Pagan World.
Praise is the Salt that seasons Right to Man,
And whets his Appetite for moral Good.
Thirft of Applaufe is Virtue's Second Guard;
"Reafon, her First; but Reason wants an Aid;
Our private Reason is a Flatterer;
Thirft of Applause calls public Judgment in,
To poife our own, to keep an even Scale,
And give endanger'd Virtue fairer Play.
Here a Fifth Proof arises, stronger fill:
Why this fo nice Conftruction of our Hearts?
Thefe delicate Moralities of Sense;
This conftitutional Referve of Aid
To fuccour Virtue, when our Reason fails;
If Virtue, kept alive by Care and Toil,
And, oft, the Mark of Injuries on Earth,
When labour'd to Maturity (its Bill
Of Difciplines, and Pains, unpaid) muft die?
Why freighted-rich, to dash against a Rock?
Were Man to perish when most fit to live,
O how mis-spent were all these Stratagems,
By Skill Divine inwoven in our Frame?
Where are Heav'n's Holiness and Mercy fled ?
Laughs Heav'n, at once, at Virtue, and at Man?
If not, why That difcourag'd, This destroy'd?
Thus far Ambition. What fays Avarice?
This her chief Maxim, which has long been Thine.
"The Wife and Wealthy are the fame."—I grant it.
To ftore up Treasure, with inceffant Toil,
This is Man's Province, This his highest Praise.
To this great End keen Inftinct ftings him on.
To guide that Instinct, Reafon! is thy Charge;
'Tis Thine to tell us where true Treasure lies:
But, Reason failing to discharge her Truft,
Or to the Deaf discharging it in vain,
A Blunder follows; and blind Induftry,
Gall'd by the Spur, but Stranger to the Course, (The Course where Stakes of more than Gold are won) O'er-loading, with the Cares of diftant Age,
The jaded Spirits of the prefent Hour,
Provides for an Eternity below.
"Thou shalt not covet," is a wife Command;
But bounded to the Wealth the Sun furveys :
Look farther, the Command ftands quite revers'd,
And Av'rice is a Virtue most divine.
Is Faith a Refuge for our Happiness?
Moft fure: And is it not for Reason too ?
Nothing this World unriddles, but the next.
Whence inextinguishable Thirft of Gain?
From inextinguishable Life in Man:
Man, if not meant, by Worth, to reach the Skies,
Had wanted Wing to fly fo far in Guilt.
Sour Grapes, I grant, Ambition, Avarice:
Yet ftill their Root is Immortality.
Thefe its wild Growths fo bitter, and fo base,
(Pain, and Reproach!) Religion can reclaim,
Refine, exalt, throw down their pois'nous Lee,
And make them fparkle in the Bowl of Bliss.
See, the Third Witness laughs at Bliss remote,
And falfly promises an Eden here:
Truth fhe fhall speak for once, tho' prone to lye,
A common Cheat, and Pleasure is her Name.
To Pleasure never was LORENZO deaf;
Then hear her now, now first thy real Friend.
Since Nature made us not more fond than proud
Of Happiness (whence Hypocrites in Joy!
Makers of Mirth! Artificers of Smiles !)
Why should the Joy moft poignant Sense affords,
Burn us with Blushes, and rebuke our Pride ?—
Those Heav'n-born Blushes tell us Man defcends,
Ev'n in the Zenith of his earthly Bliss:
Should Reafon take her Infidel Repofe,
This honeft Infina fpeaks our Lineage high;
This Inftinct calls on Darknefs to conceal
Our rapturous Relation to the Stalls.
Our Glory covers us with noble Shame,
And he that's unconfounded, is unmann'd.
The Man that Blufhes, is not quite a Brute.
Thus far with Thee, LORENZo! will I close,
Pleafure is good, and Man for Pleasure made;
But Pleafure full of Glory as of Joy;
Pleasure, which neither blushes, nor expires.
The Witneffes, are heard; the Caufe is o'er;
Let Confcience file the Sentence in her Court,
Dearer than Deeds that half a Realm convey;
Thus feal'd by Truth, th' authentic Record runs.
"Know, All; Know, Infidels,-unapt to Know! ""Tis Immortality your Nature folves;
" "Tis Immortality decyphers Man,
"And opens all the Myft'ries of his Make.
"Without it, half his Inflincts are a Riddle;
"Without it, all his Virtues are a Dream.
"His very Grimes atteft his Dignity;
"His fatelefs Thirft of Pleafure, Gold, and Fame,
"Declares him born for Bleffings infinite:
"What lefs than Infinite, makes un-abfurd
"Paffions, which all on Earth but more inflames?
"Fierce Paffions, fo mif-measur'd to this Scene,
"Stretch'd out, like Eagles Wings, beyond our Neft,
"Far, far beyond the Worth of all below,
"For Earth too large, prefage a nobler Flight,
"And evidence our Title to the Skies."
Ye gentle Theologues, of calmer Kind!
Whofe Conftitution dictates to your Pen,
Who, cold yourselves, think Ardor comes from Hell !
Think not our Paffions from Corruption sprung,
Tho' to Corruption now they lend their Wings;
That is their Miftrefs, not their Mother. All
(And juftly) Reafon deem Divine: I fee,
I feel a Grandeur in the Paffions too,
Which speaks their high Defcent, and glorious End;
Which speaks them Rays of an Eternal Fire.
In Paradise itself they burnt as strong,
Ere ADAM fell; tho' wifer in their Aim.
Like the proud Eaftern, ftruck by Providence,
What tho' our Paffions are run mad, and stoop
With low, terreftrial Appetite, to graze
On Trash, on Toys, dethron'd from high Defire?
Yet ftill, thro' their Difgrace, no feeble Ray
Of Greatness fhines, and tells us whence they fell:
But Thefe (like that fall'n Monarch when reclaim'd)
When Reafon moderates the Rein aright,
|