AN EPISTLE

ΤΟ

A PROTESTANT LADY IN FRANCE.

MADAM,

A STRANGER's purpofe in these lays
Is to congratulate, and not to praise.
To give the creature her Creator's due
Were fin in me, and an offerice to you.
From man to man, or ev'n to woman paid,
Praife is the medium of a knavish trade,
A coin by craft for folly's ufe defigned,
Spurious, and only current with the blind.

The path of forrow, and that path alone, Leads to the land where forrow is unknown; No traveller ever reached that bleft abode, Who found not thorns and briars in his road. The world may dance along the flowery plain, Cheered as they go by many a sprightly ftrain,

Where Nature has her moffy velvet fpread,
With unfhod feet they yet fecurely tread,
Admonished, fcorn the caution and the friend,
Bent upon pleasure, heedless of its end.

But he, who knew what human hearts would prove,
How flow to learn the dictates of his love,
That hard by nature and of ftubborn will,

A life of eafe would make them harder ftill,
In pity to the finners he defigned

To rescue from the ruins of mankind,

Called for a cloud to darken all their years,
And faid, "go fpend them in the vale of tears."
Oh balmy gales of soul-reviving air,

Oh falutary ftreams that murmur there,
Thefe flowing from the fount of grace above,
Those breathed from lips of everlasting love!
The flinty foil indeed their feet annoys,
And fudden forrow nips their springing joys,
An envious world will interpofe its frown
To mar delights fuperior to its own,
And many a pang, experienced still within,
Reminds them of their hated inmate, fin;
But ills of every shape and every name
Transformed to bleffings mifs their cruel aim,
And every moment's calm, that fooths the breast,
Is given in earnest of eternal reft.

Ah, be not fad, although thy lot be caft
Far from the flock, and in a diftant wafte!
No fhepherd's tents within thy view appear,
But the chief Shepherd is for ever near ;
Thy tender forrrows and thy plaintive strain
Flow in a foreign land, but not in vain ;
Thy tears all iffue from a fource divine,

And every drop befpeaks a Saviour thine

'Twas thus in Gideon's fleece the dews were found,

And drought on all the drooping herbs around.

FRIENDSHIP.

WHAT virtue or what mental grace
But men unqualified and base
Will boaft it their poffeffion?
Profufion apes the noble part
Of liberality of heart,

And dullness of difcretion.

If every polished gem we find,
Illuminating heart or mind,

Provoke to imitation;

No wonder friendship does the fame,
That jewel of the purest flame,
Or rather conftellation.

No knave but boldly will pretend
The requifites that form a friend,
A real and a found one,
Nor any fool he would deceive,
But prove as ready to believe,

And dream that he had found one.

Candid and generous and juft,

Boys care but little whom they truft,

An error foon corrected

For who but learns in riper years,

That man, when smootheft he appears, Is moft to be fufpected?

But here again a danger lies,

Left, having misapplied our eyes
And taken trash for treasure,
We should unwarily conclude
Friendship a falfe ideal good,
A mere Utopian pleasure.

An acquifition rather rare
Is yet no fubject of despair;
Nor is it wife complaining,
If either on forbidden ground,
Or where it was not to be found,
We fought without attaining.

No friendship will abide the teft,
That ftands on fordid intereft,
Or mean felf-love erected;
Nor fuch as may awhile fubfift
Between the fot and fenfualift,
For vicious ends connected.