As to a common and most noisome fewer,
The dregs and feculence of every land.
In cities foul example on moft minds
Begets its likenefs. Rank abundance breeds
In grofs and pampered cities floth and luft,
And wantonness and gluttonous excess.
In cities vice is hidden with most ease,
Or feen with leaft reproach; and virtue, taught
By frequent lapfe, can hope no triumph there
Beyond the achievement of successful flight.
I do confefs them nurseries of the arts,
In which they flourish moft; where, in the beams
Of warm encouragement, and in the eye
Of public note, they reach their perfect fize.
Such London is, by tafte and wealth proclaimed
The faireft capital of all the world,
By riot and incontinence the worst.
There, touched by Reynolds, a dull blank becomes
A lucid mirror, in which Nature fees
All her reflected features. Bacon there
Gives more than female beauty to a stone,
And Chatham's eloquence to marble lips.
Nor does the chiffel occupy alone
The powers of sculpture, but the ftyle as much;
Each province of her art her equal care.
With nice incifion of her guided steel
She ploughs a brazen field, and clothes a foil
So fterile with what charms foever fhe will,
The richeft scenery and the loveliest forms.
Where finds philofophy her eagle eye,
With which the gazes at yon burning disk
Undazzled, and detects and counts his spots?
In London: where her implements exact,
With which she calculates, computes, and feans,
All distance, motion, magnitude, and now
Measures an atom, and now girds a world?
In London. Where has commerce fuch a mart,
So rich, fo thronged, fo drained, and so supplied,
As London - opulent, enlarged, and still
Increafing, London? Babylon of old
Not more the glory of the earth than she,
A more accomplished world's chief glory now.
She has her praife. Now mark a spot or two, That fo much beauty would do well to purge; And fhow this queen of cities, that fo fair May yet be foul; fo witty, yet not wife. It is not feemly, nor of good report, That the is flack in difcipline; more prompt To avenge than to prevent the breach of law. That she is rigid in denouncing death On petty robbers, and indulges life
And liberty, and oft-times honour too,
To peculators of the public gold;
That thieves at home muft hang; but he, that puts
Into his overgorged and bloated purse
The wealth of Indian provinces, escapes.
Nor is it well, nor can come to good,
That, through profane and infidel contempt
Of holy writ, she has presumed to annul
And abrogate, as roundly as the may,
The total ordinance and will of God;
Advancing fashion to the poft of truth,
And centering all authority in modes
And cuftoms of her own, till fabbath rites
Have dwindled into unrefpected forms,
And knees and haffocks are well-nigh divorced.
God made the country, and man made the town. What wonder then that health and virtue, gifts, That can alone make sweet the bitter draught, That life holds out to all, fhould moft abound And leaft be threatened in the fields and groves? Poffefs ye therefore, ye who, borne about In chariots and fedans, know no fatigue But that of idlenefs, and tafte no scenes But fuch as art contrives, poffefs ye ftill Your element; there only can ye shine;
There only minds like yours can do no harm.
Our groves were planted to console at noon
The penfive wanderer in their fhades. At eve
The moon-beam, fliding foftly in between
The fleeping leaves, is all the light they wish,
Birds warbling all the mufic. We can spare
The fplendour of your lamps; they but eclipse
Our fofter fatellite. Your fongs confound
Our more harmonious notes: the thrush departs
Scared, and the offended nightingale is mute.
There is a public mischief in your mirth;
It plagues your country. Folly fuch as your's,
Graced with a fword, and worthier of a fan,
Has made, what enemies could never have done,
Our arch of empire, ftedfast but for you,
A mutilated ftructure, foon to fall.
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