PRESUMPTION. PRETENSION. PRETEXT. 509
LET my presumption not provoke thy wrath;
For I am sorry, that with reverence
I did not entertain thee as thou art.
If 't is presumption for a wretch condemn'd
To throw himself beneath his judges' feet,-
A boldness more than this I never knew. Dryden.
Their minds somewhat raised
By false presumptious hopes.
WARN all creatures from thee Henceforth; lest that too heavenly form, pretended, To hellish falsehood snare thee.
Who most to shun or hate mankind pretend,
Seek an admirer, or would fix a friend:
Abstract what others feel, what others think,
All pleasures sicken, and all glories sink.
An open foe may prove a curse,
But a pretended friend is worse.
But if to unjust things thou dost pretend,
Ere they begin, let thy pretensions end.
MY pretext to strike at him admits
A good construction.
As chemists gold from brass by fire would draw,
Pretexts are into treason forged by law.
He made pretext that I should only go
And help convey his freight; but thought not so.
PRETTY. PREVENTION. PRICE.
How prettily the young swain seems to wash
The hand was fair before.
Perhaps some gull, as witty as a goose,
Says with a coy skew look, "it's pretty, pretty;"
But yet that so much wit he should dispose,
For so small purpose, "faith," saith he, "'t is pity!"
He'll make a pretty figure in a triumph,
And serve to trip before the victor's chariot.
PREVENTION.
I DO find it cowardly and vile
For fear of what might fall, so to prevent
The time of life.
His daring foe, at this prevention more
Incensed.
Soon shalt thou find if thou but arm their hands, Their ready guilt preventing thy commands.
IF fortune has a niggard been to thee,
Devote thyself to thrift, not luxury;
And wisely make that kind of food thy choice,
To which necessity confines thy price.
Sometimes virtue starves, while vice is fed,
What then? is the reward of virtue bread?
That vice may merit; 't is the price of toil,
The knave deserves it when he tills the soil.
An eagle, towering in his pride of place,
Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at, and kill'd.
I clip high-climbing thoughts,
The wings of swelling pride;
Their fall is worst that from the height
Of greatest honour slide.
Since sails of largest size
The storm doth soonest tear,
I bear so low and small a sail
As freeth me from fear.
Of all the causes which conspire to blind
Man's erring judgment, and mislead the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,
Is Pride that never-failing vice of fools. Pope.
Still must that tongue some wounding message bring, And still thy priestly pride provoke thy King.
Pride (of all others the most dangerous fault)
Proceeds from want of sense, or want of thought.
The men who labour and digest things most,
Will be much apter to despond than boast;
For if your author be profoundly good,
'Twill cost you dear before he's understood.
To show the strength and infamy of pride
By all 'tis followed, and by all denied.
"Pride was not made for man;" a conscious sense
Of guilt, and folly, and their consequence,
Destroys the claim, and to beholders tells,
Here nothing but the shape of manhood dwells.
Here beggar pride defrauds her daily cheer,
To boast one splendid banquet once a year.
In spite of all the fools that pride has made,
'Tis not on man a useless burden laid;
Pride has ennobled some, and some disgraced,
It hurts not in itself, but as 'tis placed;
When right, its views know none but virtue's bound,
When wrong, it scarcely looks one inch around.
Yet judge them by their greatness, what are men?
Of imperfection is their wisdom born,
And highest knowledge, ignorance confessed.
The unknown when revealed is not the new
It was, before the eye of wisdom saw,
And soar'd into a certainty; when seen,
The blindness of the past is proved, and pride
May wonder, but she ought to tremble too.
Proud has been my fatal passion,
Proud my injured heart shall be,
While each thought and inclination
Still shall prove me worthy thee.
His preaching much, but more his practice wrought;
(A living sermon of the truths he taught;)
For this by rules severe his life he squared,
That all might see the doctrine which they heard.
For priests, he said, are patterns for the rest;
(The gold of heaven, who bear the God impressed;)
But when the precious coin is kept unclean,
The Sovereign's image is no longer seen.
If they be foul in whom the people trust,
Well may the baser coins contract a rust.
A priest he was by function;
How beautiful your presence, how benign,
Servants of God! who not a thought will share
With the vain world.
THE marches of great princes,
Like to the motions of prodigious meteors,
Are step by step observed; and loud-tongued fame
The harbinger to prepare their entertainment.
Heaven's gates are not so highly arched As princes' palaces; they that enter there Must go upon their knees.
BLEST be that gracious power, who taught mankind
To stamp a lasting image of the mind;
Beasts may convey, and tuneful birds may sing
Their mutual feelings, in the opening spring;
But man alone has skill and power to send
The heart's warm dictates to the distant friend;
'Tis his alone to please, instruct, advise,
Ages remote, and nations yet to rise.
In his dark room the lone mechanic stood,
And shaped in letters the obedient wood,
And little thought what time before his eyes
He smiling saw the first rude types arise;
What a grand engine his ingenious mind
And ready hands had fashioned for his kind;
How vast the art he doubting had begun,
How great the good by that sole action done!
This art it was, next to the peaceful creed,
That cheers the christian in the hour of need;
That aimed the direst and most stunning blow
Against the heads of ignorance and woe:
Scar'd by its light old Superstition shook,
And hid her face before the printed book.
Then let us bless the printing-press,
And let us bless the printer too,
Who in our land first bade it stand,
And gave the speaking types to view. Anon.
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