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THE ART OF PREACHING.

A FRAGMENT.

In imitation of Horace's Art of Poetry.

Pendent opera interrupta.

HOULD fome fam'd hand, in this fantastic age,

SH

Draw Rich, as Rich appears upon the stage, With all his postures, in one motley plan, The god, the hound, the monkey, and the man; Here o'er his head high brandishing a leg, And there juft hatch'd, and breaking from his egg; While monster crouds on monfter through the piece, Who could help laughing at a fight like this? Or as a drunkard's dream together brings A court of coblers, and a mob of kings; Such is a fermon, where, confus'dly dark,

Join Hoadly, Sharp, South, Sherlock, Wake, and Clarke.

eggs

of different parishes will run

To batter, when you beat fix yolks to one;
So fix bright chemic liquors if you mix,
In one dark fhadow vanifh all the fix.

This licence priests and painters ever had,
To run bold lengths, but never to run mad;
For those can't reconcile God's grace to fin,
Nor these paint tigers in an ass's skin;
No common dauber in one piece would join,
A fox and goofe,-unless upon a sign.

Some fteal a page of fenfe from Tillotson,
And then conclude divinely with their own
Like oil on water mounts the prelate up,
His grace is always fure to be at top;
That vein of mercury its beams will spread,
And shine more strongly through a mine of lead.
With fuch low arts your hearers never bilk,
For who can bear a fuftian lin'd with filk?
Sconer than preach such stuff, I'd walk the town,
Without my fcarf, in Whifton's draggled gown;
Ply at the Chapter, and at Child's, to read
For pence, and bury for a groat a head.

Some easy fubject chufe, within your power,
Or you will ne'er hold out for half an hour.
Still to your hearers all your fermons fort;
Who'd preach against corruption at a court?
Against church power at vifitations bawl?
Or talk about damnation at Whitehall?

Harangue the Horse-guards on a cure of fouls?
Condemn the quirks of Chancery at the Rolls?
Or rail at hoods and organs at St. Pauls ?
Or be, like David Jones, fo indiscreet,
To rave at ufurers in Lombard-ftreet?

Begin with care, nor, like that curate vile,
Set out in this high prancing stumbling fiyle :
"Whoever with a piercing eye can fee
"Through the past records of futurity?"
All gape, no meaning the puft orator

Talks much, and fays just nothing for an hour.

}

Truth

Truth and the text he labours to display,
Till both are quite interpreted away :
So frugal dames infipid water pour,
Till

green, bohea, or coffee, are no more. His arguments in giddy circles run

Still round and round, and end where they begun:
So the poor turnfpit, as the wheel runs round,
The more he gains, the more he lofes ground.
No parts diftinct, or general fcheme we find,
But one wild fhapeless monster of the mind:
So when old Bruin teems, her children fail
Of limbs, form, figure, features, head, or tail;
Nay, though she licks the ruins, all her cares
Scarce mend the lumps, and bring them but to bears.
Ye country vicars, when you preach in town

A turn at Paul's, to pay your journey down,

If

you would fhun the fneer of every prig,
Lay by the little band, and rufty wig:
But yet be fure, your proper language know,
Nor talk as born within the found of Bow.
Speak not the phrase that Drury-lane affords,
Nor from Change-alley steal a cant of words.
Coachmen will criticife your ftyle; nay further,
Porters will bring it in for wilful murther:
The dregs of the canaille will look askew,
To hear the language of the town from you;
Nay, my lord mayor, with merriment poffeft,
Will break his nap, and laugh among the rest,
And jog the aldermen to hear the jest.

U 4

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ΑΝ

Infcribed on a stone, that covers his Father, Mother,

YE

and Brother.

E facred fpirits! while your friends distress'd Weep o'er your afhes, and lament the bless'd; O let the penfive Muse inscribe that stone,

And with the general forrows mix her own :

The penfive Mufe!-who, from this mournful hour,
Shall raise her voice, and wake the ftring no more!
Of love, of duty, this laft pledge receive;
'Tis all a brother, all a fon can give.

A POEM

A POEM on the DEATH of the late Earl
STANHOPE. Humbly infcribed to the
Countess of STA
ANHOPE.

"At length, grim fate, thy dreadful triumphs cease: "Lock up the tomb, and feal the grave in peace."

NOW from thy riot of deftruction breathe,

Call in thy raging plagues, thou tyrant death: Too mean 's the conqueft which thy arms bestow, Too mean to sweep a nation at a blow.

No, thy unbounded triumphs higher run,
And feem to ftrike at all mankind in one;
Since Stanhope is thy prey, the great, the brave,
A nobler prey was never paid the grave.
We seem to feel from this thy daring crime,
A blank in nature, and a paufe in time.
He stood fo high in reason's towering sphere,
As high as man unglorify'd could bear.
In arms, and eloquence, like Cæfar, fhone
So bright, that each Minerva was his own.
How could fo vaft a fund of learning lie
Shut up in such a short mortality?
One world of science nobly travell'd o'er,
Like Philip's glorious son, he wept for more.

And now, refign'd to tears, th' angelic choirs,
With drooping heads, unftring their golden lyres,
Wrapt in a cloud of grief, they figh to view
Their facred image laid by death fo low :

And