This calls the Church to deprecate our sin, And hurls the thunder of the laws on gin. Let modest Foster, if he will, excel Ten metropolitans in preaching well; A simple Quaker, or a Quaker's wife, Outdo Llandaff in doctrine,--yea in life: Let humble Allen, with an awkward shame, Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame. Virtue may choose the high or low degree, 'Tis just alike to virtue, and to me; Dwell in a monk, or light upon a king, She's still the same, beloved, contented thing. Vice is undone, if she forgets her birth, And stoops from angels to the dregs of earth: But 'tis the fall degrades her to a whore; Let greatness own her, and she's mean no more; Her birth, her beauty, crowds and courts confess; Chaste matrons praise her, and grave bishops bless; In golden chains the willing world she draws, And hers the gospel is, and hers the laws, Mounts the tribunal, lifts her scarlet head, And sees pale virtue carted in her stead. Lo! at the wheels of her triumphal car, Old England's genius, rough with many a scar, Dragged in the dust! his arms hang idly round, His flag inverted trails along the ground! Our youth, all liveried o'er with foreign gold, Before her dance: behind her crawl the old! See thronging millions to the Pagod run, And offer country, parent, wife, or son! Hear her black trumpet through the land proclaim, That not to be corrupted is the shame. In soldier, churchman, patriot, man in power, 'Tis avarice all, ambition is no more! See, all our nobles begging to be slaves! See, all our fools aspiring to be knaves! The wit of cheats, the courage of a whore, Are what ten thousand envy and adore; All, all look up, with reverential awe, At crimes that 'scape, or triumph o'er the law; While truth, worth, wisdom, daily they decry-- "Nothing is sacred now but villainy ". Yet may this verse (if such a verse remain) Show, there was one who held it in disdain. [Footnote 207: Cardinal: and Minister to Louis XV.] [Footnote 208: This couplet alludes to the preachers of some recent Court Sermons of a florid panegyrical character; also to some speeches of a like kind, some parts of both of which were afterwards incorporated in an address to the monarch.] [Footnote 209: Dr. Conyers Middleton, author of the _Life of Cicero_.] [Footnote 210: Queen Consort to King George II. She died in 1737.] [Footnote 211: A title given to Lord Selkirk by King James II. He was Gentleman of the Bed-chamber to William III., to George I., and to George II. He was proficient in all the forms of the House, in which he comported himself with great dignity.] [Footnote 212: Referring to Lady M.W. Montagu and her sister, the Countess of Mar.] SAMUEL JOHNSON. (1709-1784.) XXXIX. THE VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES.