His Widow weeping at her Husband’s Bier:-- Thus, as the Months succeed, shall Infants take Their Names, while Parents them and us forsake; Thus Brides again and Bridegrooms blithe shall kneel, By Love or Law compell’d their Vows to seal, Ere I again or one like me, explore These simple Annals of the VILLAGE POOR. [Illustration: text decoration] THE LIBRARY: A Poem. ARGUMENT. Books afford Consolation to the troubled Mind, by substituting a lighter kind of Distress for its own.--They are productive of other Advantages:--An Author’s hope of being known in distant Times.---- Arrangement of the Library.--Size and Form of the Volumes.--The antient Folio, clasped and chained.--Fashion prevalent even in this Place.--The Mode of publishing in Numbers, Pamphlets, &c.--Subjects of the different Classes.---- Divinity.--Controversy.--The Friends of Religion often more dangerous than her Foes.--Sceptical Authors.--Reason too much rejected by the former Converts; exclusively relied upon by the latter.---- Philosophy ascending through the Scale of Being to Moral Subjects.---- Books of Medicine: Their Variety, Variance, and proneness to System: The Evil of this, and the Difficulty it causes:--Farewell to this Study.---- Law:--The increasing Number of its Volumes.--Supposed happy State of Man without Laws.--Progress of Society.---- Historians; their Subjects.--Dramatic Authors, Tragic and Comic.--Antient Romances.--The Captive Heroine.--Happiness in the perusal of such Books: why.---- Criticism.--Apprehensions of the Author: Removed by the Appearance of the Genius of the Place; whose Reasoning and Admonition conclude the Subject. THE LIBRARY.