Smiled, stroked his chin, and thus began: 390 'With shears or scissors, sword or knife, When the Fates cut the thread of life, (For if we to the grave are sent, No matter with what instrument) The body in some lonely spot, On dunghill vile, is laid to rot, Or sleep among more holy dead With prayers irreverently read; The soul is sent where Fate ordains, To reap rewards, to suffer pains. 400 The virtuous to those mansions go Where pleasures unembitter'd flow, Where, leading up a jocund band, Vigour and Youth dance hand in hand, Whilst Zephyr, with harmonious gales, Pipes softest music through the vales, And Spring and Flora, gaily crown'd, With velvet carpet spread the ground; With livelier blush where roses bloom, And every shrub expires perfume; 410 Where crystal streams meandering glide, Where warbling flows the amber tide; Where other suns dart brighter beams, And light through purer ether streams. Far other seats, far different state, The sons of Wickedness await. Justice (not that old hag I mean Who's nightly in the Garden seen[211], Who lets no spark of mercy rise, For crimes, by which men lose their eyes; 420 Nor her who, with an equal hand, Weighs tea and sugar in the Strand; Nor her who, by the world deem'd wise, Deaf to the widow's piercing cries, Steel'd 'gainst the starving orphan's tears, On pawns her base tribunal rears; But her who after death presides, Whom sacred Truth unerring guides; Who, free from partial influence, Nor sinks nor raises evidence, 430 Before whom nothing's in the dark, Who takes no bribe, and keeps no clerk) Justice, with equal scale below, In due proportion weighs out woe, And always with such lucky aim Knows punishments so fit to frame, That she augments their grief and pain, Leaving no reason to complain. Old maids and rakes are join'd together, Coquettes and prudes, like April weather. 440 Wit's forced to chum with Common-Sense, And Lust is yoked to Impotence. Professors (Justice so decreed) Unpaid, must constant lectures read; On earth it often doth befall, They're paid, and never read at all. Parsons must practise what they teach, And bishops are compell'd to preach. She who on earth was nice and prim, Of delicacy full, and whim; 450 Whose tender nature could not bear The rudeness of the churlish air, Is doom'd, to mortify her pride, The change of weather to abide, And sells, whilst tears with liquor mix, Burnt brandy on the shore of Styx. Avaro[212], by long use grown bold In every ill which brings him gold, Who his Reedemer would pull down, And sell his God for half-a-crown; 460 Who, if some blockhead should be willing To lend him on his soul a shilling, A well-made bargain would esteem it, And have more sense than to redeem it,