"There livid Pestilence in league with Dearth Walks forth malignant o'er the shuddering earth, Her rapid shafts with airs volcanic wings, Or steeps in putrid vaults her venom'd stings. 120 Arrests the young in Beauty's vernal bloom, And bears the innocuous strangers to the tomb!-- [Footnote: _With airs volcanic_, l. 119. Those epidemic complaints, which are generally termed influenza, are believed to arise from vapours thrown out from earthquakes in such abundance as to affect large regions of the atmosphere, see Botanic Garden, V. I. Canto IV. l. 65. while the diseases properly termed contagious originate from the putrid effluvia of decomposing animal or vegetable matter.] "AND now, e'en I, whose verse reluctant sings The changeful state of sublunary things, Bend o'er Mortality with silent sighs, And wipe the secret tear-drops from my eyes, Hear through the night one universal groan, And mourn unseen for evils not my own, With restless limbs and throbbing heart complain, Stretch'd on the rack of sentimental pain! 130 --Ah where can Sympathy reflecting find One bright idea to console the mind? One ray of light in this terrene abode To prove to Man the Goodness of his GOD?" [Footnote: _Sentimental pain_, l. 130. Children should be taught in their early education to feel for all the remediable evils, which they observe in others; but they should at the same time be taught sufficient firmness of mind not intirely to destroy their own happiness by their sympathizing with too great sensibility with the numerous irremediable evils, which exist in the present system of the world: as by indulging that kind of melancholy they decrease the sum total of public happiness; which is so far rather reprehensible than commendable. See Plan for Female Education by Dr. Darwin, Johnson, London, Sect. XVII. This has been carried to great excess in the East by the disciples of Confucius; the Gentoos during a famine in India refused to eat the flesh of cows and of other animals to satisfy their hunger, and save themselves from death. And at other times they have been said to permit fleas and musquitoes to feed upon them from this erroneous sympathy.] II. "HEAR, O YE SONS OF TIME!" the Nymph replies, Quick indignation darting from her eyes; "When in soft tones the Muse lamenting sings, And weighs with tremulous hand the sum of things; She loads the scale in melancholy mood, Presents the evil, but forgets the good. 140 But if the beam some firmer hand suspends, And good and evil load the adverse ends; With strong libration, where the Good abides, Quick nods the beam, the ponderous gold subsides.