MISCELLANEOUS THOUGHTS. 365 6 The wakeful stars and midnight moon Watch your foul deeds and know your shame; And God's own eye, like beams of noon, Strikes thro' the shade, and marks your name. 7 What will you do when heav'n en- quires Into those scenes of secret sin ? And lust, with all its guilty fires, Shall make your conscience rage within ? 8 How will you curse your wanton eyes Curse the lewd partners of your shame, When death, with horrible surprise, Spews you the pit of quenchless flume ? 9 Flee, sinners, flee the unlawful bed, Lest vengeance send you down to dwell In the dark regions of the dead, To feed the fiercest fires of hell.' XXXVI. Agains I IS it not strange that every creature Should know the measure of its thirst, (They drink but to support their nature, And give due moisture to their dust;) 2 While man, vile man, whose nobler kind Should scorn to act beneath the beast, Drowns all the glories of his mind, And kills his soul to please his taste! 3 O what a hateful, shameful sight, Ace drunkards reeling through the street Now they are fond, and now they fight, And pour their shame on all they meet. t Drunkenness. 4 Is it so exquisite a pleasure To troll down liquor through the throat, And swill, and know no bound nor measure, 'Till sense and reason are forgot , 5 Do they deserve th' immortal name Of man, who sink so far below ? Will God, the Maker of their frame, Endure to see them spoil it so? 6 Can they e'er think of heav'n and grace, Or hope for glory when they die? Can such vile ghosts 'expect a place, Among the shining souls on high ? 7 The meanest seat is too refin'd To entertain a drunkard there, Ye sinners of this loathsome kind, Repent, or perish in despair. XXXVII. Vanity confessed. IT was a strange and thoughtless expression of a very in- genious author,* " Among all the millions of vices, says he, that I inherit from Adam, I have escaped the first and father -sin of pride :" And he goes on to prove it by asserting his humility, after many boasted instances of his learning and acquirements. Surely, thought I, this man lived much abroad, and conversed but little at home ; he knew much of the world, but he was not acquainted with himself; and while he practises his vanity in so public a manner, he strongly denies that any belongs to him. Senotus was a man of a more mortified soul, a sagacious self - enquirer while he lived; and among his most secret papers which escaped the flames, this following soliloquy found way after his death. How passionately does he mourn this frailty, and with what a becoming sense cloth he lament and bewail this original blemish of his nature ! It was written before he arrived at his Dr. Brown in his Religio Medici. Aa3
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