Thou wallow'st where I slip; and thou dost tumble
Where I but stumble:

Thou gloriest in thy slav'ry's dirty badges,
And fall'st for wages:

Sour grief and sad repentance scours and clears
My stains and tears:

Thy falling keeps thy falling still in ure; 1
But when I slip, I stand the more secure.
4 LORD, what a nothing is this little span,
We call a MAN!

What fenny trash maintains the smoth'ring fires
Of his desires!

How slight and short are his resolves at longest:
How weak at strongest!

Oh, if a sinner, held by that fast hand,
Can hardly stand,

Good GOD! in what a desp'rate case are they,
That have no stay!

Man's state implies a necessary curse;

When not himself, he's mad; when most himself,

he's worse.

Peter stood more firmly after ne had lamented his fall than before he fell; insomuch that he found more grace than he lost grace.-S. AMBROS. in Ser. ad Vincula.

It is no such heinous matter to fall afflicted, as, being down, to lie dejected. It is no danger for a soldier to receive a wound in battle, but, after the wound received, through despair of recovery, to refuse a remedy; for we often see wounded champions wear the palm at last; and, after fight, crowned with victory.-S. CHRYS. in Ep. ad Heliod. Monach.

EPIG. 14.

Triumph not, Cupid, his mischance doth show

Thy trade; doth once, what thou dost always do :
Brag not too soon; has thy prevailing hand

Foil'd him? ah fool, thou'st taught him how to stand.

''Ure:' which generally means 'good fortune,' means here action.

No. XV.

Illustration—The one Cupid pushing and punishing the other.

I will put my fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from me.-JER. xxxii. 40.

So, now the soul's sublimed: her sour desires
Are recalcined in Heav'n's well temper'd fires:
The heart restored and purged from drossy

nature,

Now finds the freedom of a new-born creature:
It lives another life, it breathes new breath;
It neither fears nor feels the sting of death:
Like as the idle vagrant (having none)
That boldly 'dopts each house he views, his

own;

Makes ev'ry purse his chequer; and, at pleasure,
Walks forth, and taxes all the world, like Cæsar;
At length, by virtue of a just command,

His sides are lent to a severer hand;
Whereon his pass, not fully understood,
Is taxed in a manuscript of blood;

Thus pass'd from town to town; until he come
A sore repentant to his native home:
E'en so the rambling heart, that idly roves
From crimes to sin, and uncontroll'd removes
From lust to lust, when wanton flesh invites
From old worn pleasures to new choice delights;
At length corrected by the filial rod
Of his offended, but his gracious GOD,

And lash'd from sins to sighs; and by degrees,
From sighs to vows, from vows to bended

knees;

From bended knees to a true pensive breast;

From thence to torments not by tongue exprest;

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Returns; and (from his sinful self exiled)
Finds a glad father, he a welcome child:
O then it lives; O then it lives involved
In secret raptures; pants to be dissolved:
The royal offspring of a second birth,
Sets ope to Heav'n, and shuts the door to earth:
If love-sick Jove commanded clouds should hap
To rain such show'rs as quicken'd Danaë's lap:
Or dogs (far kinder than their purple master,)
Should lick his sores, he laughs, nor weeps the
faster.

If earth (Heav'n's rival) dart her idle ray,

To Heav'n 'tis wax, and to the world 'tis
clay:

If earth present delights, it scorns to draw,
But, like the jet unrubb'd, disdains that straw.
No hope deceives it, and no doubt divides it;
No grief disturbs it, and no error guides it;
No good contemns it, and no virtue blames it;
No guilt condemns it, and no folly shames it;
No sloth besots it, and no lust enthrals it;
No scorn afflicts it, and no passion galls it:
It is a casket of immortal life;

An ark of peace; the lists of sacred strife;
A purer piece of endless transitory;

A shrine of grace, a little throne of glory;
A heav'n-born offspring of a new-born birth;

An earthly heav'n; an ounce of heavenly earth.

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O happy heart, where piety affecteth, where humility subjecteth, where repentance correcteth, where obedience directeth; where perseverance perfecteth, where power protecteth, where devotion projecteth, where charity connecteth.-S. AUGUST de Spir. et Animia.

Which way soever the heart turneth itself, (if carefully) it shall commonly observe, that in those very things we lose GOD, in those we shall find GOD: it shall find the heat of his power in consideration of those things, in the love of which things he was most cold; and by what things it fell perverted, by those things it is raised converted.-S. Greg.

EPIG. 15.

My heart! but wherefore do I call thee so?
I have renounced my int'rest long ago:
When thou wert false and fleshly, I was thine;
Mine wert thou never, till thou wert not mine.

BOOK THE THIRD.

Lord, all my desire is before thee: and my groaning is not hid from thee.— PSALM XXXviii. 9.

THE ENTERTAINMENT.

ALL you whose better thoughts are newly born,
And (rebaptized with holy fire) can scorn

The world's base trash; whose necks disdain to bear
Th' imperious yoke of Satan; whose chaste ear
No wanton songs of Sirens can surprise
With false delight; whose more than eagle-eyes
Can view the glorious flames of gold, and gaze
On glitt'ring beams of honour, and not daze;
Whose souls can spurn at pleasure, and deny
The loose suggestions of the flesh, draw nigh:

And you, whose am'rous, whose select desires.
Would feel the warmth of those transcendent fires,
Which (like the rising sun) put out the light
Of Venus' star, and turn her day to night;
You that would love, and have your passions crown'd
With greater happiness than can be found

In your own wishes; you that would affect
Where neither scorn, nor guile, nor disrespect
Shall wound your tortured souls; that would enjoy,
Where neither want can pinch, nor fulness cloy,
Nor double doubt afflicts, nor baser fear
Unflames your courage in pursuit, draw near,

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