For The First Time, The Best May

Some Fleeting Good, That Mocks Me With The View.

In A Polite Age Almost Every Person Becomes A Reader, And Receives More Instruction From The Press Than The Pulpit.

And E'en While Fashion's Brightest Arts Decoy, The Heart Distrusting Asks If This Be Joy.

Who, Born For The Universe, Narrow'd His Mind, And To Party Gave Up What Was Meant For Mankind; Though Fraught With All Learning, Yet Straining His Throat To Persuade Tommy Townshend To Lend Him A Vote. Who Too Deep For His Hearers Still Went On Refining, And Thought Of Convincing While They Thought Of Dining: Though Equal To All Things, For All Things Unfit; Too Nice For A Statesman, Too Proud For A Wit.

Life Has Been Compared To A Race, But The Allusion Improves By Observing, That The Most Swift Are Usually The Least Manageable And The Most Likely To Stray From The Course. Great Abilities Have Always Been Less Serviceable To The Possessors Than Moderate Ones.