Laborious man, with moderate slumber blest,
Springs chearful to his toil, from downy rest;
Till grateful ev'ning with her silver train,
Bid labour cease, and ease the weary swain!
Hail, sovereign Goodness! All productive mind!
On all thy works, thyself inscribed we find!
How various all! how variously endow'd!
How great their number! and each part how good!
How perfect then must the great parent shine!
Who with one act of energy divine,
Laid the vast plan, and finish'd the design.
Where e'er the pleasing search my thoughts pursue,
Unbounded goodness opens to my view.
Nor does our world alone, its influence share;
Exhaustless bounty, and unwearied care,
Extend thro' all th' infinitude of space,
And circle nature with a kind embrace.
The wavy kingdoms of the deep below,
Thy power, thy wisdom, and thy goodness shew,
Here various beings without number stray,
Croud the profound, or on the surface play.
Leviathan here, the mightiest of the train,
Enormous! sails incumbent o'er the main.
All these thy watchful providence supplies;
To thee alone, they turn their waiting eyes.
For them thou open'st thy exhaustless store,
Till the capacious wish can grasp no more.

[Footnote A: Biograph. Brit. Art, Brady.]

* * * * *

GEORGE STEPNEY, Esq;

This poet was descended of the family of the Stepneys of Pindigrast in
Pembrokeshire, but born in Westminster in the year 1693. He received
the rudiments of his education in Westminster school, and after making
some progress in literature there, he was removed to Trinity College
in Cambridge, where he was cotemporary with Charles Montague, esq;
afterwards earl of Halifax; and being of the same college with him,
a very strict friendship was contracted between them. To this lucky
accident of being early known to Mr. Montague, was owing all the
preferment Mr. Stepney afterwards enjoyed; for he seems not to have
had parts sufficient to have risen to any distinction, without the
immediate patronage of so great a man, as the lord Hallifax. When
Stepney first set out in life, he was perhaps attached to the Tory
interest, for one of the first poems he wrote, was an Address to
king James the Second, on his Accession to the Throne. In this little
piece, in which there is as little poetry, he compares that monarch to
Hercules, but with what propriety let the reader judge. Soon after
the accession of