To sport their season and be seen no more. The rest are sober dreamers, grave and wise, And pregnant with discoveries new and rare. Some write a narrative of wars and feats Of heroes little known, and call the rant An history; describe the man, of whom His own coevals took but little note,
And paint his person, character and views,
As they had known him from his mother's womb. They disentangle from the puzzled skein In which obscurity has wrapp'd them up, The threads of politic and shrewd design That ran through all his purposes, and charge His mind with meanings that he never had,
Or having, kept conceal'd. Some drill and bore 150 The solid earth, and from the strata there Extract a register, by which we learn That He who made it and reveal'd its date To Moses, was mistaken in its age. Some more acute and more industrious still Contrive creation; travel nature up
5 Then came Domitian, dragging in Suetonius: There is no greater pest, said he, than that generation of scribbling rogues the historians,-when they have vented the humour and caprice of their own brains, that forsooth must be called-" the Life of such an Emperor."-Quevedo. Vision vii.
6 Great actions, the lustre of which dazzles us, are by politicians represented as the effects of deep designs, whereas they are commonly the effects of caprice and passion.
Rochefoucauld. Maxim vii.
These leave the sense their learning to display,
And these explain the meaning quite away.
Pope. Essay on Crit. 116.
To the sharp peak of her sublimest height, And tell us whence the stars; why some are fixt, And planetary some; what gave them first Rotation, from what fountain flow'd their light. Great contest follows, and much learned dust Involves the combatants, each claiming truth, And truth disclaiming both". And thus they spend The little wick of life's poor shallow lamp, In playing tricks with nature, giving laws To distant worlds and trifling in their own. Is 't not a pity now that tickling rheums Should ever tease the lungs and blear the sight Of oracles like these? Great pity too, That having wielded the elements, and built A thousand systems, each in his own way, They should go out in fume and be forgot? Ah! what is life thus spent? and what are they But frantic who thus spend it? all for smoke,- Eternity for bubbles, proves at last
A senseless bargain 3. When I see such games Play'd by the creatures of a Power who swears
He his fabric of the heavens
Hath left to their disputes, perhaps to move His laughter at their quaint opinions wide Hereafter, when they come to model heaven And calculate the stars, how they will wield The mighty frame, how build, unbuild, contrive, To save appearances. Par. Lost, viii. 76,
• What win I, if I gain the thing I seek?
A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy: Who buys a minute's worth to wail a week, Or sells eternity to get a toy?
Shakespeare. Tarq. and Luc. st. 31.
That he will judge the earth, and call the fool' To a sharp reckoning that has lived in vain ; And when I weigh this seeming wisdom well And prove it in the infallible result
So hollow and so false,-I feel my heart Dissolve in pity, and account the learn'd, If this be learning, most of all deceived.
Great crimes alarm the conscience, but she sleeps 185 While thoughtful man is plausibly amused. Defend me therefore common sense, say I, From reveries so airy, from the toil
Of dropping buckets into empty wells 10, And growing old in drawing nothing up!
'Twere well, says one sage erudite, profound, Terribly arch'd and aquiline his nose, And overbuilt with most impending brows, 'Twere well could you permit the world to live
As the world pleases. What's the world to you?—
Much. I was born of woman, and drew milk As sweet as charity from human breasts. I think, articulate, I laugh and weep And exercise all functions of a man.
How then should I and any man that lives
Be strangers to each other? Pierce my vein, Take of the crimson stream meandering there
9 Go, teach eternal Wisdom how to rule, Then drop into thyself, and be a fool.
Pope. Essay on Man, ii. 29.
10 Nor vainly buys what Gildon sells, Poetic buckets for dry wells.
11 Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto.
And catechise it well. Apply your glass, Search it, and prove now if it be not blood Congenial with thine own. And if it be, What edge of subtlety canst thou suppose Keen enough, wise and skilful as thou art, To cut the link of brotherhood, by which One common Maker bound me to the kind? True; I am no proficient, I confess,
In arts like yours. I cannot call the swift
And perilous lightnings from the angry clouds,
And bid them hide themselves in the earth beneath; I cannot analyse the air, nor catch
The parallax of yonder luminous point
That seems half quench'd in the immense abyss: Such powers I boast not; neither can I rest
A silent witness of the headlong rage
Or heedless folly by which thousands die,
Bone of my bone, and kindred souls to mine.
God never meant that man should scale the heavens
By strides of human wisdom. In his works
Though wonderous, He commands us in his word To seek him rather, where his mercy shines. The mind indeed enlighten'd from above Views him in all; ascribes to the grand cause The grand effect; acknowledges with joy His manner, and with rapture tastes his style. But never yet did philosophic tube That brings the planets home into the eye Of observation, and discovers, else Not visible, his family of worlds,
Discover Him that rules them; such a veil Hangs over mortal eyes, blind from the birth
And dark in things divine. Full often too Our wayward intellect, the more we learn Of nature, overlooks her Author more, From instrumental causes proud to draw Conclusions retrograde and mad mistake. But if his word once teach us, shoot a ray Through all the heart's dark chambers, and reveal Truths undiscern'd but by that holy light, Then all is plain. Philosophy baptized In the pure fountain of eternal love Has eyes indeed; and viewing all she sees As meant to indicate a God to man,
Gives Him his praise, and forfeits not her own. Learning has borne such fruit in other days
On all her branches. Piety has found
Friends in the friends of science, and true prayer 250 Has flow'd from lips wet with Castalian dews. Such was thy wisdom, Newton, child-like sage! Sagacious reader of the works of God, And in his word sagacious. Such too thine, Milton, whose genius had angelic wings, And fed on manna. And such thine in whom Our British Themis gloried with just cause, Immortal Hale! for deep discernment praised And sound integrity not more, than famed For sanctity of manners undefiled.
All flesh is grass 12, and all its glory fades Like the fair flower dishevel'd in the wind; Riches have wings 13, and grandeur is a dream; The man we celebrate must find a tomb, And we that worship him, ignoble graves.
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