Of sacred Knowledge, through the earth entire
Reigns Profanation !-Murder stalks abroad,
War, Superstition, and all dwellings fill
With mourners' wailing, till, like fitful gusts
Through wildernesses, Ire, Despair, Revenge,
Engendered in the injured's broken heart,
Do evil. (2) Clouds and darkness cover all
The populations; starless is the night
Of their lost wandering mind. I hold it is
Past question, that wherever man abode
The Great in heart, and intellect, and soul,
The glory of the by-gone Grecian states,
As Homer, Aristides, Pericles,

And Archimedes, and Pythagoras,

In those fine qualities that be innate,
And incommunicable, had compeers
Who needed the divine Pierian springs
Flowing through and irrigating their rude tribes.
As it has been, it is. Where learning spreads
There too contemporaneously will shine.
Our species' worthiest. The illustrious Dead
Have equals living! Come, come let us break
Through the pernicious darkness, the long night
Of mind, the low and universal cloud,

With lights of heavenly Knowledge! Let us plant
Else were our institutions, schools of art,
And science, and the muses' melodies.

So shall, for ever, amaranth's white flowers Blooming above our graves refresh the hearts Of pilgrims; memorable and beloved,

Our names endure, and merit their renown!

NOTE.

(2) Bacon in his tract in Praise of Knowledge says,-Knowledge that tendeth to profit, or profession, or glory, is but as the golden ball thrown before Atalanta; which while she goeth aside and stoopeth to take up, she hindereth the race. And knowledge referred to some particular point of use, is but as Harmodius, which putteth down one tyrant: and not like Hercules, who did perambulate the world to suppress tyrants, and giants, and monsters in every part.

III.

THE ILLUSTRATION.

The father of modern philosophy is followed in the debate by Shakspeare, who, by way of illustrating the Baconian views, relates a vision seen by him during the period of his retirement at Stratford. The Phantasma, representing to his mind a model of the entire earth, and discovering its inhabitants, points out individuals to the number of seventy, as being destined elements of a court and government, having authority paramount in matters relating to the general interests of the great human empire. At the conclusion of the vision, the Goddess of Nature appearing intimates that misery is a universal consequent of the execution of evil counsels, avers the office of the seventy Magnates to be that of aiding in the restoration of Man to harmonious relations with the moral universe, and concludes by emphatically urging her great Poet to give full effect to the demonstrated intentions of the Creator, by bringing this supreme order into collective existence.

Then in his place discoursed the illustrious bard
Who gives the rustic Avon to eclipse
Ilissus, Tyber, every classic stream!

"I stand here on behalf of human kind
To make appeal, entreaty, earnest prayer,
To thy disciples, Virtue! to display,
Illustrated, the work before us brought

And point a course out. This I mean to do,

C

Narrating in its full details a dream

That whilst I slumbered in my bower's lone shade At New-place, shewed me visions of mankind And the earth's orb in revolution. Morn

Broke o'er Niagara.

This side the falls.

words

There stood a youth

Methought I heard these

Fall softly from him: "Furious and disturbed,
Ungoverned waters! Man's undying race
And mortal man, ye figure in your course
Precipitant, and everlasting lapse,

Eternally resounding, while formose

Your liquid arch sinks never; nay augments!"
After some minutes this from a bright cloud
Burst sweetly on mine ear: "I am to shew
To thee fine minds aggrandizing the earth
In myriads, and above the rest a caste,
In number seventy: more thy toiling eyes
Will seek in vain. Sublime o'er each will fly
In circles white-winged eagles screaming; see!"
The next of Nature's magnates I descried
Where Cimbarazo props the heavens. A third,
Before pursuers flying, left by night

For China, the dominions of Japan.
Another, Tibet's highlands roved. Vast plains
Lay in sweet twilight, and the birds of Jove
Soared at great distances sublime in air,

Whilst many, in rapt study o'er the waves
Of the euphoneous ocean bent and read.
Its allegory-pencilling surfaces.

One sat in a green pass: at his feet were
Clear streamlets issuing; below they formed
Into a torrent and Euphrates flushed.

The four great empires' infant starting-points,
The Dream now spanned; all it o'erflew assumed
A supernatural lustre. Here appeared
Four personages beautiful in form;

Of whom the dream prolated: "That robust
Young man who, sailing up swift Tigris, rows,
And with great effort labouring the oar
Ekes out the force of the lulled winds, is graced
With the Assyrian features, open, bold,

Such as the first Kings had. Now turn your eyes Where the sun goes down. Thence Persia's founder sprung

On empire. Call that hilly, verdant spot
Persepolis! Yet are the Persian's looks

In his face traceable who there is seen
In meditation, gracefully reclined.

His mind turns every way and smiles o'er all,
O rarely fortunate! nor land, nor sea,

Nor the Past, in thy heart-strings wakes one grief!

The third that side of Mount Olympus walks.