Quæ patriæ prodesse meæ Regina ferebar, Fusa, et per Tyrias ducta trophæa vias? Quodque decus quondam causa ruboris erit.) Tempus ego certe memini, felicia Pœnis Quo te non puduit solvere vota deis; Moniaque intrantem vidi: longo agmine duxit 20 25 30 Hæret et aspectu tota caterva tuo. Jam flexi, regale decus, per colla capilli, 40 (Seu rexit casus lumina, sive Venus) In me (vel certè visum est) conversa morari Credideramque tuos lentius ire pedes. 45 Nulla fuit circum æqualis quæ dignior esset, Asseruitque decus conscia forma suum. Pompa finis erat. Totâ vix nocte quievi, Sin premat invitæ lumina victa sopor, Somnus habet pompas, eademque recursat imago; Atque iterum hesterno munere victor ades. 50 DIDACTIC POEM, UNFINISHED: ENTITLED, DE PRINCIPIIS COGITANDI. LIBER PRIMUS. AD FAVONIUM. General plan of the Poem.-First, Invocation to Mr. Locke, Address to Favonius, showing the use and importance of the design. Beginning.-Connexion of the soul and body: nerves, the instruments of sensation.-Touch, the first and most extensive sense, described.-Begins before the birth; pain, our first idea when born.-Seeing, the second sense.-Digressive encomium of light. The gradual opening and improvement of this sense, and that of hearing; their connexion with the higher faculties of the mind: sense of beauty and order, and harmony annexed to them. From the latter, our delight in eloquence, poetry, and music derived.-Office of the taste and smell. Internal sense of reflection, whereby the mind views its own powers and operation, compared to a young wood-nymph admiring herself in some fountain.-Admission of ideas, some by a single sense, some by two, others by every way of sensation and reflection. Instance in a person born blind, he has no ideas of light and colours; but he has those of figure, motion, extension, and space, (objects both of the sight and touch.) Third sort, those which make their en trance into the mind by every channel alike; as pleasure and pain, power, existence, unity, and succession. Properties of bodies, whereby they make themselves known to us. Primary qualities: magnitude, solidity, mobility, texture and figure. UNDE Animus scire incipiat; quibus inchoet orsa a The first six lines plainly intimate, that his general design was to be comprised in four books. The first, On the Origin of our Ideas. Unde Animus scire incipiat. The second. On the Distribution of these Ideas in the Memory. -Quibus inchoet orsa Principiis seriem rerum, tenuemque catenam Mnemosyne. The third. On the Province of Reason, and its gradual Improvement. -Ratio unde rudi sub pectore, tardum Augeat imperium. The fourth. On the Cause and Effects of the Passions. Ira, Dolor, Metus, et Curæ nascantur inanes. MASON. 11 Ad limen (si ritè adeo, si pectore puro,) Tuque aures adhibe vacuas, facilesque, Favonî, 16 (Quod tibi crescit opus) simplex nec despice carmen, Nec vatem non illa leves primordia motus, Quanquam parva, dabunt. Lætum vel amabile quie quid Usquam oritur, trahit hinc ortum; nec surgit ad auras, Dulce et amicitiæ vinclum : Sapientia dia Principio, ut magnum fœdus Natura creatrix 31 35 |