Did Nature's pencil ever blend such rays, Laid this gay daughter of the spring in dust. "Of all th' enamell'd race, whose silvery wing 4.11 420 It fled, I follow'd; now in hope, now pain; Live happy both, and long promote our arts. 440 The common soul, of Heaven's more frugal make, 441 Poised with a tail, may steer on Wilkins' wings.2 450 'Oh! would the sons of men once think their eyes And reason given them but to study flies! See nature in some partial narrow shape, And let the Author of the whole escape: 'Be that my task' (replies a gloomy clerk, 460 Moss' of which the naturalists count I can't tell how many hundred species.-P. W.-2 Wilkins' wings:' one of the first projectors of the Royal Society, who, among many enlarged and useful notions, entertained the extravagant hope of a possibility to fly to the moon; which has put some volatile geniuses upon making wings for that purpose.-P. W.- Moral evidence :" alluding to a ridiculous and absurd way of some mathematicians in calculating the gradual decay of moral evidence by mathematical proportions; according to which calculation, in about fifty years it will be no longer probable that Julius Cæsar was in Gaul, or died in the senate-house.—P. W. VARIATIONS. VER. 441. The common soul, &c. In the first edition, thus Of souls the greater part, Heaven's common make, Serve but to keep fools pert, and knaves awake; And most but find that sentinel of God,. A drowsy watchman in the land of Let others creep by timid steps and slow, See all in self, and but for self be born: Of naught so doubtful as of soul and will. O hide the God still more! and make us see, 465 470 480 1 The high priori road :' those who, from the effects in this visible world, deduce the eternal power and Godhead of the First Cause, though they cannot attain to an adequate idea of the Deity, yet discover so much of him as enables them to see the end of their creation, and the means of their happiness; whereas they who take this high priori road (such as Hobbes, Spinoza, Descartes, and some better reasoners) for one that goes right, ten lose themselves in mists, or ramble after visions, which deprive them of all right of their end, and mislead them in the choice of the means.-P. W.-2Make Nature still :' this relates to such as, being ashamed to assert a mere mechanic cause, and yet unwilling to forsake it entirely, have had recourse to a certain plastic nature, elastic fluid, subtile matter, &c.-P. W. 3 Thrust some mechanic cause into his place, Or bind in matter, or diffuse in space:' The first of these follies is that of Descartes; the second, of Hobbes; the third, of some succeeding philosophers.-P. W. Or that bright image1 to our fancy draw, Where Tindal dictates, and Silenus snores.' Led up the youth, and call'd the goddess dame. Lo! every finish'd son returns to thee: First, slave to words,5 then vassal to a name, Then dupe to party; child and man the same; 487 500 ''Bright image: ' bright image was the title given by the later Platonists to that vision of nature which they had formed out of their own fancy, so bright that they called it Aűтоптоv "Ayaλua, or the self-seen image, i. e., seen by its own light. This ignis fatuus has in these our times appeared again in the north; and the writings of Hutcheson, Geddes, and their followers, are full of its wonders. For in this lux borealis, this self-seen image, these secondsighted philosophers see everything else.-Scribl. W. Let it be either the Chance god of Epicurus, or the Fate of this goddess.-W.-Theocles: thus this philosopher calls upon his friend, to partake with him in these visions : 'To-morrow, when the eastern sun With his first beams adorns the front To wander with me in the woods you see, We will pursue those loves of ours, By favour of the sylvan nymphs: and invoking, first, the genius of the place, we'll try to obtain at least some faint and distant view of the sovereign genius and first beauty.' Charact. vol. ii. p. 245.-P. W. 'Society adores:' see the Pantheisticon, with its liturgy and rubrics, composed by Toland.-W.- 'Silenus:' Silenus was an Epicurean philosopher, as appears from Virgil, Eclog. vi., where he sings the principles of that philosophy in his drink. He is meant for one Thomas Gordon.-P. W.'First, slave to words: ' a recapitulation of the whole course of modern education described in this book, which confines youth to the study of words only in schools, subjects them to the authority of systems in the universities, and deludes them with the names of party distinctions in the world,-all equally 1 Bounded by nature, narrow'd still by art, Their infamy, still keep the human shape. 503 510 520 concurring to narrow the understanding, and establish slavery and error in literature, philosophy, and politics. The whole finished in modern free-thinking; the completion of whatever is vain, wrong, and destructive to the happiness of mankind, as it establishes self-love for the sole principle of action.P. W.-Smiled on by a queen :' i.e. this queen or goddess of Dulness.-P. - 'Mr Philip Wharton, who died abroad and outlawed in 1791.86 'Nothing left but homage to a king:' so strange as this must seem to a mere English reader, the famous Mons. de la Bruyère declares it to be the character of every good subject in a monarchy; where,' says he, there is no such thing as love of our country; the interest, the glory, and service of the prince, supply its place.'-De la République, chap. x.-P. |