True, he had wit, to make their value rise;
From foolish Greeks to steal them, was as wise :
More glorious yet, from barbarous hands to keep,
When Sallee Rovers chac'd him on the deep.

380
Then taught by Hermes, and divinely bold,
Down his own throat he risqu'd the Grecian Gold,
Receiv'd each Demi-God, with pious care,
Deep in his Entrails—I rever'd them there,
I bought them, shrouded in that living shrine, 385
And, at their second birth, they issue mine.

Witness great Ammon! by whose horns I swore,
(Reply'd soft Annius) this our paunch before
Still bears them, faithful; and that thus I eat,
Is to refund the Medals with the meat.

390
To prove me, Goddess ! clear of all design,
Bid me with Pollio fup, as well as dine :
There all the Learn'd shall at the labour stand,
And Douglas lend his soft, obstetric hand.

The REMARKS. Dufour, without staying to inquire about the uneasy fymptoms of the burthen he carried, first asked him, Whether the Medals were of the higher empire ? He assured him

they were. Dufour was ravished with the hope of possessing so rare a treasure ; he bargained with him on the spot for the most curious of them, and was to recover them at his own expence.

Ver. 387. Witness great Ammon!] Jupiter Ammon is called to witness, as the father of Alexander, to whom those Kings succeeded in the division of the Macedonian Empire, and whose Horns they wore on their Medals.

The Goddess smiling seem’d to give consent;

395 So back to Pollio, hand in hand, they went.

Then thick as Locusts blackening all the ground, A tribe, with weeds and shells fantastic crown'd, Each with some wondrous gift approach'd the Power, A Nest, a Toad, a Fungus, or a Flower.

400 But far the foremost, two, with earnest zeal, And aspect ardent, to the Throne appeal.

The first thus open’d: Hear thy suppliant's call,
Great Queen, and common Mother of us all !
Fair from its humble bed I rear'd this Flower,

405
Suckled, and chear'd, with air, and sun, and shower :
Soft on the paper ruff its leaves I spread,
Bright with the gilded button tipt its head.
Then thron’d in glass and nam'd it CAROLINE :
Each maid cried, Charming ! and each youth, Divine !
Did Nature's pencil ever blend such rays,
Such vary'd light in one promiscuous blaze!

Now REMARKS. Ver. 394. Douglas] A physician of great Learning and no less Taste; above all, curious in what related to Horace, of whom he collected every Edition, Translation, and Comment, to the number of several hundred volumes.

Ver. 409. and nam'd it Caroline :) It is a compliment which the Florists usually pay to Princes and great persons, to give their names to the most curious Flowers of their raising : Some have been very jealous of vindicating this honour, but none more than that ambitious Gardener, at Hammersmith, who caused his Favourite to be painted on his Sign, with this inscription, This is My Queen Caroline.

Now prostrate ! dead! behold that Caroline :
No maid cries, Charming! and no youth, Divine !
And lo the wretch! whose vile, whose infect luft 415
Lay'd this gay daughter of the Spring in duft.
Oh punish him, or to th' Elysian shades
Dismiss my soul, where no carnation fades.
He ceas’d, and wept. With innocence of mien,
Th' Accus'd stood forth, and thus address'd the Queen:
Of all th' enamel'd race, whose filvery wing

421
Waves to the tepid Zephyrs of the spring,
Or swims along the Huid atmosphere,
Once brightest thind this child of Heat and Air.
I saw, and started from its vernal bower

425 The rising game, and chac'd from flower to flower. It fled, I follow'd ; now in hope, now pain; It stopt, I stopt ; it mov’d, I mov'd again. At last it fixt, 'twas on what plant it pleas’d, And where it fix'd, the beauteous bird I seiz'd: 430 Rafe. or Carnation was below my care; I meddle, Goddess ! only in my sphere. I tell the naked fact without disguise, And, to excuse it, need but shew the prize; Whose fpoils this Paper offers to your eye, Fair ev'n in death! this peerless Butterfly.

My fons! (The answer'd) both have done your parts : Live happy both, and long promote our arts. But hear a Mother, when she recommends To your fraternal çare our Neeping friends.

440 The common Soul, of Heaven's more frugal make, Serves but to keep fools pert and knaves awake;

A drowfy

435

A drowsy Watchman, that just gives a knock,
And breaks our rest, to tell us what's a clock.
Yet by some object every brain is stirr’d;

445
The dull may waken to a Humming-bird ;
The most recluse, discreetly opend, find
Congenial matter in the Cockle kind;
The Mind in Metaphysics at a loss,
May wander in a wilderness of Moss;

450 The head that turns at superlunar things, Pois'd with a tail, may steer on Wilkins' wings.

O! would the Sons of Men once think their Eyes And Reason giv’n them but to study Flies ! See Nature in some partial narrow shape,

455 And let the Author of the whole escape; Learn but to trifle; or, who most obferve, To wonder at their Maker, not to serve.

Be that my talk (replies a gloomy Clerk, Sworn foe to Mystery, yet divinely dark; 460

Whose

VARIATION.

Ver. 441. The common soul, &c.] in the first Edit. thus,

Of Souls the greater part, Heaven's common make,
Serve but to keep fools pert, and knaves awake;
And most but find that centinel of God,
A drowsy Watchman in the land of Nod.

REMARKS,

Ver. 452. Wilkins' wings.] One of the first Projec. tors 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.

465

Whose pious hope aspires to see the day
When Moral Evidence shall quite decay,
And damns implicit faith, and holy lies,
Prompt to impose, and fond to dogmatize :)
Let others creep by timid steps and flow,
On plain Experience lay foundations low,
By common sense to common knowledge bred,
And last, to Nature's Cause through Nature led.
All-seeing in thy mists, we want no guide,
Mother of Arrogance, and Source of Pride!
We nobly take the high Priori Road,
And reason downward, till we doubt of God:
Make Nature still incroach upon his plan;
And shove him off as far as e'er we can :
Thrust some Mechanic Cause into his place;
Or bind in Matter, or diffuse in Space.
Or, at one bound o'erleaping all his laws,
Make God Man's Image, Man the final Cause,

470

475

Find

REMARKS.

Ver. 462. When Moral Evidence shall quite decay,] 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 Cæfar was in Gaul, or died in the Senate House. See Craig's Theologiæ Christianæ Principia Mathematica. ut as it seems evident, that facts of a thousand years old, for instance, are now as probable as they were five hundred years ago ; it is plain, that if in fifty more they quite disappear, it must be owing, not to their Arguments, but to the extraordinary power of our Goddess; for whose help therefore they have reason to pray.