When in that remedy all hope was placed
Which was, or should have been at least, the last.
Here was that Charter seal'd, wherein the crown
All marks of arbitrary power lays down:
Tyrant and slave, those names of hate and fear,
The happier style of king and subject bear:
Happy, when both to the same centre move,
When kings give liberty, and subjects love.
Therefore not long in force this Charter stood;
Wanting that seal, it must be seal'd in blood.
The subjects arm'd, the more their princes gave,
The' advantage only took the more to crave:
Till kings, by giving, gave themselves away,
And even that power that should deny betray.
Who gives constrain'd, but his own fear reviles,
Not thank'd, but scorn'd; nor are they gifts, but
spoils.'
Thus kings, by grasping more than they could hold,
First made their subjects by oppression bold;
And popular sway, by forcing kings to give
More than was fit for subjects to receive,
Ran to the same extremes; and one excess
Made both, by striving to be greater, less.
When a calm river, raised with sudden rains,
Or snows dissolved, o'erflows the' adjoining plains,
The husbandman with high-raised banks secure
Their greedy hopes, and this he can endure;
But if with bays and dams they strive to force
His channel to a new or narrow course,
No longer then within his banks he dwells,
He first a torrent, then a deluge, swells;
Stronger and fiercer by restraint, he roars,
And knows no bound, but makes his power his
.shores.
My early mistress, now my ancient Muse,
That strong Circæan liquor cease to infuse,
Wherewith thou didst intoxicate my youth;
Now stoop, with disinchanted wings, to truth.
As the dove's flight did guide Æneas, now
May thine conduct me to the golden bough:
Tell (like a tall old oak) how Learning shoots
To heaven her branches, and to hell her roots.
WHEN God from earth form'd Adam in the east,
He his own image on the clay impress'd.
As subjects then the whole creation came,
And from their natures Adam them did name;
Not from experience, (for the world was new)
He only from their cause their natures knew.
Had memory been lost with innocence,
We had not known the sentence nor the' offence.
'Twas his chief punishment to keep in store
The sad remembrance what he was before;
And though the' offending part felt mortal pain,
The' immortal part its knowledge did retain.
After the flood arts to Chaldea fell;
The father of the faithful there did dwell,
Who both their parent and instructor was:
From thence did learning into Egypt pass.
Moses in all the' Egyptian arts was skill'd,
When heavenly power that chosen vessel fill'd;
And we to his high inspiration owe
That what was done before the flood we know.
From Egypt arts their progress made to Greece,
Wrapp'd in the fable of the Golden Fleece.
Musæus first, then Orpheus, civilize
Mankind, and gave the world their deities:
To many gods they taught devotion,
Which were the distinct faculties of one:
The' Eternal Cause in their immortal lines
Was taught, and poets were the first divines.
God Moses first, then David, did inspire,
To compose anthems for his heavenly quire:
To the' one the style of Friend he did impart,
On the' other stamp the likeness of his heart:
And Moses, in the old original,
Even God the poet of the world doth call.
Next those old Greeks Pythagoras did rise,
Then Socrates, whom the' oracle call'd Wise.
The divine Plato moral virtue shows,
Then his disciple Aristotle rose,
Who Nature's secrets to the world did teach,
Yet that great soul our novelists impeach:
Too much manuring fill'd that field with weeds,
While sects, like locusts, did destroy the seeds.
The tree of knowledge, blasted by disputes,
Produces sapless leaves instead of fruits.
Proud Greece all nations else barbarians held,
Boasting her learning all the world excell'd.
Flying from thence', to Italy it came,
And to the realm of Naples gave the name,
Till both their nation and their arts did come
A welcome trophy to triumphant Rome.
Then, wheresoe'er her conquering eagles fled,
Arts, learning, and civility were spread;
And as this our microcosm, the heart
Heat, spirit, motion, gives to every part,
So Rome's victorious influence did disperse
All her own virtues through the universe.
Here some digression I must make, to' accuse
Thee, my forgetful and ungrateful Muse!
Couldst thou from Greece to Latium take thy flight,
And not to thy great ancestors do right?
I can no more believe old Homer blind,
Than those who say the sun hath never shined:
The age wherein he lived was dark, but he
Could not want sight who taught the world to see.
They who Minerva from Jove's head derive,
Might make old Homer's skull the Muses' hive,
And from his brain that Helicon distil
Whose racy liquor did his offspring fill.
Nor old Anacreon, Hesiod, Theocrite,
Must we forget, nor Pindar's lofty flight.
Old Homer's soul, at last from Greece retired,
In Italy the Mantuan swain inspired.
When great Augustus made war's tempests cease,
His halcyon days brought forth the arts of peace:
He still in his triumphant chariot shines,
By Horace drawn and Virgil's mighty lines.
'Twas certainly mysterious, that the name
Of prophets and of poets is the same2.
What the Tragedian3 wrote, the late success
Declares was inspiration and not guess:
As dark a truth that author did unfold
As oracles or prophets e'er foretold :
'At last the ocean shall unlock the bound+
Of things, and a new world by Typhis found;
4 The prophecy.
far remote shall understand
The Isle of Thule is not the farthest land.'
Sure God, by these discoveries, did design
That his clear light through all the world should
shine;
But the obstruction from that discord springs
The prince of darkness made 'twixt Christian kings:
That peaceful age with happiness to crown,
From heaven the Prince of Peace himself came
down;
Then the true Sun of Knowledge first appear'd,
And the old dark mysterious clouds were clear'd;
The heavy cause of the' old accursed flood
Sunk in the sacred deluge of his blood.
His passion man from his first fall redeem'd;
Once more to Paradise restored we seem'd,
Satan himself was bound, till the' iron chain
Our pride did break, and let him loose again.
Still the old sting remain'd, and man began
To tempt the serpent as he tempted man.
Then hell sends forth her furies. Avarice, Pride,
Fraud, Discord, Force, Hypocrisy their guide :
Though the foundation on a rock were laid,
The church was undermined, and then betray'd.
Though the Apostles these events foretold,
Yet even the shepherd did devour the fold:
The fisher to convert the world began
The pride convincing of vain-glorious man;
But soon his followers grew a sovereign lord,
And Peter's keys exchanged for Peter's sword,
Which still maintains for his adopted son
Vast patrimonies, though himself had none;
Wresting the text to the old giant's sense,
That heaven once more must suffer violence.
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