The pow'rs which move his fenfe with inftant joy,
The features which attract his heart to love,
He marks, combines, repofits. Other pow'rs
And features of the felffame thing (unless
The beautous form, the creature of his mind
Requeft their clofe alliance) he o'erlooks
Forgotten, or with felf-beguiling zeal
Whene'er his paffions mingle in the work
Half alters, half difowns. The tribes of men
Thus from their diff'rent functions, and the fhapes
Familiar to their eye, with art obtain,

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Unconscious of their purpose, yet with art
Obtain the Beauty fitting man to love,

Whose proud defires from Nature's homely toil
Oft' turn away fastidious, asking still
His mind's high aid to purify the form
From matter's grofs communion, to fecure
For ever from the meddling hand of Change
Or rude Decay her features, and to add
Whatever ornaments may fuit her mien
Where'er he finds them scatter'd thro' the paths
Of Nature or of Fortune; then he feats
Th’accomplish'd image deep within his breast,
Reviews it, and accounts it good and fair.
Thus the one Beauty of the world entire,
The univerfal Venus, far beyond

The keenest effort of created eyes*

And their most wide horizon dwells inthran'd

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In ancient filence: at her footstool stands,
An altar burning with eternal fire
Unfully'd, unconfum'd. Here ev'ry hour,
Here ev'ry moment, in their turns arrive
Her offspring, an innumerable band
Of fifters, comely all, but diff'ring far
In age, in ftature, and expreffive mien,
More than bright Helen from her new-born babe.
To this maternal fhrine in turns they come,

Each with her facred lamp, that from the fource
Of living flame which here immortal flows
Their portions of its luftre they may draw
For days, or months, or years, for ages fome,
As their great parent's difcipline requires;
Then to their fev'ral manfions they depart,
In ftars, in planets, thro' the unknown shores
Of yon' ethereal ocean. Who can tell
Ev'n on the furface of this rolling earth

How many make abode? The fields, the groves,
The winding rivers, and the azure main,
Arc render'd folemn by their frequent feet,

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660.

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Their rites fublime. There each her deftin'd home
Informs with that pure radiance from the skies 676
Brought down, and shines thro'out her little sphere
hxulting. Straight as travellers, by night

Turn toward a distant flame, so some fiteye
Among the various tenants of the scene.
Difcerns the heaven-born phantom feated there,

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680г

And owns her charms: hence the wide univerfe

Thro' all the feasons of revolving worlds

Bears witnefs with its people, gods and men,

To Beauty's blifsful pow'r, and with the voice 685 Of grateful admiration ftill refounds;

That voice to which is Beauty's frame divine

As is the cunning of the mafter's hand

To the sweet accent of the well-tun'd lyre.

Of gen'rous counfels and heroick deeds!
Olet fome portion of thy matchless praise
Dwell in my breaft, and teach me to adorn
This unattempted theme! Nor be my thoughts
Prefumpt'ous counted if amid the calm
Which Hefper sheds along the vernal heav'n,
If I from vulgar Superdition's walk
Impatient steal, and from th' unfeemly rites
Offplendid Adulation, to attend

With hymns thy prefence in the fylvan fhade,
By their malignant footsteps unprofan'd.
Come, O renowned Pow'r ! thy glowing mien
Such, and fo elevated all thy form,
As when the great barbarick lord, again
And yet again diminish'd, hid his face
Among the herd of fatraps and of kings,
And at the lightning of thy lifted fpear

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Crouch'd like a flave. Bring all thy 'martial fpoils,

Thy palms, thy laurels, thy triumphal fongs,
Thy fmiling band of arts, thy godlike firès
Of civil wifdom, thy unconquer'd youth,"
After fome glorious day rejoicing round
Their new-erected trophy. Guide my feet
Thro' fair Lyceum's walk, the olive shades
Of Academus, and the sacred vale
Haunted by steps divine, where once beneath
That ever-living platane's ample boughs
Iliffus, by Socratick sounds detain'd
On his neglected urn attentive lay,

While Boreas ling'ring on the neighb'ring keep
With beauteous Orithyia his love-tale

In filent awe fufpended: there let me

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With blameless hand from thy unenvious fields 725

Transplant fome living bloffoms to adofn

My native clime, while far beyond the meed

Of Fancy's toil afpiring unlock

The fprings of ancient wifdom, while I add

(What cannot be disjoin'd from Beauty's praise) 730
Thy name and native drefs, thy works belov'd
And honour'd, while to my compatriot youth
I point the great example of thy fons,
And tune to Attick themes the British lyre.

END OF BOOK FIRST.

734

THE

1

PLEASURES OF IMAGINATION.

BOOK II.

THE ARGUMEFT.

INTRODUCTION to this more difficult part of the subject. Of trail and its three claffes, matter of fact, experimental or scientifical truth, (contradiftinguished from opinion) and univerfal truth; which daft is either metaphyfical or geometrical, either purely intellectual or pers fectly abftracted. On the power of difcerning truth depends that of acting with the view of an end, a circumftance effential to virtue. Of virtue, confidered in the Divine Mind as a perpetual and universal beneficence. Of human virtue, confidered as a system of particular fer timents and actions, fuitable to the defign of Providence and the con dition of man, to whom it conftitutes the chief good and the firft beauty. Of vice and its origin. Of ridicule; its general nature and final cause. Of the paffions, particularly of those which relate to evil natural or moral, and which are generally accounted painful, though not always unattended with Pleasure.

TH
HUS far of Beauty and the pleafing forms
Which man's untutor❜d fancy from the fcenes
Imperfect of this ever-changing world

Creates and views enamour'd.

Now my fong

Severer themes demand, myfterious truth,

And virtue, fovran good; the fpells, the trains,
The progeny, of Error; the dread fway
Of Paffion, and whatever hidden stores
From her own lofty deeds and from herfelf
The mind acquires. Severer argument,
Not lefs attractive nor deferving lefs

A conftant ear: for what are all the forms
Educ'd by fancy from corporeal things,
Greatness, or pomp, or fymmetry of parts ?

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