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The knight and lady walk'd beneath in view,
Where let us leave them, and our tale pursue.

"Twas now the season when the glorious sun
His heavenly progress through the Twins had run;
And Jove, exalted, his mild influence yields,
To glad the glebe, and paint the flowery fields.
Clear was the day, and Phœbus, rising bright,
Had streak'd the azure firmament with light;
He pierc'd the glittering clouds with golden streams,
And warm'd the womb of earth with genial beams.
It so befel, in that fair morning-tide,
The fairies sported on the garden side,

And in the midst their monarch and his bride.
So featly tripp'd the light-foot ladies round,
The knights so nimbly o'er the greensward bound,
That scarce they bent the flowers, or touch'd the
The dances ended, all the fairy train [ground.
For pinks and daisies search'd the flowery plain;
While, on a bank reclin'd of rising green,
Thus, with a frown, the king bespoke his queen.
'Tis too apparent, argue what you can,
The treachery you women use to man:

A thousand authors have this truth made out,
And sad experience leaves no room for doubt.
Heaven rest thy spirit, noble Solomon,

wickedness:

A wiser monarch never saw the sun;
All wealth, all honours, the supreme degree
Of earthly bliss, was well bestow'd on thee!
For sagely hast thou said: Of all mankind
One only just and righteous hope to find:
But shouldst thou search the spacious world around,
Yet one good woman is not to be found.
Thus says the king, who knew your
The son of Sirach testifies no less.
So may some wildfire on your bodies fall,
Or some devouring plague consume you all,
As well you view the lecher in the tree,
And well this honourable knight you see:
But since he's blind and old (a helpless case),
His squire shall cuckold him before your face.
Now, by my own dread majesty I swear,
And by this awful sceptre which I bear,
No impious wretch shall 'scape unpunish'd long,
That in my presence offers such a wrong.
I will this instant undeceive the knight,
And in the very act restore his sight;
And set the strumpet here in open view,
A warning to these ladies, and to you,
And all the faithless sex, for ever to be true.
And will you so, reply'd the queen, indeed?
Now, by my mother's soul it is decreed,
She shall not want an answer at her need.
For her, and for her daughters, I'll engage,
And all the sex in each succeeding age!
Art shall be theirs, to varnish an offence,
And fortify their crime with confidence.
Nay, were they taken in a strict embrace,
Seen with both eyes, and pinion'd on the place;
All they shall need is to protest and swear,
Breathe a soft sigh, and drop a tender tear ;
Till their wise husbands, gull'd by arts like these,
Grow gentle, tractable, and tame as geese.

What though this slanderous Jew, this Solomon, Call'd women fools, and knew full many a one; The wiser wits of later times declare,

How constant, chaste, and virtuous, women are:
Witness the martyrs, who resign'd their breath,
Serene in torments, unconcern'd in death;
And witness next what Roman authors tell,
How Arria, Portia, and Lucretia fell.

But since the sacred leaves to all are free, And men interpret texts, why should not we? By this no more was meant, than to have shown, That sovereign goodness dwells in him alone Who only is, and is but only Oue.

But grant the worst; shall women then be weigh'd
By every word that Solomon has said?
What though this king (as antient story boasts)
Built a fair temple to the Lord of Hosts;
He ceas'd at last his Maker to adore,
And did as much for idol gods, or more.
Beware what lavish praises you confer
On a rank lecher and idolater;
Whose reign indulgent God, says holy writ,
Did but for David's righteous sake permit;
David, the monarch after heaven's own mind,
Who lov'd our sex, and honour'd all our kind.
Well, I'm a woman, and as such must speak;
Silence would swell me, and my heart would break,
Know then, I scorn your dull authorities,
Your idle wits, and all their learned lies.
By heaven, those authors are our sex's foes,
Whom, in our right, I must and will oppose.

Nay (quoth the king) dear madam, be not wroth:
I yield it up; but since I gave my oath,
That this much-injur'd knight again should see,
It must be done-I am a king, said he,
And one, whose faith has ever sacred been.

And so has mine (she said)—I am a queen: Her answer she shall have, I undertake; And thus an end of all dispute I make. Try when you list; and you shall find, my lord, It is not in our sex to break our word.

We leave them here in this heroic strain,
And to the knight our story turns again;
Who in the garden, with his lovely May,

Sung merrier than the cuckoo or the jay:
This was his song; "Oh kind and constant be,
Constant and kind I'll ever prove to thee."

Thus singing as he went, at last he drew

By easy steps to where the pear-tree grew:
The longing dame look'd up, and spy'd her love
Full fairly perch'd among the boughs above.
She stopp'd, and sighing: Oh good gods! she cry'd,
What paugs, what sudden shoots, distend my side!
O! for that tempting fruit, so fresh, so green;
Help, for the love of heaven's immortal Queen!
Help, dearest lord, and save at once the life
Of thy poor infant, and thy longing wife!

Sore sigh'd the knight to hear his lady's cry,
But could not climb, and had no servant nigh:
Old as he was, and void of eyesight too,
What could, alas! a helpless husband do?
And must I languish then, she said, and die,

Yet view the lovely fruit before my eye?
At least, kind sir, for charity's sweet sake,
Vouchsafe the trunk between your arms to take;
Then from your back I might ascend the tree;
Do you but stoop, and leave the rest to me.

With all my soul, he thus reply'd again,
I'd spend my dearest blood to ease thy pain.
With that, his back against the trunk he bent,
She seiz'd a twig, and up the tree she went.

Now prove your patience, gentle ladies all!
Nor let on me your heavy anger fall:
'Tis truth I tell, though not in phrase refin'd;
Though blunt my tale, yet honest is my mind.
What feats the lady in the tree might do,
I pass, as gambols never known to you;
But sure it was a merrier fit, she swore,
Than in her life she ever felt before.

In that nice moment, lo! the wondering knight
Look'd out, and stood restor❜d to sudden sight.
Straight on the tree his eager eyes he bent,
As one whose thoughts were on his spouse intent;
But when he saw his bosom wife so dress'd,
His rage was such as cannot be express'd;
Not frantic mothers when their infants die,
With louder clamours rend the vaulted sky:
He cry'd, he roar'd, he storm'd, he tore his hair;
Death! hell! and furies! what dost thou do there?
What ails my lord? the trembling dame reply'd;
I thought your patience had been better try'd:
Is this your love, ungrateful and unkind,
This my reward for having cur'd the blind?
Why was I taught to make my husband see,
By struggling with a man upon a tree?
Did I for this the power of magic prove?
Unhappy wife, whose crime was too much love!
If this be struggling, by this holy light,
'Tis struggling with a vengeance (quoth the knight):
So heaven preserve the sight it has restor❜d;
As with these eyes I plainly saw thee whor'd;
Whor'd by my slave-perfidious wretch! may hell
As surely seize thee, as I saw too well!

Guard me, good angels! cry'd the gentle May, Pray heaven this magic work the proper way! Alas, my love! 'tis certain, could you see, You ne'er had us'd these killing words to me: So help me, fates, as 'tis no perfect sight, But some faint glimmering of a doubtful light. What I have said (quoth he) I must maintain, For by th' immortal powers it seem'd too plain

By all those powers, some frenzy seiz'd your mind (Reply'd the dame): are these the thanks I find? Wretch that I am, that e'er I was so kind! She said; a rising sigh express'd her woe, The ready tears apace began to flow, And, as they fell, she wip'd from either eye The drops (for women, when they list, can cry). The knight was touch'd, and in his looks appear'd Signs of remorse, while thus his spouse he cheer'd: Madam, 'tis past, and my short anger o'er; Come down, and vex your tender heart no more: Excuse me, dear, if aught amiss was said, For, on my soul, amends shall soon be made:

Let my repentance your forgiveness draw,
By heaven, I swore but what I thought I saw.
Ah, my lov'd lord! 'twas much unkind (she cry'd)
On bare suspicion thus to treat your bride.
But, till your sight's establish'd, for a while,
Imperfect objects may your sense beguile.
Thus when from sleep we first our eyes display,
The balls are wounded with the piercing ray,
And dusky vapours rise, and intercept the day.
So, just recovering from the shades of night,
Your swimming eyes are drunk with sudden light,
Strange phantoms dance around, and skim before
your sight:

Then, sir, be cautious, nor too rashly deem; [seem,
Heaven knows how seldom things are what they

Consult your reason, and you soon shall find
'Twas you were jealous, not your wife unkind:
Jove ne'er spoke oracle more true than this,
None judge so wrong as those who think amiss.
With that she leap'd into her lord's embrace,
With well-dissembled virtue in her face.
He hugg'd her close, and kiss'd her o'er and o'er,
Disturb'd with doubts and jealousies no more:
Both, pleas'd and bless'd,renew'd their mutual vows,
A fruitful wife, and a believing spouse.

Thus ends our tale; whose moral next to make,
Let all wise husbands hence example take;
And pray, to crown the pleasure of their lives,
To be so well deluded by their wives.

AN ESSAY ON MAN,

IN FOUR EPISTLES

TO H. ST. JOHN LORD BOLINGBROKE,

EPISTLE I.

Of the Nature and State of Man with respect to the
Universe.

Awake, my St. John! leave all meaner things
To low ambition, and the pride of kings.
Let us (since life can little more supply
Than just to look about us, and to die),
Expatiate free o'er all this scene of Man;
A mighty maze! but not without a plan:
A wild, where weeds and flowers promiscuous shoot;
Or garden, tempting with forbidden fruit.
Together let us beat this ample field,
Try what the open, what the covert yield;
The latent tracts, the giddy heights, explore
Of all who blindly creep, or sightless soar;
Eye nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies,
And catch the manners living as they rise:
Laugh where we must, be candid where we can;
But vindicate the ways of God to man.

Say first, of God above, or man below,
What can we reason, but from what we know?
Of man, what see we but his station here,
From which to reason, or to which refer? [known,
Through worlds unnumbered though the God be
"Tis ours to trace him only in our own.
He, who through vast immensity can pierce,
See worlds on worlds compose one universe,

Observe how system into system runs,
What other planets circle other suns,
What vary'd being peoples every star,
May tell why Heaven has made us as we are.
But of this frame the bearings and the ties,
The strong connections, nice dependencies,
Gradations just, has thy pervading soul
Look'd through? or can a part contain the whole ?
Is the great chain, that draws all to agree,
And drawn supports, upheld by God, or thee?
Presumptuous man! the reason wouldst thou find,
Why form'd so weak, so little, and so blind?
First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess,
Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less?
Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks are made
Taller or weaker than the weeds they shade?
Or ask of yonder argent fields above,
Why Jove's satellites are less than Jove?

Of systems possible, if 'tis confest
That Wisdom infinite must form the best,
Where all must fall, or not coherent be,
And all that rises, rise, in due degree?
Then, in the scale of reasoning life, 'tis plain,
There must be, somewhere, such a rank as man :
And all the question (wrangle e'er so long),
Is only this, if God has plac'd him wrong?
Respecting man, whatever wrong we call
May, must be right, as relative to all.

In human works, though labour'd on with pain,
A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain.
In God's, one single can its end produce;
Yet serves to second too some other use.
So man,
who here seems principal alone,
Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown,
Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal;
"Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.

[strains

When the proud steed shall know why man reHis fiery course, or drives him o'er the plains; When the dull ox, why now he breaks the clod, Is now a victim, and now Egypt's god: Then shall man's pride and dulness comprehend His actions', passions', being's, use and end; Why doing, suffering, check'd, impell'd; and why This hour a slave, the next a deity.

Then say not man's imperfect, heaven in fault; Say rather, man's as perfect as he ought: His knowledge measur'd to his state and place; His time a moment, and a point his space. If to be perfect in a certain sphere, What matter, soon or late, or here or there? The blest to-day is as completely so, As who began a thousand years ago.

Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate, All but the page prescrib'd, their present state; From brutes what men, from men what spirits know; Or who could suffer being here below? The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play? Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flowery food, And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood. Oh, blindness to the future! kindly given, That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heaven:

Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world.
Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar;
Wait the great teacher death; and God adore.
What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest:
The soul, uneasy, and confin'd from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor❜d mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul proud science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk, or milky way;
Yet simple nature to his hope has given,
Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heaven;
Some safer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier island in the watery waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
To be, contents his natural desire,

He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.

Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense,
Weigh thy opinion against providence;
Call imperfection what thou fancy'st such;
Say, here he gives too little, there too much :
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,
Yet say, if man's unhappy, God's unjust;
If man alone ingross not heaven's high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there:
Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,
Re-judge his justice, be the god of God.
In pride, in reasoning pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.
Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes,
Men would be angels, angels would be gods.
Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell,
Aspiring to be angels, men rebel:
And who but wishes to invert the laws
Of order, sins against th' eternal cause.

Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine,
Earth for whose use ? Pride answers," "Tis for mine:
For me kind nature wakes her genial power;
Suckles each herb, and spreads out every flower;
Annual for
me, the
grape, the rose, renew
The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew;
For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings;
For me, health gushes from a thousand springs;
Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise;
My footstool earth, my canopy the skies."

But errs not nature from this gracious end, From burning suns when livid deaths descend, When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests

sweep

Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep?
"No ('tis reply'd) the first Almighty cause
Acts not by partial, but by general laws;
Th' exceptions few; some change since all began:

And what created perfect?"-Why then man?
If the great end be human happiness,
Then nature deviates; and can man do less?
As much that end a constant course requires
Of showers and sunshine, as of man's desires;
As much eternal springs and cloudless skies,
As men for ever temperate, calm, and wise.

If plagues or earthquakes break not heaven's design,
Why then a Borgia, or a Catiline?

Who knows, but he whose hand the lightning forms,
Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms;
Pours fierce ambition in a Cæsar's mind,

Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind?
From pride, from pride, our very reasoning springs.
Account for moral as for natural things:
Why charge we heaven in those, in these acquit?
In both, to reason right, is to submit.

Better for us, perhaps, it might appear,
Were there all harmony, all virtue here;
That never air or ocean felt the wind,
That never passion discompos'd the mind.
But all subsists by elemental strife;
And passions are the elements of life.
The general order, since the whole began,
Is kept in nature, and is kept in man.

[soar,

What would this man? Now upward will he
And, little less than angel, would be more;
Now looking downwards, just as griev'd appears
To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears.
Made for his use all creatures if he call,
Say what their use, had he the powers of all?
Nature to these, without profusion, kind,
The proper organs, proper powers assign'd;
Each seeming want compensated of course,
Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force;
All in exact proportion to the state;
Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.
Each beast, each insect, happy in its own:
Is heaven unkind to man, and man alone?
Shall he alone, whom rational we call,

Be pleas'd with nothing, if not blest with all?
The bliss of man (could pride that blessing find),
Is not to act or think beyond mankind;
No powers of body or of soul to share,

But what his nature and his state can bear.
Why has not man a microscopic eye?
For this plain reason, man is not a fly.
Say, what the use, were finer optics given,
Tinspect a mite, not comprehend the Heaven?
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,
To smart and agonise at every pore?
Or, quick effluvia darting through the brain,
Die of a rose in aromatic pain?

If nature thunder'd in his opening ears,
And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres,
How would he wish that heaven had left him still
The whispering zephyr, and the purling rill!
Who finds not Providence all good and wise,
Alike in what it gives, and what denies?

Far as creation's ample range extends,
The scale of sensual, mental powers ascends:
Mark how it mounts to man's imperial race,

From the green myriads in the peopled grass:
What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme,
The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam;
Of smell, the headlong lioness between,
And hound sagacious on the tainted green;
Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood,
To that which warbles through the vernal wood!
The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line:
In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true
From poisonous herbs extracts the healing dew!
How instinct varies in the grovelling swine,
Compar'd, half-reasoning elephant, with thine!
"Twixt that and reason, what a nice barrier!
For ever separate, yet for ever near!
Remembrance and reflection how allied;
What thin partitions sense from thought divide!
And middle natures, how they long to join,
Yet never pass th' insuperable line!
Without this just gradation, could they be
Subjected, these to those, or all to thee?
The powers of all subdued by thee alone,
Is not thy reason all these powers in one?

See, through this air, this ocean, and this earth,
All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high, progressive life may go!
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
Vast chain of being, which from God began!
Natures ethereal, human, angel, man,
Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see,
No glass can reach; from infinite to thee,
From thee to nothing.-On superior powers
Were we to press, inferior might on ours;
Or in the full creation leave a void

Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd:
From nature's chain whatever link you strike,
Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.

And, if each system in gradation roll
Alike essential to th' amazing whole,
The least confusion but in one, not all
That system only, but the whole must fall.
Let earth unbalanc'd from her orbit fly,
Planets and suns run lawless through the sky;
Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurl'd,
Being on being wreck'd, and world on world;
Heaven's whole foundations to their centre nod,
And nature tremble to the throne of God.
All this dread order break-for whom? for thee?
Vile worm!-oh, madness! pride! impiety!

What if the foot, ordain'd the dust to tread,
Or hand, to toil, aspir'd to be the head?
What if the head, the eye, or ear, repin'd
To serve mere engines to the ruling mind?
Just as absurd for any part to claim
To be another, in this general frame:
Just as absurd, to mourn the tasks or pains
The great directing mind of all ordains.

All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body nature is, and God the soul;
That, chang'd through all, and yet in all the same;
Great in the earth, as in the ethereal frame;
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,

I i

Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees;
Lives through all life, extends through all extent;
Spreads undivided, operates unspent ;
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,
As the rapt seraph that adores and burns:
To him no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.
Cease then, nor order imperfection name:
Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.
Know thy own point: this kind, this due degree
Of blindness, weakness, Heaven bestows on thee.
Submit. In this, or any other sphere,
Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear:
Safe in the hand of one disposing power,
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.
All nature is but art, unknown to thee;

All chance, direction, which thou canst not see:
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good;

And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.

EPISTLE II.

Of the Nature and State of Man, with respect to
Himself, as an Individual.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is man.
Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reasoning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little or too much:
Chaos of thought and passion, all confus'd;
Still by himself abus'd or disabus'd;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world! [guides,
Go, wondrous creature! mount where science
Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides;
Instruct the planets in what orbs to run,
Correct old time, and regulate the sun;
Go, soar with Plato to th' empyreal sphere,
To the first good, first perfect, and first fair;
Or tread the mazy round his followers trod,
And quitting sense call imitating God;
As eastern priests in giddy circles run,
And turn their heads to imitate the sun.
Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule-
Then drop into thyself and be a fool!

Superior beings, when of late they saw A mortal man unfold all nature's law, Admir'd such wisdom in an earthly shape, And shew'd a Newton as we shew an ape.

Could he, whose rules the rapid comet bind,
Describe or fix one movement of his mind?
Who saw its fires here rise, and there descend,
Explain his own beginning or his end?
Alas, what wonder! Man's superior part
Uncheck'd may rise, and climb from art to art;
But when his own great work is but begun,
What reason weaves, by passion is undone.
Trace science then, with modesty thy guide;
First strip off all her equipage of pride;
Deduct what is but vanity or dress,

Or learning's luxury, or idleness;

Or tricks to show the stretch of human brain,
Mere curious pleasure, or ingenious pain;
Expunge the whole, or lop th' excrescent parts
Of all our vices have created arts;
Then see how little the remaining sum,
Which serv'd the past, and must the times to come!
Two principles in human nature reign;
Self-love to urge, and reason to restrain;
Nor this a good, nor that a bad we call,
Each works its end, to move or govern all:
And to their proper operation still,
Ascribe all good, to their improper ill.

Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul;
Reason's comparing balance rules the whole.
Man, but for that, no action could attend,
And, but for this, were active to no end:
Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot,
To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot;
Or, meteor-like, flame lawless through the void,
Destroying others, by himself destroy'd.

Most strength the moving principle requires;
Active its task, it prompts, impels, inspires.
Sedate and quiet the comparing lies,

Form'd but to check, deliberate and advise.
Self-love, still stronger, as its objects nigh;
Reason's at distance, and in prospect lie:
That sees immediate good by present sense;
Reason, the future and the consequence.
Thicker than arguments, temptations throng,
At best more watchful this, but that more strong.
The action of the stronger to suspend,
Reason still use, to reason still attend.
Attention, habit, and experience gains;
Each strengthens reason, and self-love restrains.
Let subtle schoolmen teach these friends to fight,
More studious to divide than to unite;
And grace and virtue, sense and reason split,
With all the rash dexterity of wit.
Wits, just like fools, at war about a name,
Have full as oft no meaning, or the same.
Self-love and reason to one end aspire,
Pain their aversion, pleasure their desire;
But greedy that, its object would devour,
This taste the honey, and not wound the flower :
Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood,
Our greatest evil, or our greatest good.

Modes of self-love the passions we may call;
'Tis real good, or seeming, moves them all:
But since not every good we can divide,
And reason bids us for our own provide;

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