TO MR. HOBBES.

That all the wardrobe of rich Eloquence Vast bodies of philosophy

Could have afforded half enough,
I oft have seen and read;

Of bright, of new, and lasting stuff,
But all are bodies dead,

To cloathe the mighty limbs of thy gigantic Sense, Or bodies by art fashioned ;

Thy solid reason, like the shield from Heaven I never yet the living soul could see,

To the Trojan hero given, But in thy books and thee!

Too strong to take a mark from any mortal dart,

Yet shines with gold and gems in every part, 'Tis only God can know Whether the fair idea thou dost show

And wonders on it grav'd by the learn'd hand of Agree entirely with his own or no.

A shield that gives delight

[Art! This I dare boldly tell,

Ev'n to the enemies' sight, 'Tis so like truth, 'twill serve our turn as well.

Then, when they're sure to lose the combat by't. Just, as in Nature, thy proportions be,

Nor can the snow, which now cold Age does shed As full of concord their variety,

Upon thy reverend head, As firm the parts upon their centre rest,

Quench or allay the noble fires within ; And all so solid are, that they, at least

But all which thou hast been, As much as Nature, emptiness detest.

And all that youth can be thou 'rt yet!

So fully still dost thou
Long did the mighty Stagyrite retain
The universal intellectual reign,

Enjoy the manhood and the bloom of Wit,

And all the natural heat, but not the fever too! Saw his own country's short-liv'd leopard slain;

So contraries on Etna's top conspire;
The stronger Roman eagle did out-fly,
Oftener renew'd his age, and saw that die.

Here hoary frosts, and by them breaks out fire! Mecca itself, in spite of Mahomet, possest,

A secure peace the faithful neighbours keep;

Th' embolden'd snow next to the flame does sleep! And, chac'd by a wild deluge from the East,

And if we weigh, like thee, His monarchy new planted in the West.

Nature and causes, we shall see But, as in time each great imperial race

That thus it needs must be Degenerates, and gives some new one place:

To things immortal, Time can do so wrong, So did this noble empire waste,

And that which never is to die, for ever must be Sunk by degrees from glories past, And in the school-men's hands it perish'd quite at

young. Then nought but words it grew, [last:

And those all barbarous too:
It perish'd, and it vanish'd there; [ty air!

DESTINY.
The life and soul, breath'd out, became but emp-

Hoc quoque fatale est sic ipsum expendero The fields, which answer'd well the ancients'

Fatum.

Manil. plough,

STRANGE and unnatural! let's stay and see Spent and out-worn, return no barvest now; In barren age wild and unglorious lie,

This pageant of a prodigy. And boast of past fertility,

Lo, of themselves th’enliven'd Chess-men move! The poor relief of present poverty.

Lo, the unbred, ill-organ'd pieces prove Food and fruit we now must want,

As full of art and industry, Unless new lands we plant.

Of courage and of policy,

(we! We break-up tombs with sacrilegious hands;

As we ourselves, who think there's nothing wise but Old rubbish we remove ;

Here a proud Pawn I admire, To walk in ruins, like vain ghosts, we love,

That, still advancing higher, And with fond divining wands

At top of all became We search among the dead

Another thing and name; For treasures buried;

Here I'm amaz'd at th' actions of a Knignt, Whilst still the liberal Earth does hold

That does bold wonders in the fight; So many virgin-mines of undiscover'd gold.

Here I the losing party blame,

For those false moves that break the game, The Baltic, Euxine, and the Caspian,

That to their grave, the bag, the conquer'd And slender-limb'd Mediterranean,

pieces bring, Seern narrow creeks to thee, and only fit And, above all, th' ill-conduct of the Mated For the poor wretched fisher-boats of wit:

king. Thy nebler vessel the vast ocean tries, And nothing sees but seas and skies,

“Whate'er these seem, whate'er philosophy Till unknown regions it descries,

And sense or reasou tell,” said I, Thou great Columbus of the golden lands of new

“ These things bave life, election, liberty; philosophies !

'Tis their own wisdom moulds their state, Thy task was harder much than his;

Their faults and virtues make their fate. For thy learn'd America is

They do, they do," said I ; but straight, Not only found-out first by thee,

Lo! from my enlighten'd eyes the mists and And rudely left to future industry ;

shadows fell, But thy eloquence and thy wit,

That hinder spirits from being visible ;
Has planted, peopled, built, and civiliz'd it. And, lo! I saw two angels play'd the Mate,

With man, alas! no otherwise it proves;
I little thought before,

An unseen hand makes all their moves; (Nor, being my own self so poor,

And some are great, and some are small, Could comprebend so vast a store)

Some climb to good, some from good-fòrtune fall;

Some wise-men, and some fools, we call; But as her beams reflected pass Figures, alas ! of speech, for Destiny plays us Through our own Nature or Ill-custom's glass: all.

As 'tis no wonder, so, Me from the womb the midwife Muse did take:

If with dejected eye She cut my navel, wash'd me, and mine head

In standing pools we seek the sky, With her own hands she fashioned ;

That stars, so high above, should seem to us below. She did a covenant with me make, (spake : Can we stand by and see And circumcis'd my tender soul, and thus she Our mother robb’d, and bound, and ravish'd be, “ Thou of my church shalt be;

Yet not to her assistance stir, Hate and renounce,” said she,

[me. Pleas'd with the strength and beauty of the ra“Wealth, honour, pleasures, all the world, for Or shall we fear to kill bim, if before (visher ? Thou neither great at court, nor in the war,

The cancell'd name of friend he bore? Nor at th' exchange, shalt be, nor at the wrang- Ingrateful Brutus do they call ? ling bar:

Ingrateful Cæsar, who could Rome enthrall! Content thyself with the small barren praise, An act more barbarous and unnatural That neglected verse does raise.”

(In th’ exact balance of true virtue try'd) She spake, and all my years to come

Than his successor Nero's parricide!
Took their unlucky doom.

There 's none but Brutus could deserve Their several ways of life let others chuse,

That all men else should wish to serve, Their several pleasures let them use,

And Cæsar's usurp'd place to him should proficr; But I was born for love, and for a Muse.

None can deserve 't but he who would refuse the With Fate what boots it to contend?

offer. Such I began, such am, and so must end.

Il Fate assum'd a body thee t'affright, The star that did my being frame,

And wrap'd itself i'th'terrours of the night : Was but a lambent flame,

“I'll meet thee at Philippi," said the sprite; And some small light it did dispense,

“I'll meet thee there,” saidst thou, But neither heat nor influence.

With such a voice, and such a brow,
No matter, Cowley! let proud Fortune see, As put the trembling ghost to sudden flight;
That thou canst her despise no less than she does It vanish’d, as a taper's light

Let all her gifts the portion be [thee. Goes out when spirits appear in sight.
Of Folly, Lust, and Flattery,

One would have thought 't had heard the morn. Fraud, Extortion, Calumny,

ing crow, Murder, Infidelity,

Or seen her well-appointed star
Rebellion and Hypocrisy ;

Come marching up the eastern hill afar.
Do thou not grieve, nor blush to be,

Nor durst it in Philippi's field appear, As all th' inspired tuneful men,

But, unseen, attack'd thee there: And all thy great forefathers, were, from Homer Had it presum'd in any shape thee to oppose, down to Ben.

Thou would'st bave forc'd it back upon thy foes :

Or slain 't, like Cæsar, though it be
BRUTUS.

A conqueror and a monarch mightier far than he. Excellent Brutus ! of all human race

What joy can human things to us afford,

When we see perish thus, by odd events, The best, till Nature was improv'd by Grace;

III men, and wretched accidents, [sword? Till men above themselves Faith raised more

The best cause and best man that ever drew a Than Reason above beasts before.

When we see Virtue was thy life's centre, and from thence

The false Octavius and wild Antony,
Did silently and constantly dispense

God-like Brutus! conquer thee?
The gentle, vigorous influence
To all the wide and fair circumference;

What can we say, but thine own tragic wordAnd all the parts upon it lean'd so easily,

That Virtue, which had worship'd been by thee

As the most solid good, and greatest deity, Obey'd the mighty force so willingly, ''hat none could discord or disorder see

By this fatal proof became
In all their contrariety:

An idol only, and a name.
Each had his motion natural and free,

Hold, noble Brutus! and restrain And the whole no more mov'd, than the whole

The bold voice of thy generous disdain : world, could be.

These mighty gulphs are yet

Too deep for all thy judgment and thy wit. From thy strict rule some think that thou didst The time's set forth already which shall quell swerve

Stiff Reason, when it offers to rebel; (Mistaken, honest men !) in Cæsar's blood;

Which these great secrets shall unseal, What mercy could the tyrant's life deserve

And new pbilosophies reveal: From him, who kill'd himself rather than serve ?

A few years more, so soon hadst thou not dy'd, Th'heroic exaltations of good

Would have confounded human Virtue's pride, Are so far from understood,

And show'd thee a God crucify’d. We count i hem vice: alas ! our sight's so ill, That things which swiftest move seem to stand TO DR. SCARBOROUGH. We look not upon Virtue in her height, still : On her supreme idea, brave and bright, How long, alas! has our mad nation been, In the original light;

Of epidemic war the tragic scene,

When Slaughter all the while

Who, whilst thy wondrous skill in plants they see, Seem'd, like its sea, embracing round the isle, Fear lest the tree of life should be found out by With tempests, and red waves, noise, and af

thee. fright!

And thy well-travell'd knowledge, too, does give Albion no more, nor to be nam'd from white ! No less account of th' empire sensitive; What province or what city did it spare ?

Chiefly of man, whose body is
It, like a plague, infected all the air.

That active soul's metropolis.
Sure the unpeopled land

As the great artist in his sphere of glass
Would now untili'd, desert, and naked stand, Saw the whole scene of heavenly motions pass;
Had God's all-mighty hand

So thou know'st all so well that is done within, At the same time let loose Diseases' rage

As if some living crystal man thou ’dst seen.
Their civil wars in man to wage.

Nor does this science make thy crown alone,
But thou by Heaven wert sent

But whole Apollo is thine own;
This desolation to prevent,

His gentler arts, belov'd in vain by me,
A med'cine, and a counter-poison, to the age. Are wedded and enjoy'd by thee.
Scarce could the sword dispatch more to the grave Thou 'rt by this noble mixture free
Than thou didst save;

From the physician's frequent malady, By wondrous art, and by successful care,

Fantastic incivility : The ruins of a civil war thou dost alone repair !

There are who all their patients' chagrin bave, The inundations of all liquid pain,

As if they took each morn worse potions than they

gave.
And deluge Dropsy, thou dost drain.

And this great race of learning thou hast run,
Fevers so hot, that one would say,

Ere that of life be half yet done;
Thou might'st as soon hell-fires allay
(The daman'd scarce more incurable than they)

Thou see'st thyself still fresh and strong,

And like t enjoy thy conquests long.
Thou dost so temper, that we find,

The first fam'd aphorism thy great master spoke,
Like gold, the body but refind,

Did he lire now he would revoke,
No unhealthful dross behind.

And better things of man report;
The subtle Ague, that for sureness' sake

For thou dost make life long, and art but short.
Takes its own times th'assault to make,
And at each battery the whole fort does shake, Ah, learned friend ! it grieves me, when I think
When thy strong guards, and works, it spies, That thou with all thy art must die,
Trembles fur itself, and tlies.

As certainly as I;
The cruel Stone, that restless pain,

And all thy noble reparations sink (tality.
That's sometimes roll'd away in vain, Into the sure-wrought mine of treacherous mor-,
But still, like Sysiphns's stone, returns again, Like Archimedes, honourably in vain,
Thou break’st and meltest by learn'd juices' force, Thou hold'st out towns that must at last be ta’en,
(A greater work, though short the way appear, And thou thyself, their great defender, slain.
Than Hannibal's by vinegar !)

Let's e’en compound, and for the present live, Oppressed Nature's necessary course

'Tis all the ready-money Fate can give; It stops in vain ; like Moses, thou

Unbend sometimes thy restless care, Strik'st but the rock, and straight the waters And let thy friends so happy be freely flow.

Tenjoy at once their health and thee :

Some hours, at least, to thine own pleasures spare: The Indian son of Lust (that foul disease Since the whole stock may soon exhausted be, Which did on this bis new-found world but la'ely Bestow 't not all in charity. Yet since a tyranny has planted here, (seize, Let Nature and let Art do what they please, As wide and cruel as the Spaniard there) When all 's done, life is an incurable disease.

Is so quite rooted out by thee,

That thy patients seem to be
Pestor'd, not to health only, but virginity.

LIFE AND FAME.
The Plague itself, that proud imperial ill, On, Life! thou Nothing's younger brother!
Which destroys towns, and does whole armies So like, that one might take one for the
kill,

other! If thou but succour the besieged heart,

What's somebody, or nobody?
Calls all its poisons forth and does depart, In all the colwels of the schoolmen's trale,
As if it feard no less thy art,

We no such pice distinction woven see,
Than Aaron's incense, or than Phineas' dart.

As 'tis “ to be," or not to be." What need there here repeated be'by me

Dream of a shadow! a reflection made
The rast and barbarous lexicon

From the false glories of the gay reflected bow,
Of man's infirmity?

Is a more solid thiog than thou.
At thy strong charms it must be gone
Though a disease, as well as devil, were called Vain weak-built isthmus

, which dost proudly rise

Up betwixt two eternities !
Legion.

Yet canst nor wave nor wind sustain,
From creeping moss to soaring cedar thou

But, broken and o'erwhelm'd, the endless oceans Dost all the powers and several portions know,

meet again,
Which father-Sun, and mother-Earth below, And wi h what rare inventions do we strive
Oo their green infants here bestow :

Ourselves then to survive?
Canst all those magic virtues from them draw, Wise, subtle arts, and such as well befit
That keep Disease and Death in awe;

That Nothing, man's no wit!

Some with vast costly tombs would purchase it, Through several orbs which one fair planet bear, And by the prvofs of death pretend to live. Where I behold distinctly, as I pass,

“ Here lies the great"-false Marble ! where? The hints of Galileo's glass, Nothing but small and sordid dust lies there.

I touch at last the spangled sphere : Some build enormous mountain-palaces,

Here all th' extended sky The fools and architects to please;

Is but one galaxy, A lasting life in well-hewn stone they rear:

"Tis all so bright and gay, So he, who on th' Egyptain shore

And the joint eyes of night make up a perfect Was slain so many hundred years before,

day. Lives still, (oh ! life most happy and most dear! Where am I now? Angels, and God is here; Oh! life that epicures envy to hear !)

An unexhausted ocean of delight Lives in the dropping ruins of his amphitheatre. Swallows my senses quite, His father-in-law an higher place does claim

And drowns all what, or how, or where! In the seraphic entity of Fame;

Not Paul, who first did thither pass, He, since that toy his death, [breath. And this great world's Columbus was, Does fill all mouths, and breathes in all men's The tyrannous pleasure could express, 'Tis true, the two immortal syllables remain; Oh, 'tis too much for man! but let it ne'er be But, oh, ye learned men! explain

less! What essence, what existence, this,

The mighty Elijah mounted so on high, What substance, whatsubsistence, what hypostasis, That second man who leap'd the ditch where all In six poor letters is!

The rest of mankind fall, In those alone dues the great Cæsar live,

And went not downwards to the sky ! 'Tis all the conquer'd world could give.

With much of pomp and show We poets, madder yet than all,

(As conquering kings in triumph go) With a refin'd fantastic vanity,

Did he to Heaven approach, Think we not only have, but give, eternity.

And wondrous was his way, and wondrous was hit Pain would I see that prodigal,

coach. Who his to morrow would bestow, Por all old Homer's life, e'er since he dy'd tin 'Twas gaudy all ; and rich in every part now |

Of essences, of gems; and spirit of gold

Was its substantial mould,

Drawn forth by chymic angels' art.
THE EXTASY.

Here with moon-beams 'twas silver'd bright,

There double-gilt with the Sun's light; I LEAVE mortality, and things below;

And mystic shapes cut round in it, I have no time in compliments to waste;

Figures that did transcend a vulgar angel's wito Farewell to ye all in haste,

The horses were of temper'd lightning made, For I am call'd to go.

Of all that in Heaven's beauteous pastures feed A whirlwind bears up my dull feet,

The noblest, sprightful'st breed; Th' officious clouds beneath them meet;

And flaming manes their necks array'd: And lo ! I mount, and lo!

They all were shod with diamond, How small the biggest parts of Earth's proud title Not such as here are found, show !

But such light solid ones as shine Where shall I find the noble British land ?

On the transparent rocks o' th' Heaven crystal.

line, Loll at last a northern speck espy, Which in the sea does lie,

Thus mounted the great prophet to the skies; And seems a grain o'th' sand!

Astonish'd men, who oft had seen stars fall,
For this will any sin, or bleed ?

Or that which so they call,
Of civil wars is this the meed?

Wonder'd from hence to see one rise
And is it this, alas! which we

The soft clouds melted him away; (Oh irony of words !) do call Great Britanie? The snow and frosts which in it lay

Awhile the sacred footsteps bore; I pass by th' arched magazines which hold

The wheels and horses' hoofs hizz'd as they past Th 'eternal stores of frost, and rain, and snow;

them o'er!
Dry and secure I go,
Nor shake with fear or cold:

He past by th’ Moon and planets, and did fright
Without allright or wonder

All the worlds there which at this meteor gaz'do
I meet clouds charg'd with thunder,

And their astrologers amaz'd
And lightnings, in my way,

With th' unexampled sight.
Like harınless lambent fires, about my temples

But where he stopp'd will ne'er be know, play.

Till phenix Nature, aged grown,

To a better thing do aspire, Now into a gentle sea of rolling flame

And mount herself, like him, to eternity in fire l'a plung'd, and still mount higher there,

As flames mount up through air:

So perfect, yet so tame,
So great, so pure, so bright a fire,

TO THE NEW YEAR.
Was that unfortunate desire,
My faithful breast did cover,

Great Janus! (who dost,sure,my mysteries vies hen, when I was of late a wretchod mortal lover. I With all thine eyes, yet think'st them all too fcu

[can find

If thy fore-face do see

LIFE.
No better things prepar'd for me,
Than did thy face behind;

Nascentes Morimur.
If still her breast must shut against me be, We're ill by these grammarians us’d;
(For 'tis not Peace that temple's gate does bind) We are abus'd by words, grossly abus'd:
Oh, let my life, if thou so many deaths a coming From the maternal tomb

With thine old year its voyage take, (find, To the grave's fruitful womb,
Borne down that stream of Time which no return We call here Life ; but Life 's a name
can make!

That nothing here can truly claim: Alas! what need I thus to pray?

This wretched inn, where we scarce stay to bait, Th' old avaricious Year,

We call our dwelling-place; Whether I would or no, will bear

We call one step a race : At least a part of me away:

But angels, in their full enlighten'd state,
His well-hors'd troops, the Months, and Days,and Angels, who live, and know what 'tis to be;

Though never any where they stay, [Hours, Who all the nonsense of our language see;
Make in their passage all their prey ;

Who speak things, and our words, their ill-
The Months, Days, Hours, that march i' th' rear drawn pictures, scorn ;
Nought of value left behind.

When we, by a foolish figure, say, All the good wine of life our drunken youth

“ Behold an old man dead !”' then they devours;

Speak properly, and cry, “ Behold a man-child Sourness and lees, which to the bottom sink,

born !” Remain for latter years to drink;

My eyes are open'd, and I see Until, some one offended with the taste,

Through the transparent fallacy : The vessel breaks, and out the wretched relics run

Because we seem wiscly to talk at last.

Like men of business; and for business walk If then, young Year ! thou needst must come,

From place to place, (For in Time's fruitful womb

And mighty voyages we take,
The birth beyond its time can never tarry,

And mighty journeys seem to make,
Nor ever can miscarry)

O’er sea and land, the little point that has na Chuse thy attendants well; for 'tis not thee

space : We fear, but 'tis thy company :

Because we fight, and battles gain; Let neither Loss of Friends, or Fame, or Liberty, Some captives call, and say,“the rest are slain:" Nor pining Sickness, nor tormenting Pain, Because we heap up yellow earth, and so Nor Sadness, nor uncleanly Poverty,

Rich, valiant, wise, and virtuous, seem to grow:
Be seen among thy train :

Because we draw a long nobility
Nor let thy livery be

From hieroglyphic proofs of heraldry,
Either black Sin, or gaudy Vanity:

And impudently talk of a posterity, Nay, if thou lov'st me, gentle Year!

And, like Egyptian chroniclers, Let not so much as Love be there;

Who write of twenty thousand years,
Vain fruitless love, I mean; for, gentle Year!

With mararedies make th' account,
Although I fear,

That siugle time might to a sum amount :
There 's of this caution little need,

We grow at last by custom to believe,
Yet, gentle Year! take heed

That really we live:
How thou dost make

Whilst all these shadows, that for things we
Such a mistake:

take, Such love I mean, alone,

Are but the empty dreams which in Death's sleep As by thy cruel predecessors has been shown;

we make, Por, though l’ave too much cause to doubtit, But these fantastic errours of our dream I fain would try for once if life can live with- Lead is to solid wrong; out it.

We pray God our friends' torments to prolong, Into the future times why do we pry,

And wish uncharitably for them And seek to antedate our misery?

To be as long a dying as Methusalem. Like jealous men, why are we longing still The ripend soul longs from his prison to come; To see the thing which only seeing makes an ill ? But we would seal, and sow up, if we could, the 'Tis well the face is veild; for 'twere a sight

womb: That would ev'n happiest men affright; We seek to close and plaister up by art And something still they'd spy that would destroy the cracks and breaches of the extended shell, The past and present joy.

And in that narrow cell
In whatsoever character

Would rudely force to dwell
The book of Fate is writ,

The noble vigorous bird already wing'd to parte
'Tis well we understand not it;
We should grow mad with little learning there :
Upon the brink of every ill we did forcsec, THE XXXIVth CHAPTER OF THE
Undecently and fuolishly

PROPHET ISAIAH.
We should stand shivering,and but slowly venture
The fatal flood to enter.

Awake, and with attention hear,
Since, willing or unwilling, we must do it; Thou drowsy World! for it concerns thee near ;
They feel least cold and pain who plunge at once Awake, I say, and listen well,
into it.

To what from God, 1, his loud prophet, tell.