Like the philosopher's stone,

With rules to search it, yet obtain❜d by none.

We have too long been led astray; Too long have our misguided souls been taught With rules from musty morals brought; "Tis you must put us in the way; Let us (for shame!) no more be fed With antique relics of the dead, The gleanings of philosophy; Philosophy! the lumber of the schools, The roguery of alchemy;

And we, the bubbled fools,

Spend all our present stock in hopes of golden rules.

But what does our proud ignorance learning call?
We oddly Plato's paradox make good;
Our knowledge is but mere remembrance all;
Remembrance is our treasure and our food,
Nature's fair table-book, our tender souls,
We scrawl all o'er with old and empty rules,
Stale memorandums of the schools;
For Learning's mighty treasures look
In that deep grave, a book,

Think she there does all her treasures hide, And that her troubled ghost still haunts there since she died;

Confine her walks to colleges and schools;

Her priests her train and followers show,
As if they all were spectres too;
They purchase knowledge at the expense
Of common breeding, common sense,
And at once grow scholars and fools;
Affect ill-manner'd pedantry,

Rudeness, ill-nature, incivility,

And, sick with dregs of knowledge grown, Which greedily they swallow down, Still cast it up, and nauseate company.

Cursed be the wretch! nay, doubly cursed,
(If it may lawful be

To curse our greatest enemy)
Who learn'd himself that heresy first,
(Which since has seized on all the rest)
That knowledge forfeits all humanity;

Taught us, like Spaniards, to be proud and poor,
And fling our scraps before our door.

Thrice happy, you have scaped this general pest!
Those mighty epithets, Learn'd, Good, and Great,
Which we ne'er join'd before, but in romances meet,
We find in you at last united grown.
You cannot be compared to one;

I must, like him that painted Venus' face,
Borrow from every one a grace:

Virgil and Epicurus will not do,

Their courting a retreat like you,
Unless I put in Cæsar's learning too :
Your happy frame at once controls
This great triumvirate of souls.

Let not old Rome boast Fabius' fate;
He saved his country by delays,
But you by peace:

You bought it at a cheaper rate:
Nor has it left the usual bloody scar,

To show it cost its price in war;

War! that mad game the world so loves to play, And for it does so dearly pay;

For though with loss or victory awhile
Fortune the gamesters does beguile,
Yet at the last the box sweeps all away.

Only the laurel got by peace

No thunder e'er can blast:
The' artillery of the skies

Shoots to the earth and dies;

Nor ever green and flourishing 'twill last, Nor dipp'd in blood, nor widows' tears, nor orphans' cries:

About the head crown'd with these bays, Like lambent fire the lightning plays; Nor, its triumphal cavalcade to grace,

Make up its solemn train with death; It melts the sword of war, yet keeps it in the sheath.

The wily shifts of state, those jugglers' tricks
Which we call deep design and politics,
(As in a theatre the ignorant fry,

Because the cords escape their eye,
Wonder to see the motions fly)
Methinks, when you expose the scene,
Down the ill-organ'd engines fall;

Off fly the vizors and discover all.

How plain I see through the deceit!
How shallow! and how gross the cheat!
Look where the pulley's tied above!
'Great God! (said I) what have I seen!
On what poor engines move

The thoughts of monarchs and designs of states!
What petty motives rule their fates!

How the mouse makes the mighty mountain shake!

The mighty mountain labours with its birth;
Away the frighted peasants fly,
Scared at the' unheard-of prodigy,
Expect some great gigantic son of earth:
Lo it appears!

See how they tremble! how they quake! Out starts the little beast, and mocks their idle fears.'

Then tell (dear favourite Muse!)

What serpent's that which still resorts,

Still lurks in palaces and courts?

Take thy unwonted flight,

And on the terrace light,
See where she lies!

See how she rears her head,

And rolls about her dreadful eyes,

To drive all virtue out, or look it dead!
'Twas sure this basilisk sent Temple thence;
And though as some ('tis said) for their defence
Have worn a casement o'er their skin,
So he wore his within,

Made up of virtue and transparent innocence;
And though he oft renew'd the fight,

And almost got priority of sight,

He ne'er could overcome her quite;

In pieces cut, the viper still did reunite;

Till at last, tired with loss of time and ease, Resolved to give himself as well as country peace.

Sing (beloved Muse!) the pleasures of retreat,
And in some untouch'd virgin-strain

Show the delights thy sister Nature yields;
Sing of thy vales, sing of thy woods, sing of thy

fields;

Go publish o'er the plain
How mighty a proselyte you gain !
How noble a reprisal on the great!
How is the Muse luxuriant grown!
Whene'er she takes this flight
She soars clear out of sight;
These are the Paradises of her own;
(The Pegasus, like an unruly horse,
Though ne'er so gently led

To the loved pasture where he us'd to feed,
Runs violently o'er his usual course.)
Wake from thy wanton dreams,
Come from thy dear loved streams,
The crooked paths of wandering Thames.
Fain the fair nymph would stay,
Oft she looks back in vain,

Oft 'gainst her fountain does complain,
And softly steals in many windings down,
As loath to see the hated court and town,
And murmurs as she glides away.

In this new happy scene

Are nobler subjects for your learned pen:
Here we expect from you

More than your predecessor Adam knew ;
Whatever moves our wonder or our sport,
Whatever serves for innocent emblems of the court;
How that which we a kernel see,

(Whose well-compacted forms escape the light, Unpierced by the blunt rays of sight) Shall ere long grow into a tree,

Whence takes it its increase, and whence its birth, Or from the sun, or from the air, or from the earth? Where all the fruitful atoms lie;