1

1 grieve, this nobler work most happily be

gun, So quickly and so wonderfully carry'd on, May fall at last to intereft, folly and abuse.

There is a noon-tide in our lives,

Which still the sooner it arrives,
Although we boast our winter-fun looks bright
And foolishly are glad to see it at its height,
Yet so much fooner comes the long and gloomy

night.

No conquest ever yet begun,
And by one mighty hero carried to its height,
E'er flourish'd under a successor or a son;
It lost some mighty pieces through all hands it

past,
And vanish'd to an empty title inthe last.
For when the animating mind is fled,
(Which nature never can retain,

Nor e'er call back again) The body, though gigantic, lies all cold and dead.

XII.

And thus undoubtedly 'twill fare,

With what unhappy men fhall dare
To be fucceffors to these great unknown,

On learning's high-establish'd throne.

Cenfure, and pedantry, and pride, Numberless nations, stretching far and wide,

Shall

1

Shall (I foresee it) soon with Gothic swarms come

forth

From ignorance's universal north, And with blind rage break all this peaceful go

vernment :
Yet shall these traces of your wit remain,

Like a just map, to tell the vast extent
Of conquest in your short and happy reign;

And to all future mankind Thew

How strange a paradox is true, That men who liv'd and dy'd without a name, Are the chief heroes in the sacred lift of fame.

* O

D

E

To the Hon. Sir. WILLIAM TEMPLE.

Written at Moor-park, June 1689.

IRTUE, the greatest of all monarchies,
Till its first emperor rebellious man

II.

We have too long been led astray,
Too long have our misguided souls been taught

With rules from mufty morals brought,
'Tis you muft put in the way;
Let us (for shame) no more be fed

With antique reliques of the dead,
The gleanings of philosophy,
Philosophy, the lumber of the schools,
The

roguery of alchymy;

And we the bubbled fools Spend all our present life in hopes of golden rules.

III.

But what does our proud ign'rance learning

call ?

We odly 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 fouls,
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 that she there does all her treasures hide,
And that her troubled ghost still haunts there
since she dy’d,

Confine

Y 3

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 expence
Of common breeding, common sense,
And at once grow scholars and fools ;

Affect ill-manner'd pedantry,
Rudeness, ill-nature, incivility,

And fick with dregs of knowledge grown,

Which greedily they swallow down, Still cast it up and nauseate company.

IV.

Curst be the wretch, nay doubly curft,

(If it may lawful be
To curse our great enemy)
Who learnt himself that heresy first

(Which since has seiz'd 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 'fcapt this gen’ral pest; Those mighty epithets, learn’d, good, and great, Which we ne'er join'd before, but in romances

meet,