XX.

To the ROYAL SOCIETY [y].

1.

HILOSOPHY, the great and only heir

Of all that human knowledge, which has been

Unforfeited by man's rebellious fin,

Though full of years he do appear,
(Philofophy, I fay, and call it, He,
For, whatfoe'er the painter's fancy be,
It a male-virtue feems to me)

Has ftill been kept in nonage till of late,

Nor manag'd or enjoy'd his vaft eftate:

Three or four thousand years, one would have thought,

To ripeness and perfection might have brought

A science fo well bred and nurs'd [z],

And of fuch hopeful parts too at the first.
But, oh, the guardians and the tutors then,
(Some negligent, and fome ambitious men)
Would ne'er confent to fet him free,
Or his own natural powers to let him see,
Left that should put an end to their authority.

[y] This poem (befides its intrinfic merit) is entitled to a place in this collection, because it serves to introduce the following Propofition for the advancement of experimental philofophy. It gives, too, an amiable picture of the poet's mind, in the concluding panegyric on his friend, Dr. Sprat, who had written the hiftory of the Royal Society.

[*] Afcience fo well bred and nurs'd] By Pythagoras and Democritus.

I 4

2. That

2.

That his own bufinefs be might quite forget,
They' amus'd him with the sports of wanton wit,
With the defferts of poetry they fed him [a],
Instead of folid meats t'increase his force;
Inftead of vigorous exercife they led him

Into the pleasant labyrinths of ever-fresh difcourfe [b].
Instead of carrying him to fee

The riches which do hoarded for him lie

In nature's endlefs treasury,

They chofe his eye to entertain

(His curious, but not covetous eye [c])

With painted scenes, and pageants of the brain [d].

[a] With the defferts of poetry they fed him] Much of the antient philofophy, was only a luscious mythology. The way of accounting for a natural phenomenon, was to tell a pleasant ftory. I fuppofe, the author had especially in view Lord Bacon's Sapientia veterum, where that wife man amufed himself and others with the fports of wanton wit.

[b] Into the pleafant labyrinths of ever-fresh dif courfe.] The Platonic school, which joined eloquence to philofophy.

[cl His curious, but not covetous eye] i. e. ingeni ous fpeculation, and not ufe, was the object of that philofophy.

[d] pageants of the brain.] The peripatetic

fancies

tricks to fhew the stretch of human brain.”

Pope.

Some

Some few exalted fpirits [e] this latter age has shown,
That labour'd to affert the liberty

› (From guardians, who were now ufurpers grown [ƒ])
Of this old minor still, captiv'd philosophy;
But 'twas rebellion call'd, to fight
For fuch a long-oppreffed right.
Bacon, at laft, a mighty man, arose,

Whom a wife king and nature chose,
Lord chancellor of both their laws,
And boldly undertook the injur'd pupil's cause.

3.

Authority, which did a body boaft,

Though 'twas but air condens'd and stalk'd about,
Like fome old giant's more gigantic ghoft,

To terrify the learned rout,

With the plain magic of true reafon's light,

He chac'd out of our fight,

Nor fuffer'd living men to be misled

By the vain fhadows of the dead:

To graves, from whence it rofe, the conquer'd phantom fled;

[g)

[e] Some few exalted spirits] P. Ramus, Gaffendi,

and Des Cartes.

[f] From guardians—now ufurpers grown] i. e. from men, who, under colour of guarding the rights of the old philofophy, tyrannized over reafon herself. [g] The reft of this stanza is left out.

4.

From words, which are but pictures of the thought,
(Though we our thoughts from them perversely drew)
To things, the mind's right object, he it brought:
Like foolish birds, to painted grapes we flew ;
He fought, and gather'd for our use, the true;
And, when on heaps the chofen bunches lay,
He prefs'd them wifely, the mechanic way [b],
Till all their juice did in one veffel join,
Ferment into a nourishment divine,

The thirsty soul's refreshing wine.

Who to the life an exact piece would make,
Muft not from others work a copy take;
No, not from Rubens or Vandike;
Much lefs content himself to make it like
Th' ideas and the images, which lie
In his own fancy, or his memory.
No, he before his fight must place
The natural and living face [i];
The real object must command

Each judgment of his eye, and motion of his hand.

[b] the mechanic way] i. e. in the way of experi

ment.

[i] The natural and living face]

The naked nature and the living grace." Pope.

5. From

5.

From there, and all long errors of the way [k],
In which our wandering predeceffors went,
And, like th' old Hebrews, many years did stray
In defarts but of small extent,

Bacon, like Mofes, led us forth at last,

The barren wilderness he past,

Did on the very border stand

Of the bleft promis'd land,

And from the mountain's top of his exalted wit,

Saw it himself, and shew'd us it.

But life did never to one man allow

Time to discover worlds, and conquer too;
Nor can so short a line fufficient be

To fathom the vaft depths of nature's sea.

The work he did, we ought t' admire,
And were unjuft, if we should more require
From his few years, divided 'twixt th' excess
Of low affliction, and high happiness [7].
For who on things remote can fix his fight,
That's always in a triumph, or a fight?"

[k] errors of the way] A beautiful Latinism -pelagine venis erroribus actus ?"

Virg. Æn. vi. 532. "Sive errore viæ, feu tempeftatibus acti."

twixt the excess

Ib. vii. 199.

Of low affliction and bigh happiness.] So expreffed, as to convey not only the poet's idea of this fituation, but his fenfe of it.

6. From