Part 31

But man, who knows no good unmixed and pure, Oft finds a poison where he sought a cure; For grave deceivers lodge their labours here, And cloud the science they pretend to clear: Scourges for sin, the solemn tribe are sent; Like fire and storms, they call us to repent; But storms subside, and fires forget to rage, _These_ are eternal scourges of the age: 'Tis not enough that each terrific hand Spreads desolation round a guilty land; But, trained to ill, and hardened by its crimes, Their pen relentless kills through future times.

Say ye, who search these records of the dead, Who read huge works, to boast what ye have read; Can all the real knowledge ye possess, Or those (if such there are) who more than guess, Atone for each impostor's wild mistakes, And mend the blunders pride or folly makes?

What thought so wild, what airy dream so light, That will not prompt a theorist to write? What art so prevalent, what proof so strong, That will convince him his attempt is wrong? One in the solids finds each lurking ill, Nor grants the passive fluids power to kill; A learned friend some subtler reason brings, Absolves the channels, but condemns their springs; The subtile nerves, that shun the doctor's eye, Escape no more his subtler theory; The vital heat, that warms the labouring heart, Lends a fair system to these sons of art; The vital air, a pure and subtile stream, Serves a foundation for an airy scheme, Assists the doctor, and supports his dream. Some have their favourite ills, and each disease Is but a younger branch that kills from these: One to the gout contracts all human pain, He views it raging in the frantic brain; Finds it in fevers all his efforts mar, And sees it lurking in the cold catarrh: Bilious by some, by others nervous seen, Rage the fantastic demons of the spleen; And every symptom of the strange disease With every system of the sage agrees.

Ye frigid tribe, on whom I wasted long The tedious hours, and ne'er indulged in song; Ye first seducers of my easy heart, Who promised knowledge ye could not impart; Ye dull deluders, truth's destructive foes; Ye sons of fiction, clad in stupid prose; Ye treacherous leaders, who, yourselves in doubt, Light up false fires, and send us far about;-- Still may yon spider round your pages spin, Subtile and slow, her emblematic gin! Buried in dust and lost in silence, dwell, Most potent, grave, and reverend friends--farewell!

Near these, and where the setting sun displays, Through the dim window, his departing rays, And gilds yon columns, there, on either side, The huge abridgements of the LAW abide; Fruitful as vice the dread correctors stand, And spread their guardian terrors round the land; Yet, as the best that human care can do, Is mixed with error, oft with evil too, Skilled in deceit, and practised to evade, Knaves stand secure, for whom these laws were made; And justice vainly each expedient tries, While art eludes it, or while power defies. 'Ah! happy age,' the youthful poet sings, 'When the free nations knew not laws nor kings; When all were blessed to share a common store, And none were proud of wealth, for none were poor; No wars nor tumults vexed each still domain, No thirst for empire, no desire of gain; No proud great man, nor one who would be great, Drove modest merit from its proper state; Nor into distant climes would avarice roam, To fetch delights for luxury at home: Bound by no ties which kept the soul in awe, They dwelt at liberty, and love was law!'

'Mistaken youth! each nation first was rude, Each man a cheerless son of solitude, To whom no joys of social life were known, None felt a care that was not all his own; Or in some languid clime his abject soul Bowed to a little tyrant's stern control; A slave, with slaves his monarch's throne he raised, And in rude song his ruder idol praised; The meaner cares of life were all he knew; Bounded his pleasures, and his wishes few: But when by slow degrees the Arts arose, And Science wakened from her long repose; When Commerce, rising from the bed of ease, Ran round the land, and pointed to the seas; When Emulation, born with jealous eye, And Avarice, lent their spurs to industry; Then one by one the numerous laws were made Those to control, and these to succour trade; To curb the insolence of rude command, To snatch the victim from the usurer's hand; To awe the bold, to yield the wronged redress, And feed the poor with Luxury's excess.'

Like some vast flood, unbounded, fierce, and strong, His nature leads ungoverned man along; Like mighty bulwarks made to stem that tide, The laws are formed and placed on every side: Whene'er it breaks the bounds by these decreed, New statutes rise, and stronger laws succeed; More and more gentle grows the dying stream, More and more strong the rising bulwarks seem; Till, like a miner working sure and slow, Luxury creeps on, and ruins all below; The basis sinks, the ample piles decay; The stately fabric shakes and falls away; Primeval want and ignorance come on, But freedom, that exalts the savage state, is gone.

Next, HISTORY ranks;--there full in front she lies, And every nation her dread tale supplies; Yet History has her doubts, and every age With sceptic queries marks the passing page; Records of old nor later date are clear, Too distant those, and these are placed too near; There time conceals the objects from our view, Here our own passions and a writer's too: Yet, in these volumes, see how states arose! Guarded by virtue from surrounding foes; Their virtue lost, and of their triumphs vain, Lo! how they sunk to slavery again! Satiate with power, of fame and wealth possessed, A nation grows too glorious to be blessed; Conspicuous made, she stands the mark of all, And foes join foes to triumph in her fall.

Thus speaks the page that paints ambition's race, The monarch's pride, his glory, his disgrace; The headlong course, that maddening heroes run, How soon triumphant, and how soon undone; How slaves, turned tyrants, offer crowns to sale, And each fallen nation's melancholy tale.

Lo! where of late the Book of Martyrs stood, Old pious tracts, and Bibles bound in wood; There, such the taste of our degenerate age, Stand the profane delusions of the STAGE: Yet virtue owns the TRAGIC MUSE a friend, Fable her means, morality her end; For this she rules all passions in their turns; And now the bosom bleeds, and now it burns, Pity with weeping eye surveys her bowl, Her anger swells, her terror chills the soul; She makes the vile to virtue yield applause, And own her sceptre while they break her laws; For vice in others is abhorred of all, And villains triumph when the worthless fall.

Not thus her sister COMEDY prevails, Who shoots at folly, for her arrow fails; Folly, by dulness armed, eludes the wound, And harmless sees the feathered shafts rebound; Unhurt she stands, applauds the archer's skill, Laughs at her malice, and is folly still. Yet well the Muse portrays in fancied scenes, What pride will stoop to, what profession means; How formal fools the farce of state applaud, How caution watches at the lips of fraud; The wordy variance of domestic life; The tyrant husband, the retorting wife; The snares for innocence, the lie of trade, And the smooth tongue's habitual masquerade.

With her the virtues too obtain a place, Each gentle passion, each becoming grace; The social joy in life's securer road, Its easy pleasure, its substantial good; The happy thought that conscious virtue gives, And all that ought to live, and all that lives.

But who are these? Methinks a noble mien And awful grandeur in their form are seen, Now in disgrace: what though by time is spread Polluting dust o'er every reverend head; What though beneath yon gilded tribe they lie, And dull observers pass insulting by: Forbid it shame, forbid it decent awe, What seems so grave, should no attention draw! Come, let us then with reverend step advance, And greet--the ancient worthies of ROMANCE.

Hence, ye profane! I feel a former dread, A thousand visions float around my head: Hark! hollow blasts through empty courts resound, And shadowy forms with staring eyes stalk round; See! moats and bridges, walls and castles rise, Ghosts, fairies, demons, dance before our eyes; Lo! magic verse inscribed on golden gate, And bloody hand that beckons on to fate:-- 'And who art thou, thou little page, unfold? Say, doth thy lord my Claribel withhold? Go tell him straight, Sir Knight, thou must resign The captive queen;--for Claribel is mine.' Away he flies; and now for bloody deeds, Black suits of armour, masks, and foaming steeds; The giant falls; his recreant throat I seize, And from his corslet take the massy keys:-- Dukes, lords, and knights in long procession move, Released from bondage with my virgin love:-- She comes! she comes! in all the charms of youth, Unequalled love and unsuspected truth!

Ah! happy he who thus, in magic themes, O'er worlds bewitched, in early rapture dreams, Where wild Enchantment waves her potent wand, And Fancy's beauties fill her fairy land; Where doubtful objects strange desires excite, And Fear and Ignorance afford delight.

But lost, for ever lost, to me these joys, Which Reason scatters, and which Time destroys; Too dearly bought: maturer judgement calls My busied mind from tales and madrigals; My doughty giants all are slain or fled, And all my knights, blue, green, and yellow, dead! No more the midnight fairy tribe I view, All in the merry moonshine tippling dew; E'en the last lingering fiction of the brain, The church-yard ghost, is now at rest again; And all these wayward wanderings of my youth Fly Reason's power and shun the light of truth.

With fiction then does real joy reside, And is our reason the delusive guide? Is it then right to dream the syrens sing? Or mount enraptured on the dragon's wing? No, 'tis the infant mind, to care unknown, That makes the imagined paradise its own; Soon as reflections in the bosom rise, Light slumbers vanish from the clouded eyes: The tear and smile, that once together rose, Are then divorced; the head and heart are foes. Enchantment bows to Wisdom's serious plan, And Pain and Prudence make and mar the man.

While thus, of power and fancied empire vain, With various thoughts my mind I entertain; While books my slaves, with tyrant hand I seize, Pleased with the pride that will not let them please; Sudden I find terrific thoughts arise, And sympathetic sorrow fills my eyes; For, lo! while yet my heart admits the wound, I see the CRITIC army ranged around.

Foes to our race! if ever ye have known A father's fears for offspring of your own;-- If ever, smiling o'er a lucky line, Ye thought the sudden sentiment divine, Then paused and doubted, and then, tired of doubt, With rage as sudden dashed the stanza out;-- If, after fearing much and pausing long, Ye ventured on the world your laboured song, And from the crusty critics of those days Implored the feeble tribute of their praise; Remember now the fears that moved you then, And, spite of truth, let mercy guide your pen.

What venturous race are ours! what mighty foes Lie waiting all around them to oppose! What treacherous friends betray them to the fight! What dangers threaten them!--yet still they write: A hapless tribe! to every evil born, Whom villains hate, and fools affect to scorn: Strangers they come, amid a world of woe, And taste the largest portion ere they go.

Pensive I spoke, and cast mine eyes around; The roof, methought, returned a solemn sound; Each column seemed to shake, and clouds like smoke, From dusty piles and ancient volumes broke; Gathering above, like mists condensed they seem, Exhaled in summer from the rushy stream; Like flowing robes they now appear, and twine Round the large members of a form divine; His silver beard, that swept his aged breast, His piercing eye, that inward light expressed, Were seen,--but clouds and darkness veiled the rest. Fear chilled my heart: to one of mortal race, How awful seemed the Genius of the place! So in Cimmerian shores, Ulysses saw His parent-shade, and shrunk in pious awe; Like him I stood, and wrapt in thought profound, When from the pitying power broke forth a solemn sound:--

'Care lives with all; no rules, no precepts save The wise from woe, no fortitude the brave; Grief is to man as certain as the grave: Tempests and storms in life's whole progress rise, And hope shines dimly through o'erclouded skies; Some drops of comfort on the favoured fall, But showers of sorrow are the lot of _all_: Partial to talents, then, shall Heaven withdraw The afflicting rod, or break the general law? Shall he who soars, inspired by loftier views, Life's little cares and little pains refuse? Shall he not rather feel a double share Of mortal woe, when doubly armed to bear?

'Hard is his fate who builds his peace of mind On the precarious mercy of mankind; Who hopes for wild and visionary things, And mounts o'er unknown seas with venturous wings: But as, of various evils that befall The human race, some portion goes to all; To him perhaps the milder lot's assigned, Who feels his consolation in his mind; And, locked within his bosom, bears about A mental charm for every care without. E'en in the pangs of each domestic grief, Or health or vigorous hope affords relief; And every wound the tortured bosom feels, Or virtue bears, or some preserver heals; Some generous friend, of ample power possessed; Some feeling heart, that bleeds for the distressed; Some breast that glows with virtues all divine; Some noble RUTLAND, Misery's friend and thine.

'Nor say, the Muse's song, the Poet's pen, Merit the scorn they meet from little men. With cautious freedom if the numbers flow, Not wildly high, nor pitifully low; If vice alone their honest aims oppose, Why so ashamed their friends, so loud their foes? Happy for men in every age and clime, If all the sons of vision dealt in rhyme. Go on then, Son of Vision! still pursue Thy airy dreams; the world is dreaming too. Ambition's lofty views, the pomp of state, The pride of wealth, the splendour of the great, Stripped of their mask, their cares and troubles known, Are visions far less happy than thy own: Go on! and, while the sons of care complain, Be wisely gay and innocently vain; While serious souls are by their fears undone, Blow sportive bladders in the beamy sun, And call them worlds! and bid the greatest show More radiant colours in their worlds below: Then, as they break, the slaves of care reprove, And tell them, Such are all the toys they love.'

G. CRABBE.

THE LIBRARY

Here, e'en the sturdy democrat may find, Nor scorn their rank, the nobles of the mind; While kings may learn, nor blush at being shown How Learning's patents abrogate their own. A goodly company and fair to see; Royal plebeians; earls of low degree; Beggars whose wealth enriches every clime; Princes who scarce can boast a mental dime; Crowd here together like the quaint array Of jostling neighbours on a market day. Homer and Milton,--can we call them blind?-- Of godlike sight, the vision of the mind; Shakespeare, who calmly looked creation through, 'Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new'; Plato the sage, so thoughtful and serene, He seems a prophet by his heavenly mien; Shrewd Socrates, whose philosophic power Xantippe proved in many a trying hour; And Aristophanes, whose humour run In vain endeavour to be-'cloud' the sun; Majestic Aeschylus, whose glowing page Holds half the grandeur of the Athenian stage; Pindar, whose odes, replete with heavenly fire, Proclaim the master of the Grecian lyre; Anacreon, famed for many a luscious line, Devote to Venus and the god of wine. I love vast libraries; yet there is a doubt If one be better with them or without-- Unless he use them wisely, and, indeed, Knows the high art of what and how to read. At Learning's fountain it is sweet to drink, But 'tis a nobler privilege to think; And oft, from books apart, the thirsting mind May make the nectar which it cannot find. 'Tis well to borrow from the good and great; 'Tis wise to learn; 'tis godlike to create!

J. G. SAXE.

OF LIBRARIES: THE BODLEIAN

What oweth Oxford, nay this Isle, to the most worthy Bodley, whose Library, perhaps, containeth more excellent books than the ancients by all their curious search could find?... To such a worthy work all the lovers of learning should conspire and contribute; and of small beginnings who is ignorant what great effects may follow? If, perhaps, we will consider the beginnings of the greatest libraries of Europe (as Democritus said of the world, that it was made up of atoms), we shall find them but small; for how great soever in their present perfection they are now, these Carthages were once Magalia. Libraries are as forests, in which not only tall cedars and oaks are to be found, but bushes too and dwarfish shrubs; and as in apothecaries' shops all sorts of drugs are permitted to be, so may all sorts of books be in a library. And as they out of vipers and scorpions, and poisoning vegetables, extract often wholesome medicaments, for the life of mankind; so out of whatsoever book, good instructions and examples may be acquired.--WILLIAM DRUMMOND. _Of Libraries._

ON THE DEATH OF SIR THOMAS BODLEY

One Homer was enough to blazon forth In a full lofty style Ulysses' praise, Caesar had Lucan to enrol his worth Unto the memory of endless days. Of thy deeds, Bodley, from thine own pure spring A thousand Homers and sweet Lucans sing. One volume was a monument to bound The large extent of their deserving pains, In learning's commonwealth was never found So large a decade to express thy strains, Which who desires to character aright, Must read more books than they had lines to write. Yet give this little river leave to run, Into the boundless ocean of thy fame; Had they first ended I had not begun, Sith each is a Protogenes to frame So curiously the picture of thy worth That when all's done, art wants to set it forth.

PETER PRIDEAUX (Exeter College, 1613).

TO BE CHAINED WITH GOOD AUTHORS

King James, 1605, when he came to see our University of Oxford, and amongst other edifices now went to view that famous library, renewed by Sir Thomas Bodley in imitation of Alexander at his departure, brake out into that noble speech, 'If I were not a king, I would be a University man: and if it were so that I must be a prisoner, if I might have my wish, I would desire to have no other prison than that library, and to be chained together with so many good authors, _et mortuis magistris_.' So sweet is the delight of study, the more learning they have (as he that hath a dropsy, the more he drinks the thirstier he is) the more they covet to learn, and the last day is _prioris discipulus_; harsh at first learning is, _radices amarae_, but _fructus dulces_, according to that of Isocrates, pleasant at last; the longer they live, the more they are enamoured with the Muses. Heinsius, the keeper of the library at Leyden, in Holland, was mewed up in it all the year long; and that which to thy thinking should have bred a loathing, caused in him a greater liking. 'I no sooner (saith he) come into the library, but I bolt the door to me, excluding lust, ambition, avarice, and all such vices, whose nurse is Idleness, the mother of Ignorance, and Melancholy herself, and in the very lap of eternity, amongst so many divine souls, I take my seat with so lofty a spirit and sweet content, that I pity all our great ones, and rich men that know not this happiness.'

I am not ignorant in the meantime (notwithstanding this which I have said) how barbarously and basely, for the most part, our ruder gentry esteem of libraries and books, how they neglect and contemn so great a treasure, so inestimable a benefit, as Aesop's cock did the jewel he found in the dunghill; and all through error, ignorance, and want of education.--R. BURTON. _The Anatomy of Melancholy._

AN ODE ADDRESSED TO MR. JOHN ROUSE

LIBRARIAN, OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

On a lost volume of my poems, which he desired me to replace, that he might add them to my other works deposited in the library.

_Strophe._

My two-fold book! single in show, But double in contents, Neat, but not curiously adorned, Which, in his early youth, A poet gave, no lofty one in truth, Although an earnest wooer of the Muse-- Say while in cool Ausonian shades Or British wilds he roamed, Striking by turns his native lyre, By turns the Daunian lute, And stepped almost in air,--

_Antistrophe._

Say, little book, what furtive hand Thee from thy fellow-books conveyed, What time, at the repeated suit Of my most learnèd friend, I sent thee forth, an honoured traveller, From our great city to the source of Thames, Caerulian sire! Where rise the fountains, and the raptures ring, Of the Aonian choir, Durable as yonder spheres, And through the endless lapse of years Secure to be admired?

_Strophe II._

Now what God, or Demigod For Britain's ancient Genius moved, (If our afflicted land Have expiated at length the guilty sloth Of her degenerate sons) Shall terminate our impious feuds, And discipline, with hallowed voice, recall? Recall the Muses too, Driven from their ancient seats In Albion, and well nigh from Albion's shore, And with keen Phoebean shafts, Piercing the unseemly birds, Whose talons menace us, Shall drive the Harpy race from Helicon afar?

_Antistrophe._

But thou, my book, though thou hast strayed, Whether by treachery lost Or indolent neglect, thy bearer's fault, From all thy kindred books, To some dark cell or cave forlorn, Where thou endurest, perhaps The chafing of some hard untutored hand, Be comforted-- For lo! again the splendid hope appears That thou mayest yet escape, The gulfs of Lethe, and on oary wings Mount to the everlasting courts of Jove!

_Strophe III._