God of this world invok'd and world beneath
Who then thou art, whose coming is foretold
To me fo fatal, me it most concerns.
The trial hath indamag'd thee no way,
Rather more honor left and more esteem;
Me nought advantag'd, missing what I aim'd.
Therefore let pass, as they are tranfitory,
The kingdoms of this world; I shall no more
Advise thee; gain them as thou canft, or not.
And thou thyself seem'st otherwise inclin'd
Than to a worldly crown, addicted more
To contemplation and profound dispute,
As by that early action may be judg'd,
When flipping from thy mother's eye thou went'ft
Alone into the temple; there waft found
Among the gravest Rabbies difputant
On points and questions fitting Mofes' chair,
Teaching, not taught; the childhood shows the man,
As morning fhows the day. Be famous then
By wisdom; as thy empire must extend,
So let extend thy mind o'er all the world
In knowledge, all things in it comprehend:
All knowledge is not couch'd in Mofes' law,
The Pentateuch, or what the Prophets wrote;
The Gentiles alfo know, and write, and teach
To admiration, led by nature's light;
And with the Gentiles much thou must converse,
Ruling them by perfuafion as thou mean'st;
Without their learning how wilt thou with them,
Or they with thee hold converfation meet?
How wilt thou reason with them, how refute
Their idolifms, traditions, paradoxes?
Error by his own arms is best evinc'd.
Look once more ere we leave this fpecular mount
Weftward, much nearer by fouthwest, behold
Where on the Ægean fhore a city stands
Built nobly, pure the air, and light the foil,
Athens the eye of Greece, mother of arts
And eloquence, native to famous wits
Or hospitable, in her sweet recess.
City' or fuburban, ftudious walks and shades;
See there the olive grove of Academe,
Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird
Trills her thick-warbled notes the fummer long;
There flow'ry hill Hymettus with the found
Of bees induftrious murmur oft invites
To ftudious mufing; there Iliffus rolls
His whifp'ring stream: within the walls then view 250
The schools of ancient fages; his who bred
Great Alexander to fubdue the world,
Lyceum there, and painted Stoa next:
There fhalt thou hear and learn the fecret power
Of harmony in tones and numbers hit
By voice or hand, and various-measur'd verse,
Æolian charms and Dorian lyric odes,
And his who gave them breath, but higher sung,
Blind Melefigenes thence Homer call'd,
Whofe poem Phoebus challeng'd for his own.
Thence what the lofty grave tragedians taught
In Chorus or Iambic, teachers beft
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Of moral prudence, with delight receiv'd
In brief fententious precepts, while they treat
Of fate, and chance, and change in human life;
High actions, and high passions best describing :
Thence to the famous orators repair,
Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce democratie,
Shook th' arsenal and fulmin'd over Greece,
To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne :
To fage Philofophy next lend thine ear,
From Heav'n defcended to the low-rooft house
Of Socrates; fee there his tenement,
Whom well infpir'd the oracle pronounc'd
Wifeft of men; from whofe mouth iffued forth
Mellifluous ftreams, that water'd all the schools
Of Academics old and new, with thofe
Surnam'd Peripatetics, and the fect
Epicurean, and the Stoic fevere;
Thefe here revolve, or, as thou lik'ft, at home,
Till time mature thee to a kingdom's weight;
These rules will render thee a king complete
Within thyfelf, much more with empire join’d.
To whom our Saviour fagely thus reply'd.
Think not but that I know these things, or think
I know them not; not therefore am I short
Of knowing what I ought: he who receives
Light from above, from the fountain of light,
No other doctrin needs, though granted true;
But these are falfe, or little else but dreams,
Conjectures, fancies, built on nothing firm,
The firft and wifeft of them all profefs'd
To know this only, that he nothing knew;
The next to fabling fell and smooth conceits;
A third fort doubted all things, though plain fense;
Others in virtue plac'd felicity,
But virtue join'd with riches and long life;
In corporal pleasure he, and careless ease;
The Stoic laft in philofophic pride,
By him call'd virtue; and his virtuous man,
Wife, perfect in himself, and all poffeffing,
Equals to God, oft fhames not to prefer,
As fearing God nor man, contemning all
Wealth, pleasure, pain or torment, death and life, 305 Which when he lifts, he leaves, or boafts he can,
For all his tedious talk is but vain boast,
Or fubtle shifts conviction to evade.
Alas, what can they teach, and not mislead,
Ignorant of themselves, of God much more,
And how the world began, and how man fell
Degraded by himself, on grace depending?
Much of the foul they talk, but all awry,
And in themselves feek virtue, and to themfelves
All glory arrogate, to God give none,
Rather accufe him under ufual names,
Fortune and Fate, as one regardless quite
Of mortal things. Who therefore seeks in these
True wisdom, finds her not, or by delufion
Far worfe, her false resemblance only meets,
An empty cloud. However many books,
Wise men have said, are wearifome; who reads
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Inceffantly, and to his reading brings not
A fpirit and judgment equal or fuperior,
(And what he brings, what needs he elsewhere seek ?) Uncertain and unfettled ftill remains,
Deep vers'd in books and shallow in himself,
Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys,
And trifles for choice matters, worth a spunge;
As children gathering pebbles on the shore.
Or if I would delight my private hours
With music or with poem, where so foon
As in our native language can I find
That folace? All our law and story strow'd
With hymns, our pfalms with artful terms inscrib'd,
Our Hebrew fongs and harps in Babylon,
That pleas'd fo well our victors ear, declare
That rather Greece from us thefe arts deriv'd;
Ill imitated, while they loudest fing
The vices of their Deities, and their own
In fable, hymn, or fong, fo perfonating
Their Gods ridiculous, and themselves past shame.
Remove their fwelling epithets thick laid
As varnish on a harlot's cheek, the rest,
Thin fown with ought of profit or delight,.
Will far be found unworthy to compare
With Sion's fongs, to all true tastes excelling,
Where God is prais'd aright, and God-like men,
The Holieft of Holies, and his Saints;
Such are from God infpir'd, not fuch from thee, 350 Unless where moral virtue is exprefs'd
By light of nature not in all quite lost.
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