What both from men and angels I receive, Tetrarchs of fire, air, flood, and on the Earth, Nations beside from all the quarter'd winds, God of this world invok'd, and world beneath : Who then thou art, whose coming is foretold To me most fatal, me it most concerns; The trial hath indamag'd thee no way, Rather more honour left and more esteem; Me nought advantag'd, missing what I aim'd. Therefore let pass, as they are transitory, The kingdoms of this world; I shall no more Advise thee; gain them as thou canst, 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, slipping from thy mother's eye, thou went'st Alone into the temple, there wast found
Among the gravest rabbies, disputant
On points and questions fitting Moses' chair, [man, Teaching, not taught. The childhood shows the As morning shows the day: be famous then By wisdom; as thy empire inust 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 Moses' law, The Pentateuch, or what the prophets wrote; The Gentiles also know, and write, and teach To admiration, led by Nature's light, And with the Gentiles much thou must converse, Ruling them by persuasion, as thou mean'st; Without their learning, how wilt thou with them,
Or they with thee, hold conversation meet? How wilt thou reason with them, how refute Their idolisms, traditions, paradoxes? Errour by his own arms is best evinc'd.
Look once more, ere we leave this specular mount Westward, much nearer by south-west, behold Where on the Ægean shore a city stands, Built nobly, pure the air, and light the soil; Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts And eloquence, native to famous wits Or hospitable, in her sweet recess,
City or suburban, studious walks and shades. See there the olive grove of Academe, Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird
Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long; There flowery hill Hymettus, with the sound Of bees' industrious murmur, oft invites
To studious musing; there Ilissus rolls
His whispering stream: within the walls, then view The schools of ancient sages; his who bred Great Alexander to subdue the world,
Lyceum there, and painted Stoa next:
There shalt thou hear and learn the secret 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 Melesigenes, thence Homer call'd, Whose poem Phoebus challeng'd for his own: Thence what the lofty grave tragedians taught In Chorus or Iambic, teachers best Of moral prudence, with delight receiv'd
In brief sententious 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 the arsenal, and fulmin'd over Greece To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne: To sage Philosophy next lend thine ear, From Heaven descended to the low-roof'd house Of Socrates; see there his tenement, Whom well inspir'd the oracle pronounc'd Wisest of men; from whose mouth issued forth Mellifluous streams, that water'd all the schools Of academics old and new, with those Surnamed Peripatetics, and the sect Epicurean, and the Stoic severe;
These here revolve, or, as thou lik'st, at home, Till time mature thee to a kingdom's weight; These rules will render thee a king complete Within thyself, much more with empire join'd." To whom our Saviour sagely thus replied. "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 doctrine needs, though granted true; But these are false, or little else but dreams, Conjectures, fancies, built on nothing firm. The first and wisest of them all profess'd To know this only, that he nothing knew ; The next to fabling fell, and smooth conceits;
A third sort doubted all things, though plain sense; Others in virtue plac'd felicity,
But virtue joined with riches and long life ; In corporal pleasure he, and careless ease; The Stoic last in philosophic pride,
By him call'd virtue ; and his virtuous man, Wise, perfect in himself, and all possessing Equal to God, oft shames not to prefer, As fearing God nor man, contemning all Wealth, pleasure, pain or torment, death and life, Which, when he lists, he leaves, or boasts he can, For all his tedious talk is but vain boast, Or subtle 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 soul they talk, but all awry, And in themselves seek virtue; and to themselves All glory arrogate, to God give none; Rather accuse him under usual names, Fortune and Fate, as one regardless quite
Of mortal things. Who therefore seeks in these True wisdom, finds her not; or, by delusion, Far worse, her false resemblance only meets, An empty cloud. However, many books, Wise men have said, are wearisome; who reads Incessantly, and to his reading brings not A spirit and judgment equal or superior,
(And what he brings what needs he elsewhere seek?) Uncertain and unsettled still remains,
Deep vers'd in books, and shallow in himself,
Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys
And trifles for choice matters, worth a sponge; As children gathering pebbles on the shore. Or, if I would delight my private hours With music or with poem, where so soon As in our native language, can I find
That solace? All our law and story strew'd With hymns, our Psalms with artful terms inscrib'd, Our Hebrew songs and harps, in Babylon
That pleas'd so well our victor's ear, declare That rather Greece from us these arts deriv'd; Ill imitated, while they loudest sing
The vices of their deities, and their own,
In fable, hymn, or song, so personating Their gods ridiculous, and themselves past shame, Remove their swelling epithets, thick laid As varnish on a harlot's cheek, the rest, Thin sown with aught of profit or delight, Will far be found unworthy to compare With Sion's songs, to all true tastes excelling, Where God is prais'd aright, and God-like men, The Holiest of Holies, and his saints,
(Such are from God inspir'd, not such from thee,) Unless where moral virtue is express'd
By light of Nature, not in all quite lost. Their orators thou then extoll'st, as those The top of eloquence; statists indeed, And lovers of their country, as may seem; But herein to our prophets far beneath, As men divinely taught, and better teaching The solid rules of civil government,
In their majestic unaffec
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