Till Isis' elders reel, their pupils sport, And Alma Mater lie dissolv'd in port! Enough! enough! the raptur'd monarch cries ;' And thro' the iv'ry gate the vision flies 340 ARGUMENT OF THE FOURTH BOOK. THE Poet being, in this Book, to declare the completion of the Prophecies mentioned at the end of the former, makes a new Invocation; as the greater poets are wont, when some high and worthy matter is to be sung. He shows the Goddess coming in ber majesty, to destroy Order and Science, and to substitute the kingdom of the Dull upon earth. How she leads captive the Sciences, and silenceth the Muses; and what they be who suc seed in their stead. All her children, by a wonderful attraction, are drawn about her, and bear along with them divers others, who promote her empire by connivance, weak resistance, or discourage, ment of arts; such as half-wits, tasteless admirers, vain pretenders, the flatterers of dunces, or the patrons of them. All these crowd around her; one of them offering to approach her, is driven back by a rival, but she commends and encourages both. The first who speak in form are the Genius's of the Schools, who assure ber of their care to advance her cause by confining youth to words, and keeping them out of the way of real knowledge. Their address, and her gracious answer; with her charge to them and the Universities. The Universities appcar by their proper deputies, and assure her that the same method is observed in the progress of Education. The speech of Aristarchus on this subject. They are driven off by a band of young gentlemen returned from travel with their tutors; one of whom delivers to the Goddess, in a polite oration, an account of the whole conduct and fruits of their Travels; presenting to ber at the same time a young nobleman perfectly accomplished. She receives him graciously, and endues him with the happy quality of want of shame. She sees loitering about her a number of indolent persons abandoning all business and duty and dying with laziness: to these approaches the antiquary Annius, intreating her to make them virtuosos, and assign them over to him: but Mummius, another antiquary, complaining of bis fraudulent Q 2 |