Chapter XV: Book THE FIFTH

Hitherto we have described only the triumphs of Discovery; but it appears necessary that many incidental evils, special and general, should be mentioned. Fate and miserable end of some great commanders,--of our gallant and benevolent countryman, Cook. After the natural feelings of regret, the mind is led to contemplate the great advantages of his voyages: the health of seamen; the accessions to geographical knowledge; the spirit of humanity and science; his exploring the east part of New-Holland; and being the first to determine the proximity of America to Asia. This circumstance leads us back from the point whence we set out--THE ARK OF NOAH; and hence we are partly enabled to solve, what has been for so many ages unknown, the difficulty{g} respecting the earth's being peopled from one family.

The poem having thus gained a middle and end, the conclusion of the whole is, that as this uncertainty in the physical world has been by DISCOVERY cleared up, so all the apparent contradictions in the moral world shall be reconciled. We have yet many existing evils to deplore; but when the SUPREME DISPOSER's plan shall have been completed, then the earth, which has been explored and enlightened by discovery and knowledge, shall be destroyed; but the MIND OF MAN, rendered at last perfect, shall endure through all ages, and "justify His ways from whom it sprung."

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Such is the outline and plan of the following poem. I have felt myself obliged to give this hasty analysis, thinking that self-defence almost required it, lest a _careless_ reader might charge me with _carelessness of arrangement_.

I must again beg it to be remembered, that History and Poetry are two things; and that the poet has a right to build his system, not on what is exact truth, but on what is, at least, plausible; what will form, in the clearest manner, a WHOLE; and what is most susceptible of poetical ornament.

THE SPIRIT OF DISCOVERY BY SEA.