Chapter IX: Canto IV: Of Good and Evil

I. "HOW FEW," the MUSE in plaintive accents cries,
And mingles with her words pathetic sighs.--
"How few, alas! in Nature's wide domains
The sacred charm of SYMPATHY restrains!
Uncheck'd desires from appetite commence,
And pure reflection yields to selfish sense!
--Blest is the Sage, who learn'd in Nature's laws
With nice distinction marks effect and cause;
Who views the insatiate Grave with eye sedate,
Nor fears thy voice, inexorable Fate! 10

[Footnote: _Blest is the Sage_, l. 7.

Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas;
Quique metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum,
Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari.
VIRG. Georg. II. 490.]

"WHEN War, the Demon, lifts his banner high,
And loud artillery rends the affrighted sky;
Swords clash with swords, on horses horses rush,
Man tramples man, and nations nations crush;
Death his vast sithe with sweep enormous wields,
And shuddering Pity quits the sanguine fields.

"The wolf, escorted by his milk-drawn dam,
Unknown to mercy, tears the guiltless lamb;
The towering eagle, darting from above,
Unfeeling rends the inoffensive dove; 20
The lamb and dove on living nature feed,
Crop the young herb, or crush the embryon seed.
Nor spares the loud owl in her dusky flight,
Smit with sweet notes, the minstrel of the night;
Nor spares, enamour'd of his radiant form,
The hungry nightingale the glowing worm;
Who with bright lamp alarms the midnight hour,
Climbs the green stem, and slays the sleeping flower.

[Footnote: _The towering eagle_, l. 19.

Torva leaena lupum sequitur, lupus ipse capellam,
Florentem cytisum sequitur lasciva capella.
VIRG.]

"Fell Oestrus buries in her rapid course
Her countless brood in stag, or bull, or horse; 30
Whose hungry larva eats its living way,
Hatch'd by the warmth, and issues into day.
The wing'd Ichneumon for her embryon young
Gores with sharp horn the caterpillar throng.
The cruel larva mines its silky course,
And tears the vitals of its fostering nurse.
While fierce Libellula with jaws of steel
Ingulfs an insect-province at a meal;
Contending bee-swarms rise on rustling wings,
And slay their thousands with envenom'd stings. 40

[Footnote: _Fell Oestrus buries_, l. 29. The gadfly, bot-fly,
or sheep-fly: the larva lives in the bodies of cattle
throughout the whole winter; it is extracted from their backs
by an African bird called Buphaga. Adhering to the anus it
artfully introduces itself into the intestines of horses, and
becomes so numerous in their stomachs, as sometimes to
destroy them; it climbs into the nostrils of sheep and
calves, and producing a nest of young in a transparent
hydatide in the frontal sinus, occasions the vertigo or turn
of those animals. In Lapland it so attacks the rein deer that
the natives annually travel with the herds from the woods to
the mountains. Lin. Syst. Nat.]

[Footnote: _The wing'd Ichneumon_, l. 33. Linneus describes
seventy-seven species of the ichneumon fly, some of which
have a sting as long and some twice as long as their bodies.
Many of them insert their eggs into various caterpillars,
which when they are hatched seem for a time to prey on the
reservoir of silk in the backs of those animals designed for
their own use to spin a cord to support them, or a bag to
contain them, while they change from their larva form to a
butterfly; as I have seen in above fifty
cabbage-caterpillars. The ichneumon larva then makes its way
out of the caterpillar, and spins itself a small cocoon like
a silk worm; these cocoons are about the size of a small
pin's head, and I have seen about ten of them on each cabbage
caterpillar, which soon dies after their exclusion.

Other species of ichneumon insert their eggs into the aphis,
and into the larva of the aphidivorous fly: others into the
bedeguar of rose trees, and the gall-nuts of oaks; whence
those excrescences seem to be produced, as well as the
hydatides in the frontal sinus of sheep and calves by the
stimulus of the larvae deposited in them.]

[Footnote: _While fierce Libellula_, l. 37. The Libellula or
Dragon-fly is said to be a most voracious animal; Linneus
says in their perfect state they are the hawks to naked
winged flies; in their larva state they run beneath the
water, and are the cruel crocodiles of aquatic insects. Syst.
Nat.]

[Footnote: _Contending bee-swarms_, l. 39. Stronger
bee-swarms frequently attack weak hives, and in two or three
days destroy them and carry away their honey; this I once
prevented by removing the attacked hive after the first day's
battle to a distinct part of the garden. See Phytologia,
Sect. XIV. 3. 7.]

"Yes! smiling Flora drives her armed car
Through the thick ranks of vegetable war;
Herb, shrub, and tree, with strong emotions rise
For light and air, and battle in the skies;
Whose roots diverging with opposing toil
Contend below for moisture and for soil;
Round the tall Elm the flattering Ivies bend,
And strangle, as they clasp, their struggling friend;
Envenom'd dews from Mancinella flow,
And scald with caustic touch the tribes below; 50
Dense shadowy leaves on stems aspiring borne
With blight and mildew thin the realms of corn;
And insect hordes with restless tooth devour
The unfolded bud, and pierce the ravell'd flower.

"In ocean's pearly haunts, the waves beneath
Sits the grim monarch of insatiate Death;
The shark rapacious with descending blow
Darts on the scaly brood, that swims below;
The crawling crocodiles, beneath that move,
Arrest with rising jaw the tribes above; 60
With monstrous gape sepulchral whales devour
Shoals at a gulp, a million in an hour.
--Air, earth, and ocean, to astonish'd day
One scene of blood, one mighty tomb display!
From Hunger's arm the shafts of Death are hurl'd,
And one great Slaughter-house the warring world!

[Footnote: _The shark rapacious_, l. 57. The shark has three
rows of sharp teeth within each other, which he can bend
downwards internally to admit larger prey, and raise to
prevent its return; his snout hangs so far over his mouth,
that he is necessitated to turn upon his back, when he takes
fish that swim over him, and hence seems peculiarly formed to
catch those that swim under him.]

[Footnote: _The crawling crocodiles_, l. 59. As this animal
lives chiefly at the bottom of the rivers, which he
frequents, he has the power of opening the upper jaw as well
as the under one, and thus with greater facility catches the
fish or water-fowl which swim over him.]

[Footnote: _One great slaughter-house_, l. 66. As vegetables
are an inferior order of animals fixed to the soil; and as
the locomotive animals prey upon them, or upon each other;
the world may indeed be said to be one great slaughter-house.
As the digested food of vegetables consists principally of
sugar, and from this is produced again their mucilage,
starch, and oil, and since animals are sustained by these
vegetable productions, it would seem that the sugar-making
process carried on in vegetable vessels was the great source
of life to all organized beings. And that if our improved
chemistry should ever discover the art of making sugar from
fossile or aerial matter without the assistance of
vegetation, food for animals would then become as plentiful
as water, and they might live upon the earth without preying
on each other, as thick as blades of grass, with no restraint
to their numbers but the want of local room.

It would seem that roots fixed in the earth and leaves
innumerable waving in the air were necessary for the
decomposition of water and air, and the conversion of them
into saccharine matter, which would have been not only
cumberous but totally incompatible with the locomotion of
animal bodies. For how could a man or quadruped have carried
on his head or back a forest of leaves, or have had long
branching lacteal or absorbent vessels terminating in the
earth? Animals therefore subsist on vegetables; that is they
take the matter so prepared, and have organs to prepare it
further for the purposes of higher animation and greater
sensibility.]

"THE brow of Man erect, with thought elate,
Ducks to the mandate of resistless fate;
Nor Love retains him, nor can Virtue save
Her sages, saints, or heroes from the grave. 70
While cold and hunger by defect oppress,
Repletion, heat, and labour by excess,
The whip, the sting, the spur, the fiery brand,
And, cursed Slavery! thy iron hand;
And led by Luxury Disease's trains,
Load human life with unextinguish'd pains.

[Footnote: _While cold and hunger_, l. 71. Those parts of our
system, which are in health excited into perpetual action,
give us pain, when they are not excited into action: thus
when the hands are for a time immersed in snow, an inaction
of the cutaneous capillaries is induced, as is seen from the
paleness of the skin, which is attended with the pain of
coldness. So the pain of hunger is probably produced by the
inaction of the muscular fibres of the stomach from the want
of the stimulus of food.

Thus those, who have used much voluntary exertion in their
early years, and have continued to do so, till the decline of
life commences, if they then lay aside their employment,
whether that of a minister of state, a general of an army, or
a merchant, or manufacturer; they cease to have their
faculties excited into their usual activity, and become
unhappy, I suppose from the too great accumulation of the
sensorial power of volition; which wants the accustomed
stimulus or motive to cause its expenditure.]

"Here laughs Ebriety more fell than arms,
And thins the nations with her fatal charms,
With Gout, and Hydrops groaning in her train,
And cold Debility, and grinning Pain, 80
With harlot's smiles deluded man salutes,
Revenging all his cruelties to brutes!
There the curst spells of Superstition blind,
And fix her fetters on the tortured mind;
She bids in dreams tormenting shapes appear,
With shrieks that shock Imagination's ear,
E'en o'er the grave a deeper shadow flings,
And maddening Conscience darts a thousand stings.

[Footnote: _Here laughs Ebriety_, l. 77.

Saevior armis
Luxuria incubuit, victumque ulciscitur orbem.
HORAC.]

[Footnote: _E'en o'er the grave_, l. 87. Many theatric
preachers among the Methodists successfully inculcate the
fear of death and of Hell, and live luxuriously on the folly
of their hearers: those who suffer under this insanity, are
generally most innocent and harmless people, who are then
liable to accuse themselves of the greatest imaginary crimes;
and have so much intellectual cowardice, that they dare not
reason about those things, which they are directed by their
priests to believe. Where this intellectual cowardice is
great, the voice of reason is ineffectual; but that of
ridicule may save many from these mad-making doctors, as the
farces of Mr. Foot; though it is too weak to cure those who
are already hallucinated.]

"There writhing Mania sits on Reason's throne,
Or Melancholy marks it for her own, 90
Sheds o'er the scene a voluntary gloom,
Requests oblivion, and demands the tomb.
And last Association's trains suggest
Ideal ills, that harrow up the breast,
Call for the dead from Time's o'erwhelming main,
And bid departed Sorrow live again.

[Footnote: _And last association_, l. 93. The miseries and
the felicities of life may be divided into those which arise
in consequence of irritation, sensation, volition, and
association; and consist in the actions of the extremities of
the nerves of sense, which constitute our ideas; if they are
much more exerted than usual, or much less exerted than
usual, they occasion pain; as when the finger is burnt in a
candle; or when we go into a cold bath: while their natural
degree of exertion produces the pleasure of life or
existence. This pleasure is nevertheless increased, when the
system is stimulated into rather stronger action than usual,
as after a copious dinner, and at the beginning of
intoxication; and diminished, when it is only excited into
somewhat less activity than usual, which is termed ennui, or
irksomeness of life.]

[Footnote: _Ideal ills_, l. 94. The tooth-edge is an instance
of bodily pain occasioned by association of ideas. Every one
in his childhood has repeatedly bit a part of the glass or
earthen vessel, in which his food has been given him, and has
thence had a disagreeable sensation in his teeth, attended at
the same time with a jarring sound: and ever after, when such
a sound is accidentally produced, the disagreeable sensation
of the teeth follows by association of ideas; this is further
elucidated in Zoonomia, Vol. I. Sect. XVI. 10.]

"Here ragged Avarice guards with bolted door
His useless treasures from the starving poor;
Loads the lorn hours with misery and care,
And lives a beggar to enrich his heir. 100
Unthinking crowds thy forms, Imposture, gull,
A Saint in sackcloth, or a Wolf in wool.
While mad with foolish fame, or drunk with power,
Ambition slays his thousands in an hour;
Demoniac Envy scowls with haggard mien,
And blights the bloom of other's joys, unseen;
Or wrathful Jealousy invades the grove,
And turns to night meridian beams of Love!

[Footnote: _Enrich his heir_, l. 100.

Cum furor haud dubius, cum sit manifesta phrenitis,
Ut locuples moriaris, egenti vivere fato.
JUVENAL.]

[Footnote: _A Wolf in wool_, l. 102. A wolf in sheep's
clothing.]

"Here wide o'er earth impetuous waters sweep,
And fields and forests rush into the deep; 110
Or dread Volcano with explosion dire
Involves the mountains in a flood of fire;
Or yawning Earth with closing jaws inhumes
Unwarned nations, living in their tombs;
Or Famine seizes with her tiger-paw,
And swallows millions with unsated maw.

"There livid Pestilence in league with Dearth
Walks forth malignant o'er the shuddering earth,
Her rapid shafts with airs volcanic wings,
Or steeps in putrid vaults her venom'd stings. 120
Arrests the young in Beauty's vernal bloom,
And bears the innocuous strangers to the tomb!--

[Footnote: _With airs volcanic_, l. 119. Those epidemic
complaints, which are generally termed influenza, are
believed to arise from vapours thrown out from earthquakes in
such abundance as to affect large regions of the atmosphere,
see Botanic Garden, V. I. Canto IV. l. 65. while the diseases
properly termed contagious originate from the putrid effluvia
of decomposing animal or vegetable matter.]

"AND now, e'en I, whose verse reluctant sings
The changeful state of sublunary things,
Bend o'er Mortality with silent sighs,
And wipe the secret tear-drops from my eyes,
Hear through the night one universal groan,
And mourn unseen for evils not my own,
With restless limbs and throbbing heart complain,
Stretch'd on the rack of sentimental pain! 130
--Ah where can Sympathy reflecting find
One bright idea to console the mind?
One ray of light in this terrene abode
To prove to Man the Goodness of his GOD?"

[Footnote: _Sentimental pain_, l. 130. Children should be
taught in their early education to feel for all the
remediable evils, which they observe in others; but they
should at the same time be taught sufficient firmness of mind
not intirely to destroy their own happiness by their
sympathizing with too great sensibility with the numerous
irremediable evils, which exist in the present system of the
world: as by indulging that kind of melancholy they decrease
the sum total of public happiness; which is so far rather
reprehensible than commendable. See Plan for Female Education
by Dr. Darwin, Johnson, London, Sect. XVII.

This has been carried to great excess in the East by the
disciples of Confucius; the Gentoos during a famine in India
refused to eat the flesh of cows and of other animals to
satisfy their hunger, and save themselves from death. And at
other times they have been said to permit fleas and
musquitoes to feed upon them from this erroneous sympathy.]

II. "HEAR, O YE SONS OF TIME!" the Nymph replies,
Quick indignation darting from her eyes;
"When in soft tones the Muse lamenting sings,
And weighs with tremulous hand the sum of things;
She loads the scale in melancholy mood,
Presents the evil, but forgets the good. 140
But if the beam some firmer hand suspends,
And good and evil load the adverse ends;
With strong libration, where the Good abides,
Quick nods the beam, the ponderous gold subsides.

"HEAR, O ye Sons of Time! the powers of Life
Arrest the elements, and stay their strife;
From wandering atoms, ethers, airs, and gas,
By combination form the organic mass;
And,--as they seize, digest, secrete,--dispense
The bliss of Being to the vital Ens. 150
Hence in bright groups from IRRITATION rise
Young Pleasure's trains, and roll their azure eyes.

[Footnote: _From wandering atoms_, l. 147. Had those ancient
philosophers, who contended that the world was formed from
atoms, ascribed their combinations to certain immutable
properties received from the hand of the Creator, such as
general gravitation, chemical affinity, or animal appetency,
instead of ascribing them to a blind chance; the doctrine of
atoms, as constituting or composing the material world by the
variety of their combinations, so far from leading the mind
to atheism, would strengthen the demonstration of the
existence of a Deity, as the first cause of all things;
because the analogy resulting from our perpetual experience
of cause and effect would have thus been exemplified through
universal nature.]

"With fond delight we feel the potent charm,
When Zephyrs cool us, or when sun-beams warm;
With fond delight inhale the fragrant flowers,
Taste the sweet fruits, which bend the blushing bowers,
Admire the music of the vernal grove,
Or drink the raptures of delirious love.

"So with long gaze admiring eyes behold
The varied landscape all its lights unfold; 160
Huge rocks opposing o'er the stream project
Their naked bosoms, and the beams reflect;
Wave high in air their fringed crests of wood,
And checker'd shadows dance upon the flood;
Green sloping lawns construct the sidelong scene,
And guide the sparkling rill that winds between;
Conduct on murmuring wings the pausing gale,
And rural echoes talk along the vale;
Dim hills behind in pomp aerial rise,
Lift their blue tops, and melt into the skies. 170

[Footnote: _The varied landscape_, l. 160. The pleasure, we
feel on examining a fine landscape, is derived from various
sources; as first the excitement of the retina of the eye
into certain quantities of action; which when there is in the
optic nerve any accumulation of sensorial power, is always
agreeable. 2. When it is excited into such successive
actions, as relieve each other; as when a limb has been long
exerted in one direction, by stretching it in another; as
described in Zoonomia, Sect. XL. 6. on ocular spectra. 3. And
lastly by the associations of its parts with some agreeable
sentiments or tastes, as of sublimity, beauty, utility,
novelty; and the objects suggesting other sentiments, which
have lately been termed picturesque as mentioned in the note
to Canto III, l. 230 of this work. The two former of these
sources of pleasure arise from irritation, the last from
association.]

"So when by HANDEL tuned to measured sounds
The trumpet vibrates, or the drum rebounds;
Alarm'd we listen with ecstatic wonder
To mimic battles, or imagined thunder.
When the soft lute in sweet impassion'd strains
Of cruel nymphs or broken vows complains;
As on the breeze the fine vibration floats,
We drink delighted the melodious notes.
But when young Beauty on the realms above
Bends her bright eye, and trills the tones of love; 180
Seraphic sounds enchant this nether sphere;
And listening angels lean from Heaven to hear.

[Footnote: _We drink delighted_, l. 178. The pleasure we
experience from music, is, like that from viewing a
landscape, derived from various sources; as first from the
excitement of the auditory nerve into certain quantities of
action, when there exists any accumulation of sensorial
power. 2. When the auditory nerve is exerted in such
successive actions as relieve each other, like stretching or
yawning, as described in Botanic Garden, Vol. II, Interlude
the third, these successions of sound are termed melody, and
their combinations harmony. 3. From the repetition of sounds
at certain intervals of time; as we hear them with greater
facility and accuracy, when we expect them; because they are
then excited by volition, as well as by irritation, or at
least the tympanum is then better adapted to assist their
production; hence the two musical times or bars; and hence
the rhimes in poetry give pleasure, as well as the measure of
the verse: and lastly the pleasure we receive from music,
arises from the associations of agreeable sentiments with
certain proportions, or repetitions, or quantities, or times
of sounds which have been previously acquired; as explained
in Zoonomia Vol. I. Sect. XVI. 10. and Sect. XXII. 2.]

"Next by SENSATION led, new joys commence
From the fine movements of the excited sense;
In swarms ideal urge their airy flight,
Adorn the day-scenes, and illume the night.
Her spells o'er all the hand of Fancy flings,
Gives form and substance to unreal things;
With fruits and foliage decks the barren waste,
And brightens Life with sentiment and taste; 190
Pleased o'er the level and the rule presides,
The painter's brush, the sculptor's chisel guides,
With ray ethereal lights the poet's fire,
Tunes the rude pipe, or strings the heroic lyre:
Charm'd round the nymph on frolic footsteps move
The angelic forms of Beauty, Grace, and Love.

"So dreams the Patriot, who indignant draws
The sword of vengeance in his Country's cause;
Bright for his brows unfading honours bloom,
Or kneeling Virgins weep around his tomb. 200
So holy transports in the cloister's shade
Play round thy toilet, visionary maid!
Charm'd o'er thy bed celestial voices sing,
And Seraphs hover on enamour'd wing.

"So HOWARD, MOIRA, BURDETT, sought the cells,
Where want, or woe, or guilt in darkness dwells;
With Pity's torch illumed the dread domains,
Wiped the wet eye, and eased the galling chains;
With Hope's bright blushes warm'd the midnight air,
And drove from earth the Demon of Despair. 210
Erewhile emerging from the caves of night
The Friends of Man ascended into light;
With soft assuasive eloquence address'd
The ear of Power to stay his stern behest;
At Mercy's call to stretch his arm and save
His tottering victims from the gaping grave.
These with sweet smiles Imagination greets,
For these she opens all her treasured sweets,
Strews round their couch, by Pity's hand combined,
Bright flowers of joy, the sunshine of the mind; 220
While Fame's loud trump with sounds applausive breathes
And Virtue crowns them with immortal wreathes.

"Thy acts, VOLITION, to the world impart
The plans of Science with the works of art;
Give to proud Reason her comparing power,
Warm every clime, and brighten every hour.
In Life's first cradle, ere the dawn began
Of young Society to polish man;
The staff that propp'd him, and the bow that arm'd,
The boat that bore him, and the shed that warm'd, 230
Fire, raiment, food, the ploughshare, and the sword,
Arose, VOLITION, at thy plastic word.

"By thee instructed, NEWTON'S eye sublime
Mark'd the bright periods of revolving time;
Explored in Nature's scenes the effect and cause,
And, charm'd, unravell'd all her latent laws.
Delighted HERSCHEL with reflected light
Pursues his radiant journey through the night;
Detects new guards, that roll their orbs afar
In lucid ringlets round the Georgian star. 240

"Inspired by thee, with scientific wand
Pleased ARCHIMEDES mark'd the figured sand;
Seized with mechanic grasp the approaching decks,
And shook the assailants from the inverted wrecks.
--Then cried the Sage, with grand effects elate,
And proud to save the Syracusian state;
While crowds exulting shout their noisy mirth,
'Give where to stand, and I will move the earth.'
So SAVERY guided his explosive steam
In iron cells to raise the balanced beam; 250
The Giant-form its ponderous mass uprears,
Descending nods and seems to shake the spheres.

[Footnote: _Mark'd the figur'd sand_, l. 242. The ancient
orators seem to have spoken disrespectfully of the mechanic
philosophers. Cicero mentioning Archimedes, calls him
Homunculus e pulvere et radio, alluding to the custom of
drawing problems on the sand with a staff.]

[Footnote: _So Savery guided_, l. 249. Captain Savery first
applied the pressure of the atmosphere to raise water in
consequence of a vacuum previously produced by the
condensation of steam, though the Marquis of Worcester had
before proposed to use for this purpose the expansive power
of steam; see Botanic Garden, Vol. I. Canto I. l. 253.
Note.]

"Led by VOLITION on the banks of Nile
Where bloom'd the waving flax on Delta's isle,
Pleased ISIS taught the fibrous stems to bind,
And part with hammers from the adhesive rind;
With locks of flax to deck the distaff-pole,
And whirl with graceful bend the dancing spole.
In level lines the length of woof to spread,
And dart the shuttle through the parting thread. 260
So ARKWRIGHT taught from Cotton-pods to cull,
And stretch in lines the vegetable wool;
With teeth of steel its fibre-knots unfurl'd,
And with the silver tissue clothed the world.

[Footnote: _The waving flax_, l. 254. Flax is said to have
been first discovered on the banks of the Nile, and Isis to
have been the inventress of spinning and weaving.]

[Footnote: _So Arkwright taught_, l. 261. See Botanic Garden,
Vol. II. Canto II. l. 87, Note.]

"Ages remote by thee, VOLITION, taught
Chain'd down in characters the winged thought;
With silent language mark'd the letter'd ground,
And gave to sight the evanescent sound.
Now, happier lot! enlighten'd realms possess
The learned labours of the immortal Press; 270
Nursed on whose lap the births of science thrive,
And rising Arts the wrecks of Time survive.

[Footnote: _The immortal Press_, l. 270. The discovery of the
art of printing has had so great influence on human affairs,
that from thence may be dated a new aera in the history of
mankind. As by the diffusion of general knowledge, both of
the arts of taste and of useful sciences, the public mind has
become improved to so great a degree, that though new
impositions have been perpetually produced, the arts of
detecting them have improved with greater rapidity. Hence
since the introduction of printing, superstition has been
much lessened by the reformation of religion; and necromancy,
astrology, chiromancy, witchcraft, and vampyrism, have
vanished from all classes of society; though some are still
so weak in the present enlightened times as to believe in the
prodigies of animal magnetism, and of metallic tractors; by
this general diffusion of knowledge, if the liberty of the
press be preserved, mankind will not be liable in this part
of the world to sink into such abject slavery as exists at
this day in China.]

"Ye patriot heroes! in the glorious cause
Of Justice, Mercy, Liberty, and Laws,
Who call to Virtue's shrine the British youth,
And shake the senate with the voice of Truth;
Rouse the dull ear, the hoodwink'd eye unbind,
And give to energy the public mind;
While rival realms with blood unsated wage
Wide-wasting war with fell demoniac rage; 280
In every clime while army army meets,
And oceans groan beneath contending fleets;
Oh save, oh save, in this eventful hour
The tree of knowledge from the axe of power;
With fostering peace the suffering nations bless,
And guard the freedom of the immortal Press!
So shall your deathless fame from age to age
Survive recorded in the historic page;
And future bards with voice inspired prolong
Your sacred names immortalized in song. 290

"Thy power ASSOCIATION next affords
Ideal trains annex'd to volant words,
Conveys to listening ears the thought superb,
And gives to Language her expressive verb;
Which in one changeful sound suggests the fact
At once to be, to suffer, or to act;
And marks on rapid wing o'er every clime
The viewless flight of evanescent Time.

[Footnote: _Her expressive verb_, l. 294. The verb, or the
word, has been so called from its being the most expressive
term in all languages; as it suggests the ideas of existence,
action or suffering, and of time; see the Note on Canto III.
l. 371, of this work.]

"Call'd by thy voice contiguous thoughts embrace
In endless streams arranged by Time or Place; 300
The Muse historic hence in every age
Gives to the world her _interesting_ page;
While in bright landscape from her moving pen
Rise the fine tints of manners and of men.

[Footnote: _Call'd by thy voice_, l. 299. The numerous trains
of associated ideas are divided by Mr. Hume into three
classes, which he has termed contiguity, causation, and
resemblance. Nor should we wonder to find them thus connected
together, since it is the business of our lives to dispose
them into these three classes; and we become valuable to
ourselves and our friends as we succeed in it. Those who have
combined an extensive class of ideas by the contiguity of
time or place, are men learned in the history of mankind, and
of the sciences they have cultivated. Those who have
connected a great class of ideas of resemblances, possess the
source of the ornaments of poetry and oratory, and of all
rational analogy. While those who have connected great
classes of ideas of causation, are furnished with the powers
of producing effects. These are the men of active wisdom who
lead armies to victory, and kingdoms to prosperity; or
discover and improve the sciences which meliorate and adorn
the condition of humanity.]

"Call'd by thy voice Resemblance next describes
Her sister-thoughts in lucid trains or tribes;
Whence pleased Imagination oft combines
By loose analogies her fair designs;
Each winning grace of polish'd wit bestows
To deck the Nymphs of Poetry and Prose. 310

[Footnote: _Polish'd wit bestows_, l. 309. Mr. Locke defines
wit to consist of an assemblage of ideas, brought together
with quickness and variety, wherein can be found any
resemblance or congruity, thereby to make up pleasant
pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy. To which Mr.
Addison adds, that these must occasion surprise as well as
delight; Spectator, Vol. I. No. LXII. See Note on Canto III.
l. 145. and Additional Note, VII. 3. Perhaps wit in the
extended use of the word may mean to express all kinds of
fine writing, as the word Taste is applied to all agreeable
visible objects, and thus wit may mean descriptive sublimity,
beauty, the pathetic, or ridiculous, but when used in the
confined sense, as by Mr. Locke and Mr. Addison as above, it
may probably be better defined a combination of ideas with
agreeable novelty, as this may be effected by opposition as
well as by resemblance.]

"Last, at thy potent nod, Effect and Cause
Walk hand in hand accordant to thy laws;
Rise at Volition's call, in groups combined,
Amuse, delight, instruct, and serve Mankind;
Bid raised in air the ponderous structure stand,
Or pour obedient rivers through the land;
With cars unnumber'd crowd the living streets,
Or people oceans with triumphant fleets.

"Thy magic touch imagined forms supplies
From colour'd light, the language of the eyes; 320
On Memory's page departed hours inscribes,
Sweet scenes of youth, and Pleasure's vanish'd tribes.
By thee ANTINOUS leads the dance sublime
On wavy step, and moves in measured time;
Charm'd round the Youth successive Graces throng,
And Ease conducts him, as he moves along;
Unbreathing crowds the floating form admire,
And Vestal bosoms feel forbidden fire.

"When rapp'd CECILIA breathes her matin vow,
And lifts to Heaven her fair adoring brow; 330
From her sweet lips, and rising bosom part
Impassion'd notes, that thrill the melting heart;
Tuned by thy hand the dulcet harp she rings,
And sounds responsive echo from the strings;
Bright scenes of bliss in trains suggested move,
And charm the world with melody and love.

III. "SOON the fair forms with vital being bless'd,
Time's feeble children, lose the boon possess'd;
The goaded fibre ceases to obey,
And sense deserts the uncontractile clay; 340
While births unnumber'd, ere the parents die,
The hourly waste of lovely life supply;
And thus, alternating with death, fulfil
The silent mandates of the Almighty Will;
Whose hand unseen the works of nature dooms
By laws unknown--WHO GIVES, AND WHO RESUMES.

[Footnote: _The goaded fibre_, l. 339. Old age consists in
the inaptitude to motion from the inirritability of the
system, and the consequent want of fibrous contraction; see
Additional Note VII.]

"Each pregnant Oak ten thousand acorns forms
Profusely scatter'd by autumnal storms;
Ten thousand seeds each pregnant poppy sheds
Profusely scatter'd from its waving heads; 350
The countless Aphides, prolific tribe,
With greedy trunks the honey'd sap imbibe;
Swarm on each leaf with eggs or embryons big,
And pendent nations tenant every twig.
Amorous with double sex, the snail and worm,
Scoop'd in the soil, their cradling caverns form;
Heap their white eggs, secure from frost and floods,
And crowd their nurseries with uncounted broods.
Ere yet with wavy tail the tadpole swims,
Breathes with new lungs, or tries his nascent limbs; 360
Her countless shoals the amphibious frog forsakes,
And living islands float upon the lakes.
The migrant herring steers her myriad bands
From seas of ice to visit warmer strands;
Unfathom'd depths and climes unknown explores,
And covers with her spawn unmeasured shores.
--All these, increasing by successive birth,
Would each o'erpeople ocean, air, and earth.

[Footnote: _Ten thousand seeds_, l. 349. The fertility of
plants in respect to seeds is often remarkable; from one root
in one summer the seeds of zea, maize, amount to 2000; of
inula, elecampane, to 3000; of helianthus, sunflower, to
4000; of papaver, poppy, 32000; of nicotiana, tobacco, to
40320; to this must be added the perennial roots, and the
buds. Buds, which are so many herbs, in one tree, the trunk
of which does not exceed a span in thickness, frequently
amount to 10000; Lin. Phil. Bot. p. 86.]

[Footnote: _The countless Aphides_, l. 351. The aphises,
pucerons, or vine-fretters, are hatched from an egg in the
early spring, and are all called females, as they produce a
living offspring about once in a fortnight to the ninth
generation, which are also all of them females; then males
are also produced, and by their intercourse the females
become oviparous, and deposite their eggs on the branches, or
in the bark to be hatched in the ensuing spring.

This double mode of reproduction, so exactly resembling the
buds and seeds of trees, accounts for the wonderful increase
of this insect, which, according to Dr. Richardson, consists
of ten generations, and of fifty at an average in each
generation; so that the sum of fifty multiplied by fifty, and
that product again multiplied by fifty nine times, would give
the product of one egg only in countless millions; to which
must be added the innumerable eggs laid by the tenth
generation for the renovation of their progeny in the ensuing
spring.]

[Footnote: _The honey'd sap_, l. 352. The aphis punctures
with its fine proboscis the sap-vessels of vegetables without
any visible wound, and thus drinks the sap-juice, or
vegetable chyle, as it ascends. Hence on the twigs of trees
they stand with their heads downwards, as I have observed, to
acquire this ascending sap-juice with greater facility. The
honey-dew on the upper surface of leaves is evacuated by
these insects, as they hang on the underside of the leaves
above; when they take too much of this saccharine juice
during the vernal or midsummer sap-flow of most vegetables;
the black powder on leaves is also their excrement at other
times. The vegetable world seems to have escaped total
destruction from this insect by the number of flies, which in
their larva state prey upon them; and by the ichneumon fly,
which deposits its eggs in them. Some vegetables put forth
stiff bristles with points round their young shoots, as the
moss-rose, apparently to prevent the depredation of these
insects, so injurious to them by robbing them of their chyle
or nourishment.]

[Footnote: _The tadpole swims_, l. 359. The progress of a
tadpole from a fish to a quadruped by his gradually putting
forth his limbs, and at length leaving the water, and
breathing the dry air, is a subject of great curiosity, as it
resembles so much the incipient state of all other
quadrupeds, and men, who are aquatic animals in the uterus,
and become aerial ones at their birth.]

"So human progenies, if unrestrain'd,
By climate friended, and by food sustain'd, 370
O'er seas and soils, prolific hordes! would spread
Erelong, and deluge their terraqueous bed;
But war, and pestilence, disease, and dearth,
Sweep the superfluous myriads from the earth.
Thus while new forms reviving tribes acquire
Each passing moment, as the old expire;
Like insects swarming in the noontide bower,
Rise into being, and exist an hour;
The births and deaths contend with equal strife,
And every pore of Nature teems with Life; 380
Which buds or breathes from Indus to the Poles,
And Earth's vast surface kindles, as it rolls!

[Footnote: _Which buds or breathes_, l. 381. Organic bodies,
besides the carbon, hydrogen, azote, and the oxygen and heat,
which are combined with them, require to be also immersed in
loose heat and loose oxygen to preserve their mutable
existence; and hence life only exists on or near the surface
of the earth; see Botan. Garden, Vol. I. Canto IV. l. 419.
L'organisation, le sentiment, le movement spontane, la vie,
n'existent qu'a la surface de la terre, et dans les lieux
exposes a la lumiere. Traite de Chimie par M. Lavoisier, Tom.
I. p. 202.]

"HENCE when a Monarch or a mushroom dies,
Awhile extinct the organic matter lies;
But, as a few short hours or years revolve,
Alchemic powers the changing mass dissolve;
Born to new life unnumber'd insects pant,
New buds surround the microscopic plant;
Whose embryon senses, and unwearied frames,
Feel finer goads, and blush with purer flames; 390
Renascent joys from irritation spring,
Stretch the long root, or wave the aurelian wing.

[Footnote: _Born to new life_, l. 387. From the innumerable
births of the larger insects, and the spontaneous productions
of the microscopic ones, every part of organic matter from
the recrements of dead vegetable or animal bodies, on or near
the surface of the earth, becomes again presently reanimated;
which by increasing the number and quantity of living
organizations, though many of them exist but for a short
time, adds to the sum total of terrestrial happiness.]

"When thus a squadron or an army yields,
And festering carnage loads the waves or fields;
When few from famines or from plagues survive,
Or earthquakes swallow half a realm alive;--
While Nature sinks in Time's destructive storms,
The wrecks of Death are but a change of forms;
Emerging matter from the grave returns,
Feels new desires, with new sensations burns; 400
With youth's first bloom a finer sense acquires,
And Loves and Pleasures fan the rising fires.--
Thus sainted PAUL, 'O Death!' exulting cries,
'Where is thy sting? O Grave! thy victories?'

[Footnote: _Thus sainted Paul_, l. 403. The doctrine of St.
Paul teaches the resurrection of the body in an incorruptible
and glorified state, with consciousness of its previous
existence; he therefore justly exults over the sting of
death, and the victory of the grave.]

"Immortal Happiness from realms deceased
Wakes, as from sleep, unlessen'd or increased;
Calls to the wise in accents loud and clear,
Sooths with sweet tones the sympathetic ear;
Informs and fires the revivescent clay,
And lights the dawn of Life's returning day. 410

[Footnote: _And lights the dawn_, l. 410. The sum total of
the happiness of organized nature is probably increased
rather than diminished, when one large old animal dies, and
is converted into many thousand young ones; which are
produced or supported with their numerous progeny by the same
organic matter. Linneus asserts, that three of the flies,
called musca vomitoria, will consume the body of a dead
horse, as soon as a lion can; Syst. Nat.]

"So when Arabia's Bird, by age oppress'd,
Consumes delighted on his spicy nest;
A filial Phoenix from his ashes springs,
Crown'd with a star, on renovated wings;
Ascends exulting from his funeral flame,
And soars and shines, another and the same.

[Footnote: _So when Arabia's bird_, l. 411. The story of the
Phoenix rising from its own ashes with a star upon its head
seems to have been an hieroglyphic emblem of the destruction
and resuscitation of all things; see Botan. Garden, Vol. I.