.11.

""Tis more in climate, and cause physical,

Than their religion's opposite pretensions,

That th' ancients have, in point of taste, (though tall
In other things we are) dwarfed our dimensions."
-Well! it may be so; oftentimes there's small
(Though it give birth to violent contentions)
Difference between causation and coincidence.
I'll not be stiff. This may, in proof, be instance.

.12.

But, if it be coincidence, or cause,

The fact we must allow, that, in a region Where faith towards abstract contemplation draws, The arts are treated as, of devils, a legion. Again, if ever faith the arts espouse,

As, by this means, the latter, with religion, Share all the honours, then new motives press On those whose fame's involv'd in art's success.

.13.

"Tis difficult to reach the utmost length Of exquisite refinement in the senses, And to retain that venerable strength,

Which turns, to moral ends, their influences.

It must, I fear, be granted us, at length,
To Epicurus's indulgences

The arts owe more than to the stoic's sermons.

The arts ne'er kept the senses on short commons.

14.

But since 'tis pleasanter to paint effects

Than flounder in the dark abyss of causes;
And, since he who creates, than who dissects,
"Tis probable will challenge more applauses;
Since 'tis more pleasant to be architects,

Than be employ'd in pulling down old houses;
And other whys and wherefores, the synthetic
I must prefer to the style analytic."

.15.

Well, then, proceed we on our hobby horse,
And pick up facts as fast as we can find 'em ;
But when we're mounted, 'twould be worse than gorse
In king's highway, if systems round us twin'd 'em.
Proceed we then, for better and for worse,

Like men that look before, around, behind 'em ;
Not like astrologer, as if to move him?
Things indispensably must be above him.

16.

'Tis pleasant, no doubt, many of my readers
Can tell, to loiter on a sunny day;

When e'en the fly puts forth its little feelers,
So soft the air, so genial the sun's ray:
To catch the gales, Nature's benignant healers,

Bring their rich fragrance from the tedded hay,
Whose kisses, like a dear friend's welcome home,
Gladden, while telling of more joys to come.

17.

"Tis sweet to linger near a little brook,

Which trips so murmuringly 'mid stones, grass,

flowers;

Sweet to be stretch'd at length, with favourite book,

In Nature's own self-consecrated bowers.

"Tis sweet on eyes of a dear friend to look, More, if that friend be female, and be ours. Sweetest of sweets! a summer day's bewildering With our own offspring, while, like them, we're children.

18.

But neither ramble on a sunny day,

Nor ling'ring near a little brook, more sweet; Nor with a favourite author stretch'd, to lay Ourselves at length; nor dear friends' eyes to meet ;I scarce know what of woman's eyes to say;Or when, with children, pleasure is complete!-Those being excepted, no, not one of these

More sweet, than pouring out one's thoughts at ease.

19.

Proceed we once more to our theme neglected.-
Whence comes it, that the ancients, when they 'affect
Topics that with man's passions are connected,
Confine themselves to physical effect?

By them, as by us, mind is not dissected;
Speak they of love? The passion they depict:

Its macies, its pallor ;-but its throes?

A picture's given!

The rest we must suppose..

20.

Thus, in the tragic scene, where fell remorse Distracts the breast of Agamemnon's son; 'Stead of describing it in all its force

Like Shakspeare, when hell's mysteries, one by one, Knell out the death of Duncan: from their source,.

When his great powers develope thoughts that shun A grasp less skilful, and when he reveals Whate'er Guilt's agonizing victim feels;

21.

Instead of these, in the more antique scene,
The stern-ey'd Furies rise, and circle round
Orestes' form in that the felt is seen!

:

Little recourse is had to the profound, Mysterious, and impalpable, I ween!

In painter's art, there might as much be found Of thought, as we find there: I grant, there much is Oft, of true pathos, which profoundly touches.

『,

22.

Now cannot we suppose, that something may
Of this so very marked discrepancy,

Ascribed be, to the very different way

In which religious things we 're apt to see? Perhaps, that no sense more than this doth sway The texture of the mind, we shall agree.

Let us decide the question as we will :-
It is a stubborn fact, that all our skill

23.

Cannot o'erturn; by matter, they, the mind-
And by material forms, its various powers-
Illustrate. To the latter is assigned

Subserviency by them. The task is ours,
By intellectual processes refined

(As, in some climes, meaning's convey'd by flowers)* All objects of creation to controul,

As vassals to phenomena of soul.

24.

It seems to me, so much Religion's power
Sways human souls, and so much is combin'd

With all their faculties, that, when we tower

Beneath its influence with thoughts heaven-enshrin'd, "Tis likely that a taste will be our dower, E'en in indifferent objects, more refin'd, More lofty far, than what can those befal, In whom it tends to objects physical.

25.

Besides, when we Religion thus divest

Of what is definite, those soaring wings

*See Lord Byron's poems; in one of which, or in the notes to one of which, as far as the author remembers, he says, that flowers of different descriptions convey, from the lover to his mistress, different meanings connected with the process of passion.)...