And one light joke at rich Loretto's dome
Would rank good Marco with the damned at Rome.
There's no deformity so vile, so base,
That 'tis not somewhere thought a charm, a grace;
No foul reproach that may not steal a beam
From other suns, to bleach it to esteem!
Ask, who is wise?—you'll find the self-same man
A sage in France, a madman in Japan;
And here some head beneath a mitre swells,
Which there had tingled to a cap and bells :
Nay, there may yet some monstrous region be,
Unknown to Cook, and from Napoleon free,
Where C-stl-r-gh would for a patriot pass,
And mouthing M-lgr-ve scarce be deemed an ass!
'List not to reason,' Epicurus cries,
But trust the senses, there conviction lies :"2_
Alas! they judge not by a purer light,
Nor keep their fountains more untinged and bright
Habit so mars them that the Russian swain
Will sigh for train-oil while he sips champagne
And health so rules them, that a fever's heat
Would make even Sh-r-d-n think water sweet!
Just as the mind the erring sense believes,
The erring mind, in turn, the sense deceives;
And cold disgust can find but wrinkles there,
Where passion fancies all that's smooth and fair,
who sees, upon his pillow laid,
A face for which ten thousand pounds were paid,
Can tell, how quick before a jury flies
The spell that mocked the warm seducer's eyes!
Self is the medium least refined of all
Through which opinion's searching beam can fall;
And, passing there, the clearest, steadiest ray
Will tinge its light and turn its line astray.
The Ephesian smith a holier charm espied
In Dian's toe, than all his heaven beside;
This was also the creed of those modern Epicureans whom Ninon de l'Enclos collected around her in the Rue des Tournelles, and whose object seems to have been to decry the facuity of reason, as tending only to embarrass our use of pleasures, without enabling us in any degree to avoid their abuse. Madame des Houlières, the fair pupil of Des Barreaux in the arts of poetry and voluptuousness, has devoted most of her verses to this laudable purpose, and is such a determined foe to reason, that in one of her pastorals she congratulates her sheep on the want of it. St. Evremont speaks thus upon the subject:
'Un mélange incertain d'esprit et de matière Nous fait vivre avec trop ou trop peu de lumière.
Nature, élève-nous à la clarté des anges,
Ou nous abaise au sens des simples animaux.'
Which sentiments I have thus ventured to para-
phrase:
Had man been made, at nature's birth,
Of only flame or only earth,
Had he been formed a perfect whole
Of purely that, or grossly this,
Then sense would ne'er have clouded soul,
Nor soul restrained the sense's bliss.
Oh happy! had his light been strong,
Or had he never shared a light,
Which burns enough to show he's wrong,
Yet not enough to lead him right!
And true religion shines not half so true
On one good living as it shines on two.
Had W-le-t first been pensioned by the Throne,
Kings would have suffered by his praise alone;
And P-ine perhaps, for something snug per ann.,
Had laughed, like W-l1-sly, at all Rights of Man!
But 'tis not only individual minds
That habit tinctures, or that interest blinds;
Whole nations, fooled by falsehood, fear, or pride,
Their ostrich-heads in self-illusion hide;
Thus England, hot from Denmark's smoking meals,
Turns up her eyes at Gallia's guilty deeds;
Thus, selfish still, the same dishonouring chain
She binds in Ireland, she would break in Spain;
While praised at distance, but at home forbid,
Rebels in Cork are patriots at Madrid!
Oh! trust me, Self can cloud the brightest cause,
Or gild the worst; and then, for nations' laws!
Go, good civilian, shut thy useless book,
In force alone for laws of nations look.
Let shipless Danes and whining Yankees dwell
On naval rights, with Grotius and Vattel,
While C--bb-t's' pirate code alone appears
Sound moral sense to England and Algiers!
Woe to the Sceptic, in these party days,
Who burns on neither shrine the balm of praise!
For him no pension pours its annual fruits,
No fertile sinecure spontaneous shoots;
Not his the meed that crowned Don H-kh-m's rhyme,
Nor sees he e'er, in dreams of future time,
Those shadowy forms of sleek reversions rise,
So dear to Scotchmen's second-sighted eyes!
Yet who, that looks to time's accusing leaf,
Where Whig and Tory, thief opposed to thief,
On either side in lofty shame are seen,
While Freedom's form hang3 crucified between-
Who, B-rd-tt, who such rival rogues can see,
But flies from both to honesty and thee?
If, giddy with the world's bewildering maze,2
Hopeless of finding, through its weedy ways,
One flower of truth, the busy crowd we shun,
And to the shades of tranquil learning un
1 With most of this writer's latter politics I confess I feel a most hearty concurrence, and perhaps, if I were an Englishman, my pride might lead me to acquiesce in that system of lawless, unlimited sovereignty which he claims so boldly for his country at sea; but viewing the question somewhat more disinterestedly, and as a friend to the common rights of mankind, I cannot help thinking that the doctrines which he maintained upon the Copenhagen expedition and
the differences with America, would establish a species of maritime tyranny, as discreditable to the character of England as it would be galling and unjust to the other nations of the world.
2 The agitation of the ship is one of the chief difficulties which impede the discovery of the longitude at sea; and the tumult and hurry of life are equally unfavourable to that calm level of mind which is necessary to an inquirer after truth.
How many a doubt pursues! how oft we sigh,
When histories charm, to think that histories lie!
That all are grave romances at the best,
And M-sgr-ve's but more clumsy than the rest!
By Tory Hume's seductive page beguiled,
We fancy Charles was just and Strafford mild;
And Fox himself, with party pencil, draws
Monmouth a hero for the good old cause !'1
Then, rights are wrongs, and victories are defeats,
As French or English pride the tale repeats;
And when they tell Corunna's story o'er,
They'll disagree in all but honouring Moore !
Nay, future pens, to flatter future courts,
May cite, perhaps, the Park-guns' gay reports,
To prove that England triumphed on the morn
Which found her Junot's jest and Europe's scorn!
In science too-how many a system, raised
Like Neva's icy domes, awhile hath blazed
With lights of fancy and with forms of pride,
Then, melting, mingled with the oblivious tide!
Now Earth usurps the centre of the sky,
Now Newton puts the paltry planet by;
Now whims revive beneath Descartes' pen,
Which now, assailed by Locke's, expire again :
And when, perhaps, in pride of chemic powers,
We think the keys of Nature's kingdom ours,
Some Davy's magic touch the dream unsettles,
And turns at once our alkalis to metals!
Or, should we roam, in metaphysic maze,
Through fair-built theories of former days,
Some D-mm-d from the north, more ably skilled,
Like other Goths, to ruin than to build,
Tramples triumphant through our fanes o'erthrown,
Nor leaves one grace, one glory of his own!
Oh, Learning! Learning! whatsoe'er thy boast,
Unlettered minds have taught and charmed us most:
The rude, unread Columbus was our guide
To worlds which learned Lactantius had denied,
That flexibility of temper and opinion which the habits of scepticism are so calculated to produce are thus pleaded for by Mr. Fox, in the very sketch of Monmouth to which I allude; and this part of the picture the historian may be thought to have drawn for himself. One of the most conspicuous features in his character seems to have been a remarkable, and, as some think, a culpable degree of flexibility. That such a disposition is preferable to its opposite extreme will be admitted by all who think that modesty, even in excess, is more nearly allied to wisdom than conceit and self-sufficiency. He who has attentively considered the political, or indeed the
general, concerns of life, may possibly go still further, and may rank a willingness to be convinced, or in some cases even without conviction, to concede our own opinion to that of other n en, among the principal ingredients in the composi tion of practical wisdom.' The sceptic's readiness of concession, however, arises more from uncertainty than conviction, more from a suspicion that his own opinion may be wrong than from any persuasion that the opinion of his adversary is right. It may be so,' was the courteous and sceptical formula which the Dutch were accustomed to reply to the statements of ambassadors.-See Lloyd's State Worthies, art. Sir Thomas Wiat.
And one wild Shakspeare, following Nature's lights,
Is worth whole planets filled with Stagyrites!
See grave Theology, when once she strays
From Revelation's path, what tricks she plays!
How many various heavens hath Fancy's wing
Explored or touched from Papias down to King!1
And hell itself, in India nought but smoke,"
In Spain's a furnace, and in France—a joke
Hail, modest ignorance! thou goal and prize,
Thou last, best knowledge of the humbly wise!
Hail, sceptic ease! when error's waves are past,
How sweet to reach thy tranquil port at last,
And, gently rocked in undulating doubt,
Smile at the sturdy winds which war without!
There gentle Charity, who knows how frail
The bark of virtue, even in summer's gale,
Sits by the nightly fire, whose beacon glows
For all who wander, whether friends or foes!
There Faith retires, and keeps her white sail furled,
world;
Till called to spread it for a purer
While Patience lingers o'er the weedy shore,
And, mutely waiting till the storm be o'er,
Turns to young Hope, who still directs his eye
To some blue spot, just breaking in the sky!
These are the mild, the blest associates given
To him who doubts, and trusts in nought but Heaven!
1 King, in his Morsels of Criticism,' vol. i., supposes the sun to be the receptacle of blessed spirits.
2 The Indians call hell the House of Smoke.' See Picart upon the Religion of the Banians.'
The reader who is curious about infernal matters may be edified by consulting 'Rusca de Interno,' particularly lib. ii. cap. 7, 8, where he will find the precise sort of fire ascertained in which wicked spirits are to be burned hereafter.
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