O Vitæ Philosophia Dux! O Virtutis indagatrix, expultrixque Vitiorum.-Tu Urbes peperisti; tu inventrix Legum, tu niagistra Morum et Disciplinæ fuisti: Ad te confugimus, a te Opem petimus.' Cic. Tusc. Quæst.
SCIENCE! thou fair effusive ray
From the great source of mental day,
Free, generous, and refined!
Descend with all thy treasures fraught,
Illumine each bewilder'd thought,
And bless my labouring mind.
But first, with thy resistless light
Disperse those phantoms from my sight,
Those mimic shades of thee;
The scholiast's learning, sophist's cant,
The visionary bigot's rant,
The monk's philosophy.
O! let thy powerful charms impart
The patient head, the candid heart,
Devoted to thy sway;
Which no weak passions e'er mislead,
Which still with dauntless steps proceed
Where reason points the way.
Give me to learn each secret cause;
Let number's, figure's, motion's laws
Reveal'd before me stand;
These to great Nature's scenes apply,
And round the globe and through the sky
Disclose her working hand.
Next, to thy nobler search resign'd,
The busy, restless, human mind,
Through every maze pursue;
Detect perception where it lies,
Catch the ideas as they rise,
And all their changes view.
Say from what simple springs began
The vast ambitious thoughts of man,
Which range beyond control,
Which seek eternity to trace,
Dive through the' infinity of space,
And strain to grasp the whole.
Her secret stores let Memory tell,
Bid Fancy quit her fairy cell,
In all her colours dress'd;
While, prompt her sallies to control,
Reason, the judge, recalls the soul
To Truth's severest test.
Then launch through being's wide extent;
Let the fair scale with just ascent
And cautious steps be trod;
And from the dead, corporeal mass
Through each progressive order pass
To instinct, reason, GOD!
There, Science! veil thy daring eye;
Nor dive too deep, nor soar too high,
In that divine abyss;
To Faith content thy beams to lend,
Her hopes to' assure, her steps befriend,
And light her way to bliss.
Then downward take thy flight again,
Mix with the policies of men
And social Nature's ties;
The plan, the genius of each state,
Its interest and its powers relate,
Its fortunes and its rise.
Through private life pursue thy course,
Trace every action to its source,
And means and motives weigh:
Put tempers, passions in the scale;
Mark what degrees in each prevail,
And fix the doubtful sway.
That last best effort of thy skill,
To form the life and rule the will,
Propitious power! impart:
Teach me to cool my passions' fires,
Make me the judge of my desires,
The master of my heart.
Raise me above the vulgar's breath,
Pursuit of fortune, fear of death,
And all in life that's mean:
Still true to reason be my plan,
Still let my actions speak the man,
Through every various scene.
Hail! queen of manners, light of truth;
Hail! charm of age, and guide of youth;
Sweet refuge of distress:
In business, thou! exact, polite;
Thou givest retirement its delight,
Prosperity its grace.
Of wealth, power, freedom, thou the cause;
Foundress of order, cities, laws,
Of arts inventress thou!
Without thee, what were humankind?
How vast their wants, their thoughts how blind! Their joys how mean! how few!
Sun of the soul! thy beams unyeil!
Let others spread the daring sail
On Fortune's faithless sea:
While, undeluded, happier I
From the vain tumult timely fly,
And sit in peace with thee,
SENTENCE OF BERKELEY'S SIRIS,
BEFORE thy mystic altar, heavenly Truth,
I kneel in manhood, as I knelt in youth:
Thus let me kneel till this dull form decay,
And life's last shade be brighten'd by thy ray:
Then shall my soul, now lost in clouds below;
Soar without bound, without consuming glow *.
These lines were written by Sir William Jones in Berkeley's Siris; they are, in fact, a beautiful version of the last sentence of the Siris, amplified and adapted to himself: He that would make a real progress in knowledge must dedicate his age as well as youth, the latter growth as well as the first fruits, at the altar of Truth.'
IMITATED FROM JANUS VITALIS.
Go then to Rome! and hope in Rome to find
The Rome thy classics pictured to thy mind!
Ask, disappointed, where the wonder lies?
And hail the imperial ruin with thy sighs!
Those walls, those massive fragments, dark with
Those coloseums crumbling into dust, [rust,
Those are thy Rome! See,frowning from the ground,
Her very ashes breathe a menace round!
Imperial mistress of a conquer'd world,
Her last destruction at herself she hurl'd;
Now the sole index of the Roman name
Is Tyber, still in motion, still the same.
Learn hence the paradox of Fortune's reign,
The fix'd are gone; the' unsteady still remain.
ON THE DEATH OF A POOR IDIOT.
WHO, helpless, hopeless being, who
Shall strew a flower upon thy grave? Or who from mute Oblivion's power Thy disregarded name shall save? Honour and wealth and learning's store The votive urn remembers long;
And even the annals of the poor'
Live in the bard's immortal song.
But a blank stone best stories thee,
Whom wealth nor sense nor fame could find;
Poorer than aught beside we see,
A human form without a mind.
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