(Both vast for fhew, yet neither fit

Or to defend, or to beget;

Ridiculous and senseless terrors !) made Children and fuperftitious men afraid.

The orchard's open now, and free, Bacon has broke the scare-crow deity: Come, enter, all that will,

Behold the ripen'd fruit, come gather now your fill!
Yet ftill, methinks, we fain would be
Catching at the forbidden tree-

We would be like the Deity—

When truth and falfehood, good and evil, we, Without the fenfes' aid, within ourselves would fee; For 'tis God only who can find

All Nature in his mind.

}

From words, which are but pictures of the thought
(Though we our thoughts from them perversely drew).
To things, the mind's right object, he it brought:
Like foolish birds, to painted grapes we flew;
He fought and gather'd for our use the true;
And, when on heaps the chosen bunches lay,
He preft them wifely the mechanic way,
Till all their juice did in one veffel join,
Ferment into a nourishment divine,

The thirty foul's refreshing wine.

Who to the life an exact piece would make,
Muft not from others' work a copy take;

No, not from Rubens or Vandyke;
Much lefs content himfelf to make it like

}

Th'

Th' ideas and the images which lie
In his own fancy or his memory.
No, he before his fight muft place
The natural and living face;

The real object must command

Each judgment of his eye and motion of his hand.

From these and all long errors of the way,
In which our wandering predeceffors went,
And, like th' old Hebrews, many years did ftray,
In deferts but of fmall extent,

Bacon, like Mofes, led us forth at laft:

The barren wilderness he past;
Did on the very border stand

Of the bleft promis'd land;

And from the mountain's top of his exalted wit,

Saw it himself, and fhew'd us it.

But life did never to one man allow
Time to difcover worlds and conquer too;
Nor can fo fhort a line fufficient be

To fathom the vast depths of Nature's fea.
The work he did we ought t' admire;
And were unjust if we should more require
From his few years, divided 'twixt th' excess
Of low affliction and high happiness:
For who on things remote can fix his fight,
That's always in a triumph or a fight?

From you, great champions! we expect to get
These spacious countries, but difcover'd yet;

Countries,

Countries, where yet, instead of Nature, we
Her images and idols worship'd fee:

These large and wealthy regions to fubdue,
Though Learning has whole armies at command,
Quarter'd about in every land,

A better troop fhe ne'er together drew:
Methinks, like Gideon's little band,
God with defign has pick'd out you,

To do those noble wonders by a few :
When the whole host he faw, "They are" (faid he】

"Too many to o'ercome for me;"

And now he choofes out his men,
Much in the way that he did then;
Not thofe many whom he found
Idly' extended on the ground,
To drink with their dejected head
The stream, juft fo as by their mouths it fled:
No; but thofe few who took the waters up,
And made of their laborious hands the cup.

Thus you prepar'd, and in the glorious fight
Their wondrous pattern too you take;
Their old and empty pitchers firft they brake,
And with their hands then lifted up the light.
Io! found too the trumpets here!
Already your victorious lights appear;
New scenes of heaven already we espy,
And crowds of golden worlds on high,
Which from the fpacious plains of earth and fea
Could never yet discover'd be,

By failors' or Chaldeans' watchful eye.

Nature's

Nature's great works no distance can obscure,
No smallness her near objects can secure;
Y' have taught the curious fight to prefs
Into the privatest recess

Of her imperceptible littlenefs!

Y' have learn'd to read her smallest hand, And well begun her deepest sense to understand!

Mischief and true dishonour fall on those

Who would to laughter or to fcorn expose
So virtuous and fo noble a design,

So human for its ufe, for knowledge so divine.
The things which these proud men despise, and call

Impertinent, and vain, and small,

Those smallest things of nature let me know,
Rather than all their greatest actions do!
Whoever would depofed Truth advance
Into the throne ufurp'd from it,
Muft feel at firft the blows of Ignorance,
And the fharp points of envious Wit.

So, when, by various turns of the celestial dance,

In

many thousand years

A ftar, fo long unknown, appears,

Though heaven itself more beauteous by it grow,
It troubles and alarms the world below;

Does to the wife a star, to fools a meteor, fhow.

With courage and success the bold work begin;

you

Your cradle has not idle been :

None e'er, but Hercules and you, would be ^t five years age worthy a history.

}

}

And

And ne'er did Fortune better yet Th'. hiftorian to the story fit:

As you from all old errors free And purge the body of Philosophy; So from all modern follies he

Has vindicated Eloquence and Wit.

His candid style like a clean stream does slide,
And his bright fancy, all the way,
Does like the fun-fhine in it play;

It does, like Thames, the best of rivers! glide,
Where the God does not rudely overturn,

But gently pour, the crystal urn,

And with judicious hand does the whole current guide: 'T has all the beauties Nature can impart, And all the comely dress, without the paint, of Art.

UPON THE

CHAIR made out of Sir FRANCIS DRAKE'S SHIP, Prefented to the University Library of Oxford, by John Davis of Deptford, Efquire.

T

O this great fhip, which round the globe has run, And match'd in race the chariot of the fun, This Pythagorean ship (for it may claim Without prefumption fo deferv'd a name, By knowledge once, and transformation now) In her new shape, this facred port allow.

Drake