Gods, devils, nymphs, witches, and giants' race,
And all but man, in man's chief work had place.
Thou, like fome worthy knight, with faered arms, 5
Doft drive the monsters thence and end the charms:
Instead of thofe doft men and manners plant,
The things which that rich foil did chiefly want:
Yet ev❜n thy mortals do their gods excel,
Taught by thy Mufe to fight and love fo well.

ΤΟ

By fatal hands whilst prefent empires fall, Thine from the grave past monarchies recall. So much more thanks from human-kind does merit The poet's fury than the zealot's spirit:

20

And from the grave thou mak'st this empire rife, 15
Not like fome dreadful ghost t'affright her eyes,
But with more luftre and triumphant ftate
Than when it crown'd at proud Verona fate.
So will our God rebuild man's perish'd‹frame,
And raise him up much better, yet the fame:
So godlike poets do past things rehearse,
Not change, but heighten Nature by their verse.
With shame, methinks, great Italy must see
Her conqu❜rors rais'd to life again by thee;
Rais'd by fuch pow'rful verse, that ancient Rome 25
May blufh no lefs to fee her wit o'ercome.

Some men their fancies like their faith derive,
And think all ill but that which Rome does give;
The marks of old and Catholic would find,

To the fame chair would Truth and Fiction bind. 30

Thou in those beaten paths difdain'st to tread,
And scorn'ft to live by robbing of the dead.

Since lime does all things change, thou think'st not fit
This latter age should see all new but wit.

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Thy fancy like a flame its way does make,
And leaves bright tracts for following pens to take.
Sure 'twas this noble boldness of the Muse
Did thy defire to feek new worlds infuse,
And ne'er did Heav'n fo much a voyage bless,
If thou canst plant but there with like success.

TO THE ROYAL SOCIETY.

I.

PHILOSOPHY! the great and only heir

Of all that human knowledge which has been
Unforfeited by man's rebellious fin,
Tho' full of years he do appear,
(Philofophy! I fay, and call it he,
For whatfoe'er the painter's fancy be,
It a male virtue feems to me)

Has still been kept in nonage till of late,
Nor manag'd or enjoy'd his vast estate.

40

Three or four thousand years,one would have thought, To ripeness and perfection might have brought II A fcience fo well bred and nurs'd,

And of fuch hopeful parts, too, at the first; But, oh! the guardians and the tutors then, (Some negligent, and fome ambitious men)

Would ne'er confent to set him free,

Or his own nat'ral pow'rs to let him fee,
Lest that should put an end to their authority.
II.

That his own bus'nefs he might quite forget,

They' amus'd him with the sports of wanton Wit; 20 With the deferts of poetry they fed him,

Inftead of folid meats t' increase his force;
Inftead of vig'rous exercife they led him

Into the pleasant labyrinths of ever fresh discourse:

Instead of carrying him to fee

The riches which do hoarded for him lie

In Nature's endless treasury,

They chose his eye to entertain

(His curious, but not cov❜tous, eye)

25

With painted scenes and pageants of the brain. 30 Some few exalted sp'rits this latter age has shown,

That labour'd to affert the liberty

(From guardians who were now usurpers grown)
Of this old minor still, captiv'd Philofophy;
But 'twas rebellion call'd, to fight
For fuch a long-oppreffed right.
Bacon, at last, a mighty man! arose,
Whom a wife King and Nature chose

Lord Chancellor of both their laws,

35

And boldly undertook the injur'd pupil's caufe. 40

III.

Authority, which did a body boast,

Tho' 'twas but air condens'd, and stalk'd about

Like fome old giant's more gigantic ghoft,

To terrify the learned rout

With the plain magic of true reason's light, 45 He chas'd out of our fight,

Nor fuffer'd -living men to be mißed

By the rain fhadows of the dead:

[tom fed:

To graves, from whence it rofe, the conquerid phan-
He broke that monstrous god which food

In midft of the orchard, and the whole did claim,
Which with a ufelefs feythe of wood,

And fomething else not worth a name,
(Both vaft for fhew, yet neither fit

Or to defend or to beget,

Ridiculous and fenfelefs terrors!) made
Children and fuperftitious men afraid.
The orchard's open now, and free;

Bacon has broke that scarecrow deity:

Come, enter all that will,

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155

60

Behold the ripen'd fruit, come, gather now your fill.

Yet still, methinks, we fain would be

Catching at the forbidden tree;

We would be like the Deity;

When truth and falfehood, good and evil, we

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Without the fenfes' aid within ourselves would fee;

For 'tis God only who can find

All nature in his mind.

IV.

From words, which are but pictures of the thought,

(Tho' we our thoughts from them perverfely drew) 70

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 Jay,
He prefs'd them wifely the mechanic way,
Till all their juice did in one veffel.join,
Ferment into a nourishment divine,

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The thirsty foul's refreshing wine.

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

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No, not from Rubens or Vandyck;

Much less content himself to make it like

Th' ideas and the images which lie

.85

In his own fancy or his memory:
No, he before his fight must 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 wand'ring predeceffors went,

And, like th' old Hebrews, many years did stray
In deferts but of small extent,

Bacon! like Mofes, led us forth, at last;

The barren wilderness he pafsid,

Did on the very border stand

Of the bless'd Promis'd Land,

Volume I.