As the gay tint that decks the vernal rose[1]
Not in the flower but in our vision glows;
As the ripe flavor of Falernian tides
Not in the wine but in our taste resides;
So when with heartfelt tribute we declare
That Marco's honest and that Susan's fair,
'Tis in our minds and not in Susan's eyes
Or Marco's life the worth or beauty lies:
For she in flat-nosed China would appear
As plain a thing as Lady Anne is here;
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 Castlereagh would for a patriot pass
And mouthing Musgrave 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 Sheridan think water sweet.
Just as the mind the erring sense[3] 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.
P * * * *, 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 mockt the warm seducer's eyes.
Self is the medium thro' which Judgment's ray
Can seldom pass without being turned astray.
The smith of Ephesus[4] thought Dian's shrine,
By which his craft most throve, the most divine;
And even the _true_ faith seems not half so true,
When linkt with _one_ good living as with _two_.
Had Wolcot first been pensioned by the throne,
Kings would have suffered by his praise alone;
And Paine perhaps, for something snug _per ann_.,
Had laught like Wellesley at all Rights of Man.
But 'tis not only individual minds,--
Whole nations too the same delusion blinds.
Thus England, hot from Denmark's smoking meads,
Turns up her eyes at Gallia's guilty deeds;
Thus, self-pleased still, the same dishonoring 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.
If Grotius be thy guide, shut, shut the book,--
In force alone for Laws of Nations look.
Let shipless Danes and whining Yankees dwell
On naval rights, with Grotius and Vattel.
While Cobbet's pirate code alone appears
Sound moral sense to England and Algiers.
Woe to the Sceptic in these party days
Who wafts to neither shrine his puffs of praise!
For him no pension pours its annual fruits,
No fertile sinecure spontaneous shoots;
Not _his_ the meed that crowned Don Hookham'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 History's damning leaf,
Where Whig and Tory, thief opposed to thief,
On either side in lofty shame are seen,[5]
While Freedom's form lies crucified between--
Who, Burdett, who such rival rogues can see,
But flies from _both_ to Honesty and thee?
If weary of the world's bewildering maze,[6]
Hopeless of finding thro' its weedy ways
One flower of truth, the busy crowd we shun,
And to the shades of tranquil learning run,
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 Musgrave's but more clumsy than the rest.
By Tory Hume's seductive page beguiled,
We fancy Charles was just and Strafford mild;[7]
And Fox himself with party pencil draws
Monmouth a hero, "for the good old cause!"
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 honoring Moore:
Nay, future pens to flatter future courts
May cite perhaps the Park-guns' gay reports,
To prove that England triumphs 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's[8] 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
Thro' fair-built theories of former days,
Some Drummond from the north, more ably skilled,
Like other Goths, to ruin than to build,
Tramples triumphant thro' our fanes o'erthrown,
Nor leaves one grace, one glory of its own.
Oh! Learning, whatsoe'er thy pomp and boast,
_Un_lettered minds have taught and charmed men most.
The rude, unread Columbus was our guide
To worlds, which learned Lactantius had denied;
And one wild Shakespeare 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;
What various heavens,--all fit for bards to sing,--
Have churchmen dreamed, from Papias,[9] down to King![10]
While hell itself, in India naught but smoke[11]
In Spain's a furnace and in France--a joke.
Hail! modest Ignorance, thou goal and prize,
Thou last, best knowledge of the simply wise!
Hail! humble Doubt, when error's waves are past,
How sweet to reach thy sheltered port at last,
And there by changing skies nor lured nor awed.
Smile at the battling winds that roar abroad.
_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,
Till called to spread it for a better world;
While Patience watching on the weedy shore,
And mutely waiting till the storm be o'er,
Oft turns to Hope who still directs her eye
To some blue spot just breaking in the sky!
Such are the mild, the blest associates given
To him who doubts,--and trusts in naught but Heaven!
[1] "The particular bulk, number, figure, and motion of the parts of fire
or snow are really in them, whether any one perceives them or not, and
therefore they may be called real qualities because they really exist in
those bodies; but light, heat, whiteness or coldness are no more really in
them than sickness or pain is in manna. Take away the sensation of them;
let not the eye see light or colors, nor the ears hear sounds; let the
palate not taste nor the nose smell, and all colors, tastes, odors and
sounds, as they are such particular ideas, vanish and
cease."--_Locke_, book ii. chap 8.
[2] This was the creed also 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 faculty of reason, as tending only to
embarrass our wholesome 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 gallantry, has devoted most of her
verses to this laudable purpose, and is even such a determined foe to
reason, that, in one of her pastorals, she congratulates her sheep on the
want of it.
[3] Socrates and Plato were the grand sources of ancient scepticism.
According to Cicero ("_de Orator_," lib. iii.), they supplied Arcesilas
with the doctrines of the Middle Academy; and how closely these resembled
the tenets of the Sceptics, may be seen even in Sextus Empiricus (lib. i.
cap. 33), who with all his distinctions can scarcely prove any difference.
It appears strange that Epicurus should have been a dogmatist; and his
natural temper would most probably have led him to the repose of
scepticism had not the Stoics by their violent opposition to his doctrines
compelled him to be as obstinate as themselves.
[4] _Acts_, chap. xix. "For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith,
which made silver shrines for Diana, brought no small gain unto the
craftsmen."
[5] "Those two thieves," says Ralph, between whom the nation is
crucified."--"_Use and Abuse of Parliaments_."
[6] 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 unfavorable to that calm level of mind which is necessary
to an inquirer after truth.
[7] He defends Stafford's conduct as "innocent and even laudable." In the
same spirit, speaking of the arbitary sentences of the Star Chamber, he
says,--"The severity of the Star Chamber, which was generally ascribed to
Laud's passionate disposition, was perhaps in itself somewhat blamable."
[8] Descartes, who is considered as the parent of modern scepticism, says,
that there is nothing in the whole range of philosophy which does not
admit of two opposite opinions, and which is not involved in doubt and
uncertainty. Gassendi is likewise to be added to the list of modern
Sceptics, and Wedderkopff, has denounced Erasmus also as a follower of
Pyrrho, for his opinions upon the Trinity, and some other subjects. To
these if we add the names of Bayle, Malebranche, Dryden, Locke, etc., I
think there is no one who need be ashamed of insulting in such company.
[9] Papias lived about the time of the apostles, and is supposed to have
given birth to the heresy of the Chiliastae, whose heaven was by no means
of a spiritual nature, but rather an anticipation of the Prophet of Hera's
elysium.
[10] King, in his "Morsels of Criticisms," vol. i., supposes the sun to be
the receptacle of blessed spirits.
[11] The Indians call hell "the House of Smoke."