Hitherto we have described only the triumphs of Discovery; but it
appears necessary that many incidental evils, special and general,
should be mentioned. Fate and miserable end of some great
commanders,--of our gallant and benevolent countryman, Cook. After the
natural feelings of regret, the mind is led to contemplate the great
advantages of his voyages: the health of seamen; the accessions to
geographical knowledge; the spirit of humanity and science; his
exploring the east part of New-Holland; and being the first to determine
the proximity of America to Asia. This circumstance leads us back from
the point whence we set out--THE ARK OF NOAH; and hence we are partly
enabled to solve, what has been for so many ages unknown, the
difficulty{g} respecting the earth's being peopled from one family.
The poem having thus gained a middle and end, the conclusion of the
whole is, that as this uncertainty in the physical world has been by
DISCOVERY cleared up, so all the apparent contradictions in the moral
world shall be reconciled. We have yet many existing evils to deplore;
but when the SUPREME DISPOSER's plan shall have been completed, then the
earth, which has been explored and enlightened by discovery and
knowledge, shall be destroyed; but the MIND OF MAN, rendered at last
perfect, shall endure through all ages, and "justify His ways from whom
it sprung."
* * * * *
Such is the outline and plan of the following poem. I have felt myself
obliged to give this hasty analysis, thinking that self-defence almost
required it, lest a _careless_ reader might charge me with _carelessness
of arrangement_.
I must again beg it to be remembered, that History and Poetry are two
things; and that the poet has a right to build his system, not on what
is exact truth, but on what is, at least, plausible; what will form, in
the clearest manner, a WHOLE; and what is most susceptible of poetical
ornament.