SIR RICHARD BLACKMORE is one of those men whose writings have attracted
much notice, but of whose life and manners very little has been
communicated, and whose lot it has been to be much oftener mentioned by
enemies than by friends. He was the son of Robert Blackmore, of Corsham
in Wiltshire, styled by Wood _Gentleman_, and supposed to have been an
attorney, having been for some time educated in a country school, he was
at thirteen sent to Westminster, and in 1668 was entered at Edmund Hall
in Oxford, where he took the degree of MA. June 8, 1676, and resided
thirteen years, a much longer time than is usual to spend at the
university, and which he seems to have passed with very little attention
to the business of the place; for, in his poems, the ancient names of
nations or places, which he often introduces, are pronounced by chance.
He afterwards travelled. At Padua he was made doctor of physic, and,
after having wandered about a year and a half on the Continent, returned
home.
In some part of his life, it is not known when, his indigence compelled
him to teach a school, a humiliation with which, though it certainly
lasted but a little while, his enemies did not forget to reproach him,
when he became conspicuous enough to excite malevolence; and let it be
remembered for his honour, that to have been once a schoolmaster is the
only reproach which all the perspicacity of malice, animated by wit, has
ever fixed upon his private life.
When he first engaged in the study of physic, he inquired, as he says, of
Dr. Sydenham, what authors he should read and was directed by Sydenham to
“Don Quixote”: “which” said he, “is a very good book; I read it still.”
The perverseness of mankind makes it often mischievous to men of eminence
to give way to merriment; the idle and the illiterate will long shelter
themselves under this foolish apophthegm. Whether he rested satisfied
with this direction, or sought for better, he commenced physician, and
obtained high eminence and extensive practice. He became Fellow of the
College of Physicians, April 12, 1687, being one of the thirty which, by
the new charter of King James, were added to the former fellows. His
residence was in Cheapside, and his friends were chiefly in the City. In
the early part of Blackmore’s time a citizen was a term of reproach; and
his place of abode was another topic, to which his adversaries had
recourse in the penury of scandal.
Blackmore, therefore, was made a poet not by necessity but inclination,
and wrote not for a livelihood but for fame; or, if he may tell his own
motives, for a nobler purpose, to engage poetry in the cause of virtue.
I believe it is peculiar to him that his first public work was an heroic
poem. He was not known as a maker of verses till he published (in 1695)
“Prince Arthur,” in ten books, written, as he relates, “by such catches
and starts, and in such occasional uncertain hours as his profession
afforded, and for the greatest part in coffee-houses, or in passing up
and down the streets.” For the latter part of this apology he was
accused of writing “to the rumbling of his chariot wheels.” He had read,
he says, “but little poetry throughout his whole life; and for fifteen
years before had not written a hundred verses except one copy of Latin
verses in praise of a friend’s book.” He thinks, and with some reason,
that from such a performance perfection cannot be expected; but he finds
another reason for the severity of his censurers, which he expresses in
language such as Cheapside easily furnished. “I am not free of the
Poet’s Company, having never kissed the governor’s hands: mine is
therefore not so much as a permission poem, but a downright interloper.
Those gentlemen, who carry on their poetical trade in a joint stock,
would certainly do what they could to sink and ruin an unlicensed
adventurer, notwithstanding I disturbed none of their factories, nor
imported any goods they have ever dealt in.” He had lived in the City
till he had learned its note.
That “Prince Arthur” found many readers is certain; for in two years it
had three editions, a very uncommon instance of favourable reception, at
a time when literary curiosity was yet confined to particular classes of
the nation. Such success naturally raised animosity; and Dennis attacked
it by a formal criticism, more tedious and disgusting than the work which
he condemns. To this censure may be opposed the approbation of Locke,
and the admiration of Molyneux, which are found in their printed
“Letters.” Molyneux is particularly delighted with the song of Mopas,
which is therefore subjoined to this narrative.
It is remarked by Pope, that “what raises the hero, often sinks the man.”
Of Blackmore is may be said that, as the poet sinks, the man rises; the
animadversions of Dennis, insolent and contemptuous as they were, raised
in him no implacable resentment; he and his critic were afterwards
friends; and in one of his latter works he praises Dennis “as equal to
Boileau in poetry, and superior to him in critical abilities.” He seems
to have been more delighted with praise than pained by censure, and
instead of slackening, quickened his career. Having in two years
produced ten books of “Prince Arthur,” in two years more (1697) he sent
into the world “King Arthur” in twelve. The provocation was now doubled,
and the resentment of wits and critics may be supposed to have increased
in proportion. He found, however, advantages more than equivalent to all
their outrages. He was this year made one of the physicians in ordinary
to King William, and advanced by him to the honour of knighthood, with
the present of a gold chaise and medal. The malignity of the wits
attributed his knighthood to his new poem, but King William was not very
studious of poetry; and Blackmore perhaps had other merit, for he says in
his dedication to “Alfred,” that “he had a greater part in the succession
of the house of Hanover than ever he had boasted.”
What Blackmore could contribute to the Succession, or what he imagined
himself to have contributed, cannot now be known. That he had been of
considerable use, I doubt not but he believed, for I hold him to have
been very honest; but he might easily make a false estimate of his own
importance. Those whom their virtue restrains from deceiving others, are
often disposed by their vanity to deceive themselves. Whether he
promoted the Succession or not, he at least approved it, and adhered
invariably to his principles and party through his whole life.
His ardour of poetry still continued; and not long after (1700) he
published a “Paraphrase on the Book of Job, and other parts of the
Scripture.” This performance Dryden, who pursued him with great
malignity, lived long enough to ridicule in a Prologue.
The wits easily confederated against him, as Dryden, whose favour they
almost all courted, was his professed adversary. He had, besides, given
them reason for resentment, as, in his preface to “Prince Arthur,” he had
said of the dramatic writers almost all that was alleged afterwards by
Collier; but Blackmore’s censure was cold and general, Collier’s was
personal and ardent; Blackmore taught his reader to dislike what Collier
incited him to abhor.
In his preface to “King Arthur” he endeavoured to gain at least one
friend, and propitiated Congreve by higher praise of his “Mourning Bride”
than it has obtained from any other critic.
The same year he published a “Satire on Wit,” a proclamation of defiance
which united the poets almost all against him, and which brought upon him
lampoons and ridicule from every side. This he doubtless foresaw, and
evidently despised; nor should his dignity of mind be without its praise,
had he not paid the homage to greatness which he denied to genius, and
degraded himself by conferring that authority over the national taste,
which he takes from the poets, upon men of high rank and wide influence,
but of less wit and not greater virtue.
Here is again discovered the inhabitant of Cheapside, whose head cannot
keep his poetry unmingled with trade. To hinder that intellectual
bankruptcy which he affects to fear he will erect a “Bank for Wit.” In
this poem he justly censured Dryden’s impurities, but praised his powers,
though in a subsequent edition he retained the satire, and omitted the
praise. What was his reason, I know not; Dryden was then no longer in
his way. His head still teemed with heroic poetry; and (1705) he
published “Eliza,” in ten books. I am afraid that the world was now
weary of contending about Blackmore’s heroes, for I do not remember that
by any author, serious or comical, I have found “Eliza” either praised or
blamed.
She “dropped,” as it seems, “dead-born from the press.” It is never
mentioned, and was never seen by me till I borrowed it for the present
occasion. Jacob says “it is corrected and revised from another
impression,” but the labour of revision was thrown away.
From this time he turned some of his thoughts to the celebration of
living characters, and wrote a poem on the Kit-Cat Club, and “Advice to
the Poets how to celebrate the Duke of Marlborough” but on occasion of
another year of success, thinking himself qualified to give more
instruction, he again wrote a poem of “Advice to a Weaver of Tapestry.”
Steele was then publishing the _Tatler_, and, looking round him for
something at which he might laugh, unluckily alighted on Sir Richard’s
work, and treated it with such contempt that, as Fenton observes, he put
an end to that species of writers that gave advice to painters.
Not long after (1712) he published “Creation,” a philosophical poem,
which has been, by my recommendation, inserted in the late collection.
Whoever judges of this by any other of Blackmore’s performances will do
it injury. The praise given it by Addison (_Spectator_, 339) is too well
known to be transcribed; but some notice is due to the testimony of
Dennis, who calls it a “philosophical poem, which has equalled that of
‘Lucretius’ in the beauty of its versification, and infinitely surpassed
it in the solidity and strength of its reasoning.”
Why an author surpasses himself it is natural to inquire. I have heard
from Mr. Draper, an eminent bookseller, an account received by him from
Ambrose Philips, “That Blackmore, as he proceeded in this poem, laid his
manuscript from time to time before a club of wits with whom he
associated, and that every man contributed, as he could, either
improvement or correction; so that,” said Philips, “there are perhaps
nowhere in the book thirty lines together that now stand as they were
originally written.”
The relation of Philips, I suppose, was true; but when all reasonable,
all credible allowance is made for this friendly revision, the author
will still retain an ample dividend of praise; for to him must always be
assigned the plan of the work, the distribution of its parts, the choice
of topics, the train of argument, and, what is yet more, the general
predominance of philosophical judgment and poetical spirit. Correction
seldom effects more than the suppression of faults: a happy line, or a
single elegance, may perhaps be added; but of a large work, the general
character must always remain. The original constitution can be very
little helped by local remedies; inherent and radical dulness will never
be much invigorated by intrinsic animation. This poem, if he had written
nothing else, would have transmitted him to posterity among the first
favourites of the English muse; but to make verses was his transcendent
pleasure, and, as he was not deterred by censure, he was not satiated
with praise. He deviated, however, sometimes into other tracks of
literature, and condescended to entertain his readers with plain prose.
When the _Spectator_ stopped, he considered the polite world as destitute
of entertainment, and in concert with Mr. Hughes, who wrote every third
paper, published three times a week the “Lay Monastery,” founded on the
supposition that some literary men, whose characters are described, had
retired to a house in the country to enjoy philosophical leisure, and
resolved to instruct the public by communicating their disquisitions and
amusements. Whether any real persons were concealed under fictitious
names is not known. The hero of the club is one Mr. Johnson, such a
constellation of excellence, that his character shall not be suppressed,
though there is no great genius in the design nor skill in the
delineation.
“The first I shall name is Mr. Johnson, a gentleman that owes to nature
excellent faculties and an elevated genius, and to industry and
application many acquired accomplishments. His taste is distinguishing,
just, and delicate; his judgment clear, and his reason strong,
accompanied with an imagination full of spirit, of great compass, and
stored with refined ideas. He is a critic of the first rank and, what is
his peculiar ornament, he is delivered from the ostentation, malevolence,
and supercilious temper, that so often blemish men of that character.
His remarks result from the nature and reason of things, and are formed
by a judgment free and unbiassed by the authority of those who have
lazily followed each other in the same beaten track of thinking, and are
arrived only at the reputation of acute grammarians and commentators; men
who have been copying one another many hundred years without any
improvement, or, if they have ventured farther, have only applied in a
mechanical manner the rules of ancient critics to modern writings, and
with great labour discovered nothing but their own want of judgment and
capacity. As Mr. Johnson penetrates to the bottom of his subject, by
which means his observations are solid and natural, as well as delicate,
so his design is always to bring to light something useful and
ornamental; whence his character is the reverse to theirs, who have
eminent abilities in insignificant knowledge, and a great felicity in
finding out trifles. He is no less industrious to search out the merit
of an author, than sagacious in discerning his errors and defects, and
takes more pleasure in commending the beauties than exposing the
blemishes of a laudable writing. Like Horace, in a long work he can bear
some deformities, and justly lay them on the imperfection of human
nature, which is incapable of faultless productions. When an excellent
drama appears in public, and by its intrinsic worth attracts a general
applause, he is not stung with envy and spleen; nor does he express a
savage nature in fastening upon the celebrated author, dwelling upon his
imaginary defects, and passing over his conspicuous excellences. He
treats all writers upon the same impartial foot, and is not, like the
little critics, taken up entirely in finding out only the beauties of the
ancient and nothing but the errors of the modern writers. Never did any
one express more kindness and good-nature to young and unfinished
authors, he promotes their interests, protects their reputation,
extenuates their faults, and sets off their virtues, and by his candour
guards them from the severity of his judgment. He is not like those dry
critics who are morose because they cannot write themselves, but is
himself master of a good vein in poetry; and though he does not often
employ it, yet he has sometimes entertained his friends with his
unpublished performances.”
The rest of the lay monks seem to be but feeble mortals an comparison
with the gigantic Johnson, who yet, with all his abilities and the help
of the fraternity, could drive the publication but to forty papers, which
were afterwards collected into a volume, and called in the title “A
Sequel to the _Spectators_.”
Some years afterwards (1716 and 1717) he published two volumes of essays
in prose, which can be commended only as they are written for the highest
and noblest purpose—the promotion of religion. Blackmore’s prose is not
the prose of a poet, for it is languid, sluggish, and lifeless; his
diction is neither daring nor exact, his flow neither rapid nor easy, and
his periods neither smooth nest strong. His account of _wit_ will show
with how little clearness he is content to think, and how little his
thoughts are recommended by his language.
“As to its efficient cause, _wit_ owes its production to an extraordinary
and peculiar temperament in the constitution of the possessor of it, in
which is found a concurrence of regular and exalted ferments, and an
affluence of animal spirits, refined and rectified to a great degree of
purity; whence, being endowed with vivacity, brightness, and celerity, as
well in their reflections as direct motions, they become proper
instruments for the sprightly operations of the mind, by which means the
imagination can with great facility range the wide field of Nature,
contemplate an infinite variety of objects, and, by observing the
similitude and disagreement of their several qualities, single out and
abstract, and then suit and unite, those ideas which will best serve its
purpose. Hence beautiful allusions, surprising metaphors, and admirable
sentiments, are always ready at hand; and while the fancy is full of
images, collected from innumerable objects, and their different
qualities, relations, and habitudes, it can at pleasure dress a common
notion in a strange but becoming garb, by which, as before observed, the
same thought will appear a new one, to the great delight and wonder of
the hearer. What we call _genius_ results from this particular happy
complexion in the first formation of the person that enjoys it, and is
Nature’s gift, but diversified by various specific characters and
limitations, as its active fire is blended and allayed by different
proportions of phlegm, or reduced and regulated by the contrast of
opposite ferments. Therefore, as there happens in the composition of
facetious genius a greater or less, though still an inferior, degree of
judgment and prudence, one man of wit will be varied and distinguished
from another.”
In these essays he took little care to propitiate the wits, for he scorns
to avert their malice at the expense of virtue or of truth.
“Several, in their books, have many sarcastical and spiteful strokes at
religion in general; while others make themselves pleasant with the
principles of the Christian. Of the last kind this age has seen a most
audacious example in the book entitled ‘A Tale of a Tub.’ Had this
writing been published in a pagan or popish nation, who are justly
impatient of all indignity offered to the established religion of their
country, no doubt but the author would have received the punishment he
deserved. But the fate of this impious buffoon is very different, for in
a Protestant kingdom, zealous of their civil and religious immunities, he
has not only escaped affronts and the effects of public resentment, but
has been caressed and patronised by persons of great figure, and of all
denominations. Violent party-men, who differed in all things besides,
agreed in their turn to show particular respect and friendship to this
insolent derider of the worship of his country, till at last the reputed
writer is not only gone off with impunity, but triumphs in his dignity
and preferment. I do not know that any inquiry or search was ever made
after this writing, or that any reward was ever offered for the discovery
of the author, or that the infamous book was ever condemned to be burnt
in public. Whether this proceeds from the excessive esteem and love that
men in power, during the late reign, had for wit, or their defect of zeal
and concern for the Christian religion will be determined best by those
who are best acquainted with their character.”
In another place he speaks with becoming abhorrence of a _godless author_
who has burlesqued a Psalm. This author was supposed to be Pope, who
published a reward for any one that would produce the coiner of the
accusation, but never denied it, and was afterwards the perpetual and
incessant enemy of Blackmore.
One of his essays is upon the spleen, which is treated by him so much to
his own satisfaction, that he has published the same thoughts in the same
words; first, in the “Lay Monastery,” then in the “Essay,” and then in
the “Preface to a Medical Treatise on the Spleen.” One passage, which I
have found already twice, I will here exhibit, because I think it better
imagined and better expressed than could be expected from the common
tenor of his prose:—
“—As the several combinations of splenetic madness and folly produce
an infinite variety of irregular under-standing, so the amicable
accommodation and alliance between several virtues and vices produce
an equal diversity in the dispositions and manners of mankind; whence
it comes to pass, that as many monstrous and absurd productions are
found in the moral as in the intellectual world. How surprising is
it to observe among the least culpable men, some whose minds are
attracted by heaven and earth with a seeming equal force; some who
are proud of humility; others who are censorious and uncharitable,
yet self-denying and devout; some who join contempt of the world with
sordid avarice; and others, who preserve a great degree of piety with
ill-nature and ungoverned passions. Nor are instances of this
inconsistent mixture less frequent among bad men, where we often with
admiration see persons at once generous and unjust, impious lovers of
their country, and flagitious heroes, good-natured sharpers, immoral
men of honour, and libertines who will sooner die than change their
religion; and though it is true that repugnant coalitions of so high
a degree are found but in a part of mankind, yet none of the whole
mass, either good or bad, are entirely exempted from some absurd
mixture.”
He about this time (August 22, 1716) became one of the elects of the
College of Physicians, and was soon after (October 1) chosen Censor. He
seems to have arrived late, whatever was the reason, at his medical
honours.
Having succeeded so well in his book on Creation, by which he established
the great principle of all religion, he thought his undertaking
imperfect, unless he likewise enforced the truth of Revelation, and for
that purpose added another poem on “Redemption.” He had likewise written
before his “Creation” three books on the Nature of Man.
The lovers of musical devotion have always wished for a more happy
metrical version than they have yet obtained of the Book of Psalms. This
wish the piety of Blackmore led him to gratify, and he produced (1721) “A
New Version of the Psalms of David fitted to the Tunes used in Churches,”
which being recommended by the archbishops and many bishops, obtained a
license for its admission into public worship; but no admission has it
yet obtained, nor has it any right to come where Brady and Tate have got
possession. Blackmore’s name must be added to those of many others who,
by the same attempt, have obtained only the praise of meaning well.
He was not yet deterred from heroic poetry. There was another monarch of
this island (for he did not fetch his heroes from foreign countries) whom
he considered as worthy the epic muse, and he dignified “Alfred” (1723)
with twelve books. But the opinion of the nation was now settled; a hero
introduced by Blackmore was not likely to find either respect or
kindness; “Alfred” took his place by “Eliza” in silence and darkness.
Benevolence was ashamed to favour, and malice was weary of insulting. Of
his four epic poems, the first had such reputation and popularity as
enraged the critics; the second was at least known enough to be
ridiculed; the two last had neither friends nor enemies.
Contempt is a kind of gangrene, which, if it seizes one part of a
character, corrupts all the rest by degrees. Blackmore being despised as
a poet, was in time neglected as a physician; his practice, which was
once invidiously great, forsook him in the latter part of his life, but
being by nature, or by principle, averse from idleness, he employed his
unwelcome leisure in writing books on physic, and teaching others to cure
those whom he could himself cure no longer. I know not whether I can
enumerate all the treatises by which he has endeavoured to diffuse the
art of healing, for there is scarcely any distemper of dreadful name
which he has not taught the reader how to oppose. He has written on the
small-pox, with a vehement invective against inoculation; on consumption,
the spleen, the gout, the rheumatism, the king’s evil, the dropsy, the
jaundice, the stone, the diabetes, and the plague. Of those books, if I
had read them, it could nor be expected that I should be able to give a
critical account. I have been told that there is something in them of
vexation and discontent, discovered by a perpetual attempt to degrade
physic from its sublimity, and to represent it as attainable without much
previous or concomitant learning. By the transient glances which I have
thrown upon them I have observed an affected contempt of the ancients,
and a supercilious derision of transmitted knowledge. Of this indecent
arrogance the following quotation from his preface to the “Treatise on
the Small-pox” will afford a specimen, in which, when the reader finds
what I fear is true, that, when he was censuring Hippocrates, he did not
know the difference between _aphorism_ and _apophthegm_, he will not pay
much regard to his determinations concerning ancient learning.
“As for this book of aphorisms, it is like my Lord Bacon’s of the
same title, a book of jests, or a grave collection of trite and
trifling observations; of which, though many are true and certain,
yet they signify nothing, and may afford diversion, but no
instruction, most of them being much inferior to the sayings of the
wise men of Greece, which yet are so low and mean, that we are
entertained every day with more valuable sentiments at the table
conversation of ingenious and learned men.”
I am unwilling, however, to leave him in total disgrace, and will
therefore quote from another preface a passage less reprehensible.
“Some gentlemen have been disingenuous and unjust to me, by wresting
and forcing my meaning, in the preface to another book, as if I
condemned and exposed all learning, though they knew I declared that
I greatly honoured and esteemed all men of superior literature and
erudition, and that I only undervalued false or superficial learning,
that signifies nothing for the service of mankind; and that as to
physic, I expressly affirmed that learning must be joined with native
genius to make a physician of the first rank; but if those talents
are separated, I asserted, and do still insist, that a man of native
sagacity and diligence will prove a more able and useful practiser
than a heavy notional scholar, encumbered with a heap of confused
ideas.”
He was not only a poet and a physician, but produced likewise a work of a
different kind, “A True and Impartial History of the Conspiracy against
King William of Glorious Memory in the Year 1695.” This I have never
seen, but suppose it is at least compiled with integrity. He engaged
likewise in theological controversy, and wrote two books against the
Arians: “Just Prejudices against the Arian Hypothesis,” and “Modern
Arians Unmasked.” Another of his works is “Natural Theology; or, Moral
Duties considered apart from Positive; with some Observations on the
Desirableness and Necessity of a Supernatural Revelation.” This was the
last book that he published. He left behind him “The Accomplished
Preacher; or, an Essay upon Divine Eloquence,” which was printed after
his death by Mr. White of Nayland, in Essex, the minister who attended
his death-bed, and testified the fervent piety of his last hours. He
died on the 8th of October, 1729.
* * * * *
Blackmore, by the unremitted enmity of the wits, whom he provoked more by
his virtue than his dulness, has been exposed to worse treatment than he
deserved. His name was so long used to point every epigram upon dull
writers, that it became at last a byword of contempt but it deserves
observation, that malignity takes hold only of his writings, and that his
life passed without reproach, even when his boldness of reprehension
naturally turned upon him many eyes desirous to espy faults which many
tongues would have made haste to publish. But those who could not blame,
could, at least, forbear to praise, and therefore of his private life and
domestic character there are no memorials.
As an author, he may justly claim the honours of magnanimity. The
incessant attacks of his enemies, whether serious or merry, are never
discovered to have disturbed his quiet, or to have lessened his
confidence in himself: they neither awed him to silence nor to caution:
they neither provoked him to petulance, nor depressed him to complaint.
While the distributors of literary fame were endeavouring to depreciate
and degrade him, he either despised or defied them, wrote on as he had
written before, and never turned aside to quiet them by civility, or
repress them by confutation. He depended with great security on his own
powers, and perhaps was for that reason less diligent in perusing books.
His literature was, I think, but small. What he knew of antiquity, I
suspect him to have gathered from modern compilers; but, though he could
not boast of much critical knowledge, his mind was stored with general
principles, and he left minute researches to those whom he considered as
little minds. With this disposition he wrote most of his poems. Having
formed a magnificent design, he was careless of particular and
subordinate elegances; he studied no niceties of versification; he waited
for no felicities of fancy, but caught his first thoughts in the first
words in which they were presented; nor does it appear that he saw beyond
his own performances, or had ever elevated his was to that ideal
perfection which every genius born to excel is condemned always to
pursue, and never overtake. In the first suggestions of his imagination
he acquiesced; he thought them good, and did not seek for better. His
works may be read a long time without the occurrence of a single line
that stands prominent from the rest. The poem on “Creation” has,
however, the appearance of more circumspection; it wants neither harmony
of numbers, accuracy of thought, nor elegance of diction. It has either
been written with great care, or, what cannot be imagined of so long a
work, with such felicity as made care less necessary. Its two
constituent parts are ratiocination and description. To reason in verse
is allowed to be difficult; but Blackmore not only reasons in verse, but
very often reasons poetically; and finds the art of uniting ornament with
strength and ease with closeness. This is a skill which Pope might have
condescended to learn from him, when he needed it so much in his “Moral
Essays.”
In his descriptions both of life and nature, the poet and the philosopher
happily co-operate; truth is recommended by elegance, and elegance
sustained by truth. In the structure and order of the poem, not only the
greater parts are properly consecutive, but the didactic and illustrative
paragraphs are so happily mingled, that labour is relieved by pleasure,
and the attention is led on through a long succession of varied
excellence to the original position, the fundamental principle of wisdom
and of virtue.
As the heroic poems of Blackmore are now little read, it is thought
proper to insert, as a specimen from “Prince Arthur,” the song of Mopas
mentioned by Molyneux:—
“But that which Arthur with most pleasure heard
Were noble strains, by Mopas sung the bard,
Who to his harp in lofty verse began,
And through the secret maze of Nature ran.
He the Great Spirit sung, that all things filled,
That the tumultuous waves of Chaos stilled;
Whose nod disposed the jarring seeds to peace,
And made the wars of hostile Atoms cease.
All Beings, we in fruitful Nature find,
Proceeded from the Great Eternal mind:
Streams of his unexhausted spring of power,
And, cherished with his influence, endure.
He spread the pure cerulean fields on high,
And arched the chambers of the vaulted sky,
Which he, to suit their glory with their height,
Adorned with globes, that reel, as drunk with light.
His hand directed all the tuneful spheres,
He turned their orbs, and polished all the stars.
He filled the Sun’s vast lamp with golden light:
And bid the silver Moon adorn the night.
He spread the airy Ocean without shores,
Where birds are wafted with their feathered oars.
Then sung the bard how the light vapours rise
From the warm earth, and cloud the smiling skies;
He sung how some, chilled in their airy flight,
Fall scattered down in pearly dew by night;
How some, raised higher, sit in secret steams
On the reflected points of bounding beams,
Till, chilled with cold, they shade th’ ethereal plain,
Then on the thirsty earth descend in rain;
How some, whose parts a slight contexture show,
Sink hovering through the air in fleecy snow;
How part is spun in silken threads, and clings
Entangled in the grass is gluey strings;
How others stamp to stones, with rushing sound
Fall from their crystal quarries to the ground;
How some are laid in trains, that kindled fly,
In harmless fires by night, about the sky;
How some in winds blow with impetuous force,
And carry ruin where they bend their course,
While some conspire to form a gentle breeze,
To fan the air, and play among the trees;
How some, enraged, grow turbulent and loud,
Pent in the bowels of a frowning cloud,
That cracks, as if the axis of the world
Was broke, and Heaven’s bright towers were downwards hurled.
He sung how earth’s wide ball, at Jove’s command,
Did in the midst on airy columns stand;
And how the soul of plants, in prison held,
And bound with sluggish fetters, lies concealed,
Till with the spring’s warm beams, almost released
From the dull weight, with which it lay opprest,
Its vigour spreads, and makes the teeming earth
Heave up, and labour with the sprouting birth:
The active spirit freedom seeks in vain,
It only works and twists a stronger chain;
Urging its prison’s sides to break a way,
It makes that wider, where ’tis forced to stay:
Till, having formed its living house, it rears
Its head, and in a tender plant appears.
Hence springs the oak, the beauty of the grove,
Whose stately trunk fierce storms can scarcely move.
Hence grows the cedar, hence the swelling vine
Does round the elm its purple clusters twine.
Hence painted flowers the smiling gardens bless,
Both with their fragrant scent and gaudy dress.
Hence the white lily in full beauty grows,
Hence the blue violet and blushing rose.
He sung how sunbeams brood upon the earth,
And in the glebe hatch such a numerous birth;
Which way the genial warmth in Summer storms
Turns putrid vapours to a bed of worms;
How rain, transformed by this prolific power,
Falls from the clouds an animated shower.
He sung the embryo’s growth within the womb,
And how the parts their various shapes assume.
With what rare art the wondrous structure’s wrought,
From one crude mass to such perfection brought;
That no part useless, none misplaced we see,
None are forgot, and more would monstrous be.”