BLACKMORE.

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 sent, at thirteen, to

Westminster; and, in 1668, was entered at Edmund hall, in Oxford, where

he took the degree of M.A. June 3, 1676, and resided thirteen years; a

much longer time than it 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 physick; 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; an 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 physick, 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 in

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[19], 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

topick 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 publick work was an

heroick 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 an hundred verses, except one copy

of Latin verses in praise of a friend's book[20]."

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 poets' 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 had 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 Molineux, which are found in their printed

letters. Molineux 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 it 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 critick 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 criticks 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 chain and a 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 dramatick 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 critick.

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 heroick 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 for 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[21], 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 lighted on sir Richard's

work, and treated it with such contempt, that, as Fenton observes, he

put an end to the 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 topicks, 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 extrinsick 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 publick, 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 critick 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 criticks 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 publick, and by its

intrinsick 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 excellencies. He treats all writers upon the same

impartial footing; and is not, like the little criticks, 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 criticks, 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, in comparison

with the gigantick 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 nor 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 specifick 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 a

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 publick 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 publick; 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

tenour of his prose:

"As the several combinations of splenetick madness and folly produce an

infinite variety of irregular understanding, 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, Aug. 22, 1716, became one of the elects of the

College of Physicians; and was soon after, Oct. 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 publick 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 heroick poetry. There was another monarch

of this island, for he did not fetch his heroes from foreign countries,

whom he considered as worthy of the epick 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 epick poems, the first had such reputation and popularity as

enraged the criticks; 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 physick, 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 his reader how to oppose. He has written

on the smallpox, with a vehement invective against inoculation; on

consumptions, 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 not 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 physick 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 smallpox,

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 superiour literature and erudition; and

that I only undervalued false or superficial learning, that signifies

nothing for the service of mankind; and that, as to physick, 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, 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 deathbed, and testified the fervent piety of his last hours. He

died on the eighth 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 by-word 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 domestick 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

elegancies; 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 views 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 coöperate; 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 didactick 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 heroick 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 Molineux.

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 fill'd,

That the tumultuous waves of chaos still'd:

Whose nod dispos'd 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 cherish'd with his influence, endure.

He spread the pure cerulean fields on high,

And arch'd the chambers of the vaulted sky,

Which he, to suit their glory with their height,

Adorn'd with globes, that reel, as drunk with light.

His hand directed all the tuneful spheres,

He turn'd their orbs, and polish'd all the stars.

He fill'd 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 feather'd oars.

Then sung the bard how the light vapours rise

From the warm earth, and cloud the smiling skies:

He sung how some, chill'd in their airy flight,

Fall scatter'd down in pearly dew by night;

How some, rais'd higher, sit in secret steams

On the reflected points of bounding beams,

Till, chill'd with cold, they shade th' ethereal plain,

Then on the thirsty earth descend in rain;

How some, whose parts a slight contexture show,

Sink hov'ring through the air, in fleecy snow;

How part is spun in silken threads, and clings

Entangled in the grass in 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, enrag'd, grow turbulent and loud,

Pent in the bowels of a frowning cloud,

That cracks, as if the axis of the world

Was broke, and heav'n's bright tow'rs were downwards

hurl'd.

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 conceal'd,

Till with the spring's warm beams, almost releas'd

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 away,

It makes that wider, where 'tis forc'd to stay:

Till, having form'd 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 num'rous birth;

Which way the genial warmth in summer storms

Turns putrid vapours to a bed of worms;

How rain, transform'd by this prolifick 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 misplac'd we see,

None are forgot, and more would monstrous be.

-----

[Footnote 19: At Saddlers' hall.]

[Footnote 20: The book he alludes to was Nova Hypothesis ad explicanda

febrium intermittentium symptomata, &c. Authore Gulielmo Cole, M.D.

1693.]

[Footnote 21: "The Kit-cat Club," says Horace Walpole, "though generally

mentioned as a set of wits, were, in fact, the patriots who saved

Britain." See, for the history of its origin and name, Addisoniana, i.

120; Ward's complete and humorous account of the remarkable Clubs and

Societies. ED.]