City' or fuburban, ftudious walks and fhades ;
See there the olive grove of Academe,
Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird
Trills her thick-warbled notes the fummer long;
There flow'ry hill Hymettus with the found
Of bees induftrious murmur oft invites
To ftudious mufing; there Iliffus rolls'
His whifp'ring ftream: within the walls then view
The schools of ancient fages; his who bred
Great Alexander to fubdue the world,
Lyceum there, and painted Stoa next :
There thou shalt hear and learn the fecret power
Of harmony in tones and numbers hit
By voice or hand, and various-measur'd verse,
AEolian charms and Dorian lyric odes,
And his who gave them breath, but higher fung,
Blind Melefigenes thence Homer call'd,
Whose poem
Phoebus challeng'd for his own. 260
Thence what the lofty grave tragedians taught
In Chorus or Iambic, teachers best
Of moral prudence, with delight receiv'd
In brief fententious precepts, while they treat
Of fate, and chance, and change in human life; 265
High actions, and high passions best describing:
Thence to the famous orators repair,
Those ancient, whofe refiftless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce democratie,
Shook th' arfenal and fulmin'd over Greece, 270
To Macedon and Artaxerxes throne:
To fage philosophy next lend thine ear,
From Heav'n defcended to the low-rooft house
Of Socrates; fee there his tenement,
Whom well infpir'd the oracle pronounc'd
Wifeft of men; from whose mouth iffued forth
Mellifluous ftreams that water'd all the fchools
Of Academics old and new, with those
Sirnam'd Peripatetics, and the fect
Epicurean, and the Stoic fevere;
These here revolve, or, as thou lik'ft, at home, Till time mature thee to a kingdom's weight; These rules will render thee a king complete Within thyself, much more with empire join'd.
To whom our Saviour sagely thus reply'd. 285 Think not but that I know these things, or think I know them not; not therefore am I short Of knowing what I ought: he who receives Light from above, from the fountain of light, No other doctrin needs, though granted true; 290 But these are falfe, or little else but dreams, Conjectures, fancies, built on nothing firm. The first and wifeft of them all profefs'd To know this only, that he nothing knew; The next to fabling fell and smooth conceits; 295 A third fort doubted all things, though plain sense; Others in virtue plac'd felicity,
But virtue join'd with riches and long life;
In corporal pleasure he, and careless ease;
The Stoic laft in philofophic pride,
By him call'd virtue; and his virtuous man,
Wife, perfect in himself, and all possessing,
Equals to God, oft fhames not to prefer,
As fearing God nor man, contemning all
Wealth, pleasure, pain or torment, death and life,
Which when he lifts, he leaves, or boasts he can,
For all his tedious talk is but vain boast,
Or fubtle shifts conviction to evade.
Alas what can they teach, and not mislead,
Ignorant of themselves, of God much more,
And how the world began, and how man fell
Degraded by himself, on grace depending?
Much of the foul they talk, but all awry,
And in themselves feek virtue, and to themselves
All glory arrogate, to God give none,
Rather accuse him under usual names,
Fortune and Fate, as one regardless quite
Of mortal things. Who therefore feeks in these
True wisdom, finds her not, or by delufion
Far worse, her false resemblance only meets, 320
An empty cloud.
However many books,
Wife men have faid are wearifome; who reads
Incessantly, and to his reading brings not
Afpirit and judgment equal or superior,
(And what he brings, what needs he elsewhere feek?) Uncertain and unfettled ftill remains,
Deep vers'd in books and fhallow in himself,
Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys,
And trifles for choice matters, worth a fpunge;
As children gathering pebbles on the fhore.
Or if I would delight my private hours
With music or with poem, where so soon
As in our native language can I find
That folace? All our law and story strow'd
With hymns, our pfalms with artful terms infcrib'd,
Our Hebrew fongs and harps in Babylon,
That pleas'd fo well our victors ear, declare
That rather Greece from us thefe arts deriv'd;
Ill imitated, while they loudest sing
The vices of their Deities, and their own
In fable, hymn, or song, so personating
Their Gods ridiculous, and themselves past shame.
Remove their swelling epithets thick laid
As varnish on a harlot's cheek, the rest,
Thin fown with ought of profit or delight,
Will far be found unworthy to compare
With Sion's fongs, to all true taftes excelling,
Where God is prais'd aright, and God-like men,
The Holieft of Holies, and his Saints;
Such are from God infpir'd, not fuch from thee, 350
Unless where moral virtue is exprefs'd
By light of nature not in all quite lost.
Their orators thou then extoll'ft, as those
The top of eloquence, statists indeed,
And lovers of their country, as may seem;
But herein to our prophets far beneath,
As men divinely taught, and better teaching
The folid rules of civil government
In their majeftic unaffected file
Than all the' oratory of Greece and Rome.
In them is plainest taught, and easiest learnt,
What makes a nation happy', and keeps it so,
What ruins kingdoms, and lays cities flat;
These only with our law best form a king.
So fpake the Son of God; but Satan now 365 Quite at a lofs, for all his darts were spent, Thus to our Saviour with ftern brow reply'd. Since neither wealth, nor honor, arms nor arts, Kingdom nor empire pleases thee, nor ought By me propos'd in life contemplative, Or active, tended on by glory', or fame, What doft thou in this world? the wilderness
For thee is fitteft place; I found thee there,
And thither will return thee; yet remember
What I foretel thee, foon thou fhalt have cause 375
To with thou never hadft rejected thus
Nicely or cautiously my offer'd aid,
Which would have fet thee in fhort time with ease
On David's throne, or throne of all the world,
Now at full age, fulness of time, thy season, 380
When prophecies of thee are beft fulfill'd.
Now contrary, if I read ought in Heaven,
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