There flowrie hill Hymettus with the found
Of Bees induftrious murmur oft invites
To studious mufing; there Iliffus rouls
His whispering ftream; within the walls then view The schools of antient Sages; his who bred 251 Great Alexander to fubdue the world,
Lyceum there, and painted Stoa next:
There thou shalt hear and learn the secret
Of harmony in tones and numbers hit
By voice or hand, and various-measur’d verse,
Æolian charms and Dorian Lyric Odes,
And his who gave them breath, but higher fung,
Blind Melefigenes thence Homer call'd,
Whofe Poem Phabus challeng'd for his own.
Thence what the lofty grave Tragœdians 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;
High actions, and high passions best describing :
Thence to the famous Orators repair,
Those antient, whofe refiftlefs eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce Democratie,
Shook the Arsenal and fulmin'd over Greece,
To Macedon, and Artaxerxes Throne;
To fage Philofophy next lend thine ear,
From Heaven defcended to the low-rooft house
Of Socrates, fee there his Tenement,
Whom well infpir'd the Oracle pronounc'd
Wifeft of men; from whofe mouth iflu'd forth
Mellifluous ftreams that water'd all the schools
Of Academics old and new, with those
Sirnam'd Peripatetics, and the Sect
Epicurean, and the Stoic fevere;
These here revolve, or, as thou lik'ft, at home,
Till time mature thee to a Kingdom's waight;
These rules will render thee a King compleat
Within thy felf, much more with Empire joyn'd.
To whom our Saviour fagely thus repli'd.
Think not but that I know these things, or think
I know them not; not therefore am I short
Of knowing what I aught: he who receives
Light from above, from the fountain of light,
No other doctrine needs, though granted true;
But these are false, or little else but dreams,
Conjectures, fancies, built on nothing firm.
The first and wifest of them all profefs'd
To know this only, that he nothing knew;
The next to fabling fell and smooth conceits,
A third fort doubted all things, though plain fence;
Others in vertue plac'd felicity,
But vertue joyn'd with riches and long life,
In corporal pleasure he, and careless ease,
The Stoic last in Philosophic pride,
By him call'd vertue; and his vertuous man,
Wife, perfect in himself, and all poffeffing
Equal 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 Soul they talk, but all awrie,
And in themselves seek vertue, 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 seeks in these
True wisdom, finds her not, or by delufion
Far worse, her false resemblance only meets,
An empty cloud. However many books
Wife men have faid are wearifom; who reads
Inceffantly, and to his reading brings not
A spirit and judgment equal or fuperior,
(And what he brings, what needs he elsewhere seek)
Uncertain and unfettl'd still remains,
Deep verft in books and shallow in himself,
Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys,
And trifles for choice matters, worth a fpunge;
As Children gathering pibles on the shore.
Or if I would delight my private hours
With Mufic or with Poem, where so foon
As in our native Language can I find
That folace? All our Law and Story strew'd
With Hymns, our Pfalms with artful terms inscrib'd,
Our Hebrew Songs and Harps in Babylon,
That pleas'd so well our Victors ear, declare
That rather Greece from us these Arts deriv'd;
Ill imitated, while they loudest fing
The vices of thir Deities, and thir own
In Fable, Hymn, or Song, fo perfonating
Thir Gods ridiculous, and themselves past shame.
Remove their fwelling Epithetes thick laid
As varnish on a Harlots cheek, the reft,
Thin fown with aught of profit or delight,
Will far be found unworthy to compare
With Sion's fongs, to all true tafts excelling,
Where God is prais'd aright, and Godlike men,
The Holieft of Holies, and his Saints;
Such are from God infpir'd, not such from thee;
Unless where mortal vertue is exprefs't
By light of Nature not in all quite lost.
Thir Orators thou then extoll'ft, as those
The top of Eloquence, Statifts indeed,
And lovers of thir 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 thir majestic unaffected stile
Then 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 Quite at a lofs, for all his darts were spent, Thus to our Saviour with stern brow reply'd. Since neither wealth, nor honour, arms nor arts, Kingdom nor Empire pleases thee, nor aught 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 foretell thee, foon thou fhalt have caufe
To wish thou never hadft rejected thus
Nicely or cautiously my offer'd aid,
Which would have set thee in short time with ease
On David's Throne; or Throne of all the world,
Now at full age, fulness of time, thy feason, 380
When Prophecies of thee are best fullfill'd.
Now contrary, if I read aught in Heaven,
Or Heav'n write aught of Fate, by what the Stars
Voluminous, or fingle characters,
In their conjunction met, give me to spell,
Sorrows, and labours, oppofition, hate,
Attends thee, fcorns, reproaches, injuries,
Violence and stripes, and lastly cruel death,
A Kingdom they portend thee, but what Kingdom,
Real or Allegoric I difcern not,
Nor when, eternal fure, as without end,
Without beginning; for no date prefixt
Directs me in the Starry Rubric set.
So faying he took (for still he knew his Not yet expir'd) and to the Wilderness Brought back the Son of God, and left him there, Feigning to disappear. Darkness now rose, As day-light funk, and brought in lowring night Her shadowy off-fpring unfubftantial both, Privation meer of light and absent day. Our Saviour meek and with untroubl'd mind After his aerie jaunt, though hurried fore, Hungry and cold betook him to his reft, Wherever, under fome concourse of shades Whose branching arms thick intertwind might shield From dews and damps of night his shelter'd head,
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