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'Tis still the same, although their airy shape
All but a quick poetic sight escape.
There Faunus and Sylvanus keep their courts,
And thither all the horned host resorts
To graze the ranker mead; that noble herd
On whose sublime and shady fronts is rear'd
Nature's great masterpiece, to shew how soon
Great things are made, but sooner are undone.
Here have I seen the King, when great affairs
Gave leave to slacken and unbend his cares,
Attended to the chase, by all the flow'r

Of youth, whose hopes a noble prey devour;
Pleasure with praise and danger they would buy,
And wish a foe that would not only fly.
The stag now conscious of his fatal growth,
At once indulgent to his fear and sloth,
To some dark covert his retreat had made,
Where no man's eye, nor heaven's should invade
His soft repose; when th' unexpected sound
Of dogs and men his wakeful ear does wound.
Rous'd with the noise, he scarce believes his ear,
Willing to think th' illusions of his fear

Had given this false alarm, but straight his view
Confirms that more than all he fears is true.
Betray'd in all his strengths, the wood beset,
All instruments, all arts of ruin met,

He calls to mind his strength, and then his speed,
His winged heels, and then his armed head;
With these t' avoid, with that his fate to meet:
But fear prevails, and bids him trust his feet.
So fast he flies, that his reviewing eye
Has lost the chasers, and his ear the cry;
Exulting, till he finds their nobler sense
Their disproportion'd speed doth recompense;
Then curses his conspiring feet, whose scent
Betrays that safety which their swiftness lent:
Then tries his friends; among the baser herd,
Where he so lately was obey'd and fear'd,
His safety seeks: the herd, unkindly wise,
Or chases him from thence or from him flies.
Like a declining statesman, left forlorn
To his friends' pity, and pursuers' scorn,
With shame remembers, while himself was one
Of the same herd, himself the same had done.
Thence to the coverts and the conscious groves,
The scenes of his past triumphs and his loves,
Sadly surveying where he rang'd alone,
Prince of the soil, and all the herd his own,
And like a bold knight-errant did proclaim
Combat to all, and bore away the dame,
And taught the woods to echo to the stream
His dreadful challenge, and his clashing beam;
Yet faintly now declines the fatal strife,
So much his love was dearer than his life.
Now ev'ry leaf, and ev'ry moving breath
Presents a foe, and ev'ry foe a death.
Weary'd, forsaken, and pursu'd, at last
All safety in despair of safety plac'd,
Courage he thence resumes, resolv'd to bear
All their assaults, since 'tis in vain to fear.
And now, too late, he wishes for the fight
That strength he wasted in ignoble flight;

But when he sees the eager chace renew'd,
Himself by dogs, and dogs by men pursu❜d,
He straight revokes his bold resolve, and more
Repents his courage than his fear before;
Finds that uncertain ways unsafest are,
And doubt a greater mischief than despair.
Then to the stream, when neither friends, nor force,
Nor speed, nor art avail, he shapes his course;
Thinks not their rage so desp'rate to essay
An element more merciless than they.
But fearless they pursue, nor can the flood
Quench their dire thirst: alas! they thirst for blood.
So towards a ship the oar-finn'd gallies ply,
Which wanting sea to ride, or wind to fly,
Stands but to fall reveng'd on those that dare
Tempt the last fury of extreme despair.
So fares the stag; among th' enraged hounds,
Repels their force, and wounds returns for wounds:
And as a hero, whom his baser foes

In troops surround, now these assails, now those,
Though prodigal of life, disdains to die
By common hands; but if he can descry
Some nobler foe approach, to him he calls,
And begs his fate, and then contented falls.
So when the King a mortal shaft lets fly
From his unerring hand, then glad to die,
Proud of the wound, to it resigns his blood,
And stains the crystal with a purple flood.
This a more innocent and happy chase
Than when of old, but in the self-same place,
Fair Liberty pursu'd, and meant a prey
To lawless Power, here turn'd, and stood at bay;
When in that remedy all hope was plac'd
Which was, or should have been at least, the last.
Here was that Charter seal'd wherein the crown
All marks of arbitrary power lays down;
Tyrant and slave, those names of hate and fear,
The happier style of king and subject bear:
Happy when both to the same centre move,
When kings give liberty and subjects love.
Therefore not long in force this Charter stood;
Wanting that seal, it must be seal'd in blood.
The subjects arm'd, the more their princes gave,
Th' advantage only took the more to crave;
Till kings, by giving, gave themselves away,
And ev'n that power that should deny betray.
"Who gives constrain'd, but his own fear reviles.
"Not thank'd, but scorn'd; nor are they gifts, but
spoils."

Thus kings, by grasping more than they could hold,
First made their subjects by oppression bold;
And popular sway, by forcing kings to give
More than was fit for subjects to receive,
Ran to the same extremes; and one excess
Made both, by striving to be greater, less.
When a calm river, rais'd with sudden rains,
Or snows dissolv'd, o'erflows th' adjoining plains,
The husbandmen with high-rais'd banks secure
Their greedy hopes, and this he can endure;
But if with bays and dams they strive to force
His channel to a new or narrow course,
No longer then within his banks he dwells,

First to a torrent, then a deluge, swells;
Stronger and fiercer by restraint, he roars,
And knows no bound, but makes his power his
shores.

THE PROGRESS OF LEARNING.
When God from earth form'd Adam in the East,
He his own image on the clay imprest.
As subjects then the whole creation came,
And from their natures Adam them did name;
Not from experience (for the world was new)
He only from their cause their natures knew.
Had memory been lost with innocence,

We had not known the sentence nor th' offence.
'Twas his chief punishment to keep in store
The sad remembrance what he was before;
And though th' offending part felt mortal pain,
Th' immortal part its knowledge did retain.
After the flood arts to Chaldea fell;
The father of the faithful there did dwell,
Who both their parent and instructor was:
From thence did learning into Egypt pass.
Moses in all th' Egyptian arts was skill'd,
When heavenly power that chosen vessel fill'd;
And we to his high inspiration owe

That what was done before the flood we know.
From Egypt arts their progress made to Greece,
Wrapp'd in the fable of the Golden Fleece.
Musæus first, then Orpheus, civilize
Mankind, and gave the world their deities:
To many gods they taught devotion,
Which were the distinct faculties of one :
Th' Eternal Cause in their immortal lines
Was taught, and poets were the first divines.
God Moses first, then David, did inspire,
To compose anthems for his heavenly quire:
To th' one the style of Friend he did impart,
On th' other stamped the likeness of his heart:
And Moses, in the old original,

Ev'n God the poet of the world doth call.
Next those old Greeks Pythagoras did rise,
Then Socrates, whom th' oracle call'd Wise.
The divine Plato moral virtue shews,
Then his disciple Aristotle rose,
Who nature's secrets to the world did teach,
Yet that great soul our novelists impeach:
Too much manuring fill'd that field with weeds,
While sects, like locusts, did destroy the seeds.
The tree of knowledge, blasted by disputes,
Produces sapless leaves instead of fruits.
Proud Greece all nations else barbarians held,
Boasting her learning all the world excell'd.
Flying from thence, to Italy it came,
And to the realm of Naples gave the name,
Till both their nation and their arts did come
A welcome trophy to triumphant Rome.
Then wheresoe'er her conquering eagles fled,
Arts, learning, and civility, were spread;
And as in this our microcosm, the heart
Heat, spirit, motion, gives to every part,
So Rome's victorious influence did disperse

All her own virtues through the universe.
Here some digression I must make, t' accuse
Thee, my forgetful and ungrateful Muse!
Couldst thou from Greece to Latium take thy flight,
And not to thy great ancestor do right!
I can no more believe old Homer blind,
Than those who say the sun hath never shin'd:
The age wherein he liv'd was dark, but he
Could not want sight who taught the world to see.
They who Minerva from Jove's head derive,
Might make old Homer's skull the Muses' hive,
And from his brain that Helicon distil
Whose racy liquor did his offspring fill.
Nor old Anacreon, Hesiod, Theocrite,
Must we forget, nor Pindar's lofty flight.
Old Homer's soul, at last from Greece retir'd,
In Italy the Mantuan swain inspir'd.
When great Augustus made war's tempests cease,
His halcyon days brought forth the arts of peace.
He still in his triumphant chariot shines,
By Horace drawn and Virgil's mighty lines.
"Twas certainly mysterious that the name
Of prophets and of poets is the same.
What the Tragedian wrote, the late success
Declares was inspiration and not guess:
As dark a truth that author did unfold
As oracles or prophets e'er foretold:

"At last the ocean shall unlock the bound
"Of things, and a new world by Typhis found;

"Then ages far remote shall understand
"The isle of Thule is not the farthest land.”
Sure God, by these discoveries, did design
That his clear light thro' all the world should shine;
But the obstruction from that discord springs
The Prince of Darkness made 'twixt Christian kings:
That peaceful age with happiness to crown,
From heav'n the Prince of Peace himself came
down;

Then the true Sun of knowledge first appear'd,
And the old dark mysterious clouds were clear'd;
The heavy cause of th' old accursed flood
Sunk in the sacred deluge of his blood.
His passion man from his first fall redeem'd;
Once more to Paradise restor'd we seem'd;
Satan himself was bound, till th' iron chain
Our pride did break, and let him loose again.
Still the old sting remain'd, and man began
To tempt the serpent as he tempted man.
Then hell sends forth her furies, Av'rice, Pride,
Fraud, Discord, Force, Hypocrisy, their guide:
Though the foundation on a rock were laid,
The church was undermin'd, and then betray'd.
Though the Apostles these events foretold,
Yet ev'n the shepherd did devour the fold:
The fisher to convert the world began,
The pride convincing of vain-glorious man;
But soon his followers grew a sovereign lord,
And Peter's keys exchang'd for Peter's sword,
Which still maintains for his adopted son
Vast patrimonies, though himself had none;
Wresting the text to the old giant's sense,
That heaven once more must suffer violence.

Then subtle doctors scriptures made their prize;
Casuists, like cocks, struck out each others' eyes:
Then dark distinctions reason's light disguis'd,
And into atoms truth anatomiz'd:

Then Mah'met's crescent, by our feuds increast,
Blasted the learn'd remainders of the East.
That project, when from Greece to Rome it came,
Made mother Ignorance Devotion's dame;
Then he whom Lucifer's own pride did swell,
His faithful emissary, rose from hell
To possess Peter's chair; that Hildebrand,
Whose foot on mitres, then on crowns, did stand:
And before that exalted idol all

(Whom we call Gods on earth) did prostrate fall.
Then darkness Europe's face did overspread,
From lazy cells, where superstition bred,
Which, link'd with blind obedience, so increas'd,
That the whole world some ages they oppress'd;
Till thro' those clouds the sun of knowledge brake,
And Europe from her lethargy did wake;
Then first our monarchs were acknowledg'd here,
That they their churches' nursing fathers were.
When Lucifer no longer could advance
His works on the false ground of ignorance,
New arts he tries, and new designs he lays,
Then his well-studied masterpiece he plays;
Loyola, Luther, Calvin, he inspires,

And kindles with infernal flames their fires;
Sends their forerunner (conscious of th' event)
Printing, his most pernicious instrument!
Wild controversy then, which long had slept,
Into the press from ruin'd cloisters leapt.
No longer by implicit faith we err,
Whilst every man's his own interpreter;
No more conducted now by Aaron's rod,

Lay-elders from their ends create their God.

But seven wise men the ancient world did know,
We
We scarce know seven who think themselves not so.
When mau learn'd undefil'd religion,

We were commanded to be all as one;
Fiery disputes that union have calcin'd;
Almost as many minds as men we find;
And when that flame finds combustible earth,
Thence fatuus fires and meteors take their birth;
Legions of sects and insects come in throngs;
To name them all would tire a hundred tongues.
Such were the Centaurs, of Ixion's race,
Who a bright cloud for Juno did embrace ;
And such the monsters of Chimæra's kind,
Lions before, and dragons were behind.
Then from the clashes between popes and kings
Debate, like sparks from flints' collision, springs.
As Jove's loud thunderbolts were forg'd by heat,
The like our Cyclops on their anvils beat:
All the rich mines of learning ransack'd are

To furnish ammunition for this war:
Uncharitable zeal our reason whets,
And double edges on our passions sets.
'Tis the most certain sign the world's accurst,
That the best things corrupted are the worst.
"Twas the corrupted light of knowledge hurl'd
Sin, death, and ignorance, o'er all the world.
That sun like this (from which our sight we have)
Gazed on too long, resumes the light he gave;
And when thick mists of doubts obscure his beams,
Our guide is error and our visions dreams.
'Twas no false heraldry when Madness drew
Her pedigree from those who too much knew.
Who in deep mines for hidden knowledge toils,
Like guns o'ercharg'd, breaks, misses, or recoils.
When subtle wits have spun their thread too fine,
"Tis weak and fragile, like Arachne's line.
True piety without cessation tost
By theories, the practic part is lost;

And like a ball bandy'd 'twixt pride and wit,
Rather than yield, both sides the prize will quit;
Then whilst his foe each gladiator foils,
The Atheist looking on enjoys the spoils.
Through seas of knowledge we our course advance,
Discovering still new worlds of ignorance;
And these discov'ries make us all confess
That sublunary science is but guess.
Matters of fact to man are only known,
And what seems more is mere opinion:
The standers-by see clearly this event;
All parties say they're sure, yet all dissent.
With their new light our bold inspectors press,
Like Cham, to shew their father's nakedness,
By whose example after-ages may
Discover we more naked are than they.
All human wisdom to divine is folly:
This truth the wisest man made melancholy.
Hope, or belief, or guess, gives some relief,
But to be sure we are deceiv'd brings grief.
Who thinks his wife is virtuous, though not so,
Is pleas'd and patient till the truth he know.
Our God, when heaven and earth he did create,
Form'd man, who should of both participate.
If our lives' motions theirs must imitate,
Our knowledge, like our blood, must circulate.
When like a bridegroom from the East the sun
Sets forth, he thither whence he came doth run.
Into earth's spongy veins the ocean sinks,
Those rivers to replenish which he drinks:
So Learning, which from reason's fountain springs,
Back to the source some secret channel brings.
'Tis happy when our streams of knowledge flow
To fill their banks, but not to overthrow.

"Ut metit Autumnus fruges quas parturit æstas, "Sic orum Natura, dedit Deus his quoque finem."

DRYDEN-A. D. 1631-1701.

ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL.

PART I.

In pious times, ere priestcraft did begin,
Before polygamy was made a sin;
When man on many multiplied his kind,
Ere one to one was cursedly confin'd;
When nature prompted, and no law deny'd,
Promiscuous use of concubine and bride;
When Israel's monarch after heaven's own heart
His vigorous warmth.did variously impart
To wives and slaves; and wide as his command,
Scatter'd his Maker's image through the land:
Michal, of royal blood, the crown did wear,
A soil ungrateful to the tiller's care;
Not so the rest; for several mothers bore
To god-like David several sons before.

But since like slaves his bed they did ascend,
No true succession could their seed attend.
Of all the numerous progeny was none
So beautiful, so brave, as Absalom:
Whether, inspired by some diviner lust,
His father got him with a greater gust;
Or that his conscious destiny made way,
By manly beauty to imperial sway.
Early in foreign fields he won renown,
With kings and states ally'd to Israel's crown:
In peace the thoughts of war he could remove,
And seem'd as he were only born for love.
Whate'er he did was done with so much ease,
In him alone 'twas natural to please:
His motions all accompany'd with grace;
And Paradise was open'd in his face.
With secret joy indulgent David view'd
His youthful image in his son renew'd:
To all his wishes nothing he deny'd;
And made the charming Annabel his bride.
What faults he had; for who from faults is free?
His father could not, or he would not see.
Some warm excesses which the law forbore,
Were construed youth, that purg'd by boiling o'er;
And Amnon's murder, by a specious name,
Was call'd a just revenge for injur'd fame:
Thus prais'd and lov'd, the noble youth remain'd,
While David undisturb'd in Sion reign'd,
But life can never be sincerely blest:
Heaven punishes the bad, and proves the best.
The Jews, a headstrong, moody, murmuring race,
As ever tried th' extent and stretch of grace;
God's pamper'd people, whom debauch'd with ease,
No king could govern, nor no God could please ;
Gods they had tried of every shape and size,
That goldsmiths could produce, or priests devise:
These Adam-wits too fortunately free,
Began to dream they wanted liberty;

And when no rule, no precedent, was found
Of men by laws less circumscribed and bound,
They led their wild desires to woods and caves,
And thought that all but savages were slaves.
They who, when Saul was dead, without a blow,
Made foolish Ishbosheth the crown forego;
Who banish'd David did from Hebron bring,
And with a general shout proclaim'd him king:
Those very Jews, who at their very best
Their humour more than loyalty express'd,
Now wonder'd why they had so long obey'd
An idol monarch, which their hands had made;
Thought they might ruin him they could create,
Or melt him to that golden calf, a state.
But these were random bolts: no form'd design,
Nor interest made the factious crowd to join:
The sober part of Israel, free from stain,
Well knew the value of a peaceful reign;
And looking backward with a wise affright,
Saw seams of wounds dishonest to the sight:
In contemplation of whose ugly scars
They curst the memory of civil wars.
The moderate sort of men thus qualify'd,
Inclin'd the balance to the better side;
And David's mildness manag'd it so well,
The bad found no occasion to rebel.
But when to sin our bias'd nature leans,
The careful devil is still at hand with means,
And providently pimps for ill desires.
The good old cause reviv'd a plot requires.
Plots true or false are necessary things,
To raise up commonwealths and ruin kings.
Th' inhabitants of old Jerusalem

Were Jebusites; the town so call'd from them;
And their's the native right-

But when the chosen people grew more strong,
The rightful cause at length became the wrong;
And every loss the men of Jebus bore,

They still were thought God's enemies the more.
Thus worn or weaken'd, well or ill content,
Submit they must to David's government:
Impoverish'd and depriv'd of all command,
Their taxes doubled as they lost their land;
And what was harder yet to flesh and blood,
Their gods disgrac'd, and burnt like common wood.
This set the heathen priesthood in a flame;
For priests of all religions are the same.
Of whatsoe'er descent their godhead be,
Stock, stone, or other homely pedigree,
In his defence his servants are as bold,
As if he had been born of beaten gold.
The Jewish rabbins, though their enemies,
In this conclude them honest men and wise:
For 'twas their duty, all the learned think,
T' espouse his cause by whom they eat and drink
Q

From hence began that plot, the nation's curse,
Bad in itself, but represented worse;
Rais'd in extremes, and in extremes decry'd,
With oaths affirm'd, with dying vows deny'd;
Not weigh'd nor winnow'd by the multitude;
But swallow'd in the mass, unchew'd and crude.
Some truth there was, but dash'd and brew'd with
lies,

To please the fools and puzzle all the wise.
Succeeding times did equal folly call,
Believing nothing, or believing all.
Th' Egyptian rites the Jebusites embrac'd;
Where gods are recommended by their taste.
Such savory deities must needs be good,
As serv'd at once for worship and for food.
By force they could not introduce these gods;
For ten to one in former days was odds.
So fraud was us'd, the sacrificer's trade:
Fools are more hard to conquer than persuade.
Their busy teachers mingled with the Jews,
And rak'd for converts ev'n the court and stews:
Which Hebrew priests the more unkindly took,
Because the fleece accompanies the flock.
Some thought they God's anointed meant to slay
By guns, invented since full many a day:
Our author swears it not; but who can know
How far the devil and Jebusites may go?
This plot, which fail'd for want of common sense,
Had yet a deep and dangerous consequence:
For as, when raging fevers boil the blood,
The standing lake soon floats into a flood,
And every hostile humour, which before
Slept quiet in its channels, bubbles o'er;
So several factions, from this first ferment,
Work up to foam, and threat the government.
Some by their friends, more by themselves thought
wise,

Opposed the power to which they could not rise. Some had in courts been great, and thrown from thence,

Like fiends were harden'd in impenitence.
Some, by their monarch's fatal mercy, grown
From pardon'd rebels kinsmen to the throne,
Were rais'd in power and public office high:
Strong bands, if bands ungrateful men could tie.
Of these the false Achitophel was first;
A name to all succeeding ages curst;
For close designs and crooked counsels fit;
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit;
Restless, unfix'd in principles and place;
In power unpleas'd, impatient of disgrace:
A fiery soul, which working out its way,
Fretted the pigmy body to decay,
And o'er inform'd the tenement of clay.
A daring pilot in extremity;

Pleas'd with the danger when the waves went high,
He sought the storms; but, for a calm unfit,
Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit.
Great wits are sure to madness near ally'd,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide;
Else why should he, with wealth and honour blest,
Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?

Punish a body which he could not please;
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?
And all to leave what with his toil he won,
To that unfeather'd two-legg'd thing, a son;
Got while his soul did huddled notions try;
And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy.
In friendship false, implacable in hate;
Resolv'd to ruin or to rule the state.

To compass this the triple bond he broke;
The pillars of the public safety shook;
And fitted Israel for a foreign yoke;

Then seiz'd with fear, yet still affecting fame,
Usurp'd a patriot's all-atoning name.
So easy still it proves in factious times,
With public zeal to cancel private crimes.
How safe is treason, and how sacred ill,
Where none can sin against the people's will!
Where crowds can wink, and no offence be known,
Since in another's guilt they find their own?
Yet fame deserv'd no enemy can grudge;
The statesman we abhor, but praise the judge.
In Israel's courts ne'er sat an Abethdin
With more discerning eyes, or hands more clean,
Unbrib'd, unsought, the wretched to redress;
Swift of dispatch, and easy of access.

Oh! had he been content to serve the crown,
With virtues only proper to the gown;
Or had the rankness of the soil been freed
From cockle, that oppress'd the noble seed;
David for him his tuneful harp had strung,
And heaven had wanted one immortal song.
But wild ambition loves to slide, not stand,
And fortune's ice prefers to virtue's land.
Achitophel, grown weary to possess
A lawful fame, and lazy happiness,
Disdain'd the golden fruit to gather free,

And lent the.crowd his arm to shake the tree.
Now, manifest of crimes contriv'd long since,
He stood at bold defiance with his prince;
Held up the buckler of the people's cause
Against the crown, and sculk'd behind the laws.
The wish'd occasion of the plot he takes;
Some circumstances finds, but more he makes.
By buzzing emissaries fills the ears
Of listening crowds with jealousies and fears
Of arbitrary counsels brought to light,
And proves the king himself a Jebusite.
Weak arguments! which yet he knew full well,
Were strong with people easy to rebel.
For, govern'd by the moon, the giddy Jews
Tread the same track when she the prime re-

news;

And once in twenty years, their scribes record,
By natural instinct they change their lord.
Achitophel still wants a chief, and none
Was found so fit as warlike Absalom.
Not that he wish'd his greatness to create,
For politicians neither love nor hate;
But, for he knew his title not allowed,
Would keep him still depending on the crowd
That kingly power, thus ebbing out, might be
Drawn to the dregs of a democracy.

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