And magnifying all he writ
With curious microscopic wit,
Was magnified himself no less
In home and foreign colleges,
Began, transported with the twang
Of his own trillo, thus t' harangue:
'Most excellent and virtuous friends,
This great discov'ry makes amends
For all our unsuccessful pains,
And lost expense of time and brains;
For, by this sole phenomenon,
We've gotten ground upon the moon,
And gained a pass, to hold dispute
With all the planets that stand out;
To carry this most virtuous war
Home to the door of every star,
And plant the artillery of our tubes
Against their proudest magnitudes;
And since it is uncertain when
Such wonders will occur again,
Let us as cautiously contrive
To draw an exact narrative
Of what we ev'ry one can swear
Our eyes themselves have seen appear,
That, when we publish the account,
We all may take our oaths upon't.'
This said, they all with one consent
Agreed to draw up th' instrument,
And, for the gen'ral satisfaction,
To print it in the next transaction;
But whilst the chiefs were drawing up
This strange memoir o' th' telescope,
One, peeping in the tube by chance,
Beheld the elephant advance,
And from the west side of the moon
To th' east was in a moment gone.
This being related, gave a stop
To what the rest were drawing up;
And ev'ry man, amazed anew
How it could possibly be true,
That any beast should run a race
So monstrous, in so short a space,
Resolved, howe'er, to make it good,
At least as possible as he could,
And rather his own eyes condemn,
Than question what he 'ad seen with them.
But while they were diverted all
With wording the memorial,
The footboys, for diversion too,
As having nothing else to do,
Seeing the telescope at leisure,
Turned virtuosis for their pleasure:
Began to gaze upon the moon,
As those they waited on had done,
With monkeys' ingenuity,
That love to practise what they see;
When one, whose turn it was to peep,
Saw something in the engine creep,
And, viewing well, discovered more
Than all the learned had done before.
For he had scarce applied his eye
To th' engine, but immediately
He found a mouse was gotten in
The hollow tube, and, shut between
The two glass windows in restraint,
Was swelled into an elephant,
And proved the virtuous occasion
Of all this learned dissertation:
And, as a mountain heretofore
Was great with child, they say, and bore
A silly mouse, this mouse, as strange,
Brought forth a mountain in exchange.
Meanwhile the rest in consultation
Had penned the wonderful narration,
And set their hands, and seals, and wit,
T'attest the truth of what they 'ad writ,
When this accursed phenomenon
Confounded all they'd said or done :
Some swore, upon a second view,
That all they 'ad seen before was true,
And that they never would recant
One syllable of th' elephant;
Avowed his snout could be no mouse's,
But a true elephant's proboscis.
Others began to doubt and waver,
Uncertain which o' th' two to favour,
Others conceived it much more fit
T'unmount the tube, and open it,
And for their private satisfaction,
To re-examine the transaction,
And after explicate the rest,
As they should find cause for the best.
To this, as th' only expedient,
The whole assembly gave consent;
But ere the tube was half let down,
It cleared the first phenomenon ;
For, at the end, prodigious swarms
Of flies and gnats, like men in arms,
Had all passed muster, by mischance,
Both for the Sub- and Prevolvans.
This being discovered, put them all
Into a fresh and fiercer brawl,
Ashamed that men so grave and wise
Should be chaldesed by gnats and flies,
And take the feeble insect's swarms
For mighty troops of men at arms;
But when they had unscrewed the glass,
To find out where the impostor was,
And saw the mouse, that, by mishap,
Had made the telescope a trap,
Amazed, confounded, and afflicted,
To be so openly convicted,
Inmediately they get them gone,
With this discovery alone,
That those who greedily pursue
Things wonderful, instead of true,
And explicate appearances,
Not as they are, but as they please;
In vain strive nature to suborn,
And, for their pains, are paid with scorn.
LOVE is too great a happiness
For wretched mortals to possess;
For could it hold inviolate
Against those cruelties of fate
Which all felicities below
By rigid laws are subject to,
It would become a bliss too high
For perishing mortality;
Translate to earth the joys above;
For nothing goes to Heaven but Love.
All love at first, like generous wine,
Ferments and frets until 'tis fine;
For when 'tis settled on the lee,
And from the impurer matter free,
Becomes the richer still the older,
And proves the pleasanter the colder.
As at the approach of winter, all
The leaves of great trees use to fall,
And leave them naked, to engage
With storms and tempests when they rage,
While humbler plants are found to wear
Their fresh green liveries all the year;
So when their glorious season's gone
With great men, and hard times come on,
The greatest calamities oppress
The greatest still, and spare the less.
He was born at Dublin in 1615, and on his father's promotion in the English Exchequer he was sent to Oxford, where he acquired a taste for gambling which he never overcame, and his happiness, in consequence, consisted chiefly in the enjoyment of low pleasures. He was a royalist, and his estate was sequestrated by the Parliament; but on the Restoration he was reinstated, and received the honour of knighthood. He died at the age of fifty-three.
My eye, descending from the hill, surveys
Where Thames among the wanton valleys strays.
Thames! the most loved of all the ocean's sons
By his old sire, to his embraces runs,
Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea,
Like mortal life to meet eternity.
Though with those streams he no resemblance hold,
Whose foam is amber, and their gravel gold:
His genuine and less guilty wealth t' explore,
Search not his bottom, but survey his shore,
O'er which he kindly spreads his spacious wing,
And hatches plenty for th' ensuing spring ;
Nor then destroys it with too fond a stay,
Like mothers who their infants overlay ;
Nor with a sudden and impetuous wave,
Like profuse kings, resumes the wealth he gave.
No unexpected inundations spoil
The mower's hopes, or mock the ploughman's toil;
But godlike his unwearied bounty flows;
First loves to do, then loves the good he does.
Nor are his blessings to his banks confined,
But free and common as the sea or wind:
When he to boast or to disperse his stores,
Full of the tributes of his grateful shores,
Visits the world, and in his flying towers
Brings home to us, and makes both Indies ours;
Finds wealth where'tis, bestows it where it wants,
Cities in deserts, woods in cities, plants.
So that to us no thing, no place, is strange,
While his fair bosom is the world's exchange.
Oh, could I flow like thee! and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme;
Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull;
Strong, without rage; without o'erflowing, full.
The stream is so transparent, pure, and clear,
That had the self-enamoured youth gazed here,
So fatally deceived he had not been,
While he the bottom, not his face, had seen.
But his proud head the airy mountain hides
Among the clouds; his shoulders and his sides
A shady mantle clothes; his curled brows
Frown on the gentle stream, which calmly flows,
While winds and storms his lofty forehead beat—
The common fate of all that's high or great.
Low at his foot a spacious plain is placed,
Between the mountain and the stream embraced,
Which shade and shelter from the hill derives,
While the kind river wealth and beauty gives,
And in the mixture of all these appears
Variety, which all the rest endears.
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