REPRODUCTION OF LIFE. CANTO II. ARGUMENT. I. BREVITY of Life, 1. Reproduction, 13. Animals improve, 31. Life and Death alternate, ST. Adonis emblem of Mortal Life, 45. II. Solitary Reproduction, 61. Buds, Bulbs, Polypus, 65. Truffle: Buds of trees how generated, 71. Volvox, Polypus, Tania, Oysters, Corals, are without Sex, 83. Storge goddess of Parental Love; First chain of Society, 92. III. Female sex produced, 103. Tulip bulbs, Aphis, 125. Eve from Adam's rib, 135. IV. Hereditary diseases, 159. Grafted trees, bulbous roots degenerate, 167. Gout, Mania, Scrofula, Consumption, 177. Time and Nature, 185. V. Urania and the Muse lament, 205. Cupid and Psyche, the deities of sexual love, 221. Speech of Hymen, 239. Second chain of Society, 250. Young Desire, 251. Love and Beauty save the world, 257. Vegetable sexes, Anthers and Stigmas salute, 263. Vegetable sexual generation, 271. Anthers of Vallisneria float to the Stigmas, 279. Ant, Lampyris, Glow-Worm, Snail, 287. Silk-Worm, 293. VI. Demon of Jealousy, 307. Cocks, Quails, Stags, Boars, 313. Knights of Romance, 327. Helen and Paris, 333. Connubial love, 341. Married Birds, nests of the Linnet and Nightingale, 343. Lions, Tigers, Bulls, Horses, 357. Triumphal car of Cupid, 361. Fish, Birds, Insects, 371. Vegetables, 389. March of Hymen, 411. His lamp, 419. VII. Urania's advice to her Nymphs, 425. Dines with the Muse on Forbidden Fruit, 435, Angels visit Abraham, 447–458. I. "How short the span of Life! some hours When Time's cold hands the languid senses possess'd, Warm but to cool, and active but to rest!- How short the span of life, 1. 1. The thinking few in all ages have complained of the brevity of life, lamenting that mankind are not allowed time sufficient to cultivate science, or to improve their intellect. Hippocrates introduces his celebrated aphorisms with this idea; "Life is short, science long, opportunities of knowledge rare, experiments fallacious, and reasoning difficult. A melancholy reflection to philosophers! The age-worn fibres, 1. 3. Why the same kinds of food, which enlarge and invigorate the body from infancy to the meridian of life, and then nourish it for some years unimpaired, should at length gradually cease to do so, and the debility of age and death supervene, would be liable to surprise us if we were not in the daily habit of observing it; and is a circumstance which has not yet been well understood. Before mankind introduced civil society, old age did not exist in the world, nor other lingering diseases; as all living creatures, as soon as they became too feeble to defend themselves, were slain and eaten by others, except the young broods, who were defended by their mother; and hence the animal world existed uniformly in its greatest strength and perfection; See Additional Note VII. seize, [freeze; Chill the dull nerves, the lingering currents 10 In tubes of glass mercurial columns rise, Each new Descendent with superior powers II." Hence ere Vitality, as time revolves, Leaves the cold organ, and the mass dissolves; The Reproductions of the living Ens 40 From sires to sons, unknown to sex, commence. New buds and bulbs the living fibre shoots On lengthening branches, and protruding roots; Or on the father's side from bursting glands The adhering young its nascent form expands; In branching lines the parent-trunk adorns, And parts ere long like plumage, hairs, or horns. 70 Combines with Heat, 1. 39. It was shown in note on line 248 of the first Canto, that much of the aerial and liquid parts of the terraqueous globe was converted by the powers of life into solid matter; and that this was effected by the combination of the fluid, heat, with other elementary bodies by the appetencies and propensities of the parts of living matter to unite with each other. But when these appetencies and propensities of the parts of organic matter to unite with each other cease, the chemical affinities of attraction and the aptitude to be attracted, and of repulsion and the aptitude to be repelled, succeed, and reduce much of the solid matters back to the condition of elements; which seems to be effected by the matter of heat being again set at liberty, which was combined with other matters by the powers of life; and thus by its diffusion the solid bodies return into liquid ones or into gases, as occurs in the processes of fermentation, putrefaction, sublimation, and calcination. Whence solidity appears to be produced in consequence of the diminution of heat, as the condensation of steam into water, and the consolidation of water into ice, or by the combination of heat with bodies, as with the materials of gun-powder before its explosion. Immortal matter, I. 43. The perpetual mutability of the forms of matter seems to have struck the philosophers of great antiquity; the system of transmigration taught by Pythagoras, in which the souls of men were supposed after death to animate the bodies of a variety of animals, appears to have arisen from this source. He had observed the perpetual changes of organic matter from one creature to another, and concluded, that the vivifying spirit must attend it. "So the lone Truffle, lodged beneath the earth, Shoots from paternal roots the tuberous birth; Emblem of Life, 1. 47. The Egyptian figure of Venus rising from the sea seems to have represented the Beauty of organic Nature; which the philosophers of that country, the magi, appear to have discovered to have been elevated by earthquakes from the primeval ocean. But the hieroglyphic figure of Adonis seems to have signified the spirit of animation or life, which was perpetually wooed or courted by organic matter, and which perished and revived alternately. Afterwards the fable of Adonis seems to have given origin to the first religion promising a resurrection from the dead; whence his funeral and return to life were celebrated for many ages in Egypt and Syria, the ceremonies of which Ezekiel complains as idolatrous, accusing the women of Israel of lamenting over Thammus; which St. Cyril interprets to be Adonis, in his Commentaries on Isaiah; Danet's Diction. So the lone Truffle, 1. 71. Lycoperdon tuber. This plant never rises above the earth, is propagated without seed by its roots only, and seems to require no light. Perhaps many other fungi are generated without seed by their roots only, and without light, and approach on the last account to animal nature. While these with appetencies, 1. 77. See Additional Note VIII. Prolific Volvox, 1. 83. The volvox globator dwells in the lakes of Europe, is transparent, and bears within it children and grandchildren to the fifth generation. Syst. Nat. The male Polypus, 1. 85. The Hydra viridis and fusca of Linneus dwell in our ditches and rivers under aquatic plants; these animals have been shown by ingenious observers to revive after having been dried, to be restored when mutilated, to be multiplied by dividing them, and propagated from portions of them, parts of different ones to unite, to be turned inside outwards and yet live, and to be propagated by seeds, to produce bulbs, and vegetate by branches. Syst. Nat. The lone Tania, 1. 87. The tape-worm dwells in the intestines of animals, and grows old at one extremity, producing an infinite series of young ones at the other; the separate joints nave been called Gourd-worms, each of which possesses a mouth of its own, and organs of digestion. Syst. Nat. The pregnant oyster, 1. 89. Ostrea edulis dwells in the European oceans, frequent at the tables of the luxurious, a living repast! New-born oysters swim swiftly by an undulating movement of fins thrust out a little way from their shells. Syst. Nat. But they do not afterwards change their place during their whole lives, and are capable of no other movement, but that of opening the shell a little way: whence Professor Beckman observes, that their offspring is probably produced without maternal organs; and that those who speak of male and female oysters, must be mistaken: Phil. Magaz. March 1800. It is also observed by H. I. le Beck, that on nice inspection of the pearl oysters in the gulf of Manar, he could observe no distinction of sexes. Nicholson's Journal. April 1800. Till, as erelong successive buds decay, A softer sex, 1. 114. The first buds of trees raised from seed die annually, and are succeeded by new buds by solitary reproduction; which are larger or more perfect for several successive years, and then they produce sexual flowers, which are succeeded by seminal reproduction. The same occurs in bulbous rooted plants raised from seed; they die annually, and produce others rather more perfect than the parent for several years, and then produce sexual flowers. The Aphis is in a similar manner hatched from an egg in the vernal months, and produces a viviparous offspring without sexual intercourse for nine or ten successive generations; and then the progeny is both male and female, which cohabit, and from these new females are produced eggs, which endure the winter; the same process probably occurs in many other insects. And coral insects, 1. 79. The coral habitation Imagination's power, 1. 118. The manner in of the Madrepora of Linneus consists of one or which the similarity of the progeny to the pamore star-like cells; a congeries of which form rent, and the sex of it, are produced by the rocks beneath the sea; the animal which con- power of imagination, is treated of in Zoonomia. structs it is termed Medusa; and as it adheres Sect. 39. 6. 3. It is not to be understood, that to its calcareous cavity, and thence cannot travel the first living fibres, which are to form an anito its neighbours, is probably without sex. I mal, are produced by imagination, with any siobserved great masses of the limestone in Shrop-milarity of form to the future animal; but with shire, which is brought to Newport, to consist of the cells of these animals. And heaven-born Storge, 1. 92. See Additional Note IX. appetencies or propensities, which shall produce by accretion of parts the similarity of form and feature, or of sex, corresponding with the imagination of the father. |