Written at Moor-park, June, 1689.

I.

VIRTUE, the greatest of all monarchies!

Till, its first emperor rebellious man
Depos'd from off his feat,

It fell, and broke with its own weight
Into small states and principalities,
By many a petty lord poffefs'd,

But ne'er fince feated in one fingle breast!

'Tis you who must this land fubdue,
The mighty conquest 's left for you,
The conqueft and discovery too;
Search out this Utopian ground,
Virtue's Terra Incognita,

Where none ever led the way,

Nor ever fince but in defcriptions found,

Like the philofopher's stone,

With rules to fearch it, yet obtain'd by none.

VOL. I.

B

II. We

II.

We have too long been led astray;

Too long have our misguided fouls been taught
With rules from mufty morals brought,
'Tis you muft put us in the way;
Let us (for fhame!) no more be fed
With antique reliques of the dead,
The gleanings of philosophy,
Philofophy, the lumber of the schools,
The roguery of alchemy;

And we, the bubbled fools,

Spend all our prefent life in hopes of golden rules.

III.

But what does our proud ignorance Learning call
We oddly Plato's paradox make good,
Our knowledge is but mere remembrance all;
Remembrance is our treasure and our food;
Nature's fair table-book, our tender fouls,
We fcrawl all o'er with old and empty rules,
Stale memorandums of the fchools:

For Learning's mighty treafures look
In that deep grave a book;

Think that the there does all her treafures hide,
And that her troubled ghost still haunts there fince fhe dy❜d.
Confine her walks to colleges and fchools;

Her priefts, her train, and followers fhow
As if they all were spectres too!
They purchase knowledge at th' expence
Of common breeding, common sense,
And grow at once fcholars and fools;

3

Affe&t

Affect ill-manner'd pedantry,

Rudenefs, ill-nature, incivility,

And, fick with dregs of knowledge grown,
Which greedily they fwallow down,
Still caft it up, and nauseate company.

IV.

Curft be the wretch! nay doubly curft!
(If it may lawful be

To curfe our greatest enemy)

Who learnt himself that heresy first

(Which fince has feiz'd on all the reft)

That knowledge forfeits all humanity;
Taught us, like Spaniards, to be proud and poor,
And fling our fcraps before our door!

Thrice happy you have 'fcap'd this general pest;
Those mighty epithets, learn'd, good, and great,
Which we ne'er join'd before, but in romances meet,
We find in you at last united grown.

You cannot be compar'd to one :

I muft, like him that painted Venus' face,
Borrow from every one a grace;

Virgil and Epicurus will not do,

Their courting a retreat like you, Unless I put in Cæfar's learning too: Your happy frame at once controls great triumvirate of fouls.

This

V.

Let not old Rome boaft Fabius' fate;
He fav'd his country by delays,

But you by peace.
You bought it at a cheaper rate;

B 2

Nor

Nor has it left the ufual bloody scar,

To fhew it cost its price in war;

War! that mad game the world fo loves to play,
And for it does fo dearly pay ;

For, though with lofs or victory a while

Fortune the gamefters does beguile,

Yet at the last the box fweeps all away.

VI.

Only the laurel got by peace

No thunder e'er can blast:
Th' artillery of the skies

Shoots to the earth, and dies;

Nor ever green and flourishing 'twill last,

Nor dipt in blood, nor widows' tears, nor orphans' cries About the head crown'd with these bays,

Like lambent fire the lightning plays ;

Nor, its triumphal cavalcade to grace,

Makes up its folemn train with death;

It melts the fword of war, yet keeps it in the sheath.

VII.

The wily fhifts of state, thofe jugglers' tricks,
Which we call deep designs and politicks

(As in a theatre the ignorant fry,

Because the cords escape their eye,
Wonder to fee the motions fly);
Methinks, when you expofe the fcene,
Down the ill-organ'd engines fall;

Off fly the vizards, and discover all :

How plain I fee through the deceit !
How fhallow, and how grofs, the cheat!

Look,