Nor you, ye legion fiends of Church and Law, For me, ye Cissoids **, round my temples bend Your wandering curves; ye Conchoids ++, extend; Let playful Pendules quick vibration feel, While silent Cyclois rests upon her wheel; Let Hydrostatics ‡‡, simpering as they go, Lead the light Naiads on fantastic toe; (Line 1 to 4)-Imitated from the introductory couplet to the Economy of Vegetation. Stay your rude steps, whose throbbing breasts infold This sentiment is bere expanded into four lines. * Definition-A distinct notion explaining the genesis of a thing-Wolfius. + Postulate-A self-evident proposition. Axiom-An indemonstrable truth. § Tangents-So called from touching, because they touch circles and never cut them. Circles-See Chambers's Dictionary, article Circle. Osculation-For the Os-culation, or kissing of circles and other curves, see Huygens, who has veiled this delicate and inflammatory subject in the decent obscurity of a learned langnage. ** Cissois-A curve supposed to resemble the sprig of ivy, from which it has its name, and therefore peculiarly adapted to poetry. ++ Conchois, or Conchylis-a most beautiful and picturesque curve; it bears a fanciful resemblance to a conch shell. The Conchois is capable of infinite extension, and presents a striking analogy between the animal and mathematical creation. Every individual of this species, containing within itself a series of young Conchoids for several generations, in the same manner as the Aphides and other insect tribes are observed to do. Hydrostatics-Water has been supposed by several of our philosophers to be capable of the passion of love. Some later VOL. V. A A Let shrill Acoustics* tune the tiny Lyre; I see the fair fantastic forms appear, The flaunting drapery, and the languid leer; limb; To viewless harpings weave the meanless dance, Wave the gay wreath, and titter as they prance. Such rich confusion || charms the ravish'd sight, When vernal Sabbaths to the park invite. Mounts the thick dust, the coaches crowd along, Presses round Grosvenor-gate the' impatient throng; White-muslin'd misses and mamas are seen Link'd with gay cockneys, glittering o'er the green: experiments appear to favour this idea-Water, when pressed by a moderate degree of heat, has been observed to simper, or simmer (as it is more usually called). The same does not hold true of any other element. * Acoustics-The doctrine or theory of sound. + Euclid and Algebra-The loves and nuptials of these two interesting personages, forming a considerable episode in the Third Canto, are purposely omitted here. Pulley-So called from our Saxon word pull, signifying to pull or draw. Fair Sylphish forms-Vide modern prints of nymphs and shepherds dancing to nothing at all. Such rich confusion-Imitated from the following genteel and sprightly lines in the First Canto of the Loves of the Plants: So bright, its folding canopy withdrawn, Glides the gilt landau o'er the velvet lawn, Of beaux and belles displays the glittering throng, The rising breeze unnumber'd charms displays, * Angle--Gratus puellæ risus ab Angulo. Ior. How slow progressive Points-The author has reserved the picturesque imagery which the Theory of Fluxions naturally suggested for his Algebraic Garden; where the fluents are described as rolling with an even current between a margin of curves of the higher order over a pebbly channel, inlaid with differential calculi. In the following six lines he has confined himself to a strict explanation of the theory, according to which Lines are supposed to be generated by the motion of Points-Planes by the lateral motion of Lines, and Solids from Planes by a similar process.-Quere-Whether a practical application of this theory would not enable us to account for the genesis, or original formation of Space itself, in the same manner in which Dr. Darwin has traced the whole of the organized creation to his Six Filaments-Vide Zoonomia. We may conceive the whole of our present universe to have been originally concentred in a single Point. We may conceive this Primeval Point, or Punctum Saliens of the Universe, evolving itself by its own energies, to bave moved forwards in a right Line, ad infinitum, till it grew tired. After which, the right Line which it had generated would begin to put itself in motion in a lateral direction, describing an Area of infinite extent. This Area, as soon as it became conscious of its own existence, would begin to ascend or descend, according as its specific, gravity might determine it, forming an immense solid space filled with Vacuum, and capable of containing the present existing universe. Space being thus obtained, and presenting a suitable Nidus, or receptacle for the generation of Chaotic Matter, an immense deposit of it would gradually be accumulated:-After which, the Filament of Fire being produced in the chaotic mass by an idiosyncracy, or self-formed habit analogous to fermentation, explosion would take place; Suns would be shot from the central chaos-Planets from Suns, and Satellites from Planets. In this state of things the Filament of Organization would begin to exert itself, in those independent masses which, in proportion to their bulk, exposed the greatest surface to the action of light and heat. This Filament, after an infinite series of How lengthen'd Lines, impetuous sweeping round, Spread the wide Plane, and mark its circling bound: [grown, Mark how his various parts together tend, ages, would begin to ramify, and its viviparous offspring would diversify their forms and habits, so as to accommodate themselves to the various incunabula which nature had prepared for them. Upon this view of things it seems highly probable that the first effort of nature terminated in the production of Vegetables, and that these, being abandoned to their own energies, by degrees detached themselves from the surface of the earth, and supplied themselves with wings or feet, according as their different propensities determined them, in favour of aerial and terrestrial existence. Others, by an inherent disposition to society and civilization, and by a stronger effort of volition, would become men. These, in time, would restrict themselves to the use of their hind feet; their tails would gradually rub off, by sitting in their caves or huts, as soon as they arrived at a domesticated state: they would invent language, and the use of fire, with our present and hitherto imperfect system of society. In the mean while the Fuci and Algae, with the Corallines and Madrepores would transform themselves into fish, and would gradually populate all the submarine portion of the globe. Trochais-The Nymph of the Wheel, supposed to be in love with Smoke-jack, The conscious fire* with bickering radiance burns, Eyes the rich joint, and roasts it as it turns. So youthful Horner roll'd the roguish eye, Cull'd the dark plum from out his Christmas pie, And cried, in self-applause, 'How good a boy am I.' So the sad victim of domestic spite, Fair Cinderella, pass'd the wintry night Brocaded silks the splendid dress complete, * The conscious fire-The sylphs and genii of the different elements have a variety of innocent occupations assigned them: those of Fire are supposed to divert themselves with writing the name of Kunkel in phosphorus.-See Economy of Vegetation. 'Or mark with shining letters Kunkel's name In the slow phosphor's self-consuming flame.' + Listening ears-Listening, and therefore peculiarly suited to a pair of diamond earrings. See the description of Nebuchadnezar in his transformed state. Nor Flattery's self can pierce his pendent ears. In poetical diction, a person is said to breathe the blue air,' and to drink the hoarse wave!'-not that the colour of the sky, or the noise of the water has any reference to drinking or breathing, but because the poet obtains the advantage of thus describing his subject under a double relation, in the same manner in which material objects present themselves to our different senses at the same time. Cocktail'd mice-Coctilibus muris. Ovid.-There is reason to believe that the murine, or mouse species, were anciently |