Forcing a wretched trade by beating down the sale, And selling basely by retail. The wits, I mean the atheists of the age, Who fain would rule the pulpit, as they do the stage, Wondrous refiners of philosophy, Of morals and divinity, By the new modish system of reducing all to sense, Against all logic, and concluding laws, Do own th'effects of Providence, And yet deny the cause. 

      V This hopeful sect, now it begins to see How little, very little, do prevail Their first and chiefest force To censure, to cry down, and rail, Not knowing what, or where, or who you be, Will quickly take another course:            And, by their never-failing ways Of solving all appearances they please, We soon shall see them to their ancient methods fall, And straight deny you to be men, or anything at all. I laugh at the grave answer they will make, Which they have always ready, general, and cheap:        'Tis but to say, that what we daily meet, And by a fond mistake Perhaps imagine to be wondrous wit, And think, alas! to be by mortals writ, Is but a crowd of atoms justling in a heap:            Which, from eternal seeds begun, Justling some thousand years, till ripen'd by the sun:        They're now, just now, as naturally born, As from the womb of earth a field of corn. 

      VI But as for poor contented me, Who must my weakness and my ignorance confess, That I believe in much I ne'er can hope to see; Methinks I'm satisfied to guess, That this new, noble, and delightful scene, Is wonderfully moved by some exalted men, Who have well studied in the world's disease,      (That epidemic error and depravity, Or in our judgment or our eye,)      That what surprises us can only please. We often search contentedly the whole world round, To make some great discovery, And scorn it when 'tis found. Just so the mighty Nile has suffer'd in its fame, Because 'tis said (and perhaps only said)      We've found a little inconsiderable head, That feeds the huge unequal stream. Consider human folly, and you'll quickly own, That all the praises it can give, By which some fondly boast they shall for ever live, Won't pay th'impertinence of being known:          Else why should the famed Lydian king,[4]      (Whom all the charms of an usurped wife and state, With all that power unfelt, courts mankind to be great, Did with new unexperienced glories wait,)      Still wear, still 

 Prev. P 28/242 next