A SUMMARY ACCOUNT OF THE FOLLOWING

POEM,

AND OF WHAT IS CONTAINED IN EACH BOOK.

THE design of this work is to demonstrate the existence of a Divine Eternal Mind.

The arguments used for this end are taken from the various marks of wisdom and artful contrivance, which are evident to observation in the several parts of the material world, and the faculties of the human soul.

The first book contains the proof of a Deity, from the instances of design and choice, which occur in the structure and qualities of the earth and sea.

The second pursues the proof of the same proposition, THERE IS A GOD, from the celestial motions, and more fully from the appearances in the solar system, and the air.

In the third, the objections which are brought by atheistical philosophers against the hypothesis established in the two preceding books are answered.

In the fourth, is laid down the hypothesis of the Atomists or Epicureans, and other irreligious philosophers, and confuted.

In the fifth, the doctrine of the Fatalists, or Aristotelians, who make the world to be eternal, is considered and subverted.

In the sixth, the argument of the two first books is resumed, and the existence of God demonstrated from the prudence and art discovered in the several parts of the body of man.

In the seventh, the same demonstration is carried on from the contemplation of the instincts in brute animals, and the faculties and operations of the soul of man. The book concludes with a recapitulation of what has been treated of, and a hymn to the Creator of the World.

POEMS

OF

SIR RICHARD BLACKMORE.

CREATION;

A PHILOSOPHICAL POEM.

IN SEVEN BOOKS.

Principio cœlum, ac terras camposque liquentes,
Lucentemque globum Lunæ, Titaniaque astra
Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus
Mens agitat molem, & magno se corpore miscet.
Inde hominum, pecudumque genus, vitæque vo-
lantum,

Et quæ marmoreo fert monstra sub æquore pontus.
Virg.

BOOK I.

THE ARGUMENT.

I meditate to soar above the skies,
To heights unknown, through ways untry'd to rise:
I would th' Eternal from his works assert,
And sing the wonders of creating Art.

While I this unexampled task essay,
Pass awful gulphs, and beat my painful way;
Celestial Dove! divine assistance bring,
Sustain me on thy strong-extended wing,
That I may reach th' Almighty's sacred throne,
And make his causeless power, the cause of all
things, known.

Thou dost the full extent of nature see,
And the wide realms of vast immensity:
Eternal Wisdom thou dost comprehend,
Rise to her heights, and to her depths descend:
The Father's secret coursels thou canst tell,
Who in his bosom dilst for ever dwell.

Of skill divine, what shining marks appear!
Sce, through this vast extended theatre

THE proposition. The invocation. The existence of a God demonstrated, from the marks of wis-Thou on the deep's dark face, immortal Dove! dom, choice, and art, which appear in the visible On the wild waves, incumbent didst display Thou with almighty energy didst move world, and infer an intelligent and free cause. This evinced from the contemplation, I. Of they genial wings, and hatch primeval day. Earth. 1. Its situation. 2. The cohesion of Order from thee, from thee distinction came, its parts, not to be solved by any hypothesis And all the beauties of the wondrous frame. yet produced. 3. Its stability. 4. Its structure, Hence stampt on Nature we perfection find, or the order of its parts. 5. Its motion diurnal Fair as th' idea in the Eternal Mind. and annual, or else the motion of the Sun in both those respects. The cause of these motions not yet accounted for by any philosopher. 6. Creating power is all around exprest, Its outside or face; the beauties and convenien-The God discover'd, and his care confest. ces of it; its mountains, lakes, and rivers. II. Nature's high birth her heavenly beauties show; The existence of a God proved from the marks By every feature we the parent know. and impressions of prudence and design, whichTh' expanded spheres, amazing to the sight! appear in the sea. 1. In its formation. 2. The Magnificent with stars and globes of light, proportion of its parts in respect of the earthy. The glorious orbs, which Heaven's bright host 3. Its situation. 4. The contexture of its parts. 5. Its brackish or briny quality. 6. Its flux.

and reflux.

No more of courts, of triumphs, or of arms,
No more of Valour's force, or Beauty's charms;
The themes of vulgar lays, with just disdain,
I leave unsung, the flocks, the amorous swain,
The pleasures of the land, and terrours of the main,
How abject, how inglorions, 'tis to lie
Groveling in dust and darkness, when on high
Empires immense, and rolling worlds of light,
To range their heavenly scenes, the Muse invite!

compose,

Th' imprison'd sea, that restless ebbs and flows,
The fluctuating fields of liquid air,
With all the curious meteors hovering there,
And the wide regions of the land, proclaim
The Power Divine, that rais'd the mighty frame.
What things soe'er are to an end referr'd,
And in their motions still that end regard,
Always the fitness of the means respect,
These as conducive choose, and those reject,
Must by a judgment, foreign and unknown,
Be guided to their end, or by their own;
For to design an end, and to pursue
That end by means, and have it still in view,

Demands a conscious, wise, reflecting cause,
Which freely moves, and acts by reason's laws;
That can deliberate, means elect, and find
Their due connection with the end design'd.
And since the world's wide frame does not include
A cause with such capacities endued;
Some other cause o'er Nature must preside,
Which gave her birth, and does her motions guide.
And here behold the cause, which God we name,
The source of beings, and the mind supreme;
Whose perfect wisdom, and whose prudent care,
With one confederate voice unnumber'd worlds
declare.

See, how the Earth has gain'd that very place,
Which, of all others in the boundless space,
Is most convenient, and will best conduce
To the wise ends requir'd for Nature's use.
You, who the Mind and Cause Supreme deny,
Ner on his aid to form the world rely,
Must grant, had perfect wisdom been employ'd
To find, through all the interminable void,
A seat most proper, and which best became
The earth and sea, it must have been the same.
Now who can this surprising fact conceive,
Who this event fortuitous believe,
That the brute Earth, unguided, should embrace
The only useful, only proper place,
Of all the millions in the empty space?

Could stupid atoms, with impetuous speed,
By different roads and adverse ways proceed;
From regions opposite begin their flight,
That here they might rencounter, here unite?
What charms could these terrestrial vagrants see
In this one point of all immensity,

That all th' enamour'd troops should thither flow?
Did they its useful situation know?

And when the squadrons, with a swift career,
Had reach'd that point, why did they settle there,
When nothing check'd their flight but gulphs of air;
Since Epicurus and his scholars say,
That unobstructed matter flies away,
Ranges the void, and knows not where to stay?
If you, sagacious sons of Art, pretend
That by their native force they did descend,
And ceas'd to move, when they had gain'd their
end;

That native force till you enlighten'd know,
Can its mysterious spring disclose, and show
How 'tis exerted, how it does impel,
Your uninstructive words no doubts dispel.
We ask you, whence does motive vigour flow?
You say, the nature of the thing is so.
But how does this relieve th' inquirer's pain?
Or how the dark impulsive power explain?

The atomists, who skill mechanic teach,
Who boast their clearer sight, and deeper reach,
Assert their atoms took that happy seat,
Determin'd thither by their inbred weight;
That downward thro' the spacious void they strove
To that one point, from all the parts above.
Grant this position true, though up and down
Are to a space not limited unknown;

Still shake off all things on their surface plac'd,
And to a distance from the centre cast.

If pondrous atoms are so much in love
With this one point, that all will thither move,
Give them the situation they desire;
But let us then, ye sages, next inquire,
What cause of their cohesion can you find?
What props support, what chains the fabric bind?
Why do not beasts that move, or stones that lie
Loose on the field, through distant regions fly?
Or why do fragments, from a mountain rent,
Tend to the Earth with such a swift descent?

Those who ascribe this one determin'd course
Of pondrous things to gravitating force,
Refer us to a quality occult,

To senseless words, for which, while they insult,
With just contempt, the famous Stagyrite,
Their schools should bless the world with clearer
light.

Some, the round Earth's cohesion to secure,
For that hard task employ magnetic power.
Remark," say they, "the globe; with wonder

66

own

Its nature, like the fam'd attractive stone.
This has its axis," so th' observer tells,
Meridiaus, poles, equator, parallels.
To the terrestrial poles, by constant fate,
Th' obsequious poles themselves accommodate,
And, when of this position dispossest,
They move, and strive, nor ever will they rest,
Till their lov'd situation they regain,
Where pleas'd they settle, and unmov'd remain.
And should you, so experience does decide,
Into small parts the wondrous stone divide,
Ten thousand of minutest size express
The same propension, which the large possess.
Hence all the globe," 'tis said,
we may conclude,
With this prevailing energy endued:
That this attractive, this surprising stone,
Has no peculiar virtue of its own;
Nothing but what is common to the whole,
To sides, to axis, and to either pole.

66

"The mighty magnet from the centre darts This strong, though subtle force, through all the parts;

Its active rays, ejaculated thence,
Irradiate all the wide circumference.
While every part is in proportion blest,
And of its due attractive power possest;
While adverse ways the adverse atoms draw,
With the same strength, by Nature's constant law
Balane'd and fixt; they can no longer move;
Through gulphs immense no more unguided rove.
If cords are pull'd two adverse ways, we find
The more we draw them, they the faster bind.
So when with equal vigour Nature strains
This way and that these fine mechanic chains,
They fix the Earth, they part to part unite,
Preserve their structure, and prevent their flight.
Pressure, they say, and weight, we must disown,
As things occult, by no ideas known,
And on the Earth's magnetic power depend

But since they say our Earth, from morn to morn, To fix its seat, its union to defend."

On its own axis is oblig'd to turn;
That swift rotation must disperse in air
All things, which on the rapid orb appear:
And if no power that motion should control,
It must disjoint and dissipate the whole.
"Tis by experience uncontested found,
Bodies orbicular, when whirling round,

Let us this fam'd hypothesis survey,
And with attentive thought remark the way,
How Earth's attractive parts their force display.
"The mass," 'tis said, "from its wide bosom pours
Torrents of atoms, and eternal showers
Of fine magnetic darts, of matter made
So subtle, marble they with ease pervade :