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Still are the subtile strings in tension found,
Like those of lutes to just proportion wound,
Which of the air's vibration is the source,
When it receives the strokes of foreign force.
Let curious minds, who would the air inspect,
On its elastic energy reflect.

The secret force through all the frame diffus'd,
By which its strings are from compression loos'd;
The spungy parts, now to a straiter seat
Are forc'd by cold, and widen'd now by heat;
By turns they all extend, by turns retire,
As Nature's various services require;
They now expand to fill an empty space,
Now shrink to let a ponderous body pass.
If raging winds invade the atmosphere,
Their force its curious texture cannot tear,
Make no disruption in the threads of air;
Or if it does, those parts themselves restore,
Heal their own wounds, and their own breaches

cure.

Hence the melodious tenants of the sky, Which haunt inferior seats, or soar on high, With ease through all the fluid region stray, And through the wide expansion wing their way; Whose open meshes let terrestrial steams Pass through, entic'd away by solar beams; And thus a road reciprocal display To rising vapours, and descending day.

Of heat and light, what ever-during stores,
Brought from the Sun's exhaustless golden shores,
Through gulphs immense of intervening air,
Enrich the Earth, and every loss repair!
The land, its gainful traffic to maintain,
Sends out crude vapours, in exchange for rain;
The flowery garden and the verdant mead,
Warm'd by their rays, their exhalations spread,
In showers and balmy dews to be repaid;
The streams, their banks forsaken, upward move,
And flow again in wandering clouds above:
These regions Nature's magazines on high
With all the stores demanded there supply;
Their different steams the air's wide bosom fill,
Moist from the flood, dry from the barren hill;
Materials into meteors to be wrought,
Which back to these terrestrial seats are brought,
By Nature shap'd to various figures, those
The fruitful rain, and these the hail, compose,
The snowy fleece, and curious frost-work; these
Produce the dew, and those the gentle breeze:
Some form fierce winds, which o'er the mountain
pass,

And beat with vigorous wings the valley's face;
O'er the wide lake and barren desert blow,
O'er Libya's burning sand, and Scythia's snow;
Shake the high cedar, through the forest sweep,
And with their furious breath ferment the deep.
This thin, this soft contexture of the air,
Shows the wise Author's providential care,
Who did the wondrous structure so contrive,
That it might life to breathing creatures give;
Might reinspire, and make the circling mass
Through all its winding channels fit to pass.
Had not the Maker wrought the springy frame
Such as it is, to fan the vital flame,
The blood, defrauded of its nitrous food,
Had cool'd and languish'd in th' arterial road:
While the tir'd heart had strove, with fruitless
To push the lazy tide along the vein.

Of what important use to human kind,
To what great ends subservient, is the wind!

[pain,

Behold, where'er this active vapour flies,
It drives the clouds, and agitates the skies:
This from stagnation and corruption saves
Th' aërial ocean's ever-rolling waves.
This animals, to succour life, demand;
For, should the air unventilated stand,
The idle deep corrupted would contain
Blue deaths, and secret stores of raging pain;
The scorching Sun would with a fatal beam
Make all the void with births malignant teem,
Engender jaundice, spotted torments breed,
And purple plagues, from pestilential seed;
Exhaling vapours would be turn'd to swarms
Of noxious insects, and destructive worms,
More than were rais'd to scourge tyrannic lust,
By Moses' rod, from animated dust.

Another blessing, which the breathing wind
Benevolent conveys to human kind,

Is, that it cools and qualifies the air,
And with soft breezes does the regions cheer,
On which the Sun, o'er-friendly, does display
Heat too prevailing, and redundant day.
Ye swarthy nations of the torrid zone,
How well to you is this great bounty known!
As frequent gales from the wide ocean rise
To fan your air, and moderate your skies;
So constant winds, as well as rivers, flow
From your high hills, enrich'd with stores of snow;
For this great end, these hills rise more sublime
Than those erected in a temperate clime.
Had not the Author this provision made,
By which your air is cool'd, your Sun allay'd,
Destroy'd by too intense a flame, the land
Had lain a parch'd inhospitable sand.
These districts, which between the tropics lie,
Which scorching beams directly darted fry,
Were thought an uninhabitable seat,
Burnt by the neighbouring orb's immoderate heat :
But the fresh breeze, that from the ocean blows,
From the wide lake, or from the mountain snows,
So soothes the air, and mitigates the Sun,
So cures the regions of the sultry zone,
That oft with Nature's blessings they abound,
Frequent in people, and with plenty crown'd.

As active winds relieve the air and land,
The seas no less their useful blasts demand:
Without this aid, the ship would ne'er advance
Along the deep, and o'er the billow dance,
But lie a lazy and an useless load,

The forest's wasted spoils, the lumber of the flood.
Let but the wind, with an auspicious gale,
To shove the vessel, fill the spreading sail,
And see, with swelling canvass wing'd, she flies,
And with her waving streamers sweeps the skies!
'Th' adventurous merchant thus pursues his way,
Or to the rise, or to the fall of day.
Thus mutual traffic sever'd realms maintain,
And manufactures change to mutual gain;
Fach other's growth and arts they sell and buy,
Ease their redundance, and their wants supply.
Ye Britons, who the fruit of commerce tiud,
How is your isle a debtor to the wind,
Which thither wafts Arabia's fragrant spoils,
Gems, pearls, and spices from the Indian isles,
From Persia silks, wines from Iberia's shore,
Peruvian drugs, and Guinea's golden ore!
Delights and wealth to fair Augusta flow
From every region whence the winds can blow.
See, how the vapours congregated rear
Their gloomy columns, and obscure the air?

Forgetful of their gravity, they rise,

Renounce the centre, and usurp the skies,
Where, form'd to clouds, they their black lines

display,

And take their airy march, as winds convey.
Sublime in air while they their course pursue,
They from their sable fleeces shake the dew
On the parch'd mountain, and with genial rain,
Renew the forest, and refresh the plain :
They shed their healing juices on the ground,
Cement the crack, and close the gaping wound.
Did not the vapours, by the solar heat
Thinn'd and exhal'd, rise to their airy seat,
Or not in watery clouds collected fly,
Then, form'd to ponderous drops, desert the sky;
The fields would no recruits of moisture find,
But, by the sun beams dry'd, and by the wind,
Would never plant, or flower, or fruit, produce,
Or for the beast, or for his master's use.

But in the spacious climates, which the rain
Does never bless, (such is th' Egyptian plain)
With how much art is that defect supply'd !
See, how some noble river's swelling tide,
Augmented by the mountains' melting snows,
Breaks from its banks, and o'er the region flows!
Hence fruitful crops and flowery wealth ensue,
And to the swain such mighty gains accrue,
He ne'er reproaches Heaven for want of dew.
See, and revere, th' artillery of Heaven,
Drawn by the gale, or by the tempest driven !
A dreadful fire the floating batteries make,
O'erturn the mountain, and the forest shake.
This way and that they drive the atmosphere,
And its wide bosom from corruption clear,
While their bright flame consumes the sulphur
trains,

And noxious vapours, which infect our veins.
Thus they refine the vital element,

Secure our health, and growing plagues prevent.

Your contemplation farther yet pursue;
The wondrous world of vegetables view!
Observe the forest oak, the mountain pine,
The towering cedar, and the humble vine,
The bonding willow, that o'ershades the flood,
And each spontaneous offspring of the wood;
The oak and pine, which high from Earth arise,
And wave their lofty heads amidst the skies,
Their parent Earth in like proportion wound,
And through crude metals penetrate the ground;
Their strong and ample roots descend so deep,
That fixt and firm they may their station keep,
And the fierce shocks of furious winds defy,
With all the outrage of inclement sky.
But the base brier and the noble vine
Their arms around their stronger neighbour
twine.

The creeping ivy, to prevent its fall,
Clings with its fibrous grapples to the wall.
Thus are the trees of every kind secure,
Or by their own, or by a borrow'd power.
But every tree, from all its branching roots,
Amidst the glebe small hollow fibres shoots;
Which drink with thirsty mouths the vital juice,
And to the limbs and leaves their food diffuse:
Peculiar pores peculiar juice receive,
To this deny, to that admittance give.

Hence various trees their various fruits produce,
Some for delightful taste, and some for use.
Hence sprouting plants enrich the plain and wood,
For physic some, and some design'd for food.

Hence fragrant flowers, with different colours dy'd,
On smiling meads unfold their gaudy pride.

Review these numerous scenes, at once survey
Nature's extended face; then, Sceptics, say,
In this wide field of wonders, can you find
No art discover'd, and no end design'd?

CREATION.

BOOK III.

THE ARGUMENT.

THE introduction. Useful knowledge first pursued by man. Agriculture. Architecture. Sculpture. Painting. Music. The Grecian philosophers first engaged in useless speculations. The absurdity of asserting the self-existent, independent, and eternal being of atoms, according to the scheme of Epicurus. Answer to the objections of atheists to the scheme of creation asserted in the two former books. The objections brought by Lucretius against creation, from the necessity of pre-existent matter for the formation of all kinds of beings; from the pretended unartful contrivance of the world; from thorns, briers, and noxious weeds; from savage beasts, storms, thunder, diseases; from the painful birth and the short life of man; from the inequality of heat and cold in different climates; answered. The obiections of the Pyrrhonians, or Sceptics, answered. A reply to those who assert all things owe their being and their motions to Nature. Their different and senseless account of that word. More apparent and eminent skill and wisdom expressed in the works of Nature than in those of human art. The unreasonableness of denying skill and design in the author of those works. Vaninus, Hobbes, and Spinosa, considered.

ERE vain Philosophy had rear'd her school,
Whose chiefs imagin'd realms of science rule,
With idle toil form visionary schemes,
And wage eternal war for rival dreams;
Studious of good, man disregarded fame,
And useful knowledge was his eldest aim:
Through metaphysic wilds he never flew,
Nor the dark haunts of school chimeras knew,
But had alone his happiness in view.

He milk'd the lowing herd, he press'd the cheese,
Folded the flock, and spun the woolly fleece.
In urns the bees' delicious dews he lay'd,
Whose kindling wax invented day display'd;
Wrested their iron entrails from the hills,
Then with the spoils his glowing forges fills;
And shap'd, with vigorous strokes, the ruddy bat
To rural arms, unconscious yet of war.
He made the ploughshare in the furrow shine,
And learn'd to sow his bread, and plant his vine.
Now verdant food adorn'd the garden beds,
And fruitful trees shot up their branching heads;
Rich balm from groves, and herbs from grassy
plains,

His fever sooth'd, or heal'd his wounded veins.
Our fathers next, in architecture skill'd,
Cities for use, and forts for safety, build:

Then palaces and lofty domes arose,
Thes for devotion, and for pleasure those.
Their thoughts were next to artful sculpture turn'd,
Which now the palace, now the dome, adorn'd.
The pencil then did growing fame acquire,
Then was the trumpet heard, and tuneful lyre,
One did the triumph sing, and one the war inspire.
Greece did at length a learned race produce,
Who needful science mock'd, and arts of use,
Consum'd their fruitless hours in eager chase
Of airy notions, through the boundless space
Of speculation, and the darksome void,
Where wrangling wits, in endless strife employ'd,
Mankind with idle subtilties embroil,
And fashion systems with romantic toil;
These, with the pride of doginatizing schools,
Impos'd on Nature arbitrary rules;
Forc'd her their vain inventions to obey,
And move as learned frenzy trac'd the way:
Above the clouds while they presum'd to soar,
Her trackless heights ambitious to explore,
And heaps of undigested volumes writ,
Ilusive notions of fantastic wit;

So long they Nature search'd, and mark'd her laws,

They lost the knowledge of th' Almighty Cause.

Th' erroneous dictates of each Grecian sage
Renounc'd the doctrines of the eldest age:
Yet these their matchless science did proclaim,
Usurp distinction, and appropriate fame.

But tho' their schools produc'd no nobler fruit
Than empty schemes, and triumphs of dispute;
The notions, which arise from Nature's light,
As well adorn the mind, as guide her right,
Enlarge her compass, and improve her sight.
These ne'er the breast with vain ambition fire,
But banish pride, and modest thoughts inspire.
By her inform'd, we blest religion learn,
Its glorious object by her aid discern;
The rolling worlds around us we survey,
Th' alternate sovereigns of the night and day;
View the wide Earth adorn'd with hills and woods,
Rich in her herds, and fertile by her floods;
Walk through the deep apartments of the main,
Ascend the air to visit clouds and rain;
And, while we ravish'd gaze on Nature's face,
Remark her order, and her motions trace,
The long coherent chain of things, we find,
Leads to a Cause Supreme, a wise Creating Mind.
You, who the being of a God disclaim,
And think mere Chance produc'd this wondrous
frame;

Say, did you e'er reflect, Lucretian tribe,
To matter what perfections you ascribe?
Can you to dust such veneration show?
An atom with such privilege endow,
That, from its nature's pure necessity,
It should exist, and no corruption see?

Since your first atoms independent are,
And not each other's being prop and bear,
And since to this it is fortuitous

That others should existence have; suppose
You in your mind one atom should remove
From all the troops, that in the vacant strove,
Cannot our thought conceive one atom less?
If so, you Grecian sages must confess
That matter, which you independent name,
Cannot a being necessary claim;
For what has being from necessity,
It is impossible it should not be.

Why has an atom this one place possest
Of all the empty void, and not the rest?
If by its nature's voice 'tis present here,
By the same force it must be every where;
Can beings be confin'd, which necessary are?
If a first body may to any place

Be not determin'd, in the boundless space,
'Tis plain, it then may absent be from all;
Who then will this a self-existence call?
As time does vast eternity regard,
So place is with infinitude compar'd:
A being then, which never did commence,
Must, as eternal, likewise be immense.
What cause within, or what without, is found,
That can a being uncreated bound?
None that's internal, for it has no canse;
Nor can it be controll'd by foreign laws,
For then it clearly would dependent be
On force superior, which will ne'er agree
With self-existence and necessity.
Absurdly then to atoms you assign
Such powers, and such prerogatives divine.
Thus while the notion of a God you slight,
Yourselves (who vainly think you reason right)
Make vile material gods, in number infinite.

Now let us, as 'tis just, in turn prepare
To stand the foe, and wage defensive war.
Lucretius first, a mighty hero, springs
Into the field, and his own triumph sings.
He brings, to make us from our ground retire,
The reasoner's weapons, and the poet's fire.
The tuneful sophist thus his battle forms,
Our bulwarks thus in polish'd armour storms:
To parent Matter things their being owe,
Because from nothing no productions flow;
And, if we grant no pre-existent seed,
Things, different things, from what they do, might
And any thing from any thing proceed ; [breed,
The spicy groves might Scythia's hills adorn,
The thistle might the amaranth have borne,
The vine the lemon, and the grape the thorn;
Herds from the hills, men from the seas, might

rise,

From woods the whales, and lions from the skies.
Th' elated bard here, with a conqueror's air,
Disdainful smiles, and bids his foes despair.
But. Carus, here you use poetic charms,
And not assail us with the reasoner's arms.
Where all is clear, you fancy'd doubts remove,
And what we grant with ease, with labour prove.
What you would prove, but cannot, you decline;
But choose a thing you can, and there you shine.
Tell us, fam'd Roman, was it e'er denied,
That seeds for such productions are supplied?
That Nature always must materials find
For beasts and trees, to propagate their kind?
All generation, the rude peasant knows,
A pre-existent matter must suppose.
But what to Nature first her being gave?
Tell, whence your atoms their existence have?
We ask you, whence the seeds constituent spring
Of every plant, and every living thing?
Whence every creature should produce its kind,
And to its proper species be confin'd?
To answer this, Lucretius, will require
More than sweet numbers and poetic fire."
But see how well the poet will support
His cause, if we the argument retort.
If Chance alone could manage, sort, divide,
And, beings to produce, your atoms guide;

If casual concourse did the world compose,
And things from hits fortuitous arose;
Then any thing might come from any thing;
For how from chance can constant order spring?
The forest oak might bear the blushing rose,
And fragrant myrtles thrive in Russian snows;
The fair pomegranate might adorn the pine,
The grape the bramble, and the sloe the vine ;
Fish from the plains, birds from the floods, might
rise,

And lowing herds break from the starry skies.
But, see, the chief does keener weapons choose,
Advances bold, and thus the fight renews:

"If I were doubtful of the source and spring
Whence things arise, I from the skies could bring,
And every part of Nature, proofs, to show
The world to gods cannot its being owe;
So full of faults is ali th' unartful frame.
First we the air's unpeopled desert blame :
Brute beasts possess the hill, and shady wood;
Much do the lakes, but more the ocean's flood,
(Which severs realms, and shores divided leaves)
Take from the land by interposing waves!
One third, by freezing cold, and burning heat,
Lies a deform'd, inhospitable seat;

The rest, unlabour'd, would by nature breed
Wild brambles only, and the noxious weed,
Did not industrious man, with endless toil,
Extort his food from the reluctant soil;
Did not the farmer's steel the furrow wound,
And harrows tear the harvest from the ground,
The Earth would no spontaneous fruits afford
To man, her vain imaginary lord.

Oft, when the labouring hind has plough'd the field,

And forc'd the glebe unwillingly to yield,
When green and flowery Nature crowns his hope
With the gay promise of a plenteous crop,
The fruits (sad ruin!) perish on the ground,
Burnt by the Sun, or by the deluge drown'd;
Or soon decay, by snows immoderate chill'd,
By winds are blasted, or by lightning kill'd.
Nature, besides, the savage beast sustains,
Breeds in the hills the terrour of the plains,
To man a fatal race. Could this be so,
Did gracious gods dispose of things below?
Their proper plagues with annual seasons come,
And deaths untimely blast us in the bloom.
Man at his birth (unhappy son of grief!)
Is helpless cast on the wide coasts of life,
In want of all things whence our comforts flow;
A sad and moving spectacle of woe.
Infants in ill-presaging cries complain,
As conscious of a coming life of pain.

All things meantime to beasts kind Nature grants,
Prevents their sufferings, and supplies their wants;
Brought forth with ease, they grow, and skip, and
feed,

No dangling nurse, or jingling gewgaw, need;
In caves they lurk, or o'er the mountains range,
Nor ever, through the year, their garment change;
Unvers'd in arms, and ignorant of war,
They need no forts, and no invasion fear;
Whate'er they want, from Nature's hand they
gain;

The life she gave, she watches to maintain."

Thus impotent in sense, though strong in rage, The daring Roman does the gods engage: But, undismay'd, we face th' intrepid foe, Sustain his onset, and thus ward the blow.

VOL. X.

Suppose defects in this terrestrial seat, That Nature is not, as you urge, complete; That a divine and wise Artificer

Might greater wonders of his art confer,

And might with ease on man, and mau's abode,
More bounty, more perfection, have bestow'd;
If in this lower world he has not shown
His utmost skill, say, has he therefore none?
We in productions arbitrary see

Marks of perfection, different in degree.
Though masters now more skill, now less, impart,
Yet are not all their works the works of art ?
Do poets still sublimer subjects sing,
Still stretch to Heaven a bold aspiring wing,
Nor e'er descend to flocks and labouring swains,
Frequent the floods, or range the humble plains?
Did, Grecian Phidias, all thy pieces shine
With equal beauty? or, Apelles, thine?
Or Raphael's pencil never choose to fall?
Say, are his works Transfigurations all?
Did Buonorota never build, O Rome!
A meaner structure, than thy wondrous dome?
Though, in their works applauded as their best,
Greater design and genius are exprest,
Yet, is there none acknowledg'd in the rest?

In all the parts of Nature's spacious sphere
Of art, ten thousand miracles appear:
And will you not the Author's skill adore,
Because you think he might discover more?
You own a watch th' invention of the mind,
Though for a single motion 'tis design'd,
As well as that, which is with greater thought,
With various springs, for various motions wrought.
An independent, wise, and conscious Cause,
Who freely acts by arbitrary laws,
Who at connection and at order aims,
Creatures distinguish'd in perfection frames.
Unconscious causes only still impart

Their utmost skill, their utmost power exert.
Those, which can freely choose, discern, and know,

In acting can degrees of vigour show,
And more or less of art or care bestow.

If all perfection were in all things shown,
All beauty, all variety, were gone.

As this inferior habitable scat

By different parts is made one whole complete;
So our low world is only one of those,
Which the capacious universe compose.
Now to the universal whole advert;
The Earth regard as of that whole a part,
In which wide frame more noble worlds abound;
Witness, ye glorious orbs, which hang around,
Ye shining planets, that in ether stray,
And thou, bright lord and ruler of the day!
Witness, ye stars, which beautify the skies,
How much do your vast globes, in height and size,
In beauty and magnificence, outgo
Our ball of Earth, that hangs in clouds below!
Between yourselves, too, is distinction found,
Of different bulk, with different glory crown'd;
The people, which in your bright regions dwell,
Must this low world's inhabitants excel;
And, since to various planets they agree,
They from each other must distinguish'd be,
And own perfections different in degree.

When we on fruitful Nature's care reflect,
And her exhaustless energy respect,
That stocks this globe, which you Lucretians call
The world's coarse dregs, which to the bottom
fall,

A a

With numerous kinds of life, and bounteous fills
With breathing guests the vallies, floods, and hills;
We may pronounce each orb sustains a race
Of living things, adapted to the place.
Were the refulgent parts, and most refin❜d,
Only to serve the dark and base design'd ?
Were all the stars, whose beauteous realms of light,
At distance only hung to shine by night,
And with their twinkling beams to please our sight?
How many roll in ether, which the eye
Could ne'er, till aided by the glass, descry;
And which no commerce with the Earth main-
tain!

Are all those glorious empires made in vain?
Now, as I said, the globe terrestrial view,
As of the whole a part, a mean one too.
Though 'tis not like th' ethereal worlds refin'd,
Yet is it just, and finish'd in its kind;
Has all perfection which the place demands,
Where in coherence with the rest it stands.
Were to your view the universe display'd,
And all the scenes of Nature open laid;
Could you their place, proportion, harmony,
Their beauty, order, and dependence, see,
You'd grant our globe had all the marks of art,
All the perfection due to such a part,
Though not with lustre, or with magnitude,
Like the bright stars, or brighter Sun, endued.
You oft declaim on man's unhappy fate;
Insulting, oft demand, in this debate,
If the kind gods could such a wretch create?
But whence can this unhappiness arise?
You say,
as soon as born, he helpless lies,
And mourns his woes in ill-presaging cries."
But does not Nature for the child prepare
The parent's love, the nurse's tender care,
Who, of their own forgetful, seek his good,
Enfold his limbs in bands, and fill his veins with
food?

That man is frail and mortal, is confest ;
Convulsions rack his nerves, and cares his breast;
His flying life is chas'd by ravening pains,
Through all its doubles in the winding veins ;
Within himself he sure destruction breeds,
And secret torment in his bowels feeds;
By cruel tyrants, by the savage beast,
Or his own fiercer passions, he's opprest :
Now breathes malignant air, now poison drinks;
By gradual death, or by untimely, sinks.

But these objectors must the Cause upbraid,
That has not mortal man immortal made;
For. if he once must feel the fatal blow,
Is it of great importance when, or how?
Should the Lucretian lingering life maintain
Through numerous ages, ignorant of pain,
Still might the discontented murmurer cry,
"Ah, hapless fate of man! ah, wretch, doom'd
once to die!"

But oh! how soon would you, who thus complain,
And Nature's Cause of cruelty arraign,
By reason's standard this mistake correct,
And cease to murmur, did you once reflect,
That death removes us only from our seat,
Does not extinguish life, but change its state.
Then are display'd (oh ravishing surprise!)
Fair scenes of bliss, and triumpl s in the skies;
To which admitted, each superior mind,
By virtue's vital energy refin'd,

Shines forth with more than solar glory bright,
And, cloth'd with robes of beatific light,

His hours in heavenly transports does employ, Young with immortal bloom from living streams of joy.

You ask us, "why the soil the thistle breeds?
Why its spontaneous births are thorns and weeds?
Why for the harvest it the harrow needs?
The Author might a nobler world have made,
In brighter dress the hills and vales array'd,
And all its face in flowery scenes display'd:
The glebe untill'd might plenteous crops have
borne,

And brought forth spicy groves instead of thorn ;
Rich fruit and flowers, without the gardener's
pains,
[the plains:
Might every hill have crown'd, have honour'd all
This Nature might have boasted, had the Mind,
Who form'd the spacious universe, design'd
That man, from labour free as well as grief,
Should pass in lazy luxury his life.
But he his creature gave a fertile soil,
Fertile, but not without the owner's toil;
That some reward his industry should crown,
And that his food in part might be his own."

But while, insulting, you arraign the land,

Ask why it wants the plough, or labourer's hand;
Kind to the marble rocks, you ne'er complain
That they without the sculptor's skill and pain
No perfect statue yield, no basse relieve,
Or finish'd column for the palace give;
Yet if from hills unlabour'd figures came,
Man might have ease enjoy'd, though never fama,
You may the world of more defects upbraid,
That other works by Nature are unmade;
That she did never, at her own expense,
A palace rear, and in magnificence
Out-rival art, to grace the stately rooms;
That she no castle builds, no lofty domes.
Had Nature's hand these various works prepar'd,
What thoughtful care, what labour, had been

spar'd!

But then no realm would one great master show,
No Phidias Greece, and Rome no Angelo.
With equal reason too you might demand,
Why boats and ships require the artist's hand?
Why generous Nature did not these provide
To pass the standing lake, or flowing tide?

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You say "the hills, which high in air arise, Harbour in clouds, and mingle with the skies, The Earth's dishonour and encumbering load, Of many spacious regions man defraud, For beasts and birds of prey a desolate abode." But can th' objector no convenience find In mountains, hills, and rocks, which gird and The mighty frame, that else would be disjoin'd? Do not those heaps the raging tide restrain, And for the dome afford the marble vein ? Does not the river from the mountain flow, And bring down riches to the vale below? See how the torrent rolls the golden sand From the high ridges to the flatter land. The lofty lines abound with endless store Of mineral treasure, and metallic ore; With precious veins of silver, copper, tin, Without how barren, yet how rich within! They bear the pine, the oak and cedar yield, To form the palace, and the navy build.

When the inclement meteors you accuse, And ask if gracious God would storms produce; You ne'er reflect, that by the driving wind The air from noxious vapours is refin'd;

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