And sprinkled in the captain's face
The marks of her peculiar grace.
To close this point, we need not roam
For instances so far from home;
What parts gay France from sober Spain?
A little rising rocky chain.
Of men born south or north of the hill,
Those seldom move; these ne'er stand still. 1030
Dick, you love maps, and may perceive
Rome not far distant from Geneve.
If the good Pope remains at home,
He's the first prince in Christendom.
Choose then, good Pope, at home to stay,
Nor westward curious take thy way:
Thy way unhappy shouldst thou take
From Tyber's bank to Leman lake;
Thou art an aged priest no more,
But a young flaring painted whore;
Thy sex is lost; thy town is gone,
No longer Rome, but Babylon.
That some few leagues should make this change, To men unlearned seems mighty strange.
But need we, friend, insist on this?
Since, in the very Cantons Swiss,
All your philosophers agree,
And prove it plain, that one may be
A heretic, or true believer,
On this, or t' other side a river.
Here, with an artful smile, quoth Dick,
Your proofs come mighty full and thick.
The bard, on this extensive chapter
Wound up into poetic rapture,
Continued: Richard, cast your eye
By night upon a winter-sky;
Cast it by day-light on the strand,
Which compasses fair Albion's land;
If you can count the stars that glow
Above, or sands that lie below,
Into those common places look,
Which from great authors I have took,
And count the proofs I have collected,
To have my writings well protected.
These I lay by for time of need,
And thou mayst at thy leisure read.
For, standing every critic's rage,
I safely will to future age,
My system, as a gift, bequeath,
Victorious over spite and death.
Richard, who now was half asleep,
Roused, nor would longer silence keep:
And sense like this, in vocal breath,
Broke from his two-fold hedge of teeth.
Now, if this phrase too harsh be thought,
Pope, tell the world, 'tis not my fault.
Old Homer taught us thus to speak;
If 'tis not sense, at least 'tis Greek.
As folks, quoth Richard, prone to leasing,
Say things at first, because they're pleasing, 1080
Then prove what they have once asserted,
Nor care to have their lie deserted,
Till their own dreams at length deceive them,
And, oft repeating, they believe them;
Or as, again, those amorous blades,
Who trifle with their mothers' maids,
Though at the first their wild desire
Was but to quench a present fire;
Yet if the object of their love
Chance by Lucina's aid to prove,
They seldom let the bantling roar
In basket at a neighbour's door;
But, by the flattering glass of nature
Viewing themselves in cake-bread's feature,
With serious thought and care support
What only was begun in sport:
Just so with you, my friend, it fares,
Who deal in philosophic wares.
Atoms you cut, and forms you measure,
To gratify your private pleasure;
Till airy seeds of casual wit
Do some fantastic birth beget;
And, pleased to find your system mended
Beyond what you at first intended,
The happy whimsey you pursue,
Till you at length believe it true.
Caught by your own delusive art,
You fancy first, and then assert.
Quoth Matthew: friend, as far as I
Through art or nature cast my eye,
This axiom clearly I discern,
That one must teach, and the other learn.
No fool Pythagoras was thought;
Whilst he his weighty doctrines taught,
He made his listening scholars stand,
Their mouth still covered with their hand;
Else, may be, some odd-thinking youth,
Less friend to doctrine than to truth,
Might have refused to let his ears
Attend the music of the spheres:
Denied all transmigrating scenes,
And introduced the use of beans.
From great Lucretius take his void,
And all the world is quite destroyed.
Deny Descartes his subtle matter,
You leave him neither fire nor water.
How oddly would Sir Isaac look,
If you in answer to his book,
Say in the front of your discourse,
That things have no elastic force!
How could our chymic friends go on,
To find the philosophic stone,
If you more powerful reasons bring,
To prove that there is no such thing!
Your chiefs in sciences and arts
Have great contempt of Alma's parts.
They find she giddy is, or dull;
She doubts if things are void, or full;
And who should be presumed to tell
What she herself should see, or feel!
She doubts if two and two make four,
Though she has told them ten times o'er.
It can't it may be-and it must;
To which of these must Alma trust?
Nay further yet they make her go
In doubting, if she doubts, or no.
Can syllogism set things right?
No: majors soon with minors fight;
Or, both in friendly consort joined,
The consequence limps false behind.
So to some cunning man she goes,
And asks of him how much she knows.
With patience grave he hears her speak,
And from his short notes gives her back
What from her tale he comprehended:
Thus the dispute is wisely ended.
From the account the loser brings,
The conjurer knows who stole the things.
Squire (interrupted Dick), since when
Were you amongst these cunning men?
Dear Dick, quoth Mat, let not thy force
Of eloquence spoil my discourse.
I tell thee, this is Alma's case,
Still asking what some wise man says,
Who does his mind in words reveal,
Which all must grant, though few can spell.
You tell your doctor, you are ill,
And what does he, but write a bill,
Of which you need not read one letter;
The worse the scrawl, the dose the better.
For if you knew but what you take,
Though you recover, he must break.
Ideas, forms, and intellects,
Have furnished out three different sects.
Substance, or accident, divides
All Europe into adverse sides.
Now, as, engaged in arms or laws,
You must have friends to back your cause;
In philosophic matters so
Your judgment must with others' go;
For as in senates, so in schools,
Majority of voices rules.
Poor Alma, like a lonely deer,
O'er hills and dales does doubtful err;
With panting haste, and quick surprise,
From every leaf that stirs, she flies,
Till mingled with the neighbouring herd,
She slights what erst she singly feared:
And now, exempt from doubt and dread,
She dares pursue, if they dare lead;
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