EXTRACT FROM "THE ROYAL SOCIETY."

MISCHIEF and true dishonour fall on those

Who would to laughter or to scorn expose

So virtuous and so noble a design,

So human for its use, for knowledge so divine.

The things which these proud men despise, and call

Impertinent, and vain, and small,

Those smallest things of nature let me know,

Rather than all their greatest actions do.
Whoever would deposèd Truth advance
Into the throne usurped from it,
Must feel at first the blows of Ignorance,
And the sharp points of envious Wit.

So when, by various turns of the celestial dance,
In many thousand years

A star, so long unknown, appears,

Though heaven itself more beauteous by it grow,
It troubles and alarms the world below,

Does to the wise a star, to fools a meteor, show.

ANDREW MARVELL.

Born 1620. Died 1678.

THE BERMUDAS.

WHERE the remote Bermudas ride,
In the ocean's bosom unespied,
From a small boat, that rowed along,
The listening winds received this song.
"What should we do but sing His praise,
That led us through the watery maze,
Unto an isle so long unknown,
And yet far kinder than our own?

Where He the huge sea monsters wracks,

That lift the deep upon their backs,

He lands us on a grassy stage,

Safe from the storms, and prelates' rage.
He gave us this eternal spring
Which here enamels every thing,
And sends the fowls to us in care,

On daily visits through the air;

He hangs in shades the orange bright,
Like golden lamps in a green night,
And does in the pomegranates close
Jewels more rich than Ormus shows;
He makes the figs our mouths to meet,
And throws the melons at our feet,
But apples plants of such a price,
No tree could ever bear them twice.
With cedars chosen by His hand
From Lebanon, He stores the land
And makes the hollow seas that roar
Proclaim the ambergrease on shore;
He cast (of which we rather boast)
The gospel's pearl upon our coast,
And in these rocks for us did frame
A temple where to sound his fame.
Oh! let our voice His praise exalt,
Till it arrive at heaven's vault,
Which then (perhaps) rebounding may
Echo beyond the Mexique Bay."
Thus sung they, in the English boat,
A holy and a cheerful note,

And all the way, to guide their chime,
With falling oars they kept the time.

Eighteenth Century.

ALEXANDER POPE.

Born 1688. Died 1744.

FROM AN ESSAY ON MAN."

HEAVEN from all creatures hides the book of Fate,
All but the page prescribed, their present state:
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know :
Or who could suffer being here below?

The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,

Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food,
And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood.
O blindness to the future! kindly given,
That each may fill the circle marked by Heaven :
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,

A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,

Atoms or systems into ruin hurled,

And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar,
Wait the great teacher, Death; and God adore,
What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope, to be thy blessing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest :

The soul uneasy, and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates in a world to come.

Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutored mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul proud Science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk, or milky way :
Yet simple nature to his hope has given,
Behind the cloud-topt hill an humbler heaven;

Some safer world in depth of woods embraced,
Some happier island in the watery waste,

Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
To be, contents his natural desire,

He asks no angels wing, no seraph's fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.

See some strange comfort every state attend,
And pride bestowed on all, a common friend :
See some fit passion every age supply;
Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die.
Behold the child, by Nature's kindly law,
Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw :
Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight,
A little louder, but as empty quite.

Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage,
And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age.
Pleased with this bauble still, as that before;
'Till tired he sleeps, and Life's poor play is o'er.
Meanwhile opinion gilds with varying rays
Those painted clouds that beautify our days:
Each want of happiness by Hope supplied,
And each vacuity of sense by Pride :
These build as fast as knowledge can destroy;
In Folly's cup still laughs the bubble, Joy;
One prospect lost, another still we gain;
And not a vanity is given in vain ;
Even mean Self-love becomes, by force divine,
The scale to measure others' wants by thine.
See! and confess, one comfort still must rise;
'Tis this, Though man's a fool, yet God is wise.

ON THE CHARACTER OF ADDISON.

PEACE to all such! but were there one whose fires
True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires;
Blest with each talent and each art to please,
And born to write, converse, and live with ease:
Should such a man, too fond to live alone,
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne,

View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes,
And hate for arts that caused himself to rise;
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer;
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike;
Alike reserved to blame or to commend,
A timorous foe, and a suspicious friend;
Dreading even fools, by flatterers besieged,
And so obliging, that he ne'er obliged;
Like Cato, give his little senate laws,
And sit attentive to his own applause ;
While wits and templars every sentence raise,
And wonder with a foolish face of praise---
Who but must laugh, if such a man there be!
Who would not weep, if Atticus were he!

FROM AN ELEGY ON AN UNFORTUNATE LADY."

WHAT can atone (O ever injured shade !)
Thy fate unpitied, and thy rites unpaid?

No friend's complaint, no kind domestic tear,

Pleased thy pale ghost, or graced thy mournful bier :
By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed,
By foreign hands thy decent limbs composed,
By foreign hands thy humble grave adorned,
By strangers honoured, and by strangers mourned !
What though no friends in sable weeds appear;
Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year,
And bear about the mockery of woe

To midnight dances, and the public show?
What though no weeping Loves thy ashes grace,
Nor polished marble emulate thy face?

What though no sacred earth allow thee room,
Nor hallowed dirge be muttered o'er thy tomb?
Yet shall thy grave with rising flowers be drest,
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast:
There shall the Morn her earliest tears bestow,
There the first roses of the year shall blow;
While angels with their silver wings o'ershade
The ground now sacred by thy relics made.

So, peaceful rests, without a stone, a name,
What once had beauty, titles, wealth, and fame.