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25
To Mr. J. L. Upon his Treatise of Dialling.
Old time but for thy art, alone would passe,And idly bear his solitary glasse:
Though he fly fast, thy judgment mounted on
The wings of fancy, yoakes his motion:
Each little sand falls not unquestioned by
The due observance of thy piercing eye;
Each moment you converse with so, that thus
Discoursing his stage seemes not tedious:
others perhaps by their mechanick art
May ask him what's a clock, then let him part:
Thou in thy circles conjur'st him to stay
Till he relate to thee the month and day;
All propositions of the Globe dost bring
To be confest as well in dialling:
What lucky signes successively do run,
By the reclining chariot of the Sun;
And in a various dialect of Schemes
Interprets't all the motions of his beames
How many houres each day he travells in
When he arrives diogonall Inne.
Other bookes show the trade of dialling,
But thine the art and reason of the thing:
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Addest new wheeles; demonstrated all so
That weake eyes now may see what was before
Defective in the fam'd Osorius store:
A lim at least of this celestiall trade
Asleep till now lay in the Gnomons shade;
Nor teachest thou as those who first did find
With much circumference the Indian mine;
Thy needle points the nearest way, and hath
Made streight th'obliquity of the old path;
Thou nor thine art our praises need, yet I
Will for this miracle both deify.
Thine art enlightens by a shade, of that
Nothing a reall Science you create.
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