The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore :: :: University of Virginia Library

As the gay tint, that decks the vernal rose ,
Not in the flower, but in our vision glows;
As the ripe flavour of Falernian tides
Not in the wine, but in our taste resides;

So when, with heartfelt tribute, we declare
That Marco's honest and that Susan's fair,
'Tis in our minds, and not in Susan's eyes
Or Marco's life, the worth or beauty lies:
For she, in flat-nosed China, would appear
As plain a thing as Lady Anne is here;
And one light joke at rich Loretto's dome
Would rank good Marco with the damn'd at Rome.

There's no deformity so vile, so base,
That 'tis not somewhere thought a charm, a grace;
No foul reproach, that may not steal a beam
From other suns, to bleach it to esteem.

Ask, who is wise?—you'll find the self-same man
A sage in France, a madman in Japan;
And here some head beneath a mitre swells,
Which there had tingled to a cap and bells:
Nay, there may yet some monstrous region be,
Unknown to Cook, and from Napoleon free,
Where C*stl*r---gh would for a patriot pass,
And mouthing M---ve scarce be deem'd an ass!

“List not to reason (Epicurus cries),
“But trust the senses, there conviction lies :”—

Alas! they judge not by a purer light,
Nor keep their fountains more untinged and bright:
Habit so mars them, that the Russian swain
Will sigh for train-oil, while he sips Champagne;
And health so rules them, that a fever's heat
Would make even Sh*r*d*n think water sweet.

Just as the mind the erring sense believes,
The erring mind, in turn, the sense deceives;
And cold disgust can find but wrinkles there,
Where passion fancies all that's smooth and fair.

P****, who sees, upon his pillow laid,
A face for which ten thousand pounds were paid,
Can tell, how quick before a jury flies
The spell that mock'd the warm seducer's eyes.

Self is the medium through which Judgment's ray
Can seldom pass without being turn'd astray.
The smith of Ephesus thought Dian's shrine,
By which his craft most throve, the most divine;
And ev'n the true faith seems not half so true,
When link'd with one good living as with two.
Had W*lc*t first been pension'd by the throne,
Kings would have suffer'd by his praise alone;
And P---ine perhaps, for something snug per ann.,
Had laugh'd, like W*ll*sley, at all Rights of Man.

But 'tis not only individual minds,—
Whole nations, too, the same delusion blinds.
Thus England, hot from Denmark's smoking meads,
Turns up her eyes at Gallia's guilty deeds;

Thus, self-pleas'd still, the same dishonouring chain
She binds in Ireland, she would break in Spain;
While prais'd at distance, but at home forbid,
Rebels in Cork are patriots at Madrid.

If Grotius be thy guide, shut, shut the book,—
In force alone for Laws of Nations look.
Let shipless Danes and whining yankees dwell
On naval rights, with Grotius and Vattel,
While C---bb---t's pirate code alone appears
Sound moral sense to England and Algiers.

Woe to the Sceptic, in these party days,
Who wafts to neither shrine his puffs of praise!
For him no pension pours its annual fruits,
No fertile sinecure spontaneous shoots;
Not his the meed that crown'd Don H---kh*m's rhyme,
Nor sees he e'er, in dreams of future time,
Those shadowy forms of sleek reversions rise,
So dear to Scotchmen's second-sighted eyes.
Yet who, that looks to History's damning leaf,
Where Whig and Tory, thief opposed to thief,

On either side in lofty shame are seen ,
While Freedom's form hangs crucified between—
Who, B---rd---tt, who such rival rogues can see,
But flies from both to Honesty and thee?

If, weary of the world's bewildering maze ,
Hopeless of finding, through its weedy ways,
One flower of truth, the busy crowd we shun,
And to the shades of tranquil learning run,
How many a doubt pursues! how oft we sigh,
When histories charm, to think that histories lie!!

That all are grave romances, at the best,
And M---sgr*ve's but more clumsy than the rest.
By Tory Hume's seductive page beguiled,
We fancy Charles was just and Strafford mild ;
And Fox himself, with party pencil, draws
Monmouth a hero, “for the good old cause!”

Then, rights are wrongs, and victories are defeats,
As French or English pride the tale repeats;
And, when they tell Corunna's story o'er,
They'll disagree in all, but honouring Moore:
Nay, future pens, to flatter future courts,
May cite perhaps the Park-guns' gay reports,
To prove that England triumph'd on the morn
Which found her Junot's jest and Europe's scorn.

In science, too—how many a system, raised
Like Neva's icy domes, awhile hath blazed
With lights of fancy and with forms of pride,
Then, melting, mingled with the oblivious tide!

Now Earth usurps the centre of the sky,
Now Newton puts the paltry planet by;
Now whims revive beneath Descartes's pen,
Which now, assail'd by Locke's, expire again.
And when, perhaps, in pride of chemic powers,
We think the keys of Nature's kingdom ours,
Some Davy's magic touch the dream unsettles,
And turns at once our alkalis to metals.
Or, should we roam, in metaphysic maze,
Through fair-built theories of former days,
Some Dr*mm---d from the north, more ably skill'd,
Like other Goths, to ruin than to build,

Tramples triumphant through our fanes o'erthrown,
Nor leaves one grace, one glory of his own.

Oh Learning, whatsoe'er thy pomp and boast,
Unletter'd minds have taught and charm'd men most.
The rude, unread Columbus was our guide
To worlds, which learn'd Lactantius had denied;
And one wild Shakspeare, following Nature's lights,
Is worth whole planets, fill'd with Stagyrites.

See grave Theology, when once she strays
From Revelation's path, what tricks she plays;
What various heav'ns,—all fit for bards to sing,—
Have churchmen dream'd, from Papias down to King!

While hell itself, in India nought but smoke ,
In Spain's a furnace, and in France—a joke.

Hail, modest Ignorance, thou goal and prize,
Thou last, best knowledge of the simply wise!
Hail, humble Doubt, when error's waves are past,
How sweet to reach thy shelter'd port at last,
And, there, by changing skies nor lured nor awed,
Smile at the battling winds that roar abroad.
There gentle Charity, who knows how frail
The bark of Virtue, even in summer's gale,
Sits by the nightly fire, whose beacon glows
For all who wander, whether friends or foes.
There Faith retires, and keeps her white sail furl'd,
Till call'd to spread it for a better world;

While Patience, watching on the weedy shore,
And, mutely waiting till the storm be o'er,
Oft turns to Hope, who still directs her eye
To some blue spot, just breaking in the sky!

Such are the mild, the blest associates given
To him who doubts,—and trusts in nought but Heaven!

“The particular bulk, number, figure, and motion of the parts of fire or snow are really in them, whether any one perceive them or not, and therefore they may be called real qualities, because they really exist in those bodies; but light, heat, whiteness, or coldness, are no more really in them than sickness or pain is in manna. Take away the sensation of them; let not the eye see light or colours, nor the ears hear sounds; let the palate not taste, nor the nose smell, and all colours, tastes, odours, and sounds, as they are such particular ideas, vanish and cease.” —Locke, book ii. chap. 8.

Bishop Berkeley, it is well known, extended this doctrine even to primary qualities, and supposed that matter itself has but an ideal existence. But, how are we to apply his theory to that period which preceded the formation of man, when our system of sensible things was produced, and the sun shone, and the waters flowed, without any sentient being to witness them? The spectator, whom Whiston supplies, will scarcely solve the difficulty: “To speak my mind freely,” says he, “I believe that the Messias was there actually present.” —See Whiston, of the Mosaic Creation.

Boetius employs this argument of the Sceptics among his consolatory reflections upon the emptiness of fame. “Quid quod diversarum gentium mores inter se atque instituta discordant, ut quod apud alios laude, apud alios supplicio dignum judicetur?”—Lib. ii. prosa 7. Many amusing instances of diversity, in the tastes, manners, and morals of different nations, may be found throughout the works of that amusing Sceptic Le Mothe le Vayer.—See his Opuscule Sceptique, his Treatise “De la Secte Sceptique,” and, above all, those Dialogues, not to be found in his works, which he published under the name of Horatius Tubero.—The chief objection to these writings of Le Vayer (and it is a blemish which may be felt also in the Esprit des Loix), is the suspicious obscurity of the sources from whence he frequently draws his instances, and the indiscriminate use made by him of the lowest populace of the library,—those lying travellers and wonder-mongers, of whom Shaftesbury, in his Advice to an Author, complains, as having tended in his own time to the diffusion of a very shallow and vicious sort of scepticism.— Vol. i. p. 352. The Pyrrhonism of Le Vayer, however, is of the most innocent and playful kind; and Villemandy, the author of Scepticismus Debellatus, exempts him specially in the declaration of war which he denounces against the other armed neutrals of the sect, in consideration of the orthodox limits within which he confines his incredulity.

This was the creed also of those modern Epicureans, whom Ninon de l'Enclos collected around her in the Rue des Tournelles, and whose object seems to have been to decry the faculty of reason, as tending only to embarrass our wholesome use of pleasures, without enabling us, in any degree, to avoid their abuse. Madame des Houlières, the fair pupil of Des Barreaux in the arts of poetry and gallantry, has devoted most of her verses to this laudable purpose, and is even such a determined foe to reason, that, in one of her pastorals, she congratulates her sheep on the want of it. St. Evremont speaks thus upon the subject:—

“Un mélange incertain d'esprit et de matière
Nous fait vivre avec trop ou trop peu de lumière.
[OMITTED] Nature, élève-nous à la clarté des anges,
Ou nous abaise au sens des simples animaux.”

Which may be thus paraphrased:—

Had man been made, at nature's birth,
Of only flame or only earth,
Had he been form'd a perfect whole
Of purely that, or grossly this,
Then sense would ne'er have clouded soul,
Nor soul restrain'd the sense's bliss.
Oh happy, had his light been strong,
Or had he never shared a light,
Which shines enough to show he's wrong,
But not enough to lead him right.

See, among the fragments of Petronius, those verses beginning “Fallunt nos oculi,” &c. The most sceptical of the ancient poets was Euripides; and it would, I think, puzzle the whole school of Pyrrho to produce a doubt more startling than the following:—

Τις δ' οιδεν ει ζην τουθ' ο κεκληται θανειν,
Το ζην δε θνησκειν εστι.

See Laert. in Pyrrh.

Socrates and Plato were the grand sources of ancient scepticism. According to Cicero (de Orator. lib. iii.), they supplied Arcesilas with the doctrines of the Middle Academy; and how closely these resembled the tenets of the Sceptics, may be seen even in Sextus Empiricus (lib. i. cap. 33.), who, with all his distinctions, can scarcely prove any difference. It appears strange that Epicurus should have been a dogmatist; and his natural temper would most probably have led him to the repose of scepticism, had not the Stoics, by their violent opposition to his doctrines, compelled him to be as obstinate as themselves. Plutarch, indeed, in reporting some of his opinions, represents him as having delivered them with considerable hesitation.—Επικουρος ουδεν απογινωσκει τουτων, εχομενος του ενδεχομενου.—De Placit. Philosoph. lib. ii. cap. 13. See also the 21st and 22d chapters. But that the leading characteristics of the sect were self-sufficiency and dogmatism, appears from what Cicero says of Velleius, De Natur. Deor.—“Tum Velleius, fidenter sanè, ut solent isti, nihil tam verens quam ne dubitare aliquâ de re videretur.”

Acts, chap. xix. “For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, which made silver shrines for Diana, brought no small gain unto the craftsmen.”

“Those two thieves,” says Ralph, “between whom the nation is crucified.” —Use and Abuse of Parliaments.

The agitation of the ship is one of the chief difficulties which impede the discovery of the longitude at sea; and the tumult and hurry of life are equally unfavourable to that calm level of mind which is necessary to an inquirer after truth.

In the mean time, our modest Sceptic, in the absence of truth, contents himself with probabilities, resembling in this respect those suitors of Penelope, who, on finding that they could not possess the mistress herself, very wisely resolved to put up with her maids; τη Πηνελοπη πλησιαζειν μη δυναμενοι, ταις ταυτης εμιγνυντο θεραπαιναις. —Plutarch, Περι Παιδων Αγωγης.

See a curious work, entitled “Reflections upon Learning,” written on the plan of Agrippa's “De Vanitate Scientiarum,” but much more honestly and skilfully executed.

This historian of the Irish rebellions has outrun even his predecessor in the same task, Sir John Temple, for whose character with respect to veracity the reader may consult Carte's Collection of Ormond's Original Papers, p. 207. See also Dr. Nalson's account of him, in the introduction to the second volume of his Historic. Collect.

He defends Strafford's conduct as “innocent and even laudable.” In the same spirit, speaking of the arbitrary sentences of the Star Chamber, he says,—“The severity of the Star Chamber, which was generally ascribed to Laud's passionate disposition, was perhaps, in itself, somewhat blameable.”

That flexibility of temper and opinion, which the habits of scepticism are so calculated to produce, are thus pleaded for by Mr. Fox, in the very sketch of Monmouth to which I allude; and this part of the picture the historian may be thought to have drawn from himself. “One of the most conspicuous features in his character seems to have been a remarkable, and, as some think, a culpable degree of flexibility. That such a disposition is preferable to its opposite extreme will be admitted by all, who think that modesty, even in excess, is more nearly allied to wisdom than conceit and self-sufficiency. He who has attentively considered the political, or indeed the general concerns of life, may possibly go still further, and may rank a willingness to be convinced, or, in some cases, even without conviction, to concede our own opinion to that of other men, among the principal ingredients in the composition of practical wisdom.”—It is right to observe, however, that the Sceptic's readiness of concession arises rather from uncertainty than conviction, more from a suspicion that his own opinion may be wrong, than from any persuasion that the opinion of his adversary is right. “It may be so,” was the courteous and sceptical formula, with which the Dutch were accustomed to reply to the statements of ambassadors. See Lloyd's State Worthies, art. Sir Thomas Wyat.

Descartes, who is considered as the parent of modern scepticism, says, that there is nothing in the whole range of philosophy which does not admit of two opposite opinions, and which is not involved in doubt and uncertainty. “In Philosophia nihil adhuc reperiri, de quo non in utramque partem disputatur, hoc est, quod non sit incertum et dubium.” Gassendi is likewise to be added to the list of modern Sceptics, and Wedderkopff, in his Dissertation “De Scepticismo profano et sacro” (Argentorat. 1666), has denounced Erasmus also as a follower of Pyrrho, for his opinions upon the Trinity, and some other subjects. To these if we add the names of Bayle, Mallebranche, Dryden, Locke, &c. &c., I think there is no one who need be ashamed of doubting in such company.

See this gentleman's Academic Questions.

Papias lived about the time of the apostles, and is supposed to have given birth to the heresy of the Chiliastæ, whose heaven was by no means of a spiritual nature, but rather an anticipation of the Prophet of Hera's elysium. See Eusebius, Hist. Ecclesiast. lib. iii. cap. 33., and Hieronym. de Scriptor. Ecclesiast.—From all I can find in these authors concerning Papias, it seems hardly fair to impute to him those gross imaginations in which the believers of the sensual millennium indulged.

King, in his Morsels of Criticism, vol. i., supposes the sun to be the receptacle of blessed spirits.

The Indians call hell “the House of Smoke.” See Picart upon the Religion of the Banians. The reader who is curious about infernal matters, may be edified by consulting Rusca de Inferno, particularly lib. ii. cap. 7, 8., where he will find the precise sort of fire ascertained in which wicked spirits are to be burned hereafter.

“Chère Sceptique, douce pâture de mon ame, et l'unique port de salut à un esprit qui aime le repos!” —La Mothe le Vayer.