The Poetical Works of Henry Brooke ... In Four Volumes Octavo. Revised and corrected by the Original Manuscript With a Portrait of the Author, and His Life By Miss Brooke. The Third Edition |
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BOOK II.
This, and the two ensuing books, contain and finish the general survey or epitome of the whole, being a piece in itself distinct and complete. The author then commences de novo, and proposes to answer every doubt, and illustrate at full every part of the foregoing abridgment.
The aspiring bard, and all his flights confound;
Ambitious thro' his airy tour to sing,
High born above the soar of Pegasean wing;
Or raised sublime in prospect, while he turns,
Views nature round, and still with rapture burns:
Now in this light the charmer he surveys,
This light he hopes her every charm displays;
But here unthought of charms discovered lie,
And flash new wonders on the admiring eye;
While Beauty, changing with alternate grace,
Varies the heaven of her all lovely face.
And in inextricable windings lost;
Where to begin, proceed, or how conclude,
This part omit, or hopeless that elude,
Doubtful. Again elated in his theme,
A daring unexampled task he'd claim,
And wide unfold the Universal Frame;
In mortal draught Immortal Beauty snare,
And stamp this leaf as Nature's volume fair.
Though for the flight Dedalian plumage fail ;
Tho' erst of that ambitious youth we read ,
Dismounted from the Muse's fabled steed,
And story with alluding caution tell,
How from the sun's bright car the headlong driver fell :
Nature, unerring tutoress, shall preside,
And through her endless revolutions guide;
Her various maze its windings shall unbraid,
Her doublings trace themselves, while self betrayed
Her complications to connection lead.
Its springy tension, and elastick spring;
The quick vibration of the yielding mass;
How objects thro' its lucid medium pass;
For Nature how the smiling glass expands;
Narcissus like, how beauteous Nature stands,
Self-loved within the splendid mirror shines,
But self enjoy'd, nor like Narcissus pines;
How, as a talisman of magick frame,
This atmosphere conveys the enlightening beam,
Reflects, inflects , refracts the orient ray;
Anticipating sheds the rising day—
(Whose image fires the horizontal waves)
Abridging, shears the sable robe of night,
And thro' the globe protracts the chearful light;
With sweet preambling twilight blends the shade,
And gently lets our evening beam recede.
Quickening the vision of poetick eyes;
Whence we may pierce into the deep profound,
And, searching, view the wondrous system round:
For wide as universal Nature spreads,
Light's sacred fount its streaming lustre sheds;
Still orient, to the parting beam succeeds;
Thro' azure climes a sumless journey speeds;
Nor less a boundless latitude imparts;
Where matter borders on retiring space,
Impulsive urges the perpetual race;
Stupendous length, illimited by aught
Of numbers summ'd or multiplied by thought!
But whence the Light's invigorating force,
Its active energy, or secret source,
Must be ascribed to that Eternal Spring,
Whom First, and Last, and ever Blest we sing—
Who only could his effluent Angel send;
Athwart the gulph the radiant blaze extend;
Kindle the mass to incorporeal speed;
The flame, with never dying splendors feed;
With heat , the universal page unseal;
With light, the universal charm reveal;
And gem the pavement of the milky-way;
Make grace from use, and use from beauty flow;
With florid pencil, shade the jasper bow;
The warring elements in wedlock bind,
Water and fire, dull earth and active wind;
Knit by Almighty Order they cohere,
And in their ever varying offsprings share.
Whose rosy progress paints the purpling morn;
The mingling glories o'er the surface play,
And ocean dances to the trembling ray.
And deep beneath subside the briny beds;
The spacious beds the liquid realms contain;
The seasoning tinctures purge the foamy main;
The salts perpetual hold their watery seat,
Nor in the tepid exhalations mount,
To fire the chrystal of the cooling fount.
The Almighty Fiat bade the deep conceive,
And finned with clustring tribes the vital wave,
From huge Leviathan's enormous frame,
To those who tincturing paint the crimson stream;
With watery wings they skim the yielding seas;
Their central poise its gravitation weighs,
Adjusted, steady to their varying size,
By geometrick rule, and calculation nice:
These have their palaces , and coral groves,
Their latent grotts, and pearly bright alcoves;
Wide is the copious hand of Bounty spread,
And myriads at the plenteous feast are fed.
Nor less , the grateful light salutes their eye,
And solar glories gild the nether sky;
And nightly glitters at the twinkling ray.
The moon, attended by her starry train,
Reflects reflection to the floating plain,
Its murmuring flux with pale dominion guides,
And swells the pride of its returning tides;
The deep those wholsome agitations purge,
And drive stagnation from the rolling surge;
Their rage the Sovereign Moderator cools,
And riding, as a steed the bounding billow rules;
Whence rising floods their stated empire know,
Nor wasteful o'er the neighbouring regions flow.
The thirsty soil the incumbent ocean drinks;
Whence, thro' the globe diluting liquors pass,
And circulate, as in our smaller mass;
And kindly thro' the porous strata drain,
Attracted, in a maze of tubes exhale;
(A stiffening clay cements the spacious vale)
From whence opposed, the mountain's height they claim,
And thence perpetual pour the winding stream;
Or lower, in perennial fountains rise,
Nor dread the star that fires autumnal skies.
Above its humid exhalation breaths;
Its bosom pants beneath the vigorous heat,
And eager beams the expanding surface beat;
Insinuating, form the lucid cell;
To bladders the circumfluous moisture swell;
The inflated vapours spurn the nether tide,
And mounted on the weightier æther ride:
Sublime the cloudy congregations tower;
O'er torrid climes collect their sable train,
And form umbrellas for the panting swain;
Or figured wanton in romantick mould,
Careering knights and airy ramparts hold,
(Imblazoning beams the flitting champions gild,
And various paint the visionary field;)
Sudden the loose inchanted squadrons fly,
And sweep delusion from the wondering eye;
Thence, on the floating atmosphere they sail,
And steer precarious with the varying gale;
Or hovering, with suspended wing delay,
And in disdain the kindred flood survey:
When lo! the afflicting æther checks their pride,
Compressing chills the vain dilated tide;
Their shivering essence to its center shrinks,
And a cold nuptial their coherence links;
With artful touch the curious meteor forms,
Parent prolifick of salubrious storms
Enlivening as a sneeze to man's inferior world:
The frigid chymist culls the mineral store,
The glossy sphærules of metallick ore;
Sublimes with nitre the sulphureous foam,
And hoards contagion in heaven's ample dome,
Where nature's magazine fermenting lies,
Till the bright ray athwart the welkin flies;
High rage the small incendiary inspires,
Whose kindling touch the dread artillery fires;
Quick, with effusion wide, the lightnings glare;
Disploding bolts the cloudy entrails tear;
The cleansing flames sweep thro' the etherial room,
And swift the gross infectious steam consume:
Our vital element the blaze refines,
While man, ingrateful, at his health repines.
With various skill the chilling artist works,
And operator chief in every meteor lurks:
Oft, where the zenith's lofty realms extend,
E'er mists, conglobing, by their weight descend,
And o'er the vapour throws a whitening shrowd;
Soft, from the concave, hovering fleeces fall,
Whose flaky texture cloaths our silver ball.
Or when the shower forsakes the sable skies,
Haply the cold in secret ambush lies,
Couching awaits in some inferior space,
And chills the tempest with a quick embrace;
The chrystal pellets at the touch congeal,
And from the ground rebounds the rattling hail.
Or constant where this artificer dwells,
And algid from his heights the mist repels,
The Almighty Alchymist his limbeck rears,
His lordly Taurus, or his Alpine peers;
Suspending fogs around the summit spread,
And gloomy columns crown each haughty head,
And soaking thro' the porous grit distil:
Collected from a thousand thousand cells
The subterraneous flood impatient swells;
Whence issuing torrents burst the mountain's side,
And hence impetuous pour their headlong tide.
(Whose briny dash each bounded region laves)
The soil, still rising, from the deep retires,
And mediate, to the neighbouring heaven aspires.
Hence, where the spring its surging effluence boils,
The stream ne'er refluent on the fount recoils,
But trips progressive, with descending pace,
And tunes, thro' many a league, its warbling maze;
And here the lake's capacious cistern fills;
Or wanton, here a snaky labyrinth roams;
Impervious here, with indignation foams;
Or here with rapture shoots the nether glade,
And whitening silvers in the steep cascade;
Or slackening here, its length of labour sooths;
And slumbering soft, its sleepy surface smooths;
Wide, deep, and slow, the doubtful current glides,
And o'er the flux the tilting vessel rides.
The embroidered banks their gaudy fringes dip,
And pendent flowers the smiling liquors sip;
Or gently where the humid mirrors pass,
The forest rises to the watry glass;
Self-worshipping the stately shade admires,
And to a double heaven its height aspires.
The social stream a winding motion steers,
And mindful of the neighbouring region veers;
With traverse or inverted circuit bends,
Nor leaves, unvisited, remotest friends;
With genial bounty spreads the verdant wealth,
And pours large draughts of ever blooming health:
Delight diffusive down the current flows,
And pleasure on the flowery margin grows.
Thro' many a realm, where mighty monarchs reign,
The stately flood protracts its floating train;
Nor in one day the liquid wanderer view;
Its facil maze the varying seasons wind,
And chrystal flakes the struggling fountain bind,
Which distant glows beneath the fervid beam,
And into ocean pours the copious stream.
And uses circling from our oceans spring;
Beneath, attracted, thro' the strata rise;
Above, exhaled, usurp the ambient skies;
Meet in the limpid source, or purling rill,
And bathe the vale, or sweep the shelving hill:
From hence their tributary floods repay,
And grateful nourish the recruited sea;
The sea replenished trafficks as before,
And back to earth returns the fruitful store.
To earth! for here, concentring, air, and fire,
And flood, in mutual triple league conspire:
Since He , on whom the mighty fabrick leans,
The Eternal, from eternity ordains
And order knit consummate, into use;
That Deity throughout the world may shine,
And Nature's birth confess her Sire Divine.
O how connected is thy wondrous frame!
(Thy grand machine, thro' many a wanton maze,
Steered where it winds, and streightning where it strays,
There most direct where seeming most inflext,
Most regular when seemingly most perplext,
As tho' perfection on disorder hung,
And perfect order from incaution sprung)
Still, endless as thy beauteous scenes arise,
Still, endless multiplies our deep surprize.
All conscious, thro' the gulf of boundless space?
(What human wisdom strives, but strives in vain to learn)
What mode mysterious paints the purpling rose,
What melts the current when Mæander flows?
What ruffle active in the blustering wind?
From inky jett exclude the piercing day;
Or thro' the brilliant drink the trembling ray;
With gay enammel arch the showery bow;
With various influence our senses greet,
Point in the sour, grow luscious in the sweet,
Scent in the civet, stifle in the draught,
Light from the doe the tainting odour waft,
Excite the nostril of the opening hound;
More subtile still the organick sense compound;
Thro' elements, plant, reptile, man, and brute,
This thing to that, and all to other suit?
Can clay, such virtues, forms, and modes assign?
Debating, methodize, conspire, combine?
Studious deliberate on the publick weal,
And ne'er like human politicians fail?
Each particle its separate province chuse,
Nor that prefer, nor froward this refuse;
Each for itself, and for the whole advise;
All good, all right, all perfect, and all wise?
Prophetick, thro' eternity foreknow,
From past, what future revolutions flow?
What endless links the blended fabrick weave,
On every various consequence reflect,
Prepare each cause to yield the just effect,
Sum up the whole, and thence the whole connect?
O dotage! dreamers! who could once suppose
The passive mass its Maker should inclose,
And the formed clay its forming Lord compose.
“Ye Atheists! if ye will be Atheists still,
“And will, no cause but this, because ye will;
“If stubborn, in your little reason's spight,
“Ye will judge wrong, because ye wo'nt judge right;
“Thus argue—Since the clue of boundless space
“Winds worlds on worlds, and wonders wonders trace;
“'Tis Order above rule that guides the plan,
“And Wisdom, far beyond what wisdom can;
“The Bounty boundless, Beauty without end:
“And who'd believe a God, he cannot comprehend?”
And high above his work the Maker flies:
Yet infinite that work, beyond our soar;
Beyond what Clarkes can prove, or Newtons can explore!
Of minstrelsie, to heavenly rapture wound,
On harmony suspended, tunes the whole,
Thrills in our touch, and lives upon our soul;
Each note inclusive melody reveals,
Softening within the Eternal Finger dwells,
Now sweetly melts, and now sublimely swells;
Yet relative each social note extends,
Throughout is blended, while throughout it blends
Symphonious, ecchoing the Supreme's design,
Beauty of Love, and Symmetry Divine!
The advantage of the atmosphere's elastick texture; by which it yields to, and closes imperceptibly upon all moving bodies—
The surprizing transparency, continuity, and coherence of its parts, forming an uninterrupted medium for the conveyance of all objects to the eye—
by which it is as it were an universal looking-glass, wherein all nature beholds, admires, and enjoys her own complete perfections—
Its curious disposition for the conveyance of light; which would be of no use in vacuo, as it is only perceptible itself, by rendering other objects visible—
Its still more wonderful quality, in not only reflecting, but refracting, and inflecting the morning and evening beam; in appearance lifting the sun about four degrees above his station, and refracting the light to us when the sun is about eighteen degrees below the horizon; by which means our day is prolonged about two hours, and the tedious night in the frigid zones shortened annually about thirty-two days—
by refraction of the rays creating the dawn, and gradual twilight; without which we should be suddenly immersed in an intolerable flood of day, and without a moment's warning shut up in immediate darkness.
The use of light must be apparent, to as many as have eyes to enjoy its benefit; but much more to those, who the further they pry into nature, by the assistance of this element, will still more and more discover an inexhaustible fund for delight and admiration—
What can be more amazing, than the expansion and extension of light, which though a body, propagated from body, and ponderous in its nature, is so thin and subtile, as to reach and dilate through an inconceivable compass of space, before the whole content would amount to one drachm of weight—
The swiftness and length of its progress is no less admirable, extending possibly ad infinitum, and moving in one second of time near two hundred thousand of our miles; without which miraculous velocity, its useful and glorious effect and influence could never be preserved:—
and as this perpetuated motion and vigour has not the least relation to any property inherent in matter, it can only be accounted for as flowing from the original Fountain of Light and Truth—
giving power to him only of unsealing her treasures, and unfolding her beauties; whereby the world's glorious and harmonious system becomes obvious, and the whole evidently as elegant, as it is useful.—
Is it not wonderful, that even Almighty power, out of one principle of matter, should constitute four; and by an endless compounding, modifying, and changing those four, should produce that infinite variety, which is visible in the universe?
Light. Beside the two elements of air and light, already treated of; what a spacious field do the waters, and first the ocean, yield, for contemplation and praise!
In the expansion of its superficies, without which it would never afford a sufficient quantity of vapours, to supply the thirsty land—
the methods by which its waters are preserved pure from corruption, by the mixture of salts, whose weight is calculated to prevent their exhaling—
the number, size, and qualities of its inhabitants, all adapted to its gross and tempestuous medium—
their ocean being a medium and atmosphere to them, as our atmosphere is to us; and equally suited to their natures, for respiration, as the conveyance of light from the heavenly luminaries—
How admirably is the moon's influence on tides (which preserves the great body of waters from stagnation) regulated, to the very point that can alone conduce to order and advantage: were she nearer, or larger; further off, or less; or were there more moons, so as on any hand the influence should be in the least altered; the whole earth would be rendered uninhabitable, by being poisoned with stagnated vapours, or perpetually overflowed with deluges—
As there is no point from whence the riches of nature do not flow in upon us; so there are two (though seemingly most opposite) methods of supplying us with sweet and refreshing waters; one perennial, and from beneath, being thence attracted through our globe as any liquid when touched by a piece of sugar; which cannot be ascribed to the pressure of our atmosphere, as it is readier performed in vacuo; the salts being separated by filtration through the strata, and the rising waters being opposed by a clayey substance that generally lies near the surface of the lower lands, they proceed to the mountains, from whence, by the advantage of a descent, they spread wealth and pleasure round all the earth—
The other method being by exhalation, the manner as above described; for heat being the most subtile, light, and agile of all bodies (if it may be called more than a quality of body) by its subtilty penetrates, and by its levity rarifies the humid parts of matter; and then by its agility breaking loose, carries off the parts so rarified; which being by that means rendered lighter than the air, mount till they rest or float in that part of the atmosphere that bears a specifick or proportionable gravity; and hence arises—
the use, beauty, and variety of our meteors; for as the chief operator in raising the vapours is heat, so on the other hand—
first rain, by expulsion of the rarifying heat; upon which the little bladders or vesicles knocking against each other, conglobe in the contact, and growing heavier than the atmosphere, fall down in larger, or smaller drops, according as the constituent parts of the cloud were more or less contiguous—
frequently causing storms of wind, by condensing, and thereby destroying the equilibrium of the atmosphere; the parts so condensed, pressing upon the parts more rare, and dilated, by warmth; which pressure produces the wind, which is no other than a current of air—
Or where the cold is a constant inhabitant in the upper regions; which by reason of their distance from the earth, are but little affected with the reflection of the sun-beams, which reflection chiefly promotes the intenseness of heat; there the rising vapours are repelled, because meeting with the cold, they, in a great measure, lose that active principle of heat, which was the chief motive of their ascension; and floating as the gale veers, are obstructed in their match by the mountains, or higher lands; and more vapours still gathering as they are obstructed, their parts, or little sphærules, become more neighbourly, or contiguous, than when they had a freedom of ranging wide from each other; and so jostling, run into, or incorporate one with the other; and descending by the laws of gravity—
soak into the hills, that are generally of a gravelly, mineral, or lax substance, through which the moisture distils; till finding, or making a vent to issue at, by the advantage of a descent, they pour their fertile and delicious streams over all the earth—
and this advantage of a descent is the more wonderful and happy, inasmuch as without it we should have no rivers, and consequently be poisoned and overflowed with the standing and stagnating waters: for who, but the Almighty Director, could lead the currents from their first source, by a gradual winding, and nice declivity, frequently through a miraculous length of about three thousand English miles? while flowing perpetual through various climates, and nations of different manner, and languages, they bear and spread around society, trade, commerce, riches, plenty, refreshment, luxuriant health, blooming verdure, and endless delight—
that order, which the Supreme Self-Existence, to manifest his own power and goodness, has caused to flow through an infinite variety of creatures; and yet has founded that infinite variety on the union of a few principles; which few principles are further, and ultimately resolvable, and united in Him, the only Original, and Self Eternal Principle.
The reason why I represent, as above, the various opinions of atheists, in one ridiculous light (when they may be supposed to differ much in their notions, and the learned treatises they have written for our instruction to carry a great appearance of ingenious and metaphysical argumentation) is, that the truth, and matter of fact, upon enquiry and reflection, will be found exactly and literally as I have represented it; and that all their ambages and circumlocutions center and turn upon one point, which is this, that whoever attempts to rob the world of a Superintendant Providence, or Designing Wisdom, does thereby necessarily ascribe all that is of connection, order, or beauty in the world, to blind, and insensible matter; and is, therefore, guilty of the ridiculous absurdities and contradictions above set forth. For, as the wit, or invention of men, has never yet laid down any atheistical hypothesis, however subtile or various, but what is evidently resolvable into, first, a Fortuitous Concourse of Atoms; secondly, an Eternal Operating Necessity; or, thirdly, an Endless Round, or Succession of Causes and Effects; if those gentlemen, who would thus point out our God, mean, as they often pretend, that He is any thing more than bare matter; we shall soon find their intention, by separating the terms they have annexed as operators for the assistance of stupid matter: and on our part it will be but common gratitude, to enquire, to which of these three pretended Causes, we are obliged for the particular benefits we receive, or (as members of the great whole) for the formation and order of the universe, or nature itself.
First then; as Chance is the operator assigned in a Fortuitous Concourse of Atoms; we would know, what this Chance, this wise and ingenious artist, is—Is it a substance? No, that is not pretended:—Matter? nor that:—Quality of matter? nor that neither.—What, neither subject, nor attribute?—No.—It is then, what is not; or is not any thing that is: it is, in truth, what, by way of apology, we assign as a cause of any effect produced, when our ignorance or idleness will not permit us to enquire, or find any other;—a meaning, without an idea; or even less, a word without a meaning:—And thus when Chance is introduced for the solution, Chance unluckily happens to leave all the operating burden upon that poor matter it was called to assist. As in the second place I also fear there will be immediate occasion for calling upon Chance to help out their Necessity, and that it will prove equally treacherous as before. For as Necessity is the supposed operator here, if it be asked, is this Necessity distinct from the things it necessitates? The answer is, Yes, by all means; since to assert otherwise, is allowing it to be the thing operated, and not the operator; and so the Original Superior Cause be as far to seek as ever. If then it be asked, Is this Necessity conscious, intelligent, free, or designing? That doubtless is denied, else we have there the very God we desire.—But then, if it should be unluckily started, that if this Necessity is neither designing, conscious, nor intelligent, it is altogether as blind as matter; and if not free, is as much in need of, and equally subjected to a Higher Cause as matter can possibly be; being consequently a Necessity necessitated, and not acting, but acted upon; if this, I say, should be objected, there must either be recourse to the old wise solution, that so it happens; or a Higher Necessity or unintelligent Cause be alleged, and so another to support the second, and another the third, ad infinitum; like the elephant bearing the earth, the crab the elephant, and so on; which procedure, ad infinitum, to assign a Cause, shews that, ad infinitum, they will be as far as ever from assigning a True Cause, and so, ad infinitum, no Cause at all will be assigned.
The third and last shift is an Endless Succession of Causes and Effects, where all the subtilty consists in the word Endless; for whatever is incapable of being a Cause in any time, ever was, and ever will, through eternity, continue equally incapable. And here, if the question be asked, Whether any of these Effects be original, independent, or superintendent? The answer is negative, if it were only to avoid a direct absurdity and contradiction: if then it be asked, what these Effects are? The answer is, that the Effects are no other than matter variously modified and actuated; for that is the utmost degree of perfection they will allow them, for fear of bordering too near upon spirit. Again, if it be asked on the other hand, whether among the Causes, there is any One original or independent? The answer, doubtless is, No; for to allow there were, would be contrary to the hypothesis laid down. But then observe the necessary consequence of all this; for first, if none of these Effects are original, independent, or superintendent; and they all consist of matter variously modified and actuated, they are no other than matter still, whatever action or modification be produced—And secondly, if on the other hand, among the Endless Causes, there is not any one Cause Original, or Independent, there is not any one Cause but what is effected; and every one being effected, the whole, which consists of them, is effected, and therefore is all Effect; and all the Effects being matter actuated and modified, the whole is consequently no other than matter actuated and modified; and so finally recurs, and in every light, view, shift, and evasion, resolves in this, that matter alone operates upon itself; and tho' destitute of design, wisdom, foresight, order, or direction, yet wisely foresees, designs, directs, and orders all things.
| The Poetical Works of Henry Brooke | |