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| PHILOSOPHY 1 the great and only heir | |
| Of all that human knowledge which has been | |
| Unforfeited by man’s rebellious sin, | |
| Though full of years he do appear, | |
| (Philosophy, I say, and call it, he, | 5 |
| For whatsoe’er the painter’s fancy be, | |
| It a male-virtue seems to me) | |
| Has still been kept in nonage till of late, | |
| Nor manag’d or enjoy’d his vast estate: | |
| Three or four thousand years one would have thought, | 10 |
| To ripeness and perfection might have brought | |
| A science so well bred and nurst, | |
| And of such hopeful parts too at the first. | |
| But, oh, the guardians and the tutors then, | |
| (Some negligent, and some ambitious men) | 15 |
| Would ne’er consent to set him free, | |
| Or his own natural powers to let him see, | |
| Lest that should put an end to their authority. | |
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| That his own business he might quite forget, | |
| They amused him with the sports of wanton wit; | 20 |
| With the desserts of poetry they fed him, | |
| Instead of solid meats to increase his force; | |
| Instead of vigorous exercise they led him | |
| Into the pleasant labyrinths of ever-fresh discourse: | |
| Instead of carrying him to see | 25 |
| The riches which do hoarded for him lie | |
| In nature’s endless treasury, | |
| They chose his eye to entertain | |
| (His curious but not covetous eye) | |
| With painted scenes, and pageants of the brain. | 30 |
| Some few exalted spirits this latter age has shown, | |
| That laboured to assert the liberty | |
| (From guardians, who were now usurpers grown) | |
| Of this old minor still, captiv’d philosophy; | |
| But ’twas rebellion call’d to fight | 35 |
| For such a long-oppressed right. | |
| Bacon at last, a mighty man, arose | |
| Whom a wise king, and nature, chose | |
| Lord Chancellor of both their laws, | |
| And boldly undertook the injur’d pupil’s cause. | 40 |
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| Authority, which did a body boast, | |
| Though ’twas but air condens’d and stalked about, | |
| Like some old giant’s more gigantic ghost, | |
| To terrify the learned rout | |
| With the plain magic of true reason’s light, | 45 |
| He chased out of our sight; | |
| Nor suffer’d living man to be misled | |
| By the vain shadows of the dead: | |
| To graves, from whence it rose, the conquer’d phantom fled. | |
| He broke that monstrous god which stood | 50 |
| In midst of th’ orchard, and the whole did claim, | |
| Which with a useless scythe of wood, | |
| And something else not worth a name, | |
| (Both vast for shew, yet neither fit | |
| Or to defend, or to beget; | 55 |
| Ridiculous and senseless terrors!) made | |
| Children and superstitious men afraid. | |
| The orchard’s open now, and free; | |
| Bacon has broke that scarecrow deity; | |
| Come, enter, all that will, | 60 |
| Behold the ripened fruit, come gather now your fill. | |
| Yet still, methinks, we fain would be | |
| Catching at the forbidden tree, | |
| We would be like the Deity, | |
| When truth and falsehood, good and evil, we | 65 |
| Without the senses’ aid within ourselves would see; | |
| For ’tis God only who can find | |
| All nature in his mind. | |
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| From words, which are but pictures of the thought, | |
| (Though we our thoughts from them perversely drew) | 70 |
| To things, the mind’s right object, he it brought, | |
| Like foolish birds to painted grapes we flew; | |
| He sought and gather’d for our use the true; | |
| And, when on heaps the chosen bunches lay, | |
| He pressed them wisely the mechanic way, | 75 |
| Till all their juice did in one vessel join, | |
| Ferment into a nourishment divine, | |
| The thirsty soul’s refreshing wine. | |
| Who to the life an exact piece would make, | |
| Must not from others’ work a copy take; | 80 |
| No, not from Rubens or Van Dyke; | |
| Much less content himself to make it like | |
| Th’ ideas and the images which lie | |
| In his own fancy, or his memory. | |
| No, he before his sight must place | 85 |
| The natural and living face; | |
| The real object must command | |
| Each judgment of his eye, and motion of his hand. | |
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| From these and all long errors of the way, | |
| In which our wandering predecessors went, | 90 |
| And, like th’ old Hebrews, many years did stray | |
| In deserts but of small extent, | |
| Bacon, like Moses, led us forth at last; | |
| The barren wilderness he past; | |
| Did on the very border stand | 95 |
| Of the blest promised land, | |
| And from the mountain’s top of his exalted wit, | |
| Saw it himself, and shew’d us it. | |
| But life did never to one man allow | |
| Time to discover worlds, and conquer too; | 100 |
| Nor can so short a line sufficient be | |
| To fathom the vast depths of nature’s sea: | |
| The work he did we ought t’ admire, | |
| And were unjust if we should more require | |
| From his few years, divided ’twixt th’ excess | 105 |
| Of low affliction, and high happiness. | |
| For who on things remote can fix his sight, | |
| That’s always in a triumph, or a fight? | |
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| From you, great champions, we expect to get | |
| These spacious countries but discover’d yet; | 110 |
| Countries where yet instead of nature, we | |
| Her images and idols worship’d see: | |
| These large and wealthy regions to subdue, | |
| Though learning has whole armies at command, | |
| Quarter’d about in every land, | 115 |
| A better troop she ne’er together drew. | |
| Methinks, like Gideon’s little band, | |
| God with design has pick’d out you, | |
| To do those noble wonders by a few: | |
| When the whole host he saw, ‘They are’ (said he) | 120 |
| ‘Too many to o’ercome for me’; | |
| And now he chooses out his men, | |
| Much in the way that he did then: | |
| Not those many whom he found | |
| Idly extended on the ground, | 125 |
| To drink with their dejected head | |
| The stream, just so as by their mouths it fled: | |
| No, but those few who took the waters up, | |
| And made of their laborious hands the cup. | |
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| Thus you prepar’d; and in the glorious fight | 130 |
| Their wondrous pattern too you take; | |
| Their old and empty pitchers first they brake, | |
| And with their hands then lifted up the light. | |
| Io! Sound too the trumpets here! | |
| Already your victorious lights appear; | 135 |
| New scenes of heaven already we espy, | |
| And crowds of golden worlds on high; | |
| Which from the spacious plains of earth and sea | |
| Could never yet discover’d be, | |
| By sailors’ or Chaldeans’ watchful eye. | 140 |
| Nature’s great works no distance can obscure | |
| No smallness her near objects can secure; | |
| Y’have taught the curious sight to press | |
| Into the privatest recess | |
| Of her imperceptible littleness. | 145 |
| Y’have learn’d to read her smallest hand, | |
| And well begun her deepest sense to understand. | |
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| Mischief and true dishonour fall on those | |
| Who would to laughter or to scorn expose | |
| So virtuous and so noble a design, | 150 |
| 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. | 155 |
| Whoever would deposèd truth advance | |
| Into the throne usurp’d 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, | 160 |
| 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. | 165 |
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| With courage and success you the bold work begin; | |
| Your cradle has not idle been: | |
| None e’er but Hercules and you could be | |
| At five years’ age worthy a history. | |
| And ne’er did fortune better yet | 170 |
| Th’ historian to the story fit: | |
| As you from all old errors free | |
| And purge the body of philosophy; | |
| So from all modern follies he | |
| Has vindicated eloquence and wit. | 175 |
| His candid style like a clean stream does slide, | |
| And his bright fancy all the way | |
| Does like the sunshine in it play; | |
| It does like Thames, the best of rivers, glide, | |
| Where the god does not rudely overturn, | 180 |
| But gently pour the crystal urn, | |
| And with judicious hand does the whole current guide. | |
| ’T has all the beauties nature can impart, | |
| And all the comely dress, without the paint, of art. | |
