As by that early action may be judg'd,

215

When flipping from thy mother's eye thou went'st
Alone into the temple; there wast found
Among the gravest Rabbies disputant

220

225

On points and questions fitting Moses chair,
Teaching not taught; the childhood shows the man,
As morning shows the day. Be famous then
By wisdom; as thy empire must extend,
So let extend thy mind o'er all the world
In knowledge, all things in it comprehend:
All knowledge is not couch'd in Moses Law,
The Pentateuch, or what the Prophets wrote;
The Gentiles also know, and write, and teach
To admiration, led by nature's light;
And with the Gentiles much thou must converse,
Ruling them by persuasion as thou mean’st; 230
Without their learning how wilt thou with them,
Or they with thee hold conversation meet?
How wilt thou reason with them, how refute
Their idolisms, traditions, paradoxes?

Error by his own arms is best evinc'd.

235

Look once more ere we leave this fpecular mount
Weftward, much nearer by southwest, behold
Where on the AEgean fhore a city stands
Built nobly, pure the air, and light the foil,
Athens the eye of Greece, mother of arts
And eloquence, native to famous wits
Or hofpitable, in her fweet recefs,

240

City' or suburban, studious walks and shades;
See there the olive grove of Academe,

Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird

Trills her thick-warbled notes the fummer long;

There flow'ry hill Hymettus with the found
Of bees induftrious murmur oft invites

To ftudious musing; there Iliffus rolls

245

His whisp'ring stream: within the walls then view 250
The schools of ancient fages; his who bred
Great Alexander to fubdue the world,

Lyceum there, and painted Stoa next:

There thou fhalt hear and learn the fecret

Of harmony in tones and numbers hit
By voice or hand, and various-measur'd verse,
AEolian charms and Dorian lyric odes,

power

255

And his who gave them breath, but higher fung,
Blind Melefigenes thence Homer call'd,

Whose poem Phœbus challeng'd for his own. 260
Thence what the lofty grave tragedians taught
In Chorus or Iambic, teachers best

Of moral prudence, with delight receiv'd

In brief fententious precepts, while they treat

Of fate, and chance, and change in human life; 265
High actions, and high passions best describing:
Thence to the famous orators repair,

Those ancient, whose refiftless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce democratie,

Shook th' arsenal and fulmin'd over Greece,

270 Το

To Macedon and Artaxerxes throne:

To fage philosophy next lend thine ear,
From Heav'n defcended to the low-rooft house
Of Socrates; fee there his tenement,

Whom well infpir'd the oracle pronounc'd
Wisest of men; from whose mouth iffued forth
Mellifluous ftreams that water'd all the schools
Of Academics old and new, with those
Sirnam'd Peripatetics, and the sect

Epicurean, and the Stoic fevere;

These here revolve, or, as thou lik'ft, at home,
Till time mature thee to a kingdom's weight;
These rules will render thee a king complete
Within thyself, much more with empire join'd.

275

280

To whom our Saviour fagely thus reply'd. 285 Think not but that I know these things, or think I know them not; not therefore am I fhort Of knowing what I ought: he who receives Light from above, from the fountain of light, No other doctrin needs, though granted true; But these are falfe, or little elfe but dreams, Conjectures, fancies, built on nothing firm. The first and wisest of them all profefs'd To know this only, that he nothing knew; The next to fabling fell and smooth conceits;

290

295

A third fort doubted all things, though plain sense;

Others in virtue plac'd felicity,

But virtue join'd with riches and long life;

In corporal pleasure he, and careless ease;
The Stoic last in philofophic pride,

By him call'd virtue; and his virtuous man,
Wife, perfect in himself, and all poffeffing,
Equals to God, oft fhames not to prefer,
As fearing God nor man, contemning all

300

Wealth, pleasure, pain or torment, death and life, 305 Which when he lifts, he leaves, or boasts he can,

For all his tedious talk is but vain boast,

Or fubtle fhifts conviction to evade.

Alas what can they teach, and not mislead,
Ignorant of themselves, of God much more,
And how the world began, and how man fell
Degraded by himself, on grace depending?
Much of the foul they talk, but all awry,

310

And in themselves feek virtue, and to themselves

All glory arrogate, to God give none,

315

Rather accuse him under usual names,
Fortune and Fate, as one regardless quite

Of mortal things. Who therefore feeks in these
True wisdom, finds her not, or by delusion
Far worse, her false resemblance only meets,

cloud. However

An empty cloud.

However many books,

Wife men have faid, are wearifome; who reads
Inceffantly, and to his reading brings not

A fpirit and judgment equal or superior,

320

(And what he brings, what needs he elsewhere feek?) Uncertain and unsettled ftill remains,

326

Deep

Deep vers'd in books and shallow in himself,
Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys,

And trifles for choice matters, worth a spunge;
As children gathering pebbles on the shore.
Of if I would delight my private hours
With mufic or with poem, where so soon
As in our native language can I find

330

That folace? All our law and story strow'd

With hymns, our psalms with artful terms inscrib'd, Our Hebrew fongs and harps in Babylon,

336

That pleas'd fo well our victors ear, declare

That rather Greece from us thefe arts deriv'd;

Ill imitated, while they loudest sing

The vices of their Deities, and their own.

340

In fable, hymn, or song, so personating
Their Gods ridiculous, and themselves past shame.
Remove their swelling epithets thick laid

As varnish on a harlot's cheek, the rest,
Thin fown with ought of profit or delight,
Will far be found unworthy to compare
With Sion's fongs, to all true tastes excelling,
Where God is prais'd aright, and God-like men,
The Holieft of Holies, and his Saints;

345

Such are from God infpir'd, not fuch from thee, 350
Unless where moral virtue is express'd

By light of nature not in all quite lost.
Their orators thou then extoll'ft, as those
The top of eloquence, statists indeed,

And