How wilt thou reafon with them, how refute
Their idolifms, traditions, paradoxes?

Error by his own arms is best evinc'd.

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Look once more ere we leave this fpecular mount

Weftward, much nearer by fouthwest, behold

Where on the Ægean 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

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Or hofpitable, in her fweet recefs.

City' or fuburban, ftudious walks and shades;

See there the olive grove of Academe,

Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird

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Trills her thick-warbled notes the fummer long;

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

To studious mufing; there Iliffus rolls

His whisp'ring ftream: 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 shalt thou hear and learn the fecret power
Of harmony in tones and numbers hit
By voice or hand, and various-meafur'd verse,
Eolian charms and Dorian lyric odes,

And his who gave them breath, but higher fung,
Blind Melefigenes thence Homer call'd,
Whose poem Phœbus challeng'd for his own.
Thence what the lofty grave tragedians taught
In Chorus or Iambic, teachers best
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VOL. II.

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260

of

Of moral prudence, with delight receiv'd

In brief fententious precepts, while they treat
Of fate, and chance, and change in human life;
High actions, and high paffions best describing :
Thence to the famous orators repair,
Thofe ancient, whose refiftless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce democratie,

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Shook th' arsenal and fulmin'd over Greece,

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To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne :

To fage Philofophy next lend thine ear,

From Heav'n defcended to the low-rooft houfe
Of Socrates; fee there his tenement,

Whom well infpir'd the oracle pronounc'd

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Wifeft of men; from whofe mouth iffued forth
Mellifluous ftreams, that water'd all the schools
Of Academics old and new, with thofe
Surnam'd Peripatetics, and the fect
Epicurean, and the Stoic fevere;

Thefe 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 thyfelf, much more with empire join'd.

To whom our Saviour fagely thus reply'd.
Think not but that I know these things, or think
I know them not; not therefore am I short
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 false, or little elfe but dreams,
Conjectures, fancies, built on nothing firm.

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.The

5

The first and wifeft of them all profess'd
To know this only, that he nothing knew;
The next to fabling fell and fmooth conceits;

A third fort doubted all things, though plain fenfe
Others in virtue plac'd felicity,

But virtue join'd with riches and long life;

In corporal pleasure he, and careless eafe;
The Stoic laft in philofophic pride,

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

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

For all his tedious talk is but vain boast,

Or fubtle shifts conviction to evade.

Alas, what can they teach, and not mislead,
Ignorant of themselves, of God much more,

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And how the world began, and how man fell
Degraded by himself, on grace depending?
Much of the foul they talk, but all awry,

And in themselves feek virtue, and to themfelves
All glory arrogate, to God give none,
Rather accufe him under usual names,

Fortune and Fate, as one regardless quite

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Of mortal things. Who therefore seeks in these
True wisdom, finds her not, or by delufion
Far worse, her falfe refemblance only meets,
An empty cloud. However many books,
Wife men have faid, are wearifome; who reads
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Inceffantly,

Inceffantly, and to his reading brings not

A fpirit and judgment equal or fuperior,

(And what he brings, what needs he elsewhere seek?) Uncertain and unfettled ftill remains,

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

And trifles for choice matters, worth a fpunge;

As children gathering pebbles on the fhore.
Or if I would delight my private hours
With music or with poem, where fo foon
As in our native language can I find

That folace? All our law and story strow'd

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

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.

In fable, hymn, or fong, fo perfonating

Their Gods ridiculous, and themselves past shame.
Remove their swelling epithets thick laid

340

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,

345

Where God is prais'd aright, and God-like men,
The Holiest of Holies, and his Saints;

Such are from God inspir'd, not such from thee,
Unless where moral virtue is exprefs'd

350

By light of nature not in all quite loft.

Their orators thou then extoll'ft, as those
The top of eloquence, statists indeed,
And lovers of their country, as may seem;

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But herein to our prophets far beneath,

As men divinely taught, and better teaching
The folid rules of civil government

In their majestic unaffected ftile

Than all th' oratory of Greece and Rome.
In them is plainest taught, and easiest learnt,

360

What makes a nation happy', and keeps it fo,

What ruins kingdoms, and lays cities flat;

Thefe only with our law beft form a king.

So fpake the Son of God; but Satan now

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Quite at a loss, for all his darts were spent,

Thus to our Saviour with ftern brow reply'd.

Since neither wealth nor honor, arms nor arts,

Kingdom nor empire pleases thee, nor ought
By me propos'd in life contemplative,

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Or active, tended on by glory', or fame,

What doft thou in this world? The wilderness

For thee is fitteft place; I found thee there,

And thither will return thee; yet remember

What I foretel thee, foon thou shalt have cause

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To wish thou never hadft rejected thus

Nicely or cautiously my offer'd aid,

On David's throne, or throne of all the world,
Now at full age, fulness of time, thy season,
When prophecies of thee are best fulfill'd.
Now contrary, if I read ought in Heaven,

Which would have fet thee in fhort time with ease

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