Broods o'er the eggs, in airy caverns laid,
Warm'd in the down of their ethereal bed;
Gives motion to the swimmers of the flood;
Gives music to the warblers of the wood;
Rebounds in echo from the doubling vale,
And wafts to Heaven th' undulating gale:
Here hush'd, translucid smiles the gentle calm; 370
And here impearl'd, sheds meek the show'ry balm;
Salubrious here, a lively rapture claims,
And winnows pure the pestilential steams;
Here buoys the bird high on the crystal wave,
Whose level plumes the azure concave shave;
Here sits voluptuous in the swelling sail,
The vessel dancing to the sprightly gale!
Its varied power to various uses tends,
And qualities occult achieve contrarious ends;
With generative warmth fomenting breed,
Or alimental with nutrition feed;
In opposition reconcil'd to good,

380

Alike the menstruum, as sustaining food:
Or here restorative, destructive here;
Here Nature's cradle, here her fun'ral bier;
With keen dispatch on all corruption preys,
And grateful from our aching sense conveys;
Returns the bane into its native earth,
And there revives it to a second birth,
Renew'd and brighten'd like the minted ore, 390
To shoot again to life, more gorgeous than before!

UNIVERSAL BEAUTY.
BOOK II.

This, and the two ensuing books, contain and finish
the general survey or epitome of the whole, be-
ing 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.

THUS does the maz'd inexplicable round,
The aspiring bard and all his flights confound;
Ambitious through his airy tour to sing,
High born above the soar of Pegasean wing ;

Ver. 364. Broods o'er the eggs.] affording a commodious receptacles or nursery for the eggs of numberless animalcules——

Ver. 566. Gives motion.] conveying the watery inhabitants in their element by the assistance of the swimming bladder—

Ver. 367. Gives music.] modulating and composing as it were one universal organ for sound and music, so as the atmosphere becomes an entire harmony

Ver. 370. Here hush'd.] affording the pleasure and sweetness of serenity-

Ver. 371. And here impearl'd.] the nourishment of dews

Ver. 372. Salubrious here.] and the health of winds, or ventilations, that purge the noxious vapours and preserve nature fresh and vigorous

Ver. 374. Here buoys the bird.] wafting the winged tribes in their airy voyages——

Ver. 376. Here sits voluptuous.] and, by a speedy navigation, spreading commerce and society throughout the globe.

Ver. 378. Its varied power.] The various influence

Or rais'd 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 ev'ry charm displays;
But here unthought-of charms discover'd he,
And flash new wonders on th' admiring eye;
While Beauty, changing with alternate grace,
Varies the Heaven of her all-lovely face.
Bewilder'd thus, from scheme to scheme he's toss'd,
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 unexampl'd 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.
High argument! nor hopeless to prevail,
Though for the flight Dedalian plumage fail;
Though erst of that ambitious youth we read,
Dismounted from the Muse's fabled steed,
And story with alluding caution tell,

10

20

[fell:

How from the Sun's bright car the headlong driver
Nature, unerring tutoress, shall preside,
And through her endless revolutions guide;
Her various maze its windings shall unbraid,
Her doublings trace themselves, while self betray'd
Her complications to connection lead.

For while the circumambient air we sing,
Its springy tension and elastic spring;
The quick vibration of the yielding mass;
How objects through its lucid medium pass;
For Nature how the smiling glass expands;
Narcissus-like, how beauteous Nature stands,
Self-lov'd within the splendid mirror shines,
But self-enjoy'd, nor like Narcissus pines;
How, as a talisman of magic frame,
This atmosphere conveys th' enlight'ning beam,

30

40

of the air on all bodies, animate or inanimate: first, in the generation of particular beings; then, in their nutrition; thirdly, affording a healing balsam to the hurts or wounds of all creatures, when recoverable; but if past remedy, fourthly, hastening their dissolution, to rid the world of the nuisance, by restoring the matter to its original principle of nativity; fifthly, to send again the new-modelled being blooming afresh in animal life, or vegetation.

For the use of the atmosphere as a medium and mirror, vide book ii. line 33, &c.

Ver. 23.
Ver. 24.

Ver. 27.

Dedalian plumage fail.] Icarus. ..........youth we read.] Bellerophon. ...driver fell.] Phaeton. Ver. 33. For while the circumambient air.] The advantage of the atmosphere's elastic texture; by which it yields to, and closes imperceptibly upon, all moving bodies-

Ver. 36. How objects.] the surprising transparency, continuity, and coherence of its parts, forming an uninterrupted medium for the conveyance of all objects to the eye

Ver. 37. For Nature.] by which it is, as it were, an universal looking-glass, wherein all Nature beholds, admires, and enjoys her own complete perfections

Ver. 41. How, as a talisman.] 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.

Nor less the grateful light salutes their eye,
And solar glories gild the nether sky;
Their ocean blushes with the lord of day,
And nightly glitters at the twinkling ray.
The Moon, attended by her starry train,
Reflects reflection to the floating plain,

Its murm'ring flux with pale dominion guides,
And swells the pride of its returning tides;
The deep those wholesome 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.
Low as the sea's capacious basin sinks,
The thirsty soil th' incumbent ocean drinks;
Whence through the globe diluting liquors pass,
And circulate, as in our smaller mass;
The salts with curious percolation strain,
And kindly through the porous strata drain,
Attracted, in a maze of tubes exhale;

120

Its bosom pants beneath the vigorous heat,
And eager beams th' expanding surface beat;
Insinuating, form the lucid cell;

140

110 To bladders the circumfluous moisture swell;
Th' inflated vapours spurn the nether tide,
And mounted on the weightier ether ride:
As though in scorn of gravitating power,
Sublime the cloudy congregations tower;
O'er torrid climes collect their sable train,
And form umbrellas for the panting swain;
Or figur'd wanton in romantic mould,
Careering knights and airy ramparts hold,
(Emblazoning beams the flitting champions gild,
And various paint the visionary field);
Sudden the loose enchanted squadrons fly,
And sweep delusion from the wond'ring 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 ether checks their pride,
Compressing chills the vain dilated tide;
Their shivering essence to its centre shrinks,
And a cold nuptual their coherence links;
With artful touch the curious meteor forms,
Parent prolific of salubrious storms;

(A stiffening clay cements the spacious vale)
From whence oppos'd, the mountain's height they
claim,

And thence perpetual pour the winding stream; 130
Or lower, in perennial fountains rise,
Nor dread the star that fires autumnal skies.
While ocean thus the latent store bequeaths,
Above its humid exhalation breathes;

|

When from on high the rapid tempest 's hurl'd, Enlivening as a sneeze to man's inferior world: The frigid chymist culls the mineral store, The glossy spherules of metallic ore; Ver. 107. Nor less.] their ocean being a medium Sublimes with nitre the sulphureous foam, and atmosphere to them, as our atmosphere is to And hoards contagion in Heaven's ample dome, us; and equally suited to their natures, for respi- Where Nature's magazine fermenting lies, ration, as the conveyance of light from the hea-Till the bright ray athwart the welkin flies; venly luminaries

Ver. 113. Its murm'ring flux.] How admirably is the Moon's influence on tides (which preserves the great body of waters froin 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

Ver. 123. Whence through the globe.] 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-

Ver. 133. While ocean thus.] 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

150

160

High rage the small incendiary inspires,
Whose kindling touch the dread artillery fires; 170
Quick, with effusion wide, the lightnings glare;
Disploding bolts the cloudy entrails tear; [room,
The cleansing flames sweep through th' ethereal
And swift the gross infectious steam consume:
Our vital element the blaze refines,
While man, ingrateful, at his health repines.

float in that part of the atmosphere that bears a specific or proportionable gravity; and hence arises

Ver. 144. And form umbrellas.] the use, beauty, and variety of our meteors; for as the chief operator in raising the vapours is heat, so on the other hand

|
Ver. 155. When lo!] the chief artist in forming
the several meteors out of those vapours, is cold;

as

Ver. 157. Their shivering essence.] 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

Ver. 161. When from on high.] 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-

Ver. 163. The frigid chymist.] thunder and lightning.

With various skill the chilling artist works,
And operator chief in every meteor lurks:
Oft, where the zenith's lofty realms extend,
Ere mists, conglobing, by their weight descend,
With sudden nitre captivates the cloud,

The soil still rising from the deep retires,

And mediate to the neighb'ring Heaven aspires. Hence, where the spring its surging effluence boils, 180 The stream ne'er refluent on the fount recoils, But trips progressive, with descending pace, And tunes, through many a league, its warbling 210

And o'er the vapour throws a whitening shroud;
Soft from the concave hovering fleeces fall,
Whose flaky texture clothes 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 chilis the tempest with a quick embrace;
The crystal pellets at the touch congeal,
And from the ground rebounds the rattling hail. 190
Or constant where this artificer dwells,
And alg.d 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,
Obstructed drench the constipating hill,
And soaking through the porous grit distill:
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.

200

Still central from the wide circumfluous waves, (Whose briny dash each bounded region laves)

Ver. 181. With sudden nitre.] Snow. Ver. 188. And chills the tempest.] Hail. Ver. 191. Or constant.] 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 by 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 march by the mountains, or higher lands; and more vapours still gathering as they are obstructed, their parts, or little spherules, 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——

Ver. 198. And soaking.] soak into the hills, that are generally of a gravelly, mineral, or lax substance, through which the moisture distills; 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-

maze;

Here blended swells with interfering rills;
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 whit'ning silvers in the steep cascade;
Or slack'ning here, its length of labour sooths;
And slumb'ring soft its sleepy surface smooths;
Wide, deep, and slow the doubtful current glides,
And o'er the flux the tilting vessel rides. 220
The embroider'd banks their gaudy fringes dip,
And pendent flowers the smiling liquors sip;
Or gently where the humid mirrors pass,
The forest rises to the wat'ry 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 neighb'ring 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 flow'ry margin grows. [reign,
Through many a realm, where mighty monarchs
Revolving suns the wondrous length pursue,
The stately flood protracts its floating train;
Nor in one day the liquid wanderer view;
Its facil maze the varying seasons wind,
And crystal flakes the struggling fountain bind,
Which distant glows beneath the fervid beam, 241
And into ocean pours the copious stream.

Thus beauty flows in one perpetual ring,
Beneath, attracted, through the strata rise;
And uses circling from our oceans spring;
Above, exhal'd, 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;
And back to earth returns the fruitful store.
The sea replenish'd traffics as before,
To earth! for here, concentring, air, and fire,
And flood, in mutual triple league conspire:
Since he, on whom the mighty fabric leans,
The Eternal, from eternity ordains
Variety, which union must produce;
And order knit consummate, into use;

230

250

Ver. 242. And into ocean pours.] and disemboguing their floods into the sea, there finish

Ver. 243. Thus beauty flows.] only still to repeat and continue the eternal circle and order in all things

Ver. 203. Still central from the wide.] 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 Ver. 255. Since he.] that order, which the Sunice declivity, frequently through a miraculous preme Self-Existence, to manifest his own power length of about three thousand English miles? and goodness, has caused to flow through an inwhile flowing perpetually through various climates, finite variety of creatures; and yet has founded and nations of different manners and languages, that infinite variety on the union of a few princithey bear and spread around society, trade, com- ples; which few principles are further and ultimerce, riches, plenty, refreshment, luxuriant mately resolvable, and united in him, the only health, blooming verdure, and endless delight--Original, and Self Eternal Principle.

That Deity throughout the world may shine,
And Nature's birth confess her Sire Divine.

260

Nature, bright effluence of the One Supreme!
O how connected is thy wondrous frame!
(Thy grand machine, through many a wanton maze,
Steer'd where it winds, and strait'ning where it
strays,

There most direct where seeming most inflex'd,
Most regular when seemingly most perplex'd,
As though perfection on disorder hung,
And perfect order from incaution sprung)
Still, endless as thy beauteous scenes arise,
Still, endless multiplies our deep surprise.
Say, does each mote know its peculiar place,
All conscious, through the gulf of boundless space?

270

Can atoms be omniscient, to discern
(What human wisdom strives, but strives in vain
to learn)

What mode mysterious paints the purpling rose,
What melts the current when Mæander flows?

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 Ver. 271. Say, does each mote.] The reason why this necessity is neither designing, conscious, nor I represent, as above, the various opinions of athe-intelligent, it is altogether as blind as matter; and ists, in one ridiculous light (when they may be if not free, is as much in need of, and equally supposed to differ much in their notions, and the subjected to a higher cause as matter can possibly learned treatises they have written for our instruc- be; being consequently a necessity necessitated, tion to carry a great appearance of ingenious and and not acting, but acted upon; if this, I say, metaphysical argumentation) is, that the truth, should be objected, there must either be recourse and matter of fact, upon inquiry and reflection, to the old wise solution, that so it happens, or a will be found exactly and literally as I have re- higher necessity or unintelligent cause be alleged, presented it; and that all their ambages and cir- and so another to support the second, and another cumlocutions centre and turn upon one point, the third, ad infinitum; like the elephant bearing which is this, that whoever attempts to rob the the Earth, the crab the elephant, and so on; which world of a Superintendant Providence, or Design- procedure, ad infinitum, to assign a cause, shows ing Wisdom, does thereby necessarily ascribe all that, ad infinitum, they will be as far as ever from that is of connection, order, or beauty in the world, assigning a true cause, and so, ad infinitum, no to blind and insensible matter; and is, therefore, cause at all will be assigned. 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 inquire 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.

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 mo

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?-dification be produced. And secondly, if on the 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 inquire 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

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, though destitute of design, wisdom, foresight, order, or direction, yet wisely foresees, designs, directs, and orders all things.