LEARNING.

A little Learning is a dang'rous Thing; Drink deep, or tafte not the Pierian Spring: There shallow Draughts intoxicate the Brain, And drinking largely, fobers us again.

Pope.

Learning, that Cobweb of the Brain :
A Trade of Knowledge as replete
As others are with Fraud and Cheat:
A Cheat that Scholars put upon
Other Mens Reafon and their own;
A Fort of Error to infconce
Abfurdity and Ignorance;
That renders all the Avenues
To truth, impervious and abftrufe,
By making plain Things in Debate,
By Art, perplex'd and intricate;
As if Rules were not in the Schools
'Deriv'd from Truth, but Truth from Rules.
This pagan heathenish Invention
Is good for nothing but Contention;
For as in Sword-and-Buckler Fight.
All Blows do on the Target light,
So when Men argue, the great'ft Part
O'th Contest falls on Terms of Art,
Until the Fuftian Stuff be spent.
And then they fall to th' Argument,
Books had fpoil'd him;

Hud. (Love..

For all the Learn'd are Cowards by Profeffion. Dryd. All for

A Sleep, dull as your laft, did you arreft,

And all the Magazines of Life poffefs'd;
No more the Blood its circling Course did run,
But in the Veins, like Ificles it hung;

No more the Heart, now void of quick'ning Heat,
The tuneful March of vital Motion beat:
Stiffness did into all the Sinews climb,

And a short Death crept cold thro' every Lim'

LETHE. See Hell.

On the dark Banks where Lethe's lazy Deep
Does its black Stores and drowfy Treafures keep, (Blac.
Rolls his flow Flood, and rocks the noddingWaves afleep.

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LEVIA.

So when Leviathans difpute the Reign,
And uncontroul'd Dominion of the Main,
From the rent Rocks whole Coral Groves are torn,
And Ifles of Sea-Weed on the Waves are borne ;
Such wat❜ry Stores from their spread Noftrils fly,
"Its doubtful which is Sea, and which is Sky.

LIBERTY. See Brutus. Freedom.
O Liberty! thou Goddess heav'nly-bright!
Profufe of Blifs, and pregnant with Delight!
E ernal Pleafures in thy Prefence reign,
And filing Plenty leads thy wanton Train.
Eas'd of her Load, Subjection grows more light,

And Poverty looks chearful in thy Sight:

Thou mak'it the gloomy Face of Nature gay,

Gar.

Giv'ft Beauty to the Sun, and Pleasure to the Day. Add. 'Tis quick'ning Liberty that gives us Breath;

Her Abfence, more than that of Life, is Death.
The Love of Liberty with Life is given,

Blac.

(Arc.

And Life itself's th' inferior Gift of Heav'n. Dryd. Pal. O give me Liberty;

For were ev'n Paradife itfelf my Prifon,

Still I fhould long to leap the cryftal Walls. Dryd, Don. Seb. Quoth he, th' one Half of Man, his Mind,

Is, fui Juris, unconfin'd,

And cannot be laid by the Heels,

Whate'er the other Moiety feels.

'Tis not Restraint or Liberty,

That makes Men Prifoners or free;

But Perturbations that poffefs

The Mind, or Equanimities.

The whole World, was not half fo wide

To Alexander when he cry'd

Because he had but one to subdue;

As was a paultry narrow Tub to

Diogenes, who is not faid,

For ought that ever I could read,

To whine, put Finger i'th'Eye, and fob,
Because he 'ad ne'er another Tub.

Hud.

LIFE.

O Life! thou Nothing's younger Brother;
So like, that one might take one for the other!
What's Somebody or Nobody?

In all the Cobwebs of the Schoolmens Trade,
We no fuch nice Diftinction woven fee,
As 'tis to be, or not to be.

Dream of a Shadow! A Reflection made
From the falfe Glories of the gay reflected Bow,
Is a more folid Thing than thou.

Thou weak-built Ifthmus! which does proudly rife
Up betwixt two Eternities;

Yet can't not Wave or Wind sustain,

But, broken or o'erwhelm'd, the endless Ocean meets again.. From the maternal Tomb,

To the Grave's fruitful Womb,

We call here Life; but Life's a Name
Which nothing here can truly claim,

This wretched Inn, where we fcarce stay to bait,
We call our Dwelling-place;

We call one Step a Race.

We grow at last by Custom to believe,
That really we live;

Whilst all these Shadows, that for Things we take, (Cowli
Are but the empty Dreams, which in Death's Sleep we make.
Life is not to be bought with Heaps of Gold;

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Pope Hom

Not all Apollo's Pythian Treasures hold
Can bribe the poor Poffeffion of a Day:
Loft Herds and Treasures we by Arms regain,
And Steeds unrivall'd on the dufty Plain;
But from our Lips the Vital Spirit fled,
Returns no more to wake the filent Dead.
When I confider Life, 'tis all a Cheat;
Yet, fool'd with Hope, Men favour the Deceit :
Truft on, and think To-morrow will repay;
To-morrow's falfer than the former Day;
Lyes more; and while it fays we shall be blefs'd
With fome new Joys, cuts off what we poffefs'd.
Strange Coz'nage! none would live paft Years again,
Yet all hope Pleafure, in what yet remain ;
And from the Dregs of Life, think to receive
What the first sprightly Running could not give.

I'm tir'd with waiting for this Chymick Gold,.
Which fools us young, and beggars us when old. Dryd. Aur.

To labour is the Lot of Man below;

And when Jove gave us Life he gave us Woe.
For Life can never be fincerely bless'd,
Heav'n punishes the Bad, and proves the Beft.
To-morrow, To-morrow, and To-morrow,
Creep in a stealing Pace from Day to Day,
To the laft Minute of revolving Time;
And all our Yefterdays have.lighted Fools
To their eternal Homes.

Life's but a walking Shadow; a poor Player,
That frets and ftruts his Hour upon a Stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a Tale
Told by an Idiot, full of Sound and Fury,
Signifying nothing.
Life is but Air,.

That yields a Paffage to the whiftling Sword,
And clofes when 'tis gone.

Pope Hom. (& Achit. Dryd. Abfal

Shak. Mach.

Dryd. Don Seb.

Nor love thy Life, nor hate; but what thou liv'ft,
Live well; how long or fhort permit to Heav'n.
They live too long, who Happiness out-live:
For Life and Death are things indifferent

Milt.

Each to be chofe, as either brings Content: Dryd. Ind.Emp. "Tis not for nothing that we Life purfue;

It pays our Hopes with fomething ftill that's new:
Each Day's a Mistress unenjoy'd before;

Like Travellers we're pleas'd with feeing more. Dryd Aur:
Indulge, and to thy Genius freely give;

For not to live at Eafe is not to live:

Death talks behind thee, and each flying Hours
Does fome loofe Remnant of thy Life devour.
Live while thou liv'ft, for Death will make us all

A Name, a Nothing, but an Old-wife's Tale: Dryd. Perf.
Short Bounds of Life are fet to mortal Man;

"Tis Virtue's Work alone to ftretch the narrow Span. Dryde Improperly we measure Life by Breath;

(Virg. Stepn. Juve Gods! Life's your Gift; then season't with fuch Fate, That what you meant a Bleffing prove no Weight. Let me to the remoteft Part be whirl'd

They do not truly live, who merit Death.

Of this your Play thing made in hafte, the World;
But grant me Quiet, Liberty and Peace;

By Day what's needful, and at Night soft Eafe;

The Friend I truft in, and the She I love.
Then fix me, and if e'er I wish Remove,
Make me as great, that's wretched, as you can;
Set me in Pow'r, the wofull'st State of Man,
To be by Fools mifled, to Knaves a Prey:
But make, Life what I afk, or tak't away.

Learn to live well, that thou may'st die so too:
To live and die, is all we have, to do.

LIGHT. See Creation.

First born of Chaos! who fo fair didft come
From the old Negro's darkfome Womb!
Which, when it faw the lovely Child,

The melancholy Mafs put on kind Looks, and fmil'd.
Thou Tide of Glory! which no Rest dost know!
But ever ebb, and ever flow!

Hail, active Nature's watchful Life and Health!..
Her Joy, her Ornament, and Wealth!..

Hail to thy Hufband Heat and thee!

Thou the World's beauteous Bride, the lufty Bridegroom he. Say, from what golden Quivers of the Sky..

Do all thy winged Arrows fly?

Swiftnefs and Pow'r by. Birth are thine,

From thy great Sire they came, thy Sire the Word Divine !, '
Swift as light Thoughts, their empty Career run;
Thy Race is finish'd when begun.

Thou, in the Moon's bright Chariot, proud and gay,
Doft thy bright Wood of Stars furvey;.

And all the Year doft with thee bring,

Of thousand flow'ry Lights, thy own nocturnal Spring.
Thou, Scythian-like, doft round thy Lands above,
The Sun's gilt Tent for ever move; .

And ftill, as thou in Pomp doft

go,

The fhining Pageants of the World attend thy Show..
Nor amidst all thofe Triumphs doft thou forn.
The humble Glow-worm to adorn;
And with thofe living Spangles gild

(O Greatness without Pride!) the Buthes of the Field. i
Night, and her ugly Subjects thou doft fright,,
And Sleep, the lazy Owl of Night;

Afham'd and fearful to appear,

They freen their horrid Shapes with the black Hemisphere;
With them there haftes, and wildly takes th' Alarm,
Of painted Dreams a bufy Swarm,

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