Thus then to man the voice of Nature spake :

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Go, from the creatures thy instructions take: 5

Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield; 6
Learn from the beasts the physic of the field;

5 [" They who discourse of the inventions and originals of things, refer them rather to beasts, birds, and fishes, and serpents, than to man. So that it was no marvel (the manner of antiquity being to consecrate inventors) that the Egyptians had so few human idols in their temples, but almost all brute. Who taught the raven in a drought to throw pebbles into a hollow tree when she spied water, that the water might rise so as she might come to it? Who taught the bee to sail through such a vast sea of air, and to find the way from a field in flower a great way off to her hive? Who taught the ant to bite every grain of corn she burieth in her hill, lest it should take root and grow ?"-Bacon's Advancement of Learning.]

6 It is a caution commonly practised among navigators, when thrown upon

Thy arts of building from the bee receive;

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Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave;
Learn of the little nautilus to sail,7

Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale.

Here too all forms of social union find,

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And hence let reason, late, instruct mankind:
Here subterranean works and cities see;
There towns aërial on the waving tree.
Learn each small people's genius, policies,
The ants' republic, and the realm of bees;
How those in common all their wealth bestow,
And anarchy without confusion know ;
And these for ever, though a monarch reign,
Their separate cells and properties maintain.
Mark what unvaried laws preserve each state,
Laws wise as nature, and as fix'd as fate.
In vain thy reason finer webs shall draw,
Entangle justice in her net of law,

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And right, too rigid, harden into wrong;

Still for the strong too weak, the weak too strong.

Yet go! and thus o'er all the creatures sway,

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Thus let the wiser make the rest obey:

And for those arts mere instinct could afford,

Be crown'd as monarchs, or as gods adored."

V. Great Nature spoke; observant man obey'd;

Cities were built, societies were made:

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Here rose one little state; another near

Grew by like means, and join'd, through love or fear.

a desert coast, and in want of refreshments, to observe what fruits have been touched by the birds; and to venture on these without further hesitation.

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7 Oppian. Halieut., 1. i., describes this fish in the following manner:'They swim on the surface of the sea, on the back of their shells, which exactly resemble the hulk of a ship; they raise two feet like masts, and extend a membrane between, which serves as a sail; the other two feet they employ as oars at the side. They are usually seen in the Mediterranean." 8 In the MS. thus:

"The neighbours leagued to guard the common spot;
And Love was Nature's dictate, Murder, not.
For want alone each animal contends;
Tigers with tigers, that removed are friends.

Plain Nature's wants the common mother crown'd,

[No

She pour'd her acorns, herbs, and streams around.

III.)

"Learn of the little nautilus to sail,

Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale."

ESSAY ON MAN, Ep. iii. lines 177, 178.

[Page 280.

Did here the trees with ruddier burdens bend,
And there the streams in purer rills descend?
What war could ravish, commerce could bestow,
And he return'd a friend, who came a foe.
Converse and love mankind might strongly draw,
When love was liberty, and nature law.9

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Thus states were form'd; the name of king unknown,

Till common interest placed the sway in one.

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"Twas virtue only (or in arts or arms,

Diffusing blessings, or averting harms),

The same which in a sire the sons obey'd,

A prince the father of a people made.

VI. Till then, by Nature crown'd, each patriarch sate, 215
King, priest, and parent, of his growing state;
On him, their second Providence, they hung,
Their law his eye, their oracle his tongue.

He from the wondering furrow call'd the food,
Taught to command the fire, control the flood,
Draw forth the monsters of the abyss profound,
Or fetch the aërial eagle to the ground.
Till drooping, sickening, dying, they began
Whom they revered as God to mourn as man:
Then, looking up from sire to sire, explored
One great first Father, and that first adored.
Or plain tradition that this all begun,
Convey'd unbroken faith from sire to son;
The worker from the work distinct was known,

And simple reason never sought but one:
Ere wit oblique had broke that steady light,
Man, like his Maker, saw that all was right;
To virtue, in the paths of pleasure trod,
And own'd a Father when he own'd a God.
Love, all the faith and all the allegiance then
For Nature knew no right divine in men,
No ill could fear in God; and understood
A sovereign Being, but a sovereign good:

No treasure then for rapine to invade,
What need to fight for sunshine or for shade?
And half the cause of contest was removed,
When beauty could be kind to all who loved."

9 [Copied from the poet's own epistle of Eloisa, ver. 92.]

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