CONTEMPT OF THE COMMON OBJECTS OF PURSUIT.
HONOR and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part; there all the honor lies. Fortune in men has some small difference made; One flaunts in rags; one flutters in brocade; The cobler apron'd, and the parson gown'd; The friar hooded, and the monarch crown'd. "What differ more (you cry) than crown and cowl?" I'll tell you friend! A wise man and a fool. You'll find, if once the wise man acts the monk, Or cobler-like, the parson will be drunk; Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellows The rest is all but leather or prunella.
Stuck o'er with titles and hung round with strings, That thou mayst be by kings; or ws of kings; Boast the pure blood of an illustrious race In quiet flow Lucrece to Lucrece;
But by your father's worth, if your's you rate, - Count me those only who were good and great. Go! if your ancient, but ignoble blood, Has crept thro' scoundrels ever since the flood; Go! and pretend your family is young; Nor own your fathers have been fools so long. What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards; Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.
Look next on greatness. Say where greatness lies? Where, but among the heroes and the wise. Heroes are all the same, it is agreed, From Macedonia's madman to the Swede. The whole strange purpose of their lives, to find, Or make an enemy of all mankind. Not one looks backward; onward still he goes; Yet ne'er looks forward farther than his nose. ☑ No less alike the politic and wise;
All sly, slow things, with circumspective eyes: Men in their loose unguarded hours they take; Not that themselves are wise; but others weak. But grant that those can conquer; these can cheat : Tis phrase absurd to call a villain great.
Who wickedly is wise, or madly brave, Is but the more a fool, the more a knave. Who noble ends by noble means obtains, Or, falling, smiles in exile, or in chains, Like good Aurelius let him reign; or bleed Like Socrates: that man is great indeed! What's fame? a fancy'd life in others' breath; A thing beyond us, e'en before our death. Just what you hear's your own; and what's unknown. The same (my lord) if Tully's or your own. All that we feel of it, begins and ends In the small circle of our foes and friends; To all besides as much an empty shade, An Eugene living, as a Cæsar dead; Alike, or when or where they shone, or shine, Or on the Rubicon, or on the Rhine. A wit's a feather, and a chief's a rod: An honest man's the noblest work of God. Fame, but from death a villain's name can save, As justice tears his body from the grave; When what t' oblivion better were consign'd, Is hung on high, to poison half mankind. All fame is foreign, but of true desert; Plays round the head; but comes not to the heart, One self approving hour, whole years outweighs Of stupid starers, and of loud huzzas; And more true joy, Marcellus exil'd feels, Than Cæsar, with a senate at his heels.
In parts superior what advantage lies? Tell (for you can) what is it to be wise ? 'Tis but to know, how little can be known: To see all others faults and feel our own; Condemn'd in business or in arts to drudge, Without a second, and without a judge. Truths would you teach, to save a sinking land, All fear, none aid you, and few understand. Painful pre-eminenc yourself to view Above life's weakness, and its comforts too.
Bring then these blessings to a strict account; Make fair deductions: see to what they mount. How much of other each is sure to cost; Now eac for other oft is wholly lost; inconsistent greater goods with these;
How sometimes life is risk'd, and always ease; Think-and if still such things thy envy call, Say, would'st thou be the man to whom they fall? To sigh for ribbonds, if thou art so silly, Mark how they grace Lord Umbra, or Sir Billy, Is yellow dirt the passion of thy life? Look but on Gripus, or on Gripus wife. If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shin'd, The wisest, brightest meanest of mankind: Or, ravish'd with the whistling of a name, See Cromwell damn'd to everlasting fame If all, united, thy ambition call, From ancient story learn to scorn them all.
TIS from high life high characters are drawn; A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn;
A judge is just, a chanc'llor juster still; A gownman learn'd; a bishop-what you will; Wise, if a minister; but, if a king,
More wise, more just, more learn'd, more every thing. 'Tis education forms the common mind; Just as the twig is bent the tree's inelin'd. Boastful and rough, your first son is a squire:. The next a tradesman, meek, and much a liar: Tom struts a soldier, open, bold and brave: Will sneeks a scriv'ner, an exceeding knave. Is he a churchman? Then he's fond of power: A quaker? Sly: A presbyterian? Sour: A smart freethinker? All things in an hour.
Manners with fortune, humors turn with climes, Tenets with books, and principles with times. Search then the ruling passion. There alone The wild are constant, and the cunning known.
THE WORLD COMPARED TO A STAGE.
LL the world's a stage:
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances: And one man, in his time, plays many parts; His acts being seven ages. - At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the wining school-boy, with his satchel,
And shining morning face, creeping like snail, Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad
Made to his mistress' eye-brow. -Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard; Jealous in honor; sudden and quick in quarrel; Seeking the bubble reputation,
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, In fair round body, with good capon lined: With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut: Full of wise laws and modern instances: And so he plays his part.-The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon; With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side : His youthful hose well sav'd, a world too wide For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again towards childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. - Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness, and mere oblivion; Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.
COLUMBUS was a considerable number of years engaged in soliciting the court of Spain to fit him out, in order to discover a new conti nent, which he imagined existed somewhere in the western parts of the ocean. During his negociation, he is supposed to address King FERDINAND in the following stanzas:
ILLUSTRIOUS monarch of Iberia's soil, Too long I wait permission to depart; Sick of delays, I beg thy list'ning ear- Shine forth the patron and the prince of art. While yet Columbus breathes the vital air, Grant his request to pass the western main; Reserve this glory for thy native soil, And what must please thee more for thy own reign. Of this huge globe how small a part we know- Does heaven their worlds to western suns deny? How disproportion'd to the mighty deep The lands that yet in human prospect lie! Does Cynthia, when to western skies arriv'd, Spend her sweet beam upon the barren main?
d ne'er illume with midnight splendor, she,
The native, dancing on the lightsome green? Should the vast circuit of the world contain Such wastes of ocean, and such scanty land? 'Tis reason's voice that bids me think not so; I think more nobly of the Almighty hand. Does yon fair lamp trace half the circle round To light the waves and monsters of the seas? No-be, there must, beyond the billowy waste, Islands, and men, and animals, and trees. An unremitting flame my breast inspires, To seek new lands amidst the barren waves, Where falling low, the source of day descends, And the blue sea his evening visage laves. Hear, in this tragic lay, Cordova's sage;* "The time shall come, when numerous years are past, The ocean shall dissolve the bands of things, And an extended region rise at last; And Typhis shall disclose the mighty land, Far, far away, where none have rov'd before; Nor shall the world's remotest regions be Gibraltar's rock, or Thule's savage shore." Fir'd at the theme, I languish to depart, Supply the barque, and bid Columbus sail; He fears no storms upon the untraveli'd deep; Reason shall steer, and skill disarm the gale: Nor does he dread to lose the intended course, Though far from land the reeling galley stray, And skies above, and gulfy seas below, Be the sole object seen for many a day. Think not that nature has unvail'd in vain The mystic magnet to the mortal eye, So late have we the guiding needle plan'd Only to sail beneath our native sky? Ere this was found the Ruling Power of all, Found for our use an ocean in the land, Its breadth so small we could not wander long, Nor long be absent from the neighboring strand. Short was the course and guided by the stars; But stars no more shall point our daring way; The Bear shall sink, and every guard be drown'd, And great Arcturus scarce escape the sea, When southward we shall steer- grant my wish, * Seneca, the poet, native of Cordova, in Spain.
« ZurückWeiter » |