If nothing else but truth we allow,
'Tis no great matter what we do.
For truth is too reserved and nice
To appear in mixed societies;
Delights in solitary abodes,

And never shows herself in crowds;
A sullen little thing, below

All matters of pretence and show
That deal in novelty and change,—
Not of things true, but rare and strange,
To treat the world with what is fit
And proper to its natural wit;

The world, that never sets esteem
On what things are, but what they seem,
And, if they be not strange and new,
They're ne'er the better for being true.
For what has mankind gained by knowing
His little truth, but his undoing,
Which wisely was by nature hidden,
And only for his good forbidden?
And therefore with great prudence does
The world still strive to keep it close;
For, if all secret truths were known,
Who would not be once more undone?
For truth has always danger in't,
And here, perhaps, may cross some hint
We have already agreed upon,
And vainly frustrate all we've done,
Only to make new work for Stubbes,1
And all the academic clubs.

How much then ought we have a care
That no man know above his share,
Nor dare to understand henceforth
More than his contribution's worth;2
That those who've purchased of the college
A share or half a share of knowledge,
And brought in none, but spent repute,
Should not be admitted to dispute,
Nor any man pretend to know
More than his dividend comes to ;
For partners have been always known
To cheat their public interest prone;
And, if we do not look to ours,
'Tis sure to run the self-same course.'

This said, the whole assembly allowed
The doctrine to be right and good;

And, from the truth of what they'd heard,

1 Henry Stubbe, a physician, one of the ablest opponents of the Royal Society.

2 The contribution to the Society was one shilling weekly.

Resolved to give truth no regard,
But what was for their turn to vouch,
And either find or make it such:

That 'twas more noble to create
Things like truth, out of strong conceit,
Than, with vexatious pains and doubt,
To find or think to have found her out.

This being resolved, they, one by one,
Reviewed the tube, the mouse, and moon;
But still, the narrower they pried,
The more they were unsatisfied,—
In no one thing they saw agreeing,
As if they'd several faiths of seeing.
Some swore, upon a second view,
That all they'd seen before was true,
And that they never would recant
One syllable of the elephant;
Avowed his snout could be no mouse's,
But a true elephant's proboscis.
Others began to doubt and waver,
Uncertain which o' the two to favour;
And knew not whether to espouse
The cause of the elephant or mouse.
Some held no way so orthodox
To try it as the ballot-box,
And, like the nation's patriots,
To find, or make, the truth by votes.
Others conceived it much more fit
To unmount the tube, and open it;
And, for their private satisfaction,
To re-examine the "Transaction,"
And after explicate the rest,

As they should find cause for the best.
To this, as the only expedient,
The whole assembly gave consent;
But, ere the tube was half let down,
It cleared the first phenomenon;
For, at the end, prodigious swarms
Of flies and gnats, like men in arms,
Had all passed muster, by mischance,
Both for the Sub- and Pri-volvans.
This, being discovered, put them all
Into a fresh and fiercer brawl,
Ashamed that men so grave and wise
Should be caldesed1 by gnats and flies,
And take the feeble insects' swarms
For mighty troops of men at arms;
As vain as those who, when the Moon

1 Chaldeized, juggled.

H

Bright in a crystal river shone,
Threw casting-nets as subtly at her,
To catch and pull her out o' the water.
But, when they had unscrewed the glass
To find out where the impostor was,
And saw the mouse, that by mishap
Had made the telescope a trap,
Amazed, confounded, and afflicted,
To be so openly convicted,
Immediately they get them gone,
With this discovery alone:
That those who greedily pursue
Things wonderful, instead of true,
That in their speculations choose
To make discoveries strange news,
And natural history a gazette
Of tales stupendous and far-fet,—
Hold no truth worthy to be known
That is not huge and overgrown,
And explicate appearances

Not as they are but as they please,—
In vain strive Nature to suborn,

And for their pains are paid with scorn.

UPON PLAGIARIES.

WHY should the world be so averse

To plagiary privateers,

That all men's sense and fancy seize,
And make free prize of what they please?
As if, because they huff and swell,
Like pilferers full of what they steal,
Others might equal power assume
To pay 'em with as hard a doom;
To shut them up, like beasts in pounds,
For breaking into others' grounds;
Mark 'em with characters and brands,
Like other forgers of men's hands;
And in effigy hang and draw
The poor delinquents by club-law;
When no indictment justly lies,
But where the theft will bear a price.

For, though wit never can be learned,

It may be assumed, and owned, and earned;
And, like our noblest fruits, improved
By being transplanted and removed.
And, as it bears no certain rate,
Nor pays one penny to the state,

With which it turns no more to account

Than virtue, faith, and merit's wont;

Is neither moveable nor rent,
Nor chattel, goods, nor tenement;
Nor was it ever passed by entail,
Nor settled upon the heirs-male,
Or, if it were, like ill-got land,
Did never fall to a second hand
So 'tis no more to be engrossed
Than sunshine, or the air enclosed,

Or to propriety confined

Than the uncontrolled and scattered wind. For why should that which Nature meant To owe its being to its vent,

That has no value of its own,

But as it is divulged and known,

Is perishable and destroyed

As long as it lies unenjoyed,
Be scanted of that liberal use
Which all mankind is free to choose,
And idly hoarded where 'twas bred,
Instead of being dispersed and spread?
And, the more lavish and profuse,
'Tis of the nobler general use;
As riots, though supplied by stealth,
Are wholesome to the commonwealth,
And men spend freelier what they win
Than what they've freely coming in.

The world's as full of curious wit
Which those that father never writ
As 'tis of bastards which the sot
And cuckold owns that ne'er begot,
Yet pass as well as if the one

And the other by-blow were their own.
For why should he that's impotent
To judge, and fancy, and invent,
For that impediment be stopped
To own and challenge and adopt
At least the exposed and fatherless
Poor orphans of the pen and press,
Whose parents are obscure, or dead,
Or in far countries born and bred?

As none but kings have power to raise
A levy which the subject pays,
And, though they call that tax a loan,
Yet, when 'tis gathered, 'tis their own;
So he that's able to impose

A wit-excise on verse or prose,
And, still the abler authors are,
Can make them pay the greater share,
Is prince of poets of his time,
And they his vassals, that supply'm

Can judge more justly of what he takes
Than any of the best he makes,
And more impartially conceive

What's fit to choose and what to leave.
For men reflect more strictly upon
The sense of others than their own;
And wit that's made of wit and sleight
Is richer than the plain downright:
As salt that's made of salt's more fine
Than when it first came from the brine,
And spirit's of a nobler nature,
Drawn from the dull ingredient matter.
Hence mighty Virgil's said, of old,
From dung to have extracted gold,—
As many a lout and silly clown,
By his instructions, since has done,-
And grew more lofty by that means
Than by his livery-oats and beans,
When from his carts and country-farms
He rose a mighty man at arms;
To whom th' heroics ever since
Have sworn allegiance as their prince,
And faithfully have in all times
Observed his customs in their rhymes.
'Twas counted learning once and wit
To void but what some author writ,
And what men understand by rote
By as implicit sense to quote.
Then many a magisterial clerk

Was taught, like singing birds, i' the dark,
And understood as much of things

As the ablest blackbird what it sings,

And yet was honoured and renowned

For grave and solid and profound.

Then why should those who pick and choose The best of all the best compose,

And join it, by mosaic art,

In graceful order, part to part,

To make the whole in beauty suit,

Not merit as complete repute

As those who, with less art and pains,

Can do it with their native brains,
And make the home-spun business fit
As freely with their mother-wit?
Since what by Nature was denied
By art and industry's supplied,-

Both which are more our own, and brave,
Than all the alms that Nature gave.
For what we acquire by pains and art
Is only due to our own desert;