The Poetical Works of Mark Akenside Part 24

Alluding to his defence of the people of England against Salmasins.

See particularly the manner in which he himself speaks of that undertaking, in the introduction to his reply to Morus.

STANZA IV.--3.

Edward the Third; from whom descended Henry Hastings, third Earl of Huntingdon, by the daughter of the Duke of Clarence, brother to Edward the Fourth.

STANZA V.--3.

At Whittington, a village on the edge of Scarsdale in Derbyshire, the Earls of Devonshire and Danby, with the Lord Delamere, privately concerted the plan of the Revolution. The house in which they met is at present a farmhouse, and the country people distinguish the room where they sat by the name of _the plotting parlour_.

BOOK SECOND.

ODE VII. STANZA II.--1.

Mr. Locke died in 1704, when Mr. Hoadly was beginning to distinguish himself in the cause of civil and religious liberty: Lord G.o.dolphin in 1712, when the doctrines of the Jacobite faction were chiefly favoured by those in power: Lord Somers in 1716, amid the practices of the nonjoining clergy against the Protestant establishment; and Lord Stanhope in 1721, during the controversy with the lower house of convocation.

ODE X. STANZA V.

During Mr. Pope's war with Theobald, Concanen, and the rest of their tribe, Mr. Warburton, the present Lord Bishop of Gloucester, did with great zeal cultivate their friendship, having been introduced, forsooth, at the meetings of that respectable confederacy--a favour which he afterwards spoke of in very high terms of complacency and thankfulness. At the same time, in his intercourse with them, he treated Mr. Pope in a most contemptuous manner, and as a writer without genius. Of the truth of these a.s.sertions his lordship can have no doubt, if he recollects his own correspondence with Concanen, a part of which is still in being, and will probably be remembered as long as any of this prelate's writings.

ODE XIII.

In the year 1751 appeared a very splendid edition, in quarto, of 'Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire de la Maison de Brandebourg, a Berlin et a la Haye,' with a privilege, signed Frederic, the same being engraved in imitation of handwriting. In this edition, among other extraordinary pa.s.sages, are the two following, to which the third stanza of this ode more particularly refers:--

'Il se fit une migration' (the author is speaking of what happened at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes), 'dont on n'avoit guere vu d'exemples dans l'histoire: un peuple entier sort.i.t du royaume par l'esprit de parti en haine du pape, et pour recevoir sous un autre ciel la communion sous les deux especes: quatre cens mille ames s'expatrierent ainsi et abandonnerent tous leur biens pour detonner dans d'autres temples les vieux pseaumes de Clement Marot.'--Page 163.

'La crainte donna le jour a la credulite, et l'amour propre interessa bientot le ciel au destin des hommes.'--Page 242.

HYMN TO THE NAIADS. 1746.

ARGUMENT.

The Nymphs, who preside over springs and rivulets, are addressed at daybreak, in honour of their several functions, and of the relations which they bear to the natural and to the moral world. Their origin is deduced from the first allegorical deities, or powers of nature, according to the doctrine of the old mythological poets, concerning the generation of the G.o.ds and the rise of things. They are then successively considered, as giving motion to the air and exciting summer breezes; as nourishing and beautifying the vegetable creation; as contributing to the fulness of navigable rivers, and consequently to the maintenance of commerce; and by that means to the maritime part of military power. Next is represented their favourable influence upon health when a.s.sisted by rural exercise, which introduces their connexion with the art of physic, and the happy effects of mineral medicinal springs. Lastly, they are celebrated for the friendship which the Muses bear them, and for the true inspiration which temperance only can receive, in opposition to the enthusiasm of the more licentious poets.

O'er yonder eastern bill the twilight pale Walks forth from darkness; and the G.o.d of day, With bright Astraea seated by his side, Waits yet to leave the ocean. Tarry, Nymphs, Ye Nymphs, ye blue-eyed progeny of Thames, Who now the mazes of this rugged heath Trace with your fleeting steps; who all night long Repeat, amid the cool and tranquil air, Your lonely murmurs, tarry, and receive My offer'd lay. To pay you homage due, 10 I leave the gates of sleep; nor shall my lyre Too far into the splendid hours of morn Engage your audience; my observant hand Shall close the strain ere any sultry beam Approach you. To your subterranean haunts Ye then may timely steal; to pace with care The humid sands; to loosen from the soil The bubbling sources; to direct the rills To meet in wider channels; or beneath Some grotto's dripping arch, at height of noon 20 To slumber, shelter'd from the burning heaven.

Where shall my song begin, ye Nymphs, or end?

Wide is your praise and copious--first of things, First of the lonely powers, ere Time arose, Were Love and Chaos. Love,[A] the sire of Fate; [B]

Elder than Chaos. [C] Born of Fate was Time, [D]

Who many sons and many comely births Devour'd, [E] relentless father; till the child Of Rhea [F] drove him from the upper sky, [G]

And quell'd his deadly might. Then social reign'd 30 The kindred powers, [H] Tethys, and reverend Ops, And spotless Vesta; while supreme of sway Remain'd the Cloud-Compeller. From the couch Of Tethys sprang the sedgy-crowned race, [I]

Who from a thousand urns, o'er every clime, Send tribute to their parent; and from them Are ye, O Naiads: [J] Arethusa fair, And tuneful Aganippe; that sweet name, Bandusia; that soft family which dwelt With Syrian Daphne; [K] and the honour'd tribes 40 Beloved of Paeon. [L] Listen to my strain, Daughters of Tethys: listen to your praise.

You, Nymphs, the winged offspring, [M] which of old Aurora to divine Astraeus bore, Owns, and your aid beseecheth. When the might Of Hyperion, [N] from his noontide throne, Unbends their languid pinions, aid from you They ask; Pavonius and the mild South-west Prom you relief implore. Your sallying streams [O]

Fresh vigour to their weary wings impart. 50 Again they fly, disporting; from the mead Half-ripen'd and the tender blades of corn, To sweep the noxious mildew; or dispel Contagious steams, which oft the parched earth Breathes on her fainting sons. From noon to eve.

Along the river and the paved brook, Ascend the cheerful breezes: hail'd of bards Who, fast by learned Cam, the aeolian lyre Solicit; nor unwelcome to the youth Who on the heights of Tibur, all inclined 60 O'er rushing Arno, with a pious hand The reverend scene delineates, broken fanes, Or tombs, or pillar'd aqueducts, the pomp Of ancient Time; and haply, while he scans The ruins, with a silent tear revolves The fame and fortune of imperious Rome.

You too, O Nymphs, and your unenvious aid The rural powers confess, and still prepare For you their choicest treasures. Pan commands, Oft as the Delian king [P] with Sirius holds 70 The central heavens, the father of the grove Commands his Dryads over your abodes To spread their deepest umbrage. Well the G.o.d Remembereth how indulgent ye supplied Your genial dews to nurse them in their prime.

Pales, the pasture's queen, where'er ye stray, Pursues your steps, delighted; and the path With living verdure clothes. Around your haunts The laughing Chloris, [Q] with profusest hand, Throws wide her blooms, her odours. Still with you 80 Pomona seeks to dwell; and o'er the lawns, And o'er the vale of Richmond, where with Thames Ye love to wander, Amalthea [R] pours, Well-pleased, the wealth of that Ammonian horn, Her dower; unmindful of the fragrant isles Nysaean or Atlantic. Nor canst thou (Albeit oft, ungrateful, thou dost mock The beverage of the sober Naiad's urn, O Bromius, O Lenaean), nor canst thou Disown the powers whose bounty, ill repaid, 90 With nectar feeds thy tendrils. Yet from me, Yet, blameless Nymphs, from my delighted lyre, Accept the rites your bounty well may claim, Nor heed the scoffings of the Edonian band. [S]

For better praise awaits you. Thames, your sire, As down the verdant slope your duteous rills Descend, the tribute stately Thames receives, Delighted; and your piety applauds; And bids his copious tide roll on secure, For faithful are his daughters; and with words 100 Auspicious gratulates the bark which, now His banks forsaking, her adventurous wings Yields to the breeze, with Albion's happy gifts Extremest isles to bless. And oft at morn, When Hermes, [T] from Olympus bent o'er earth To bear the words of Jove, on yonder hill Stoops lightly sailing; oft intent your springs He views: and waving o'er some new-born stream His bless'd pacific wand, 'And yet,' he cries, 'Yet,' cries the son of Maia, 'though recluse 110 And silent be your stores, from you, fair Nymphs, Flows wealth and kind society to men.

By you my function and my honour'd name Do I possess; while o'er the Boetic rale, Or through the towers of Memphis, or the palms By sacred Ganges water'd, I conduct The English merchant; with the buxom fleece Of fertile Ariconium while I clothe Sarmatian kings; or to the household G.o.ds Of Syria, from the bleak Cornubian sh.o.r.e, 120 Dispense the mineral treasure [U] which of old Sidonian pilots sought, when this fair land Was yet unconscious of those generous arts, Which wise Phoenicia from their native clime Transplanted to a more indulgent heaven.'

Such are the words of Hermes: such the praise, O Naiads, which from tongues celestial waits Your bounteous deeds. From bounty issueth power: And those who, sedulous in prudent works, Relieve the wants of nature, Jove repays 130 With n.o.ble wealth, and his own seat on earth, Pit judgments to p.r.o.nounce, and curb the might Of wicked men. Your kind unfailing urns Not vainly to the hospitable arts Of Hermes yield their store. For, O ye Nymphs, Hath he not won [V] the unconquerable queen Of arms to court your friendship You she owns The fair a.s.sociates who extend her sway Wide o'er the mighty deep; and grateful things Of you she littereth, oft as from the sh.o.r.e 140 Of Thames, or Medway's vale, or the green banks Of Vecta, she her thundering navy leads To Calpe's [W] foaming channel, or the rough Cantabrian surge; her auspices divine Imparting to the senate and the prince Of Albion, to dismay barbaric kings, The Iberian, or the Celt. The pride of kings Was ever scorn'd by Pallas; and of old Rejoiced the virgin, from the brazen prow Of Athens o'er aegina's gloomy surge, [X] 150 To drive her clouds and storms; o'erwhelming all The Persian's promised glory, when the realms Of Indus and the soft Ionian clime, When Libya's torrid champaign and the rocks Of cold Imaus join'd their servile bands, To sweep the sons of Liberty from earth.

In vain; Minerva on the bounding prow Of Athens stood, and with the thunder's voice Denounced her terrors on their impious heads, And shook her burning aegis. Xerxes saw; [Y] 160 From Heracleum, on the mountain's height Throned in his golden car, he knew the sign Celestial; felt unrighteous hope forsake His faltering heart, and turn'd his face with shame.

Hail, ye who share the stern Minerva's power; Who arm the hand of Liberty for war, And give to the renown'd Britannic name To awe contending monarchs: yet benign, Yet mild of nature, to the works of peace More p.r.o.ne, and lenient of the many ills 170 Which wait on human life. Your gentle aid Hygeia well can witness; she who saves, From poisonous dates and cups of pleasing bane, The wretch, devoted to the entangling snares Of Bacchus and of Comus. Him she leads To Cynthia's lonely haunts. To spread the toils, To beat the coverts, with the jovial horn At dawn of day to summon the loud hounds, She calls the lingering sluggard from his dreams, And where his breast may drink the mountain breeze, 180 And where the fervour of the sunny vale May beat upon his brow, through devious paths Beckons his rapid courser. Nor when ease, Cool ease and welcome slumbers have becalm'd His eager bosom, does the queen of health Her pleasing care withhold. His decent board She guards, presiding, and the frugal powers With joy sedate leads in; and while the brown Ennaean dame with Pan presents her stores, While changing still, and comely in the change, 190 Vertumnus and the Hours before him spread The garden's banquet, you to crown his feast, To crown his feast, O Naiads, you the fair Hygeia calls; and from your shelving seats, And groves of poplar, plenteous cups ye bring, To slake his veins, till soon a purer tide Flows down those loaded channels, washeth off The dregs of luxury, the lurking seeds Of crude disease, and through the abodes of life Sends vigour, sends repose. Hail, Naiads, hail! 200 Who give to labour, health; to stooping age, The joys which youth had squander'd. Oft your urns Will I invoke; and frequent in your praise, Abash the frantic thyrsus [Z] with my song.

For not estranged from your benignant arts Is he, the G.o.d, to whose mysterious shrine My youth was sacred, and my votive cares Belong, the learned Paeon. Oft when all His cordial treasures he hath search'd in vain; When herbs, and potent trees, and drops of balm 210 Rich with the genial influence of the sun (To rouse dark fancy from her plaintive dreams, To brace the nerveless arm, with food to win Sick appet.i.te, or hush the unquiet breast Which pines with silent pa.s.sion), he in vain Hath proved; to your deep mansions he descends.

Your gates of humid rock, your dim arcades, He entereth; where empurpled veins of ore Gleam on the roof; where through the rigid mine Your trickling rills insinuate. There the G.o.d 220 From your indulgent hands the streaming bowl Wafts to his pale-eyed suppliants; wafts the seeds Metallic and the elemental salts Wash'd from the pregnant glebe. They drink, and soon Flies pain; flies inauspicious care; and soon The social haunt or unfrequented shade Hears Io, Io Paean, [AA] as of old, When Python fell. And, O propitious Nymphs, Oft as for hapless mortals I implore Your sultry springs, through every urn, 230 Oh, shed your healing treasures! With the first And finest breath, which from the genial strife Of mineral fermentation springs, like light O'er the fresh morning's vapours, l.u.s.trate then The fountain, and inform the rising wave.

My lyre shall pay your bounty. Scorn not ye That humble tribute. Though a mortal hand Excite the strings to utterance, yet for themes Not unregarded of celestial powers, I frame their language; and the Muses deign 240 To guide the pious tenor of my lay.

The Muses (sacred by their gifts divine) In early days did to my wondering sense Their secrets oft reveal; oft my raised ear In slumber felt their music; oft at noon, Or hour of sunset, by some lonely stream, In field or shady grove, they taught me words Of power from death and envy to preserve The good man's name. Whence yet with grateful mind, And offerings unprofaned by ruder eye, 250 My vows I send, my homage, to the seats Of rocky Cirrha, [BB] where with you they dwell, Where you their chaste companions they admit, Through all the hallow'd scene; where oft intent, And leaning o'er Castalia's mossy verge, They mark the cadence of your confluent urns, How tuneful, yielding gratefullest repose To their consorted measure, till again, With emulation all the sounding choir, And bright Apollo, leader of the song, 260 Their voices through the liquid air exalt, And sweep their lofty strings; those powerful strings That charm the mind of G.o.ds, [CC] that fill the courts Of wide Olympus with oblivion sweet Of evils, with immortal rest from cares, a.s.suage the terrors of the throne of Jove, And quench the formidable thunderbolt Of unrelenting fire. With slacken'd wings, While now the solemn concert breathes around, Inc.u.mbent o'er the sceptre of his lord 270 Sleeps the stern eagle, by the number'd notes, Possess'd, and satiate with the melting tone, Sovereign of birds. The furious G.o.d of war, His darts forgetting, and the winged wheels That bear him vengeful o'er the embattled plain, Relents, and soothes his own fierce heart to ease, Most welcome ease. The sire of G.o.ds and men In that great moment of divine delight, Looks down on all that live; and whatsoe'er He loves not, o'er the peopled earth and o'er 280 The interminated ocean, he beholds Cursed with abhorrence by his doom severe, And troubled at the sound. Ye, Naiads, ye With ravish'd ears the melody attend Worthy of sacred silence. But the slaves Of Bacchus with tempestuous clamours strive To drown the heavenly strains, of highest Jove Irreverent, and by mad presumption fired Their own discordant raptures to advance With hostile emulation. Down they rush 290 From Nysa's vine-empurpled cliff, the dames Of Thrace, the Satyrs, and the unruly Fauns, With old Silenus, reeling through the crowd Which gambols round him, in convulsions wild Tossing their limbs, and brandishing in air The ivy-mantled thyrsus, or the torch Through black smoke flaming, to the Phrygian pipe's [DD]

Shrill voice, and to the clashing cymbals, mix'd With shrieks and frantic uproar. May the G.o.ds From every unpolluted ear avert 300 Their orgies! If within the seats of men, Within the walls, the gates, where Pallas holds [EE]

The guardian key, if haply there be found Who loves to mingle with the revel-band And hearken to their accents, who aspires From such instructors to inform his breast With verse, let him, fit votarist, implore Their inspiration. He perchance the gifts Of young Lyaeus, and the dread exploits, May sing in aptest numbers; he the fate 310 Of sober Pentheus, [FF] he the Paphian rites, And naked Mars with Cytherea chain'd, And strong Alcides in the spinster's robes, May celebrate, applauded. But with you, O Naiads, far from that unhallow'd rout, Must dwell the man whoe'er to praised themes Invokes the immortal Muse. The immortal Muse To your calm habitations, to the cave Corycian[GG] or the Delphic mount, [HH] will guide His footsteps, and with your unsullied streams 320 His lips will bathe; whether the eternal lore Of Themis, or the majesty of Jove, To mortals he reveal; or teach his lyre The unenvied guerdon of the patriot's toils, In those unfading islands of the bless'd, Where sacred bards abide. Hail, honour'd Nymphs; Thrice hail! For you the Cyrenac sh.e.l.l, [II]

Behold, I touch, revering. To my songs Be present ye with favourable feet, And all profaner audience far remove. 330

NOTES.

[Footnote A: '_Love,.... Elder than Chaos_.'--L. 25.

Hesiod in his Theogony gives a different account, and makes Chaos the eldest of beings, though he a.s.signs to Love neither father nor superior; which circ.u.mstance is particularly mentioned by Phaedrus, in Plato's Banquet, as being observable not only in Hesiod, but in all other writers both of verse and prose; and on the same occasion he cites a line from Parmenides, in which Love is expressly styled the eldest of all the G.o.ds. Yet Aristophanes, in 'The Birds,' affirms, that 'Chaos, and Night, and Erebus, and Tartarus were first; and that Love was produced from an egg, which the sable-winged Night deposited in the immense bosom of Erebus.' But it must be observed, that the Love designed by this comic poet was always distinguished from the other, from that original and self-existent being the TO ON [Greek] or AGAThON [Greek] of Plato, and meant only the DAeMIOURGOS [Greek] or second person of the old Grecian Trinity; to whom is inscribed a hymn among those which pa.s.s under the name of Orpheus, where he is called Protogonos, or the first-begotten, is said to have been born of an egg, and is represented as the princ.i.p.al or origin of all these external appearances of nature. In the fragments of Orpheus, collected by Henry Stephens, he is named Phanes, the discoverer or discloser, who unfolded the ideas of the supreme intelligence, and exposed them to the perception of inferior beings in this visible frame of the world; as Macrobius, and Proclus, and Athenagoras, all agree to interpret the several pa.s.sages of Orpheus which they have preserved.

But the Love designed in our text is the one self-existent and infinite mind; whom if the generality of ancient mythologists have not introduced or truly described in accounting for the production of the world and its appearances, yet, to a modern poet, it can be no objection that he hath ventured to differ from them in this particular, though in other respects he professeth to imitate their manner and conform to their opinions; for, in these great points of natural theology, they differ no less remarkably among themselves, and are perpetually confounding the philosophical relations of things with the traditionary circ.u.mstances of mythic history; upon which very account Callimachus, in his hymn to Jupiter, declareth his dissent from them concerning even an article of the national creed, adding, that the ancient bards were by no means to be depended on. And yet in the exordium of the old Argonautic poem, ascribed to Orpheus, it is said, that 'Love, whom mortals in later times call Phanes, was the father of the eternally-begotten Night;'

who is generally represented by these mythological poets as being herself the parent of all things; and who, in the 'Indigitamenta,'

or Orphic Hymns, is said to be the same with Cypris, or Love itself.

Moreover, in the body of this Argonautic poem, where the personated Orpheus introduceth himself singing to his lyre in reply to Chiron, he celebrateth 'the obscure memory of Chaos, and the natures which it contained within itself in a state of perpetual vicissitude; how the heaven had its boundary determined, the generation of the earth, the depth of the ocean, and also the sapient Love, the most ancient, the self-sufficient, with all the beings which he produced when he separated one thing from another.' Which n.o.ble pa.s.sage is more directly to Aristotle's purpose in the first book of his metaphysics than any of those which he has there quoted, to show that the ancient poets and mythologists agreed with Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and the other more sober philosophers, in that natural antic.i.p.ation and common notion of mankind concerning the necessity of mind and reason to account for the connexion, motion, and good order of the world. For though neither this poem, nor the hymns which pa.s.s under the same name, are, it should seem, the work of the real Orpheus, yet beyond all question they are very ancient. The hymns, more particularly, are allowed to be older than the invasion of Greece by Xerxes, and were probably a set of public and solemn forms of devotion, as appears by a pa.s.sage in one of them which Demosthenes hath almost literally cited in his first oration against Aristogiton, as the saying of Orpheus, the founder of their most holy mysteries.

On this account, they are of higher authority than any other mythological work now extant, the Theogony of Hesiod himself not excepted. The poetry of them is often extremely n.o.ble; and the mysterious air which prevails in them, together with its delightful impression upon the mind, cannot be better expressed than in that remarkable description with which they inspired the German editor, Eschenbach, when he accidentally met with them at Leipsic: --'Thesaurum me reperisse credidi,' says he, 'et profecto thesaurum reperi. Incredibile dictu quo me sacro horrore afflaverint indigitamenta ista deorum: nam et tempus ad illorum lectionem eligere cogebar, quod vel solum horrorem incutere animo potest, nocturnum; c.u.m enim totam diem consumserim in contemplando urbis splendore, et in adeundis, quibus scatet urbs illa, viris doctis; sola nox restabat, quam Orpheo consecrare potui. In abyesum quendam mysteriorum venerandae antiquitatis descendere videbar, quotiescunque silente mundo, solis vigilantibus astris et luna, [Greek: melanaephutous] istos hymnos ad ma.n.u.s sumsi.']