This text includes characters thatrequire UTF-8 (Unicode) file encoding, primarily Greek and a few wordsof Hebrew:

Ἀγαθὸς ἦν τὸ πᾶν τόδε ὁ συνιστὰς

... which isשׁמים

If any of these characters do not display properly—inparticular, if the diacritic does not appear directly above theletter—or if the apostrophes and quotation marks in this paragraphappear as garbage, you may have an incompatible browser or unavailablefonts. First, make sure that your browser’s “character set” or “fileencoding” is set to Unicode (UTF-8). You may also need to change thedefault font. All Greek and Hebrew includes mouse-hovertransliterations, as above. Longer Greek passages are broken up atpunctuation.

Page and folio numbers in [brackets] were added by the transcriber.Verso (even, left-hand) pages are marked as ||.

Unless otherwise noted, spelling, punctuation and capitalization inthe primary text are unchanged. The distinction betweenu (vowel)andv (consonant) is as in the original. Typographical errors areshown withmouse-hover popups.

Introduction (1968)

Author’s Preface
Democritus Platonissans
Cupids Conflict
Particular Interpretation ...
Philosopher’s Devotion
Augustan Reprint Society

Transcriber’s Notes

The General Inter­pretation (“Interp. Gen.”) referenced in theParticular Inter­pretation is not part of this text.

The Augustan Reprint Society

HENRY MORE

Democritus
Platonissans

(1646)

Introduction by
P. G. Stanwood

PUBLICATION NUMBER 130
WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY
University of California, LosAngeles

1968

GENERAL EDITORS

George Robert Guffey,University of California, LosAngeles

Maximillian E. Novak,University of California, LosAngeles

Robert Vosper,William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

ADVISORY EDITORS

Richard C. Boys,University of Michigan

James L. Clifford,Columbia University

Ralph Cohen,University of Virginia

Vinton A. Dearing,University of California, Los Angeles

Arthur Friedman,University of Chicago

Louis A. Landa,Princeton University

Earl Miner,University of California, Los Angeles

Samuel H. Monk,University of Minnesota

Everett T. Moore,University of California, Los Angeles

Lawrence Clark Powell,William Andrews Clark MemorialLibrary

James Sutherland,University College, London

H. T. Swedenberg, Jr.,University of California, LosAngeles

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY

Edna C. Davis,William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

INTRODUCTION

Henry More (1614-1687), the most interesting member of that grouptraditionally known as the Cambridge Platonists, lived conscientiouslyand well. Having early set out on one course, he never thought to changeit; he devoted his whole life to the joy of celebrating, again andagain, “a firm and unshaken Belief of the Existence of GOD. . . , a God infinitely Good, as well as infinitelyGreat . . . .”1 Such faith was for More the starting pointof his rational understanding: “with the most fervent Prayers” hebeseeched God, in his autobiographical “Praefatio Generalissima,” “toset me free from the dark Chains, and this so sordid Captivity of my ownWill.” More offered to faith all which his reason could know, and so ithappened that he “was got into a most Joyous and Lucid State of Mind,”something quite ineffable; to preserve these “Sensations and Experiencesof my own Soul,” he wrote “a pretty full Poem call’dPsychozoia” (orA Christiano-Platonicall display ofLife), an exercise begun about 1640 and designed for no audience buthimself. There were times, More continued in his autobiographicalremarks, when he thought of destroyingPsychozoia because itsstyle is rough and its language filled with archaisms. His principalpurpose in that poem was to demonstrate in detail the spiritualfoundation of all existence; Psyche, his heroine, is the daughter of theAbsolute, the general Soul who holds together the metaphysical universe,against whom he sees reflected his own soul’s mystical progress. Moremust, nevertheless, have been pleased with his labor, for he next wrotePsychathanasia Platonica: or Platonicall Poem of the Immortality ofSouls, especially Mans Soul, in which he attempts to demonstrate theimmortality of the soul as a corrective to his age. Then, he joined tothatAntipsychopannychia, or A Confutation of the sleep of theSouliiafter death, andAntimonopsychia, or That all Souls are notone; at the urging of friends, he published the poems in1642—his first literary work—asPsychodiaPlatonica.

In his argument for the soul’s immortality toward the end ofPsychathanasia (III.4), More had urged that there was no need toplead for any extension of the infinite (“a contradiction,” andalso, it would seem, a fruitless inquiry); but he soon changed hismind. The preface toDemocritus Platonissans reproduces thosestanzas of the earlier poem which deny infinity (34 to the end ofthe canto) with a new (formerly concluding) stanza 39 and three furtherstanzas “for a more easie and naturall leading to the present Canto,”i.e.,Democritus Platonissans, which More clearly intendedto be an addition, a fifth canto toPsychathanasia (BookIII); and althoughDemocritus Platonissans first appearedseparately, More appended it toPsychathanasia in the secondedition of his collected poems, this time with English titles, the wholebeing calledA Platonick Song of the Soul (1647).

There is little relationship betweenDemocritus Platonissansand the rest of More’s poetry; even the main work to which it supposedlyforms a final and conclusive canto provides only the slightest excusefor such a continuation. Certainly, inPsychathanasia, More isexcited by the new astronomy; he praises the Copernican systemthroughout Book III, giving an account of it according to the lessons ofhis study of Galileo’sDialogo, which he may have been readingeven as he wrote.2 Indeed, More tries to harmonize the two poems—hishabit was always to look for unity. But even thoughDemocritusPlatonissans explores an astronomical subject, just as the thirdpart ofPsychathanasia also does, its attitude and theme arequite different; for More had meanwhile been reading Descartes.

More’s theory of the infinity of worlds and God’s plenitude evidentlyowed a great deal to Descartes’ recent example; More respondsexuberantly to him, especially to hisPrincipes de la Philosophie(1644); for in him he fancied having found a true ally. Steeped inPlatonic and neo-Platonic thought, and determinediiito reconcile Spirit with the rational mind of man, More thought he haddiscovered in Cartesian ‘intuition’ what was not necessarily there.Descartes had enjoyed an ecstatic illumination, and so had Plotinus; butthis was not enough, as More may have wanted to imagine, to makeDescartes a neo-Platonist.3 But the Platonic element implicit in Descartes,his theory of innate ideas, and his proof of the existence of God fromthe idea of God, all helped to make More so receptive to him.Nevertheless, More did not really need Descartes, nor, as he himself waslater to discover, had he even understood him properly, for More hadlooked at him only to find his own reflection.

But there was nothing really new about the idea of infinite worldswhich More described inDemocritus Platonissans; it surely wasnot a conception unique to Descartes. The theory was a common one inGreek and Renaissance thought. Democritus and the Epicureans, of course,advocated the theme of infinite worlds in an infinite universe whichMore accepted; but at the same time, he rejected their view of amechanistic and fortuitous creation. Although Plato specifically rejectsthe idea of infinite worlds (in Timaeus), More imagines, asthe title of his poem implies, a Platonic universe, by which hereally means neo-Platonic, combined with a Democritean plurality ofworlds. More filled space, not with the infinite void of the Atomists,but with the Divine, ever active immanence. More, in fact, in an earlyphilosophic work,An Antidote against Atheisme (1652), and againinDivine Dialogues (1668), refutes Lucretius by asserting theusefulness of all created things in God’s Providence and the essentialdesign in Nature. His reference inDemocritus Platonissans(st. 20) is typical: “though I detest the sect/ of Epicurus fortheir manners vile,/ Yet what is true I may not well reject.” Inbringing together Democritus’ theories and neo-Platonic thought, Moreobviously has attempted reconciliation of two exclusive world views, butwith dubious success.

While More stands firmly before a familiar tradition, his belief inan infinity of worlds evidently has little immediateivconnection with any predecessors. Even Bruno’s work, or Thomas Digges,’which could have occupied an important place, seems to have had little,if any, direct influence on More. It was Descartes who stimulated histhought at the most receptive moment: in 1642 to have denied a theorywhich in 1646 he proclaimed with such force evidently argues in favor ofa most powerful attachment. More responded enthusiastically to what hedeemed a congenial metaphysical system; as a champion of Descartes, hewas first to make him known in England and first in England to praisethe infinity of worlds, yet Descartes’ system could give to him littlereal solace. More embraces God’s plenitude and infinity of worlds, herejoices in the variety and grandeur of the universe, and he worships itas he might God Himself; but Descartes was fundamentally uninterested insuch enthusiasms and found them even repellant—as well asunnecessary—to his thought. For More the doctrine of infinity wasa proper corollary of Copernican astronomy and neo-Platonism(as well as Cabbalistic mysticism) and therefore a necessity to hiswhole elaborate and eclectic view of the world.

In introducing Cartesian thought into England, More emphasizedparticular physical doctrines mainly described inThe Principles ofPhilosophy; he shows little interest in theDiscourse on theMethod of Rightly Conducting the Reason (1637), or in theMeditations (1641), both of which were also available to him whenhe wroteDemocritus Platonissans. In the preface to his poem, herefers to Descartes whom he seems to have read hopefully: surely“infinitude” is the same as the Cartesian “indefinite.” “For what ishismundus indefinitè extensus, butextensus infinitè?Else it sounds onelyinfinitus quoad nos, butsimpliciterfinitus,” for there can be no space “unstuffd withAtoms.” More thinks that Descartes seems “to mince it,” thatdifficulty lies in the interpretation of a word, not in an essentialidea. He is referring to Part II, xxi, ofThe Principles, but hequotes, with tacit approval, from Part III, i and ii, in the mottoto the poem. More undoubtedly knows the specific discussion of‘infinity’ in Part I, xxvi-xxviii, where he must firstvhave felt uneasy delight on reading “that it is not needful to enterinto disputes regarding the infinite, but merely to hold all that inwhich we can find no limits as indefinite, such as the extension of theworld . . . .”4 More asked Descartes to clarify hislanguage in their correspondence of 1648-49, the last year of Descartes’life.

Democritus Platonissans is More’s earliest statement aboutabsolute space and time; by introducing these themes into Englishphilosophy, he contributed significantly to the intellectual history ofthe seventeenth century. Newton, indeed, was able to make use of More’sforging efforts; but of relative time or space and their measurement,which so much concerned Newton, More had little to say. He waspreoccupied with the development of a theory which would show thatimmaterial substance, with space and time as attributes, is as real andas absolute as the Cartesian geometrical and spatial account of matterwhich he felt was true but much in need of amplification.

In his first letter to Descartes, of 11 December 1648, More wrote:“. . . this indefinite extension is eithersimpliciter infinite, or only in respect to us. If you understandextension to be infinitesimpliciter, why do you obscure yourthought by too low and too modest words? If it is infinite only inrespect to us, extension, in reality, will be finite; for our mind isthe measure neither of the things nor of truth. . . .”Unsatisfied by his first answer from Descartes (5 February 1649),he urges his point again (5 March): if extension can describematter, the same quality must apply to the immaterial and yet be onlyone of many attributes of Spirit. In his second letter to More(15 April), Descartes answers firmly: “It is repugnant to myconcept to attribute any limit to the world, and I have no other measurethan my perception for what I have to assert or to deny. I say,therefore, that the world is indeterminate or indefinite, because I donot recognize in it any limits. But I dare not call it infinite as Iperceive that God is greater than the world, not in respect to Hisextension, because, as I have already said, I do not acknowledge inGod any proper [extension], but invirespect to His perfection . . . . It is repugnant tomy mind . . . it implies a contradiction, that the world befinite or limited, because I cannot but conceive a space outside theboundaries of the world wherever I presuppose them.” More plainly failsto understand the basic dualism inherent in Cartesian philosophy and tosense the irrelevance of his questions. While Descartes is reallydisposing of the spiritual world in order to get on with his analysis offinite experience, More is keenly attempting to reconcile neo-Platonismwith the lively claims of matter. His effort can be read as the braveattempt to harmonize an older mode of thought with the urgency of the‘new philosophy’ which called the rest in doubt. More saw this conflictand the implications of it with a kind of clarity that other men of hisage hardly possessed. But the way of Descartes, which at first seemed tohim so promising, certainly did not lead to the kind of harmony which hesought.

More’s original enthusiasm for Descartes declined as he understoodbetter that the Cartesian world in practice excluded spirits and souls.Because Descartes could find no necessary place even for God Himself,More styled him, inEnchiridion Metaphysicum (1671), the “Princeof the Nullibists”; these men “readily acknowledge there are such thingsasIncorporeal Beings orSpirits, yet do very peremptorilycontend, that they areno where in the whole World [;]. . . because they so boldly affirm that a Spirit isNullibi, that is to say,no where,” they deserve to becalledNullibists.5 In contrast to these false teachers, More describesabsolute space by listing twenty epithets which can be applied either toGod or to pure extension, such as “Unum, Simplex, Immobile. . . Incomprehensible    ”6 There is, however, a greatdifficulty here; for while Space and Spirit are eternal and uncreated,they yet contain material substance which has been created by God. Ifthe material world possesses infinite extension, as More generallybelieves, that would preclude any need of its having a creator. In orderto avoid this dilemma, whichDemocritus Platonissans ignores,More must at last separate matter and space, seeing theviilatter as an attribute of God through which He is able to contain afinite world limited in space as well as in time. In writing that “thisinfinite space because of its infinity is distinct from matter,”7 More reveals thedirection of his conclusion; the dichotomy it embodies is Cartesianismin reverse.

While More always labored to describe the ineffable, his earliestwork, the poetry, may have succeeded in this wish most of all. Althoughhe felt that his poetry was aiming toward truths which his “later andbetter concocted Prose”8 reached, the effort cost him the suggestiveness offigurative speech. In urging himself on toward an ever more consistentstatement of belief, he lost much of his beginning exuberance (bestexpressed in the brief “Philosopher’s Devotion”) and the joy ofintellectual discovery. In the search “to find out Words which willprove faithful witnesses of the peculiarities of my Thoughts,” hestaggers under the unsupportable burden of too many words. In trying sodesperately to clarify his thought, he rejected poetic discourse as“slight”; only a language free of metaphor and symbol could, hesupposed, lead toward correctness. Indeed, More soon renounced poetry;he apparently wrote no more after collecting it inPhilosophicalPoems (1647), when he gave up poetry for “more seeming Substantialperformances in solidProse.”9 “Cupids Conflict,” which is “annexed” toDemocritus Platonissans, is an interesting revelation of thefailure of poetry, as More felt it: he justifies his “rude ruggeduncouth style” by suggesting that sweet verses avoid telling importanttruths; harshness and obscurity may at least remind one that there is asignificance beyond mere words. His lament is characteristic: “How illalas! with wisdome it accords/ To sell my living sense for livelesswords.”

In spite of these downcast complaints, More was quite capable oflively and meaningful poetic ideas. One is the striking image of thecone which occurs inDemocritus Platonissans (especially instanzas 7-8, 66-67, and 88) and becomes the most essential symbolto More’s expression of infinitude and extension. The figure firstappears inAntipsychopannychiaviii(II.9) where his purpose is to reconcile the world Soul with Christianeschatology. InDemocritus Platonissans, the cone enables More toadapt the familiar Hermetic paradox:

Every point on the circumference, or base of the cone, relates to thesingle point at the top. The world, More wants to say, has no limits, nocenter, yet there are bounds in its not having any. More recognizes thecontradiction when he fancies “some strong arm’d Archer” at the wideworld’s edge (st. 37). Where shall he send his shafts? Into “merevacuity”? But More hardly seems aware of the inappropriateness of thecone: he uses a geometrical figure to locate space, time, and numberlessworlds within the universal sight of God, but matter is infinite,“distinct/ And yet proceeding from the Deitie” (st. 68). Obviously,the archer must forever be sending his arrows through an infinitelyexpanding surface. Nevertheless, the cone has great value as a metaphor,as a richly suggestive and fascinating conception. More, however, doesnot want to speak metaphorically; he is attempting to disclose truths,literal and plain, where pretty words and metaphors have no place. Evenas he is writing his most effective poetry, we are aware that More isdenying his poetic office; for he is pleading a reasoned case where thewords crack and strain, where poetic meaning gathers, only to bedenied.

But these objections momentarily disappear when More forgets himselfenough to let us feel his imagination and does not worry that we mightmiss the proofs of his philosophy.Democritus Platonissansconcludes with an apocalyptic vision wherein the poet imagines thereconciliation of infinite worlds and time within God’s immensity. He isalso attempting to harmonizeixPsychathanasia, where he rejected infinitude, with itssequelDemocritus Platonissans, where he has everywhere been declaringit; thus we should think of endless worlds as we should think of Natureand the Phoenix, dying yet ever regenerative, sustained by a “centrallpower/ Of hid spermatick life” which sucks “sweet heavenly juice” fromabove (st. 101). More closes his poem on a vision of harmony andceaseless energy, a most fit ending for one who dared to believethat the new philosophy sustained the old, that all coherence had notgone out of the world, but was always there, only waiting to bediscovered afresh in this latter age.

The University of British Columbia

NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The text of this edition is reproduced from a copy in the Henry E.Huntington Library.

Democritus Platonissans,

OR,

AN ESSAY

UPON THE

INFINITY OF WORLDS

OUT OF

Platonick Principles.

Hereunto is annexed

CUPIDS CONFLICT

together with

The Philosophers Devotion:

And a Particular Interpretation appertain-
ing to the three last books of the
Song of the Soul.

ByH. More Master of Arts, and Fellow of
Christs Colledge in Cambridge.

Ἀγαθὸς ἦντὸ πᾶν τόδε ὁ συνιστὰς, ἀγαθῷ δὲ οὐδεὶς περὶ οὐδενὸς οὐδέποτε ἐγγίνεταιφθόνος.Τούτου δ’ ἐκτὸς ὢν πάντα ὁτιμάλιστα ἐβουλήθη γενέσθαι παραπλήσια αὑτῷ. Plat.

Pythagoras Terram Planetam quendam esse censuit qui circa solem incentro mundi defixum converteretur, Pythagorans secuti sunt Philolaus,Seleucus, Cleanthes, &c. imòPLATOjam senex, ut narrat Theophrastus. Libert. Fromond, de Orbe terræimmobili.

CAMBRIDGE

Printed byRoger Daniel,Printer to
theUniversitie. 1646.

f thou standest notto the judgement of thine eye more then of thy reason, this fragment maypasse favourably, though in the neglectfull disguiseof a fragment; ifthe strangenesse of the argument prove no hinderance.INFINITIE ofWORLDS!A thing monstrous if assented to, and to be startled at, especiallyby them, whose thoughts this one have alwayes so engaged, that they canfind no leisure to think of any thing else. But I onely make a bareproposall to more acute judgements, of what my sportfull fancie, withpleasure hath suggested: following my old designe of furnishing mensminds with varietie of apprehensions concerning the most weightie pointsof Philosophie, that they may not seem rashly to have settled in thetruth, though it be the truth: a thing as ill beseemingPhilosophers, as hastie prejudicative sentence Politicall Judges. But ifI had relinquishd here my wonted self, in proving Dogmaticall,I should have found very noble Patronage for the cause among theancients,Epicurus,Democritus,Lucretius,&c. Or if justice may reach the dead, do them the right, asto shew, that though they be hooted at, by the Rout of the learned, asmen of monstrous conceits, they were either very wise or exceedingfortunate to light on so probable and specious an opinion, in whichnotwithstanding there is so much difficultie and seeminginconsistencie.

Nay and that sublime and subtil Mechanick too,DesChartes,though he seem to mince it must hold infinitude of worlds, or which isas harsh one infiniteone. For what is hismundus indefinitèextensus, butextensus infinitè? Else it sounds onelyinfinitus quoad nos butsimpliciter finitus. But ifany space be left out unstuffd with Atoms, it will hazard thedissipation of the whole frame of Nature into disjoynted dust. As may beproved by the Principles of his own Philosophie.[ii]||And that there is space whereever God is, or any actuall andself-subsistent Being, seems to me no plainer then one of theκοιναί ἔννοιαι.

For mine own part I must confesse these apprehensions do plainlyoppose what heretofore I have conceived; but I have sworn more faithfullfriendship with Truth then with myself. And therefore without allremorse lay batterie against mine own edifice: not sparing to shew howweak that is, that my self now deems not impregnably strong. I haveat the latter end of the last Canto ofPsychathanasia, notwithout triumph concluded, that the world hath not continuedabæterno, from this ground:

And this is in answer to an objection against my last argument of thesouls Immortalitie,viz. divine goodnesse, which I there makethe measure of his providence. That ground limits the essence of theworld as well as its duration, and satisfies the curiositie of theOpposer, by shewing the incompossibilitie in the Creature, not want ofgoodnesse in the Creatour to have staid the framing of the Universe. Butnow roused up by a new Philosophick furie, I answer thatdifficultie by taking away the Hypothesis of either the world or timebeing finite: defending the infinitude ofboth, which though I had done with agreat deal of vigour and life, and semblance of assent, it would haveagreed well enough with the free beat of Poesie, and might have passedfor a pleasant flourish: but the severitie of my own judgement, and sadGenius hath cast in many correctives and coolers into the Canto it self;so that it cannot amount to more then a discussion. And discussion is noprejudice but an honour to the truth: for then and never but then is sheVictorious. And what a glorious Trophee shall the finite world erectwhen it hath vanquished the Infinite; a Pygmee a Giant.

For the better understanding of the connexion of this Appendix, withthe Poem of the souls Immortalitie; I have taken off the laststanza’s thereof, and added some few new ones to them for a more easieand naturall leading to the present Canto.Psychathan. lib. 3. Cant.4.

Now Reader, thou art arrived to the Canto it self, from which I havekept thee off by too tedious Preface and Apologie, which is seldome madewithout consciousnesse of some fault, which I professe I find not in myself, unlesse this be it, that I am more tender of thy satisfaction thenmine own credit. As for that high sullen Poem,Cupids Conflict,I must leave it to thy candour and favourable censure. ThePhilosophers Devotion I cast in onely, that the latter pagesshould not be unfurnished.

H. M.

Nihil tamen frequentius inter Autores occurrit, quám ut omnia adeòex moduli ferè sensuum suorum æstiment, ut ea quæ insuper infinitisrerum spatiis extare possunt, sive superbè sive imprudenter rejiciant;quin & ea omnia in usum suum fabricata fuisse glorientur, perindefacientes ac si pediculi humanum caput, aut pulices sinum muliebrempropter se solos condita existimarent, eáque demum ex gradibussaltibúsve suis metirentur.The Lord Herbert in his De CausisErrorum.

De generali totius hujus mundi aspectabilis constructione ut rectèPhilosophemur duo sunt imprimis observanda: Unum ut attendentes adinfinitam Deipotentiam & bonitatem nè vereamur nimis ampla & pulchra &absoluta ejus opera imaginari: sed è contra caveamus, nè si quos fortèlimites nobis non certò cognitos, in ipsis supponamus, non satìsmagnificè de creatoris potentia sentire videamur.

Alterum, ut etiam caveamus, nè nimis superbè de nobis ipsissentiamus. Quod fieret non modò, si quos limites nobis nullâ cognitosratione, nec divinà revelatione, mundo vellemus affingere, tanquam sivis nostra cogitationis, ultra id quod à Deo revera factum est ferriposset; sed etiam maximè, si res omnes propter nos solos, ab illocreatas esse fingeremus.Renatus Des-Cartes in his Princip.Philosoph. the third part.

’Gainst boundlesse time th’ objections made,

And wast infinity

Of worlds, are with new reasons weigh’d,

Mens judgements are left free.

1

Hence, hence unhallowed ears and hearts more hard

Then Winter clods fast froze with Northern wind.

But most of all, foul tongue I thee discard

That blamest all that thy dark strait’ned mind,

Can not conceive: But that no blame thou find;

What e’re my pregnant Muse brings forth to light,

She’l not acknowledge to be of her kind,

Till Eagle-like she turn them to the sight

Of the eternall Word all deckt with glorybright.

2

Strange sights do straggle in my restlesse thoughts,

And lively forms with orient colours clad

Walk in my boundlesse mind, as men ybrought

Into some spacious room, who when they’ve had

A turn or two, go out, although unbad.

All these I see and know, but entertain

None to my friend but who’s most sober sad;

Although the time my roof doth them contain

Their pretence doth possesse me till they outagain.

3

And thus possest in silver trump I found

Their guise, their shape, their gesture and array.

But as in silver trumpet nought is found

When once the piercing sound is past away,

(Though while the mighty blast therein did stay,

Its tearing noise so terribly did shrill,

That it the heavens did shake, and earth dismay)

As empty I of what my flowing quill

In heedlesse hast elswhere, or here, may hap tospill.

4

For ’tis of force and not of a set will.

Ne dare my wary mind afford assent

To what is plac’d above all mortall skill.

But yet our various thoughts to represent

Each gentle wight will deem of good intent.

Wherefore with leave th’ infinitie I’ll sing

Of time, Of Space: or without leave; I’m brent

With eagre rage, my heart for joy doth spring,

And all my spirits move with pleasanttrembeling.

5

An inward triumph doth my soul up-heave

And spread abroad through endlesse ’spersed aire.

My nimble mind this clammie clod doth leave,

And lightly stepping on from starre to starre

Swifter then lightning, passeth wide and farre,

Measuring th’ unbounded Heavens and wastfull skie;

Ne ought she finds her passage to debarre,

For still the azure Orb as she draws nigh

Gives back, new starres appear, the worlds walls’fore her flie.

6

For what can stand that is so badly staid?

Well may that fall whose ground-work is unsure.

And what hath wall’d the world but thoughts unweigh’d

In freer reason? That antiquate, secure,

And easie dull conceit of corporature;

Of matter; quantitie, and such like gear

Hath made this needlesse, thanklesse inclosure,

Which I in full disdain quite up will tear

And lay all ope, that as things are they mayappear.

7

For other they appear from what they are

By reason that their Circulation

Cannot well represent entire from farre

Each portion of theCuspis of the Cone

(Whose nature is elsewhere more clearly shown)

I mean each globe, whether of glaring light

Or else opake, of which the earth is one.

If circulation could them well transmit

Numbers infinite of each would strike our ’stonishdsight;

8

All in just bignesse and right colours dight

But totall presence without all defect

’Longs onely to that Trinitie by right,

Ahad,Æon,Psyche with all graces deckt,

Whose nature well this riddle will detect;

A Circle whose circumference no where

Is circumscrib’d, whose Centre’s each where set,

But the low Cusp’s a figure circular,

Whose compasse is ybound, but centre’s everywhere.

9

Wherefore who’ll judge the limits of the world

By what appears unto our failing sight

Appeals to sense, reason down headlong hurld

Out of her throne by giddie vulgar might.

But here base senses dictates they will dight

With specious title of Philosophie,

And stiffly will contend their cause is right

From rotten rolls of school antiquitie,

Who constantly denie corporall Infinitie.

10

But who can prove their corporalitie

Since matter which thereto’s essentiall

If rightly sifted ’s but a phantasie.

And quantitie who’s deem’d Originall

Is matter, must with matter likewise fall.

What ever is, is Life and Energie

From God, who is th’ Originall of all;

Who being everywhere doth multiplie

His own broad shade that endlesse throughout alldoth lie.

11

He from the last projection of light

Ycleep’dShamajim, which is liquid fire

(ItÆther eke and centrallTasis hight)

Hath made each shining globe and clumperd mire

Of dimmer Orbs. For Nature doth inspire

Spermatick life, but of a different kind.

Hence those congenit splendour doth attire

And lively heat, these darknesse dead doth bind,

And without borrowed rayes they be both cold andblind.

12

All these be knots of th’ universall stole

Of sacredPsyche; which at first was fine,

Pure, thin, and pervious till hid powers did pull

Together in severall points and did encline

The nearer parts in one clod to combine.

Those centrall spirits that the parts did draw

The measure of each globe did then define,

Made things impenetrable here below,

Gave colour, figure, motion, and each usualllaw.

13

And what is done in this Terrestriall starre

The same is done in every Orb beside.

Each flaming Circle that we see from farre

Is but a knot inPsyches garment tide.

From that lax shadow cast throughout the wide

And endlesse world, that low’st projection

Of universall life each thing’s deriv’d

What e’re appeareth in corporeall fashion;

For body’s but this spirit, fixt, grosse byconspissation.

14

And that which doth conspissate active is;

Wherefore not matter but some living sprite

Of nimble Nature which this lower mist

And immense field of Atoms doth excite,

And wake into such life as best doth fit

With his own self. As we change phantasies

The essence of our soul not chang’d a whit,

So do these Atoms change their energies

Themselves unchanged into new Centreïties.

15

And as our soul’s not superficially

Colourd by phantasms, nor doth them reflect

As doth a looking-glasse such imag’rie

As it to the beholder doth detect:

No more are these lightly or smear’d or deckt

With form or motion which in them we see,

But from their inmost Centre they project

Their vitall rayes, not merely passive be,

But by occasion wak’d rouze up themselves onhigh.

16

So that they’re life, form, sprite, not matter pure,

For matter pure is a pure nullitie,

What nought can act is nothing, I am sure;

And if all act, that is they’ll not denie

But all that is is form: so easily

By what is true, and by what they embrace

For truth, their feigned Corporalitie

Will vanish into smoke, but on I’ll passe,

More fully we have sung this in another place.

17

Wherefore more boldly now to represent

The nature of the world, how first things were

How now they are: This endlesse large Extent

Of lowest life (which I styled whileere

TheCuspis of theCone that’s every where)

Was first all dark, till in this spacious Hall

Hideous through silent horrour torches clear

And lamping lights bright shining over all

Were set up in due distances proportionall.

18

Innumerable numbers of fair Lamps

Were rightly ranged in this hollow hole,

To warm the world and chace the shady damps

Of immense darknesse, rend her pitchie stole

Into short rags more dustie dimme then coal.

Which pieces then in severall were cast

(Abhorred reliques of that vesture foul)

Upon the Globes that round those torches trac’d,

Which still fast on them stick for all they run sofast.

19

Such an one is that which mortall men call Night,

A little shred of that unbounded shade.

And such a Globe is that which Earth is hight;

By witlesse Wizzards the sole centre made

Of all the world, and on strong pillars staid.

And such a lamp or light is this our Sun,

Whose firie beams the scortched Earth invade.

But infinite such as he, in heaven won,

And more then infinite Earths about those Suns dorun;

20

And to speak out: though I detest the sect

OfEpicurus for their manners vile,

Yet what is true I may not well reject.

Truth’s incorruptible, ne can the style

Of vitious pen her sacred worth defile.

If we no more of truth should deign t’ embrace

Then what unworthy mouths did never soyl,

No truths at all mongst men would finden place

But make them speedie wings and back to Heavenapace.

21

I will not say our world is infinite,

But that infinitie of worlds ther be.

The Centre of our world’s the lively light

Of the warm sunne, the visible Deitie

Of this externall Temple.Mercurie

Next plac’d and warm’d more throughly by his rayes,

Right nimbly ’bout his golden head doth flie:

ThenVenus nothing slow about him strayes,

And next ourEarth though seeming sad fullspritely playes.

22

And after herMars rangeth in a round

With firie locks and angry flaming eye,

And next to him mildJupiter is found,

But Saturn cold wons in our utmost skie.

The skirts of his large Kingdome surely lie

Near to the confines of some other worlds

Whose Centres are the fixed starres on high,

’Bout which as their own proper Suns are hurld

Joves,Earths andSaturns;round on their own axes twurld.

23

Little or nothing are those starres to us

Which in the azure Evening gay appear

(I mean for influence) but judicious

Nature and carefull Providence her dear

And matchlesse work did so contrive whileere,

That th’ Hearts or Centres in the wide world pight

Should such a distance each to other bear,

That the dull Planets with collated light

By neighbour suns might cheared be in dampishnight.

24

And as the Planets in our world (of which

The sun’s the heart and kernell) do receive

Their nightly light from suns that do enrich

Their sable mantle with bright gemmes, and give

A goodly splendour, and sad men relieve

With their fair twinkling rayes, so our worlds sunne

Becomes a starre elsewhere, and doth derive

Joynt light with others, cheareth all that won

In those dim duskish Orbs round other suns thatrun.

25

Thisisthe parergon of each noble fire

Of neighbour worlds to be the nightly starre,

But their main work is vitall heat t’ inspire

Into the frigid spheres that ’bout them fare,

Which of themselves quite dead and barren are.

But by the wakening warmth of kindly dayes,

And the sweet dewie nights they well declare

Their seminall virtue in due courses raise

Long hidden shapes and life, to their great Makerspraise.

26

These with their suns I severall worlds do call,

Whereof the number I deem infinite:

Else infinite darknesse were in this great Hall

Of th’ endlesse Universe; For nothing finite

Could put that immense shadow unto flight.

But if that infinite Suns we shall admit,

Then infinite worlds follow in reason right.

For every Sun with Planets must be fit,

And have some mark for his farre-shining shafts tohit.

27

But if he shine all solitarie, alone,

What mark isleft,? what aimed scope or end

Of his existence? wherefore every one

Hath a due number of dim Orbs that wend

Around their centrall fire. But wrath will rend

This strange composure back’d with reason stout

And rasher tongues right speedily will spend

Their forward censure, that my wits run out

On wool-gathering, through infinite spaces allabout.

28

What sober man will dare once to avouch

An infinite number of dispersed starres?

This one absurdity will make him crouch

And eat his words; Division nought impairs

The former whole, nor he augments that spares.

Strike every tenth out, that which doth remain,

An equall number with the former shares,

And let the tenth alone, th’ whole nought doth gain,

For infinite to infinite is ever the same.

29

The tenth is infinite as the other nine,

Or else, nor they, nor all the ten entire

Are infinite. Thus one infinite doth adjoyn

Others unto it and still riseth higher.

And if those single lights hither aspire,

This strange prodigious inconsistencie

Groweth still stranger, if each fixed fire

(I mean each starre) prove Sunnes, and Planets flie

About their flaming heads amid the throngedskie.

30

For whatsoever that their number be

Whether by seavens, or eighths, or fives, or nines,

They round each fixed lamp; Infinity

Will be redoubled thus by many times.

Besides each greater Planet th’ attendance finds

Of lesser. OurEarths handmaid is the Moon,

Which to her darkned side right duly shines,

AndJove hath foure, as hath been said aboven,

AndSaturn more then foure if the plaintruth were known.

31

And if these globes be regions of life

And severall kinds of plants therein do grow,

Grasse, flowers, hearbs, trees, which the impartiall knife

Of all consuming Time still down doth mow,

And new again doth in succession show:

Which also ’s done in flies, birds, men and beasts;

Adde sand, pearls, pebbles, that the ground do strow

Leaves, quills, hairs, thorns, blooms, you may think the rest

Their kinds by mortall penne can not well beexprest:

32

And if their kinds no man may reckon well,

The summe of successive particulars

No mind conceive nor tongue can ever tell.

And yet this mist of numbers (as appears)

Belongs to one of these opacous sphears.

Suppose thisEarth; what then will all those Rounds

Produce? NoAtlas such a load upbears.

In this huge endlesse heap o’rewhelmed, drownd,

Choak’d, stifled, lo! I lie, breathlesse, evenquite confound.

33

Yet give me space a while but to respire,

And I my self shal fairly well out-wind;

Keep this position true, unhurt, entire,

That you no greater difficulty find

In this new old opinion here defin’d

Of infinite worlds, then one world doth imply.

For if we do with steddy patience mind

All is resolv’d int’ one absurdity,

The grant of something greater then infinitie.

34

That God is infinite all men confesse,

And that the Creature is some realty

Besides Gods self, though infinitely lesse.

Joyn now the world unto the Deity.

What? is there added no more entitie

By this conjunction, then there was before?

Is the broad breasted earth? the spacious skie

Spangled with silver light, and burning Ore?

And the wide bellowing seas, whose boyling billowsroar,

35

Are all these nothing? But you will reply;

As is the question so we ought restrain

Our answer unto Corporeity.

But that the phantasie of the body’s vain

I did before unto you maken plain.

But that no man depart unsatisfi’d

A while this Universe here will we feigne

Corporeall, till we have gainly tride.

If ought that’s bodily may infinite abide.

36

What makes a body saving quantity?

What quantitie unlesse extension?

Extension if ’t admit infinity

Bodies admit boundlesse dimension.

That some extension forward on doth run

Withouten limits, endlesse, infinite

Is plane from Space, that ever paceth on

Unstop’d, unstaid, till it have filled quite

That immense infinite Orb where God himself dothsit.

37

But yet more sensibly this truth to show

If space be ended set upon that end

Some strong arm’d Archer with his Parthian bow,

That from that place with speedy force may send

His fleeter shafts, and so still forward wend.

Where? When shall he want room his strength to trie?

But here perversly subtill you’l contend

Nothing can move in mere vacuity,

And space is nought, so not extended properly.

38

To solve these knots I must call down from high

Some heavenly help, feather with angels wing

The sluggish arrow. If it will not flie,

Sent out from bow stiff-bent with even string,

Let angels on their backs it thither bring

Where your free mind appointed had before,

And then hold on, till in your travelling

You be well wearied, finding ever more

Free passage for their flight, and what they flyingbore.

39

Now to that shift that sayes Vacuity

Is nought, and therefore not at all extent

We answer thus: There is a distancy

In empty space, though we be well content

To balk that question (for we never meant

Such needlesse niceties) whether that it be

A reall being; yet that there’s parts distent

One from another, no mans phantasie

Can e’re reject if well he weigh’t and warily.

40

For now conceive the aire and azure skie

All swept away from Saturn to the Sunne,

Which each is to be wrought by him on high.

Then in this place let all the Planets runne

(As erst they did before this feat was done)

If not by nature, yet by divine power,

Ne one hairs breadth their former circuits shun

And still for fuller proof, th’ Astronomer

Observe their hights as in the empty heavens theyscoure.

41

Will then their Parallaxes prove all one

Or none, or different still as before?

If so, their distances by mortall men

Must be acknowledg’d such as were of yore,

Measur’d by leagues, miles, stades, nor lesse nor more

From circuit unto circuit shall be found

Then was before the sweeping of the floor.

That distance therefore hath most certain ground

In emptinesse we may conclude with reasonsound.

42

If distance now so certainly attend

All emptinesse (as also mensuration

Attendeth distance) distance without end

Is wide disperst above imagination

(For emptinesse is void of limitation)

And this unbounded voidnesse doth admit

The least and greatest measures application;

The number thus of the greatest that doth fit

This infinite void space is likewise infinite.

43

But what so e’re that infinite number be,

A lesser number will a number give

So farre exceeding in infinity

That number as this measure we conceive

To fall short of the other. But I’ll leave

This present way and a new course will trie

Which at the same mark doth as fully drive

And with a great deal more facility.

Look on this endlesse Space as one wholequantity.

44

Which in your mind int’ equall parts divide,

Tens, hundreds, thousands or what pleaseth best.

Each part denominate doth still abide

An infinite portion, else nor all the rest

Makes one infinitude.

For if one thousandth part may be defin’d

By finite measures eas’ly well exprest,

A myriad suppose of miles assign’d

Then to a thousand myriads is the wholeconfin’d.

45

Wherefore this wide and wast Vacuity,

Which endlesse is outstretched thorough all,

And lies even equall with the Deity,

Nor is a thing meerly imaginall,

(For it doth farre mens phantasies forestall

Nothing beholden to our devicefull thought)

This inf’nite voidnesse as much our mind dothgall

And has as great perplexities ybrought

As if this empty space with bodies wereyfraught.

46

Nor have we yet the face once to denie

But that it is although we mind it not;

For all once minded such perplexity

It doth create to puzzled reason, that

She sayes and unsayes, do’s she knows not what.

Why then should we the worlds infinity

Misdoubt, because when as we contemplate

Its nature, such strange inconsistency

And unexpected sequels, we therein descry?

47

Who dare gainsay but God is every where

Unbounded, measurelesse, all infinite;

Yet the same difficulties meet us here

Which erst us met and did so sore affright

With their strange vizards. This will followright

Where ever we admit infinity

Every denominated part proves streight

A portion infinite, which if it be,

One infinite will into myriads multiply.

48

But with new argument to draw more near

Our purpos’d end. If God’s omnipotent

And this omnipotent God be every where,

Where e’re he is then can he eas’ly vent

His mighty virtue thorough all extent.

What then shall hinder but a roscid aire

With gentle heat each where be ’sperst and sprent.

Unlesse omnipotent power we will empair,

And say that empty space his working candebarre.

49

Where now this one supposed world is pight

Was not that space at first all vain and void?

Nor ought said; no, when he said,Let ’t be light.

Was this one space better then all beside,

And more obedient to what God decreed?

Or would not all that endlesse emptinesse

Gladly embrac’d (if he had ever tride)

His just command? and what might come to passe

Implies no contradictious inconsistentnesse.

50

Wherefore this precious sweet Ethereall dew

For ought we know God each where did distill,

And thorough all that hollow voidnesse threw

And the wide gaping drought therewith did fill,

His endlesse overflowing goodnesse spill

In every place; which streight he did contrive

Int’ infinite severall worlds, as his best skill

Did him direct and creatures could receive

For matter infinite needs infinite worlds mustgive.

51

The Centre of each severall world’s a sunne

With shining beams and kindly warming heat,

About whose radiant crown the Planets runne,

Like reeling moths around a candle light,

These all together, one world I conceit.

And that even infinite such worlds there be,

That inexhausted Good that God is bight

A full sufficient reason is to me,

Who simple Goodnesse make the highest Deity.

52

Als make himself the key of all his works

And eke the measure of his providence;

The piercing eye of truth to whom nought lurks

But lies wide ope unbar’d of all pretense.

But frozen hearts! away! flie farre from hence,

Unlesse you’l thaw at this celestiall fire

And melt into one minde and holy sense

With Him that doth all heavenly hearts inspire,

So may you with my soul in one assent conspire.

53

But what’s within, uneath is to convey

To narrow vessels that are full afore.

And yet this truth as wisely as I may

I will insinuate, from senses store

Borrowing a little aid. Tell me therefore

When you behold with your admiring eyes

Heavens Canopie all to bespangled o’re

With sprinkled starres, what can you well devize

Which causen may such carelesse order in theskies?

54

A peck of peasen rudely poured out

On plaister flore, from hasty heedlesse hond

Which lie all carelesse scattered about,

To sight do in as seemly order stond,

As those fair glistering lights in heaven are found.

If onely for this world they were intended,

Nature would have adorn’d this azure round

With better art, and easily have mended

This harsh disord’red order, and more beautylended.

55

But though these lights do seem so rudely thrown

And scattered throughout the spacious skie,

Yet each most seemly sits in his own Throne

In distance due and comely Majesty;

And round their lordly seats their servants hie

Keeping a well-proportionated space

One from another, doing chearfully

Their dayly task. No blemmish may deface

The worlds in severall deckt with all art andgrace.

56

But the appearance of the nightly starres

Is but the by-work of each neighbour sun;

Wherefore lesse marvell if it lightly shares

Of neater Art; and what proportion

Were fittest for to distance one from one

(Each world I mean from other) is not clear.

Wherefore it must remain as yet unknown

Why such perplexed distances appear

Mongst the dispersed lights in Heaven thrown here& there.

57

Again, that eminent similitude

Betwixt the starres and Phœbus fixed light,

They being both with steddinesse indu’d,

No whit removing whence they first were pight,

No serious man will count a reason slight

To prove them both, both fixed suns and starres

And Centres all of severall worlds by right,

For right it is that none a sun debarre

Of Planets which his just and due retinue are.

58

If starres be merely starres not centrall lights

Why swell they into so huge bignesses?

For many (as Astronomers do write)

Our sun in bignesse many times surpasse.

If both their number and their bulks were lesse

Yet lower placed, light and influence

Would flow as powerfully, and the bosome presse

Of the impregned Earth, that fruit from hence

As fully would arise, and lordly affluence.

59

Wherefore these fixed Fires mainly attend

Their proper charge in their own Universe,

And onely by the by of court’sie lend

Light to our world, as our world doth reverse

His thankfull rayes so farre as he can pierce

Back unto other worlds. But farre aboven

Further then furthest thought of man can traverse,

Still are new worlds aboven and still aboven.

In the endlesse hollow Heaven, and each world hathhis sun.

60

An hint of this we have in winter-nights,

When reason may see clearer then our eye,

Small subtil starres appear unto our sights

As thick as pin-dust scattered in the skie.

Here we accuse our seeing facultie

Of weaknesse, and our sense of foul deceit,

We do accuse and yet we know not why.

But the plain truth is, from a vaster hight

The numerous upper worlds amaze our dazzledsight.

61

Now sith so farre as sense can ever trie

We find new worlds, that still new worlds there be,

And round about in infinite numbers lie,

Further then reach of mans weak phantasie

(Without suspition of temeritie)

We may conclude; as well as men conclude

That there is aire farre ’bove the mountains high,

Or that th’ Earth a sad substance doth include

Even to the Centre with like qualities indu’d.

62

For who did ever the Earths Centre pierce,

And felt or sand or gravell with his spade

At such a depth? what Histories rehearse

That ever wight did dare for to invade

Her bowels but one mile in dampish shade?

Yet I’ll be bold to say that few or none

But deem this globe even to the bottome made

Of solid earth, and that her nature’s one

Throughout, though plain experience hath it nevershown.

63

But sith sad earth so farre as they have gone

They still descrie, eas’ly they do inferre

Without all check of reason, were they down

Never so deep, like substance would appear,

Ne dream of any hollow horrour there.

My mind with like uncurb’d facilitie

Concludes from what by sight is seen so clear

That ther’s no barren wast vacuitie

Above the worlds we see, but still new worlds therelie,

64

And still and still even to infinitie.

Which point since I so fitly have propos’d,

Abating well the inconsistencie

Of harsh infinitude therein supposd

And prov’d by reasons never to be loos’d

That infinite space and infinite worlds there be;

This load laid down, I’m freely now dispos’d

Awhile to sing of times infinitie,

May infinite Time afford me but his smallestfee.

65

For smallest fee of time will serve my turn

This part for to dispatch, sith endlesse space

(Whose perplext nature well mans brains might turn,

And weary wits disorder and misplace)

I have already passed: for like case

Is in them both. He that can well untie

The knots that in those infinite worlds found place,

May easily answer each perplexitie

Of these worlds infinite matters endlessedurancie.

66

TheCuspis and theBasis of theCone

Were both at once dispersed every where;

But the pureBasis that is God alone:

Else would remotest sights as bigge appear

Unto our eyes as if we stood them near.

And if an Harper harped in the Moon,

His silver sound would touch our tickled eare:

Or if one hollowed from highest Heaven aboven,

In sweet still Evening-tide, his voice would hitherroam.

67

This all would be if theCuspe of theCone

Were very God. Wherefore I rightly ’t deem

Onely a Creaturall projection,

Which flowing yet from God hath ever been,

Fill’d the vast empty space with its large streem.

But yet it is not totall every where

As was even now by reason rightly seen:

Wherefore not God, whose nature doth appear

Entirely omnipresent, weigh’d with judgementclear,

68

A reall infinite matter, distinct

And yet proceeding from the Deitie

Although with different form as then untinct

Has ever been from all Eternitie.

Now what delay can we suppose to be,

Since matter alway was at hand prepar’d

Before the filling of the boundlesse skie

With framed Worlds; for nought at all debar’d,

Nor was His strength ungrown, nor was His strengthempair’d.

69

How long would God be forming of a flie?

Or the small wandring moats that play i’ th’ sun?

Least moment well will serve none can denie,

HisFiat spoke and streight the thing is done.

And cannot He make all the World as soon?

For in each Atom of the matter wide

The totall Deitie doth entirely won,

His infinite presence doth therein reside,

And in this presence infinite powers do everabide.

70

Wherefore at once from all eternitie

The infinite number of these Worlds He made,

And will conserve to all infinitie,

And still drive on their ever-moving trade,

And steddy hold what ever must be staid;

Ne must one mite be minish’d of the summe,

Ne must the smallest atom ever fade,

But still remain though it may change its room;

This truth abideth strong from everlastingdoom.

71

Ne fear I what hard sequel after-wit

Will draw upon me; that the number’s one

Of years, moneths, dayes, houres, and of minutes fleet

Which from eternitie have still run on.

I plainly did confesse awhile agone

That be it what it will that’s infinite

More infinites will follow thereupon,

But that all infinites do justly fit

And equall be, my reason did not yet admit.

72

But as my emboldened mind, I know not how,

In empty Space and pregnant Deitie

Endlesse infinitude dares to allow,

Though it begets the like perplexitie:

So now my soul drunk with Divinitie,

And born away above her usuall bounds

With confidence concludes infinitie

Of Time of Worlds, of firie flaming Rounds;

Which sight in sober mood my spirits quiteconfounds.

73

And now I do awhile but interspire

A torrent of objections ’gainst me beat,

My boldnesse to represse and strength to tire.

But I will wipe them off like summer sweat,

And make their streams streight back again retreat.

If that these worlds, say they, were ever made

From infinite time, how comes ’t to passe that yet

Art is not perfected, nor metalls fade,

Nor mines of grimie coal low-hid in grieslyshade.

74

But the remembrance of the ancient Floud

With ease will wash such arguments away.

Wherefore with greater might I am withstood.

The strongest stroke wherewith they can assay

To vanquish me is this; The Date or Day

Of the created World, which all admit;

Nor may my modest Muse this truth gainsay

In holy Oracles so plainly writ.

Wherefore the Worlds continuance is notinfinite.

75

Now lend me,Origen! a little wit

This sturdy stroke right fairly to avoid,

Lest that my rasher rymes, while they ill fit

WithMoses pen, men justly may deride

And well accuse of ignorance or pride.

But thou, O holy Sage! with piercing sight

Who readst those sacred rolls, and hast well tride

With searching eye thereto what fitteth right

Thy self of former Worlds right learnedly dostwrite:

76

To weet that long ago these Earths have been

Peopled with men and beasts before this Earth,

And after this shall others be again

And other beasts and other humane birth.

Which once admit, no strength that reason bear’th

Of this worlds Date and Adams efformation,

Another Adam once received breath

And still another in endlesse repedation,

And this must perish once by finallconflagration.

77

Witnesse ye Heavens if what I say’s not true,

Ye flaming Comets wandering on high,

And new fixt starres found in that Circle blue,

The one espide in glitteringCassiopie,

The other near toOphiuchus thigh.

Both bigger then the biggest starres that are,

And yet as farre remov’d from mortall eye

As are the furthest, so those Arts declare

Unto whose reaching sight Heavens mysteries liebare.

78

Wherefore these new-seen lights were greater once

By many thousand times then this our sphear

Wherein we live, ’twixt good and evil chance.

Which to my musing mind doth strange appear

If those large bodies then first shaped were.

For should so goodly things so soon decay?

Neither did last the full space of two year.

Wherefore I cannot deem that their first day

Of being, when to us they sent out shining ray.

79

But that they were created both of old,

And each in his due time did fair display

Themselves in radiant locks more bright then gold,

Or silver sheen purg’d from all drossie clay.

But how they could themselves in this array

Expose to humane sight, who did before

Lie hid, is that which well amazen may

The wisest man and puzzle evermore:

Yet my unwearied thoughts this search could notgive o’re.

80

Which when I’d exercis’d in long pursuit

To finden out what might the best agree

With warie reason, at last I did conclude

That there’s no better probabilitie

Can be produc’d of that strange prodigie,

But that some mighty Planet that doth run

About some fixed starre inCassiopie

AsSaturn paceth round about our Sun,

Unusuall light and bignesse by strange fate hadwonne.

81

Which I conceive no gainer way is done

Then by the siezing of devouring fire

On that dark Orb, which ’fore but dimly shone

With borrowed light, not lightened entire,

But halfed like the Moon.

And while the busie flame did sieze throughout,

And search the bowels of the lowest mire

Of thatSaturnian Earth; a mist broke out,

And immensemounting smoke arose all round about.

82

Which being gilded with the piercing rayes

Of its own sun and every neighbour starre,

It soon appear’d with shining silver blaze,

And then gan first be seen of men from farre.

Besides that firie flame that was so narre

The Planets self, which greedily did eat

The wastning mold, did contribute a share

Unto this brightnesse; and what I conceit

Of this starre doth with that ofOphiuchussit.

83

And like I would adventure to pronounce

Of all the Comets that above the Moon,

Amidst the higher Planets rudely dance

In course perplex, but that from this rash doom

I’m bett off by their beards and tails farre strown

Along the skie, pointing still opposite

Unto the sun, however they may roam;

Wherefore a cluster of small starres unite

These meteors some do deem, perhaps with judgementright.

84

And that these tayls are streams of the suns light

Breaking through their near bodies as through clouds.

Besides the Optick glasse has shown to sight

The dissolution of these starrie crouds.

Which thing if ’t once be granted and allow’d,

I think without all contradiction

They may conclude these Meteors are routs

Of wandring starres, which though they one by one

Cannot be seen, yet joyn’d, cause this strangevision.

85

And yet methinks, in my devicefull mind

Some reasons that may happily represse

These arguments it’s not uneath to find.

For how can the suns rayes that be transmisse

Through these loose knots in Comets, well expresse

Their beards or curld tayls utmost incurvation?

Beside, the conflux and congeries

Of lesser lights a double augmentation

Implies, and ’twixt them both a lesseningcoarctation.

86

For when as once these starres are come so nigh

As to seem one, the Comet must appear

In biggest show, because more loose they lie

Somewhat spread out, but as they draw more near

The compasse of his head away must wear,

Till he be brought to his least magnitude;

And then they passing crosse, he doth repair

Himself, and still from his last losse renew’d

Grows till he reach the measure which we first hadview’d.

87

And then farre distanc’d they bid quite adiew,

Each holding on in solitude his way.

Ne any footsteps in the empty Blew

Is to be found of that farre-shining ray.

Which processe sith no man did yet bewray,

It seems unlikely that the Comets be

Synods of starres that in wide Heaven stray.

Their smallnesse eke and numerositie

Encreaseth doubt and lessens probabilitie.

88

A cluster of them makes not half a Moon,

What should such tennis-balls do in the skie?

And few ’ll not figure out the fashion

Of those round firie meteors on high.

Ne ought their beards much move us, that do lie

Ever cast forward from the Morning sunne,

Nor back cast tayls turn’d to our Evening-eye,

That fair appear when as the day is done.

This matter may lie hid in the starres shadowedCone.

89

For in these Planets conflagration,

Although the smoke mount up exactly round,

Yet by the suns irradiation

Made thin and subtil no where else its found

By sight, save in the dim and duskish bound

Of the projected Pyramid opake,

Opake with darknesse, smoke and mists unsound.

Yet gilded like a foggie cloud doth make

Reflection of fair light that doth our sensestake.

90

This is the reason of that constant site

Of Comets tayls and beards: And that their show’s

Not pure Pyramidall, nor their ends seem streight

But bow’d like brooms, is from the winds that blow,

I mean Ethereall winds, such as below

Men finden under th’ Equinoctiall line.

Their widend beards this aire so broad doth strow

Incurvate, and or more or lesse decline:

If not, let sharper wits more subtly heredivine.

91

But that experiment of the Optick glasse

The greatest argument of all I deem,

Ne can I well encounter nor let passe

So strong a reason if I may esteem

The feat withouten fallacie to been,

Nor judge these little sparks and subtile lights

Some auncient fixed starres though now first seen,

That near the ruin’d Comets place were pight,

On which that Optic instrument by chance didlight.

92

Nor finally an uncouth after-sport

Of th’ immense vapours that the searching fire

Had boyled out, which now themselves consort

In severall parts and closely do conspire,

Clumper’d in balls of clouds and globes entire

Of crudled smoke and heavy clunging mists;

Which when they’ve staid awhile at last expire;

But while they stay any may see that lists

So be that Optick Art his naturall sightassists.

93

If none of these wayes I may well decline

The urging weight of this hard argument,

Worst is but parting stakes and thus define:

Some Comets be but single Planets brent,

Others a synod joyn’d in due consent:

And that no new found Meteors they are:

Ne further may my wary mind assent

From one single experience solitaire,

Till all-discovering Time shall further truthdeclare.

94

But for the new fixt starres there’s no pretence,

Nor beard nor tail to take occasion by,

To bring in that unluckie inference

Which weaken might this new built mysterie.

Certes in raging fire they both did frie.

A signe whereof you rightly may aread

Their colours changeable varietie

First clear and white, then yellow, after red,

Then blewly pale, then duller still, till perfectdead.

95

And as the order of these colours went,

So still decreas’d that Cassiopean starre,

Till at the length to sight it was quite spent:

Which observations strong reasons are,

Consuming fire its body did empare

And turn to ashes. And the like will be

In all the darksome Planets wide and farre.

Ne can our Earth from this state standen free

A Planet as the rest, and Planets fate musttrie.

96

Ne let the tender heart too harshly deem

Of this rude sentence: for what rigour more

Is in consuming fire then drowning stream

Of Noahs floud which all creaturs choak’d of yore,

Saving those few that were kept safe in store

In that well builded ship? All else beside

Men, birds, and beasts, the lion, buck, and bore

Dogs, kine, sheep, horses all that did abide

Upon the spacious earth, perish’d in waterswide.

97

Nor let the slow and misbelieving wight

Doubt how the fire on the hard earth may seize;

No more then how those waters erst did light

Upon the sinfull world. For as the seas

Boyling with swelling waves aloft did rise,

And met with mighty showers and pouring rain

From Heavens spouts; so the broad flashing skies

Thickned with brimstone and clouds of fiery bain

Shall meet with raging Etna’s and Vesuviusflame.

98

The burning bowels of this wasting ball

Shall gullup up great flakes of rolling fire,

And belch out pitchie flames, till over all

Having long rag’d, Vulcan himself shall tire

And (th’ earth an ashheap made) shall then expire:

Here Nature laid asleep in her own Urn

With gentle rest right easly will respire,

Till to her pristine task she do return

As fresh as Phenix young under th’ ArabianMorn.

99

O happy they that then the first are born,

While yet the world is in her vernall pride:

For old corruption quite away is worn

As metall pure so is her mold well tride.

Sweet dews, cool-breathing airs, and spaces wide

Of precious spicery wafted with soft wind:

Fair comely bodies goodly beautifi’d

Snow-limb’d, rose-cheek’d, ruby-lip’d, pearl-ted,star eyn’d

Their parts each fair in fit proportion allconbin’d.

100

For all the while her purged ashes rest

These rellicks dry suck in the heavenly dew,

And roscid Manna rains upon her breast,

And fills with sacred milk sweet fresh and new,

Where all take life and doth the world renew;

And then renew’d with pleasure be yfed.

A green soft mantle doth her bosome strew

With fragrant herbs and flowers embellished,

Where without fault or shame all living creaturesbed.

101

Ne ought we doubt how Nature may recover

In her own ashes long time buried,

For nought can ever consume that centrall power

Of hid spermatick life, which lies not dead

In that rude heap, but safely covered;

And doth by secret force suck from above

Sweet heavenly juice, and therewith nourished

Till her just bulk, she doth her life emprove,

Made mother of much children that about hermove.

102

Witnesse that uncouth bird of Arabie

Which out of her own ruines doth revive

With all th’ exploits of skillfull Chymistrie,

Such as novulgar wit can well believe.

Let universall Nature witnesse give

That what I sing ’s no feigned forgerie.

A needlesse task new fables to contrive,

But what I sing is seemly verity

Well suting with right reason and Philosophie.

103

But the fit time of this mutation

No man can finden out with all his pains.

For the small sphears of humane reason run

Too swift within his narrow compast brains.

But that vast Orb of Providence contains

A wider period;turneth still and slow.

Yet at the last his aimed end he gains.

And sure at last a fire will overflow

The aged Earth, and all must into ashes go.

104

Then all the stately works and monuments

Built on this bottome shall to ruine fall.

And all those goodly statues shall be brent

Which were erect to the memoriall

Of Kings Kæsars, ne may better ’fall

The boastfull works of brave Poetick pride

That promise life and fame perpetuall;

Ne better fate may these poor lines abide.

Betide what will to what may live no lengertide!

105

This is the course that never-dying Nature

Might ever hold from all Eternitie,

Renuing still the faint decayed creature

Which would grow stark and drie as aged tree,

Unlesse by wise preventing Destinie

She were at certain periods of years

Reduced back unto her Infancie,

Which well fram’d argument (as plain appears)

My ship from those hard rocks and shelves rightsafely stears.

106

Lo! now my faithfull muse hath represented

Both frames of Providence to open view,

And hath each point in orient colours painted

Not to deceive the sight with seeming shew

But earnest to give either part their due;

Now urging th’ uncouth strange perplexitie

Of infinite worlds and Time, then of a new

Softening that harsher inconsistencie

To fit the immense goodnesse of the Deity.

107

And here by curious men ’t may be expected

That I this knot with judgement grave decide,

And then proceed to what else was objected.

But, ah! What mortall wit may dare t’ areed

Heavens counsels in eternall horrour hid?

And Cynthius pulls me by my tender ear

Such signes I must observe with wary heed:

Wherefore my restlesse Muse at length forbear.

Thy silver sounded Lute hang up in silencehere.

Cl.Mela my dear! why been thy looks sosad

As if thy gentle heart were sunk with care?

Impart thy case; for be it good or bad

Friendship in either will bear equall share.

Mel. Not so;Cleanthes, for if bad itbe

My self must bleed afresh by wounding thee.

But what it is, my slow, uncertain wit

Cannot well judge. But thou shalt sentence give

How manfully of late my self I quit,

When with that lordly lad by chance I strive:

Cl. Of friendshipMela! let’s thatstory hear.

Mel. Sit downCleanthes then, and lendthine ear.

Upon a day as best did please my mind

Walking abroad amidst the verdant field

Scattering my carefull thoughts i’ th’ wanton wind

The pleasure of my path so farre had till’d

My feeble feet that without timely rest

Uneath it were to reach my wonted nest.

In secret shade farre moved from mortals sight

In lowly dale my wandring limbs I laid

On the cool grasse where Natures pregnant wit

A goodly bower of thickest trees had made.

Amongst the leaves the chearfull birds did fare

And sweetly carrol’d to the echoing air.

Hard at my feet ran down a crystall spring

Which did the cumbrous pebbles hoarsly chide

For standing in the way. Though murmuring

The broken stream his course did rightly guide

And strongly pressing forward with disdain

The grassie flore divided into twain.

The place a while did feed my foolish eye

As being new, and eke mine idle ear

Did listen oft to that wild harmonie

And oft my curious phansie would compare

How well agreed the Brooks low muttering Base,

With the birds trebbles pearch’d on higherplace.

But senses objects soon do glut the soul,

Or rather weary with their emptinesse;

So I, all heedlesse how the waters roll

And mindlesse of the mirth the birds expresse,

Into my self ’gin softly to retire

After hid heavenly pleasures to enquire.

While I this enterprize do entertain;

Lo! on the other side in thickest bushes

A mighty noise! with that a naked swain

With blew and purple wings streight rudely rushes.

He leaps down light upon the flowry green,

Like sight before mine eyes had never seen.

At’s snowy back the boy a quiver wore

Right fairly wrought and gilded all with gold.

A silver bow in his left hand he bore,

And in his right a ready shaft did hold.

Thus armed stood he and betwixt us tway

The labouring brook did break his toilsome way.

The wanton lad whose sport is others pain

Did charge his bended bow with deadly dart,

And drawing to the head with might and main,

With fell intent he aim’d to hit my heart.

But ever as he shot his arrows still

In their mid course dropt down into the rill.

Of wondrous virtues that in waters been

Is needlesse to rehearse, all books do ring

Of those strange rarities. But ne’re was seen

Such virtue as resided in this spring.

The novelty did make me much admire

But stirr’d the hasty youth to ragefull ire.

As heedlesse fowls that take their per’lous flight

Over that bane of birds,Averno lake,

Do drop down dead: so dead his shafts did light

Amid this stream, which presently did slake

Their fiery points, and all their feathers wet

Which made the youngster Godling inly fret.

Thus lustfull Love (this was that love I ween)

Was wholly changed to consuming ire.

And eath it was, sith they’re so near a kin

They be both born of one rebellious sire.

But he supprest his wrath and by and by

For feathered darts, he winged words let flie:

Vain man! said he, and would thou wer’st not vain

That hid’st thy self in solitary shade

And spil’st thy precious youth in sad disdain

Hating this lifes delight! Hath god thee made

Part of this world, and wilt not thou partake

Of this worlds pleasure for its makers sake?

Unthankfull wretch! Gods gifts thus to reject

And maken nought of Natures goodly dower

That milders still away through thy neglect

And dying fades like unregarded flower.

This life is good, what’s good thou mustimprove,

The highest improvement of this life is love.

Had I(but O that envious Destinie,

Or Stygian vow, or thrice accursed charm

Should in this place free passage thus denie

Unto my shafts as messengers ofharm!

Had I but once transfixt thy froward breast,

How would’st thou then——I staid not forthe rest;

But thus half angry to the boy replide:

How would’st thou then my soul of sense bereave!

I blinded, thee more blind should choose my guide!

How would’st thou then my muddied mind deceive

With fading shows, that in my errour vile,

Base lust; I love should tearm, vice, virtuestile.

How should my wicked rymes then idolize

Thy wretched power, and with impious wit

Impute thy base born passions to the skies

And my souls sicknesse count an heavenly fit,

My weaknesse strength, my wisdome to be caught

My bane my blisse, mine ease to be o’rewraught.

How often through my fondly feigning mind

And frantick phansie, in my Mistris eye

Should I a thousand fluttering Cupids find

Bathing their busie wings? How oft espie

Under the shadow of her eye-brows fair

Ten thousand Graces sit all naked bare?

Thus haunted should I be with such feat fiends:

A pretty madnesse were my portion due.

Foolish my self I would not hear my friends.

Should deem the true for false, the false for true.

My way all dark more slippery then ice

My attendents, anger, pride, and jealousies.

Unthankfull then to God I should neglect

All the whole world for one poor sorry wight,

Whose pestilent eye into my heart project

Would burn like poysonous Comet in my spright.

Aye me! how dismall then would prove that day

Whose onely light sprang from so fatall ray.

Who seeks for pleasure in this mortall life

By diving deep into the body base

Shall loose true pleasure: But who gainly strive

Their sinking soul above this bulk to place

Enlarg’d delight they certainly shall find

Unbounded joyes to fill their boundlesse mind.

When I my self from mine own self do quit

And each thing else; then an all-spreaden love

To the vast Universe my soul doth sit

Makes me half equall to all-seeing Jove.

My mighty wings high stretch’d then clappinglight

I brush the starres and make them shine morebright.

Then all the works of God with close embrace

I dearly hug in my enlarged arms

All the hid paths of heavenly Love I trace

And boldly listen to his secret charms.

Then clearly view I where true light doth rise,

And where eternall Night low-pressed lies.

Thus lose I not by leaving small delight

But gain more joy, while I my self suspend

From this and that; for then with all unite

I all enjoy, and love that love commends.

That all is more then loves the partiall soul

Whose petty loves th’ impartiall fates controll.

Ah son! said he, (and laughed very loud)

That trickst thy tongue with uncouth strange disguize,

Extolling highly that with speeches proud

To mortall men that humane state denies,

And rashly blaming what thou never knew

Let men experienc’d speak, if they’ll speaktrue.

Had I once lanc’d thy froward flinty heart

And cruddled bloud had thawn with living fire

And prickt thy drousie sprite with gentle smart

How wouldst thou wake to kindly sweet desire,

Thy soul fill’d up with overflowing pleasures

Would dew thy lips with hony-dropping measures.

Then wouldst thou caroll loud and sweetly sing

In honour of my sacred Deity

That all the woods and hollow hills would ring

Reechoing thy heavenly harmonie.

And eke the hardy rocks with full rebounds

Would faithfully return thy silver sounds.

Next unto me would be thy Mistresse fair,

Whom thou might setten out with goodly skill

Her peerlesse beauty and her virtues rare,

That all would wonder at thy gracefull quill.

And lastly in us both thy self shouldst raise

And crown thy temples with immortall bayes.

But now thy riddles all men do neglect,

Thy rugged lines of all do lie forlorn.

Unwelcome rymes that rudely do detect

The Readers ignorance. Men holden scorn

To be so often non-plusd or to spell,

And on one stanza a whole age to dwell.

Besides this harsh and hard obscuritie

Of the hid sense, thy words are barbarous

And strangely new, and yet too frequently

Return, as usuall plain and obvious,

So that the show of the new thick-set patch

Marres all the old with which it ill doth match.

But if thy haughty mind, forsooth, would deign

To stoop so low to hearken to my lore,

Then wouldst thou with trim lovers not disdeign

To adorn the outside, set the best before.

Nor rub nor wrinkle would thy verses spoil

Thy rymes should run as glib and smooth as oyl.

If that be all, said I, thy reasons slight

Can never move my well establishd mind.

Full well I wote alwayes the present sprite,

Or life that doth possesse the soul, doth blind,

Shutting the windows ’gainst broad open day

Lest fairer sights its uglinesse bewray.

The soul then loves that disposition best

Because no better comes unto her view.

The drunkard drunkennesse, the sluggard rest,

Th’ Ambitious honour and obeisance due.

So all the rest do love their vices base

’Cause virtues beauty comes not into place.

And looser love ’gainst Chastitie divine

Would shut the door that he might sit alone.

Then wholly should my mind to him incline:

And woxen strait, (since larger love was gone)

That paultrie sprite of low contracting lust

Would fit my soul as if ’t were made for ’tjust.

Then should I with my fellow bird or brute

So strangely metamorphis’d, either ney

Or bellow loud: or if ’t may better sute

Chirp out my joy pearch’d upon higher spray.

My passions fond with impudence rehearse,

Immortalize my madnesse in a verse.

This is the summe of thy deceiving boast

That I vain ludenesse highly should admire,

When I the sense of better things have lost

And chang’d my heavenly heat for hellish fire,

Passion is blind, but virtues piercing eye

Approching danger can from farre espie.

And what thou dost Pedantickly object

Concerning my rude rugged uncouth style,

As childish toy I manfully neglect,

And at thy hidden snares do inly smile.

How ill alas! with wisdome it accords

To sell my living sense for livelesse words.

My thought ’s the fittest measure of my tongue,

Wherefore I’ll use what’s most significant,

And rather then my inward meaning wrong

Or my full-shining notion trimly scant,

I’ll conjure up old words out of their grave,

Or call fresh forrein force in if need crave.

And these attending on my moving mind

Shall duly usher in the fitting sense.

As oft as meet occasion I find.

Unusuall words oft used give lesse offence;

Nor will the old contexture dim or marre,

For often us’d they’re next to old, thred-bare.

And if the old seem in too rustie hew,

Then frequent rubbing makes them shine like gold,

And glister all with colour gayly new.

Wherefore to use them both we will be bold.

Thus lists me fondly with fond folk to toy,

And answer fools with equall foolerie.

The meaner mind works with more nicetie,

As spiders wont to weave their idle web,

But braver spirits do all things gallantly

Of lesser failings nought at all affred:

So Natures carelesse pencill dipt in light

With sprinkled starres hath spattered the Night.

And if my notions clear though rudely thrown

And loosely scattered in my poesie,

May lend men light till the dead Night be gone,

And Morning fresh with roses strew the skie:

It is enough, I meant no trimmer frame

Or by nice needle-work to seek a name.

Vain man! that seekest name mongst earthly men

Devoid of God and all good virtuous lere;

Who groping in the dark do nothing ken

But mad; with griping care their souls do tear,

Or burst with hatred or with envie pine

Or burn with rage or melt out at their eyne.

Thrice happy he whose name is writ above,

And doeth good though gaining infamie;

Requiteth evil turns with hearty love,

And recks not what befalls him outwardly:

Whose worth is in himself, and onely blisse

In his pure conscience that doth nought amisse.

Who placeth pleasure in his purged soul

And virtuous life his treasure doth esteem;

Who can his passions masterand controll,

And that true lordly manlinesse doth deem,

Who from this world himself hath clearly quit

Counts nought his own but what lives in hissprite.

So when his sprite from this vain world shall flit

It bears all with it whatsoever was dear

Unto it self, passing in easie fit,

As kindly ripen’d corn comes out of th’ eare.

Thus mindlesse of what idle men will say

He takes his own and stilly goes his way.

But the retinue of proud Lucifer,

Those blustering Poets that flie after fame

And deck themselves like the bright Morning-starre.

Alas! it is but all a crackling flame.

For death will strip them of that glorious plume

That airie blisse will vanish into fume.

For can their carefull ghosts from Limbotake

Return, or listen from the bowed skie

To heare how well their learned lines do take?

Or if they could; is Heavens felicitie

So small as by mans praise to be encreas’d,

Hells pain no greater then hence to be eas’d?

Therefore once dead in vain shall I transmit

My shadow to gazing Posteritie;

Cast farre behind me I shall never see’t,

On Heavens fair Sunne having fast fixt mine eye.

Nor while I live, heed I what man doth praise

Or underprize mine unaffected layes.

What moves thee then, said he, to take the pains

And spenden time if thou contemn’st the fruit?

Sweet fruit of fame, that fills the Poets brains

With high conceit and feeds his fainting wit.

How pleasant ’tis in honour here to live

And dead, thy name for ever to survive!

Or is thy abject mind so basely bent

As of thy Muse to maken Merchandize?

(And well I wote this is no strange intent.)

The hopefull glimps of gold from chattering Pies,

From Daws and Crows, and Parots oft hath wrung

An unexpected Pegaseian song.

Foul shame on him, quoth I, that shamefull thought

Doth entertain within his dunghill breast,

Both God and Nature hath my spirits wrought

To better temper and of old hath blest

My loftie soul with more divine aspires

Then to be touchd with such vile low desires.

I hate and highly scorn that Kestrell kind

Of bastard scholars that subordinate

The precious choice induements of the mind

To wealth or worldly good. Adulterate

And cursed brood! Your wit and will are born

Of th’ earth and circling thither do return.

Profit and honour be those measures scant

Of your slight studies and endeavours vain,

And when you once have got what you did want

You leave your learning to enjoy your gain.

Your brains grow low, your bellies swell uphigh,

Foul sluggish fat ditts up your dulled eye.

Thus what the earth did breed, to th’ earth is gone,

Like fading hearb or feebly drooping flower,

By feet of men and beast quite trodden down,

The muck-sprung learning cannot long endure.

Back she returns lost in her filthy source,

Drown’d, chok’d or slocken by her cruell nurse.

True virtue to her self’s the best reward,

Rich with her own and full of lively spirit,

Nothing cast down for want of due regard.

Or ’cause rude men acknowledge not her merit.

She knows her worth and stock from whence shesprung,

Spreads fair without the warmth of earthly dung,

Dew’d with the drops of Heaven shall flourish long;

As long as day and night do share the skie,

And though that day and night should fail yet strong

And steddie, fixed on Eternitie

Shall bloom for ever. So the foul shall speed

That loveth virtue for no worldly meed.

Though sooth to sayn, the worldly meed is due

To her more then to all the world beside.

Men ought do homage with affections true

And offer gifts for God doth there reside.

The wise and virtuous soul is his own seat

To such what’s given God himself doth get.

But earthly minds whose sight’s seal’d up with mud

Discern not this flesh-clouded Deity,

Ne do acknowledge any other good

Then what their mole-warp hands can feel and trie

By groping touch; thus (worth of them unseen)

Of nothing worthy that true worth they ween.

Wherefore the prudent Law-givers of old

Even in all Nations, with right sage foresight

Discovering from farre how clums and cold

The vulgar wight would be to yield what’s right

To virtuous learning, did by law designe

Great wealth and honour to that worth divine.

But nought’s by law to Poesie due said he,

Ne doth the solemn Statesmans head take care

Of those that such impertinent pieces be

Of common-weals. Thou’d better then to spare

Thy uselesse vein. Or tell else, what may move

Thy busie use such fruitlesse pains to prove.

No pains but pleasure to do the dictates dear

Of inward living nature. What doth move

The Nightingall to sing so sweet and clear

The Thrush, or Lark that mounting high above

Chants her shrill notes to heedlesse ears ofcorn

Heavily hanging in the dewy morn.

When life can speak, it can not well withhold

T’ expresse its own impressions and hid life.

Or joy or grief that smoothered lie untold

Do vex the heart and wring with restlesse strife.

Then are my labours no true pains but ease

My souls unrest they gently do appease.

Besides, that is not fruitlesse that no gains

Brings to my self. I others profit deem

Mine own: and if at these my heavenly flames

Others receiven light, right well I ween

My time’s not lost. Art thou now satisfide

Said I: to which the scoffing boy replide.

Great hope indeed thy rymes should men enlight,

That be with clouds and darknesse all o’recast,

Harsh style and harder sense void of delight

The Readers wearied eye in vain do wast.

And when men win thy meaning with much pain,

Thy uncouth sense they coldly entertain.

For wotst thou not that all the world is dead

Unto that Genius that moves in thy vein

Of poetrie! But like by like is fed.

Sing of my Trophees in triumphant strein,

Then correspondent life, thy powerfull verse

Shall strongly strike and with quick passionpierce.

The tender frie of lads and lasses young

With thirstie eare thee compassing about,

Thy Nectar-dropping Muse, thy sugar’d song

Will swallow down with eagre hearty draught;

Relishing truly what thy rymes convey,

And highly praising thy soul-smiting lay.

The mincing maid her mind will then bewray,

Her heart-bloud flaming up into her face,

Grave matrons will wex wanton and betray

Their unresolv’dnesse in their wonted grace;

Young boyes and girls would feel a forwardspring,

And former youth to eld thou back wouldst bring.

All Sexes, Ages, Orders, Occupations

Would listen to thee with attentive ear,

And eas’ly moved with thy sweet perswasions,

Thy pipe would follow with full merry chear.

While thou thy lively voice didst loud advance

Their tickled bloud for joy would inly dance.

But now, alas! poore solitarie man!

In lonesome desert thou dost wander wide

To seek and serve thy disappearing Pan,

Whom no man living in the world hath eyde:

For Pan is dead but I am still alive,

And live in men who honour to me give:

They honour also those that honour me

With sacred songs. But thou now singst to trees

To rocks to Hills, to Caves that senselesse be

And mindlesse quite of thy hid mysteries,

In the void aire thy idle voice is spread,

Thy Muse is musick to the deaf or dead.

Now out alas! said I, and wele-away

The tale thou tellest I confesse too true.

Fond man so doteth on this living clay

His carcase dear, and doth its joyes pursue,

That of his precious soul he takes no keep

Heavens love and reasons light lie fast asleep.

This bodies life vain shadow of the soul

With full desire they closely do embrace,

In fleshly mud like swine they wallow and roll,

The loftiest mind is proud but of the face

Or outward person; if men but adore

That walking sepulchre, cares for no more.

This is the measure of mans industry

To wexen some body and getten grace

To ’s outward presence; though true majestie

Crown’d with that heavenly light and lively rayes

Of holy wesdome and Seraphick love,

From his deformed soul he farre remove.

Slight knowledge and lesse virtue serves his turn

For this designe. If he hath trod the ring

Of pedling arts; in usuall pack-horse form

Keeping the rode; O! then ’t’s a learned thing.

If any chanc’d to write or speak what he

Conceives not ’t were a foul discourtesie.

To cleanse the soul from sinne, and still diffide

Whether our reasons eye be clear enough

To intromit true light, that fain would glide

Into purg’d hearts, this way ’s too harsh and rough:

Therefore the clearest truths may well seem dark

When sloathfull men have eyes so dimme andstark.

These be our times. But if my minds presage

Bear any moment, they can ne’re last long,

A three branch’d Flame will soon sweep clean the stage

Of this old dirty drosse and all wex young.

My words into this frozen air I throw

Will then grow vocall at that generall thaw.

Nay, now thou ’rt perfect mad, said he, with scorn,

And full of foul derision quit the place.

The skie did rattle with his wings ytorn

Like to rent silk. But I in the mean space

Sent after him this message by the wind

Be ’t so I ’m mad, yet sure I am thou ’rt blind.

By this the out-stretch’d shadows of the trees

Pointed me home-ward, and with one consent

Foretold the dayes descent. So straight I rise

Gathering my limbs from off the green pavement

Behind me leaving then the slooping Light.

Cl. And now let’s up,Vesper brings on the Night.

A Particular Interpretation appertaining to
the three last books of the Platonick
Song of the Soul.

A

Atom-lives. The same that Centralllives. Both the terms denotate the indivisibility of the inmost essenceit self; the pure essentiall form I mean, of plant, beast or man, yea ofangels themselves, good or bad.

Apogee, Autokineticall, Ananke, Acronycall, Alethea-land,

See Interpret. Gen.

Animadversall. That lively inward animadversall. It is thesoul it self, for I cannot conceive the body doth animadvert; when asobjects plainly exposed to the sight are not discovered till the soultakes notice of them.

B

Body. The ancient Philosophers havedefined it,Τὸ τριχῇ διάστατον μετ’ ἀντιτυπίας.Sext. Emperic.Pyrrhon. Hypotyp. lib. 3. cap. 5. Near to this is that description,Psychathan, Cant. 2. Stanz. 12. lib. 2,Matter extent in threedimensions. But for thatἀντιτυπία, simple trinall distension doth not implyit, wherefore I declin’d it. But took inmatter according totheir conceit, that phansieà Materia prima, I acknowledge none,and consequently no suchcorpus naturale as our Physiologist makethe subject of that science. ThatΤριχῇ διάστατον ἀντίτυπον is nothing but afixt spirit, the conspissation or coagulation of the Cuspidall particlesof the Cone, which are indeed the Centrall Tasis or inward essence ofthe sensible world. These be an infinite number of vitall Atoms that maybe wakened into diverse tinctures, or energies, into fiery, watery,earthy, &c. And one divineFiat can unloose them all into anuniversall mist, or turn them out of that sweat into a drie and pureEtheriall temper. These be the last projections of life from the soul ofthe world; and are act or form though debil and indifferent, like thatwhich they call the first matter. But they are not meerly passive[2]||but meet their information half way, as I may so speak: are radiantab intimo and awake into this or the other operation, by thepowerfull appulse of some superadvenient form. That which change ofPhantasmes is to the soul, that is alteration of rayes to them. Fortheir rayes areab intrinseco, as the phantasmes of the soul.These be the reall matter of which all supposed bodies are compounded,and this matter (as I said) is form and life, so that all is lifeand form what ever is in the world, as I have somewhere intimated inAntipsychopan: But however I use the termebody ordinarilyin the usuall and vulgar acception. And for that sense of the ancients,nearest to which I have defined it in the place first above mentioned,that I seem not to choose that same as most easie to proceed against indisproving the corporeity of the soul, the arguments do as necessarilyconclude against such a naturall body as is ordinarily described inPhysiologie (as you may plainly discern if you list to observe) asalso against this body composed of the Cuspidall particles of the Cone.For though they be Centrall lives, yet are they neither Plasticall,Sensitive, or Rationall, so farre are they from proving to be the humanesoul whose nature is there discust.

C

Cone: Is a solid figure made by theturning of a rectangular triangle, about; one of the sides that includethe right angle resting, which will be then the Axis of the compleatedCone. But I take it sometimes for the comprehension of all things, Godhimself not left out, whom I tearm theBasis of theConeorUniverse. And because all from him descends,καθ’ ὑποστολῆν, with abatementor contraction, I give the name ofCone to the Universe. Andof Cone rather then Pyramid because of the roundnesse of the figure,which the effluxes of all things imitate.

Chaos, Chronicall, Clare,

See interpret· Gen.

Circulation, The terme is taken from a toyish observation,viz. the circling of water when a stone is cast into a standingpool. The motion drives on circularly, the first rings are thickest, butthe further they go they grow the thinner, till they vanish intonothing. Such is the diffusion of[3][D7]the species audible in the strucken aire, as also of the visiblespecies. In brief any thing is said to circulate that diffuseth itsimage or species in a round. It might have been more significantlycalled orbiculation; seeing this circumfusion makes not onely a circle,but fills a sphere, which may be called the sphere of activity. YetCirculation more fitly sets out the diminution of activity, from thoseringes in the water which as they grow in compasse, abate in force andthicknesse. But sometimes I use Circulate in an ordinary sense to turnround, or return in a circle.

Centre,Centrall,Centrality. When they are usedout of their ordinary sense, they signifie the depth or inmost being ofany thing, from whence its acts and energies flow forth. SeeAtom-lives.

Cuspis of theCone. The multiplide Cuspis of the Coneis nothing but the last projection of life from Psyche, which isשׁמיםa liquid fire or fire and water, which are the corporeall ormateriall principles of all things, changed or disgregated (if theybe centrally distinguishable) and again mingled by the virtue of Physisor Spermaticall life of the world; of these are the Sunne and all thePlanets, they being kned together, and fixt by the Centrall power ofeach Planet and Sunne. The volatile Ether is also of the same, and allthe bodies of plants, beasts and men. These are they which we handle andtouch, a sufficient number compact together. For neither is thenoise of those little flies in a summer-evening audible severally: but afull Quire of them strike the ear with a pretty kind of buzzing. Strongand tumultuous pleasure and scorching pain reside in these, they beingessentiall and centrall, but sight and hearing are onely of the imagesof these, SeeBody.

Eternitie. Is the steddie comprehension of all things at once.See Æon discribed in my Expos. upon Psychozoia.

Energie. It is a peculiar Platonicall terme. In myInterpret. Gen. I expounded it Operation, Efflux, Activity. None ofthose words bear the full sense of it. The examples there are fit,viz. the light of the Sunne, the phantasms of the soul. We maycollect the genuine sense of the word by comparing severall places inthe Philosopher.Ἔχει γὰρ ἕκαστον τῶν ὄντων ἐνεργειαν,ἥἐστιν ὁμοίωμα αὐτοῦ, ὥστε αὐτοῦ ὄντος,[4]||κἀκεῖνο εἶναι, καὶμένοντος φθάνειν εἰς τὸ πόῤῥω, τὸ μὲν ἐπὶ πλέον, τὸ δὲ εἰςἔλαττον.Καὶ αἱ μὲν ἀσθενεῖς καὶ ἀμυδραὶ, αἱδὲ καὶ λανθάνουσαι,τῶν δ’ εἰσὶ μείζους καὶ εἰς τὸ πόῤῥω.For every being hath its Energie, which is the image of it self, sothat it existing that Energie doth also exist, and standing still isprojected forward more or lesse. And some of those energies are weak andobscure, others hid or undiscernable, othersome greater and of a largerprojection. Plotin. Ennead. 4. lib. 5. cap. 7. And again, Ennead. 3.lib. 4.Καὶ μένομεν τῷ μὲν νοητῷ ἀνθρώπῳ ἄνω·τῷ δὲἐσχάτῳ αὐτοῦ, πεπεδήμεθα τῷ κάτω,οἷον ἀπόῤῥοιαν ἀπ’ἐκείνου διδόντες εἰς τὸ κάτω,μᾶλλον δὲ ἐνέργειαν,ἐκείνου οὐκ ἐλαττουμένου.And we remain above by theIntellectuall man, but by the extreme part of him we are held below, asit were yielding an efflux from him to that which is below, or rather anenergie he being not at all lessened. This curiositie Antoninus alsoobserves, (lib. 8. Meditat.) in the nature of the sun-beams, wherealthough he admits ofχύσις, yet he doth not ofἀπόῤῥοια which isἔκχυσις.Ὁ ἥλιοςκατακεχύσθαι δοκεῖ, καὶ πάντῇ γε κέχυται οὐ μὴν ἐκκέχυται.ἡ γὰρ χύσιςαὐτοῦ τάσις ἐστίν.ἀκτῖνες γοῦν αἱ αὐγαὶαὐτοῦ ἀπὸ τοῦ ἐκτείνεσθαι λέγονται.The sunne, saith he,is diffused, and his fusion is every where but without effusion,&c. I will onely adde one place more out of Plotinus. Ennead.3. lib. 6.Ἑκάστου δὲ μορίου ἡ ἐνέργεια ἡ κατὰφύσιν ζωὴ οὐκ ἐξιστᾶσα.The naturall energie of each power ofthe soul is life not parted from the soul though gone out of the soul,viz. into act.

Comparing of all these places together, I cannot better explain thisPlatonick term,energie, then by calling it the rayes of anessence, or the beams of a vitall Centre. For essence is the Centre asit were of that which is truly called Energie, and Energie the beams andrayes of an essence. And as theRadii of a circle leave not thecentre by touching the Circumference, no more doth that which is thepure Energie of an essence, leave the essence by being called out intoact, but isἐν-έργειαa working in the essence though it flowout into act. SothatEnergie depends alwayes on essence, asLumen onLux, or the creature on God; Whom therefore Synesius in hisHymnes calls the Centre of all things.

Entelecheia. See Interpret. Gen.

F

Faith.Platonick faith in the firstGood. This faith is excellently described inProclus. where it is setabove all ratiocination, nay, Intellect it self.Πρὸς δὲ αὖ τὸ ἀγαθὸν οὐ γνώσεως ἔτι καὶσυνεργείας δεῖ τοῖς συναφθῆναι σπεύδουσιν,ἀλλ’ἱδρύσεως καὶ μονίμου καταστάσεως καὶ ἠρεμίας.But to them thatendeavour to be joyned with the first Good, there is no need ofknowledge or multifarious cooperation, but settlednesse, steddinesse,and rest. lib. 1. cap. 24. Theolog. Platon. And in the next chapter;Δεῖ γὰρ οὐ γνωστικῶς οὐδ’ ἀτελῶς τὸ ἀγαθὸνἐπιζητεῖν,ἀλλ’ ἐπιδόντας ἑαυτοὺς τῷ θείῳ φωτὶ καὶμύσαντας,οὕτως ἐνιδρύεσθαι τῇ ἀγνώστῳκαὶ κρυφίῳ τῶν ὄντων ἑνάδι.For we must not seek after thatabsolute or first Good cognoscitively or imperfectly, but giving ourselves up to the divine light, and winking (that is shutting oureyes of reason and understanding)so to place our selves steddily inthat hidden Unitie of all things. After he preferres this faithbefore the clear and present assent to theκοιναὶ ἔννοιαι, yea and theνοερὰ ἁπλότης, so that he willnot that any intellectuall operation should come in comparison with it.Πολυειδὴς γὰρ αἵτη καὶ δι’ ἑτερότητοςχωριζομένη τῶν νοουμένων,καὶ ὅλως κίνησίς ἐστι νοερὰπερὶ τὸ νοητόν.Δεῖ δὲ τὴν θείαν πίστιν ἑνοειδῆ καὶ ἤρεμονὑπάρχειν ἐν τῷ τῆς ἀγαθότητος ὁρμῷ τελείως ἱδρυθεῖσαν.For theoperation of the Intellect is multiform and by diversitie separate fromher objects, and is in a word, intellectuall motion about the objectintelligible. But the divine faith must be simple and uniform, quiet andsteddily resting in the haven of Goodnesse. And at last he summarilyconcludes,Ἐστί οὐν οὗτος ὅρμος ἀσφαλὴς τῶνὄντωνἁπάντων. See Procl. Theolog. Platonick. lib. 1. cap. 25.

H

Hyle. See Interpret. Gen.

I

Intellect. Sometimes it is to be interpretedSoul. Sometime the intellectuall facultie of the soul. SometimesIntellect is an absolute essence shining into the soul: whose nature isthis. A substance purely immateriall, impeccable, actuallyomniform, or comprehending all things at once, which the soul doth alsobeing perfectly joyned with the Intellect.Ἔχομεν οὖνκαὶ τὰεἴδηδιχῶς, ἐν μὲν ψυχῇ οἷον μὲν[6]||ἀνειλιγμένα καὶ οἷον κεχωρισμένα, ἐν δὲ τῷ νῷὁμοῦ τὰ πάντα. Plot. Ennead. 1. lib. 1. cap. 8.Ideas, orIdees. Sometimes they are forms in the Intellectuall world.viz. inÆon, orOn, other sometimes, phantasmes orrepresentations in the soul.Innate Idees are the souls nature itself, her uniform essence, able by herFire to produce this orthat phantasme into act.

Idiopathy. Iao

See Interpret. Gen.

L

Logos. See Interpret. Gen.

Life. The vitall operation of any soul. Sometime it is thesoul it self, be it sensitive, vegetative, or rationall.

Lower man. The lower man is our enquickned body, into whichour soul comes, it being fitly prepared for the receiving of such aguest. The manner of the production of souls, or rather theirnon-production is admirably well set down in Plotinus, See,Ennead.6. lib. 4. cap. 14, 15.

M

Monad. See Interpr. Gen.

Mundane.Mundane spirit, Is that which is the spirit ofthe world or Universe. I mean by it not an intellectuall spirit,but a fine, unfixt, attenuate, subtill, ethereall substance, theimmediate vehicle of plasticall or sensitive life.

Memory.Mundane memory. Is that memory that is seatedin theMundane spirit of man, by a strong impression, or inustionof any phantasme, or outward sensible object, upon that spirit. Butthere is a Memory more subtill and abstract in the soul it self, withoutthe help of this spirit, which she also carries away with her havingleft the body.

Magicall. That is, attractive, or commanding by force ofsympathy with the life of this naturall world.

Moment. Sometimes signifies an instant, as indivisible, asκίνημα, which in motionanswers to an instant in time, or a point in a line,Aristot.Phys. In this sense I use it, Psychathan. lib. 3. cant. 2. stanz.16;But in a moment sol doth ray. But Cant. the 3. Stanz. 45. v.2. I understand, as also doth Lansbergius, by amoment onesecond of a minute. In Antipsych. Cant. 2. Stanz. the 20. v. 2. byamoment I understand a minute, or indefinitely any smalltime.

O

Orb.Orb Intellectuall, isnothing else but Æon or the Intellectuall world. The Orbs generallmentioned Psycathan. lib. 1. cant. 3. stanz. 23. v. 2. I understandby them but so many universall orders of beings, if I may so terme themall; forHyle hath little or nothing of being.

Omniformity. The omniformity of the soul is the havingin her nature all forms, latent at least, and power of awaking them intoact, upon occasion.

Out-world. andOut-Heaven. The sensible world, thevisible Heaven.

P

P

erigee, Psychicall, Pareties, Parallax, Protopathy.

See Interpret. Gen.

Parturient. See,Vaticinant.

Phantasie.Lower phantasie, is that which resides inthe Mundane spirit of a man, SeeMemory.

Q

Quantitative. Formsquantitative, are such sensibleenergies as arise from the complexion of many natures together, at whosediscretion they vanish. That’s the seventh Orb of things, though brokenand not filling all as the other do. But if you take it for the wholesensible world, it is entire, and is the same thatTasis inPsycozoia. But the centre ofTasis, viz. the multiplication ofthe reallCuspis of theCone (forHyle that is setfor the most contract point of theCuspis is scarce to bereckoned among realities) that immense diffusion of atoms, is to bereferred toPsyche, as an internall vegetative act, and sobelongs toPhysis the lowest order of life. For as that warmththat the sense doth afford the body, is not rationall, sensitive, orimaginative, but vegetative; So this,שׁמיםi.e. liquid fire, whichPsyche sends out, and is the outmost, last, and lowest operationfrom her self, is also vegetative.

R

Rhomboides. See Interpr. general.

Reason. I understand by Reason, the deduction of one[8]||thing from another, which I conceive proceeds from a kind of continuitieof phantasmes: and is something like the moving of a cord at one end;the parts next it rise with it. And by this concatenation of phantasmesI conceive, that both brutes and men are moved in reasonable wayes andmethods in their ordinary externall actions.

Rayes. The rayes of an essence is its energie. SeeEnergie.

Reduplicative. That is reduplicative, which is not onely inthis point, but also in another, having a kind of circumscribedubiquitie,viz. in its own sphear. And this is either by being inthat sphear omnipresent it self, as the soul is said to be in the bodytota in toto & tota in qualibet parte, or else at least bypropagation of rayes, which is the image of it self; and so are diverssensible objectsReduplicative, as light, colours, sounds. And Imake account either of these wayes justly denominate any thingspirituall. Though the former is most properly, at least more eminentlyspirituall. And whether any thing be after that way spirituall savingthe Divinitie, there is reason to doubt. For what is entirelyomnipresent in a sphear, whose diametre is but three feet, I seenot, why (that in the circumference being as fresh and entire as that inthe centre) it should stop there and not proceed evenininfinitum, if the circumference be still as fresh and entire as thecentre.   But I define nothing.

S

Spermaticall. It belongs properly toPlants, but is transferred also to the Plasticall power in Animalls,I enlarge it to all magnetick power whatsoever that dothimmediately rule and actuate any body. For all magnetick power isfounded inPhysis, and in reference to her, this world is but onegreat Plant, (oneλόγος σπερματικός giving it shape and corporealllife) as in reference toPsyche, one happy and holy Animall.

Spirit. Sometimes it signifieth the soul, othersometime, thenaturall spirits in a mans body, which areVinculum animæ &corporis, and the souls vehicle: Sometimes life. SeeReduplicative.

Soul. When I speak of mans Soul, I understand that whichMoses saith was inspired into the body, (fitted out and made ofearth) by God, Genes. 2. which is not that[9]E2impeccable spirit that cannot sinne; but the very same that thePlatonists callψυχή,a middle essence betwixt that which they callνοῦς (and we would in the Christian language callπνεῦμα) and the life ofthe body which isεἴδωλον ψυχῆς, a kind of an umbratil vitalitie,that the soul imparts to the bodie in the enlivening of it: That and thebody together, we Christians would callσὰρξ, and the suggestions of it, especially in its corruptestate,φρόνημασαρκός. Andthat which God inspired intoAdam was no more thenψυχὴ, the soul, not thespirit, though it be calledנשמת חייםSpiraculum vitæ; isplain out of the text; because it made man but become a living soul,נפשחיה. But you will say, he was a dead soul before, and this wasthe spirit of life, yea the spirit of God, the life of the soul that wasbreathed into him.

But ifחיה implie such a life and spirit, you must acknowledge thesame to be also in the most stupid of all living creatures, even thefishes (whose soul is but as salt to keep them from stinking, as Philospeaks) for they are said to beנשמת חיים chap. 1. v. 20.21. See 1 Cor. chap. 15, v. 45, 46. In brief therefore, thatwhich in Platonisme isνοῦς,is in Scriptureπνεῦμα;whatσὰρξ in one,τὸ θηρίον, the brute orbeast in the other,ψυχὴthe same in both.

Self-reduplicative. SeeReduplicative.

T

Tricentreitie. Centre is put foressence, soTricentreitie must implie a trinitie of essence. SeeCentre, andEnergie.

V

Vaticinant. The soul is said to be in avaticinant orparturient condition, when she hath somekind of sense and hovering knowledge of a thing, but yet cannotdistinctly and fully, and commandingly represent it to her self, cannotplainly apprehend, much lesse comprehend the matter. The phrase isborrowed of Proclus, who describing the incomprehensiblenese of God, andthe desire of all things towards him, speaks thus;Ἄγνωστον γὰρ ὂν ποθεῖ τὰ ὄντα τὸ ἐφετὸν τοῦτο καὶἄληπτον,μήτε οῦν γνῶναι μήτε ἑλεῖν ὁ ποθεῖ,δυνάμενα, περὶ αὐτὸ πάνταχορεύει καὶ ὠδίνει μὲν αὐτὸ καὶ οἷον ἀπομαντεύεται.Theolog. Platon.lib. 1. cap. 21. SeePsychathan. lib. 3. cant. 3.stanz. 12. & 14.

Sing aloud his praise rehearse

Who hath made the Universe.

He the boundlesse Heavens has spread

All the vitall Orbs has kned;

He that onOlympus high

Tends his flocks with watchfull eye,

And this eye has multiplide

Midst each flock for so reside.

Thus as round about they stray

Toucheth each with out-stretch’d ray,

Nimbly they hold on their way,

Shaping out their Night and Day.

Never slack they; none respires,

Dancing round their Centrall fires.

In due order as they move

Echo’s sweet be gently drove

Thorough Heavens vast Hollownesse,

Which unto all corners presse:

Musick that the heart ofJove

Moves to joy and sportfull love;

Fills the listning saylers eares

Riding on the wandering Sphears.

Neither Speech nor Language is

Where their voice is not transmisse.

God is Good, is Wise, is Strong,

Witnesse all the creature-throng,

Is confess’d by every Tongue.

All things back from whence they sprong,

As the thankfull Rivers pay

What they borrowed of the Sea.

Now my self I do resigne,

Take me whole I all am thine.

Save me, God! from Self-desire,

Deaths pit, dark Hells raging fire,

Envy, Hatred, Vengeance, Ire.

Let not Lust my soul bemire.

Quit from these thy praise I’ll sing,

Loudly sweep the trembling string.

Bear a part, O Wisdomes sonnes!

Free’d from vain Relligions.

Lo! from farre I you salute,

Sweetly warbling on my Lute.

Indie,Egypt,Arabie,

Asia,Greece, andTartarie,

Carmel-tracts, andLebanon

With theMountains of theMoon,

from whence muddieNile doth runne,

Or whereever else you won;

Breathing in one vitall aire,

One we are though distant farre.

Rise at once lett’s sacrifice

Odours sweet perfume the skies.

See how Heavenly lightning fires

Hearts inflam’d with high aspires!

All the substance of our souls

Up in clouds of Incense rolls.

Leave we nothing to our selves

Save a voice, what need we els!

Or an hand to wear and tire

On the thankfull Lute or Lyre.

Sing aloud his praise rehearse

Who hath made the Universe.

1948-1949

16.Henry Nevil Payne,The Fatal Jealousie (1673).

18.Anonymous, “Of Genius,” inThe Occasional Paper, Vol. III, No. 10(1719), and Aaron Hill, Preface toThe Creation (1720).

1949-1950

19.Susanna Centlivre,The Busie Body (1709).

20.Lewis Theobald,Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734).

22.Samuel Johnson,The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749), and twoRambler papers (1750).

23.John Dryden,His Majesties Declaration Defended (1681).

1950-1951

26.Charles Macklin,The Man of the World (1792).

1951-1952

31.Thomas Gray,An Elegy Wrote in a Country Churchyard (1751), andThe Eton College Manuscript.

1952-1953

41.Bernard Mandeville,A Letter to Dion (1732).

1962-1963

98.Select Hymns Taken Out of Mr. Herbert’s Temple (1697).

1963-1964

104. Thomas D’Urfey,Wonders in the Sun: or, The Kingdom of theBirds (1706).

1964-1965

110.John Tutchin,Selected Poems (1685-1700).

111. Anonymous,Political Justice (1736).

112. Robert Dodsley,An Essay on Fable (1764).

113. T. R.,An Essay Concerning Critical and Curious Learning(1698).

114.Two Poems Against Pope: Leonard Welsted,One Epistle to Mr. A.Pope (1730), and Anonymous,The Blatant Beast (1742).

1965-1966

115. Daniel Defoe and others,Accounts of the Apparition of Mrs.Veal.

116.Charles Macklin,The Covent Garden Theatre (1752).

117.SirRogerL’Estrange,Citt and Bumpkin (1680).

118. Henry More,Enthusiasmus Triumphatus (1662).

119. Thomas Traherne,Meditations on the Six Days of theCreation (1717).

120.Bernard Mandeville,Aesop Dress’d or a Collection of Fables(1704).

1966-1967

122.James MacPherson,Fragments of Ancient Poetry (1760).

123.Edmond Malone,Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Mr.Thomas Rowley (1782).

124.Anonymous,The Female Wits (1704).

125.Anonymous,The Scribleriad (1742). Lord Hervey,The DifferenceBetween Verbal and Practical Virtue (1742).

126.Le Lutrin: an Heroick Poem, Written Originally in French byMonsieur Boileau: Made English by N. O. (1682).

127-128.Charles Macklin,A Will and No Will, or a Bone for the Lawyers(1746).The New Play Criticiz’d, or The Plague of Envy (1747).Introduction by Jean B. Kern.

129. LawrenceEchard, Prefaces toTerence’s Comedies (1694) andPlautus’sComedies (1694). Introduction by John Barnard.

130. HenryMore,Democritus Platonissans (1646). Introduction by P. G.Stanwood.

131. JohnEvelyn,The History of . . . Sabatai Sevi . . . TheSuppos’d Messiah of the Jews (1669). Introduction by Christopher W.Grose.

132. WalterHarte,An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad (1730).Introduction by Thomas B. Gilmore.

Spelling and Language

The author used a number of forms that were unusual or archaic evenin1646, and might be mistaken for typographical errors:

Words in-en, especially verbs:

aboven,amazen,been (infinitive),causen,standen,withouten...

Both occurrences of the name “DesCartes” or “DesChartes” are at linebreak; the hyphen has been omitted conjecturally. In general, spellingsthat appear more than once, such as “Psyc-” for “Psych-”, were assumedto be inten­tional. In corrections, the word “invisible” means thatthe letter is absent but there is an appropriately sized blankspace.

Greek diacritics were consistently printed over the first vowel of aninitial diphthong. This has been silently regularized.

Pagination

Democritus Platonissans andCupids Conflict were eachpaginated from 1; other parts of the original have no visible pagenumbers. Individual missing numbers may have been too near the margin tobe included in the facsimile. Folio numbers (signatures) are continuousfor the whole text. Gaps in the sequence represent blank pages, exceptthat A was probably a half-octavo (4 leaves instead of 8).