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See there the olive grove of Academe,

Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird

Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long;
There flow'ry hill Hymettus with the sound

Of bees' industrious murmur oft invites

To studious musing; there Ilissus rolls

His whispering stream; within the walls then view
The schools of ancient sages; his who bred

Great Alexander to subdue the world;
Lyceum there, and painted Stoa next.

There thou shalt hear and learn the secret power

Of harmony, in tones and numbers hit

By voice or hand, and various-measured verse,
Eolian charms and Dorian lyric odes,

And his who gave them breath, but higher sung,
Blind Melesigenes, thence Homer call'd,
Whose poem Phoebus challenged for his own.
Thence what the lofty grave tragedians taught
In Chorus or Iambick, teachers best

Of moral prudence, with delight received,
In brief sententious precepts, while they treat
Of fate, and chance, and change in human life;
High actions and high passions best describing.
Thence to the famous orators repair,

Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce democratic,

Shook the arsenal, and fulmin'd over Greece,

To Macedon, and Artaxerxes' throne:

To sage philosophy next lend thine ear,
From heav'n descended to the low-rooft house
Of Socrates; see there his tenement,
Whom well inspired the oracle pronounced
Wisest of men; from whose mouth issued forth
Mellifluous streams that water'd all the schools
Of Academics old and new, with those
Surnamed Peripatetics, and the sect
Epicurean, and the Stoic severe;

These here revolve, or, as thou lik'st, at home,
Till time mature thee to a kingdom's weight;
These rules will render thee a king complete
Within thyself, much more with empire joined.
To whom our Saviour sagely thus replied.
Think not but that I know these things, or think
I know them not; not therefore am I short
Of knowing what I ought: he who receives
Light from above, from the fountain of light,
No other doctrine needs, though granted true:exelé
But these are false, or little else but dreams,
pole bef
Conjectures, fancies, built on nothing firm.
The first and wisest of them all professed

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To know this only, that he nothing knew;

The next to fabling fell and smooth conceits;
A third sort doubted all things, though plain sense;
Others in virtue placed felicity,

But virtue join'd with riches and long life;
In corporal pleasure he and careless ease;
The Stoic last in philosophic pride,

By him call'd virtue; and his virtuous man,
Wise, perfect in himself, and all possessing,
Equal to GOD, oft shames not to prefer,
As fearing GoD nor man, contemning all
Wealth, pleasure, pain or torment, death and life,
Which when he lists he leaves, or boasts he can
For all his tedious talk is but vain boast,

Or subtle shifts conviction to evade.
Alas! what can they teach and not mislead,
Ignorant of themselves, of GOD much more,
And how the world began, and how man fell
Degraded by himself, on grace depending?
Much of the soul they talk, but all awry,
And in themselves seek virtue, and to themselves
All glory arrogate, to GOD give none,
Rather accuse him under usual names,
Fortune and fate, as one regardless quite

Of mortal things. Who therefore seeks in these
True wisdom, finds her not, or by delusion

Far worse, her false resemblance only meets,

An empty cloud. However, many books
Wise men have said are wearisome; who reads
Incessantly, and to his reading brings not
A spirit and judgment equal or superior,

And what he brings what need he elsewhere seek?
Uncertain and unsettled still remains,

Deep versed in books, and shallow in himself,

Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys,

And trifles for choice matters, worth a sponge;

As children gath'ring pebbles on the shore.

Or if I would delight my private hours

With music or with poem, where so soon

As in our native language can I find

That solace? all our law and story strew'd

With hymns, our psalms with artful terms inscribed,

Our Hebrew songs and harps in Babylon,

That pleased so well our victor's ear, declare

That rather Greece from us these arts derived;

Ill imitated, while they loudest sing

The vices of their deities and their own

In fable, hymn, or song, so personating

Their gods ridiculous, and themselves past shame.
Remove their swelling epithets, thick laid

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