________________________
________________________
PRINTED AND SOLD FOR THE AUTHOR, BY R. EDWARDS;
SOLD ALSO BY MARTIN AND BAIN, AND B. CROSBY,
LONDON; EDDOWES SALOP; AND HAZARD AND BARRATT, BATH.
_____
1796.
[iii]
THE following Poem requires some previous elucidation, as it comprehends a scope of design far beyond vulgar research.
THE history of it’s progress is, at present, of little importance. Here it is, a whole: arrived at maturity; and wishes not to recollect the blandishments, nor retrace the imperfections, of childhood.
IT gives, and is grounded on, a Theosophical view of the relation between America and Europe; but concatenated, because necessary for illustration, with the two old Quarters of the Globe. Of each of all these the characteristics are enlarged upon in the Notes: But some general resolution of the fact, that Countries have characteristics, is the necessity, which causes this Preface.
[iv]
I know it to be a fact that the elaboration of my own mind assigned to Africa, Asia and Europe the precise characters which were respectively attributed to them by the Antients, and have been since by Swedenborg; though each, used his own language; which is a proof, that each was original, and actually travelled the road himself and saw objects in his own light. For these I refer to my Notes. Suffice it to say here, that the machinery of my Eclogue thus proceeds on this Doctrine; namely,
First, That all Countries have a specific Mind, or determinable principle. This character may be traced with as much satisfaction in the vegetable as in the animal productions. Thus, Strength with its attributes, viz. Asperity, &c. is the character or mind of England. Her leading productions are the Oak, Peppermint, Sloes, Crabs, sour Cherries. All elegance, all polish, is superinduced; and primarily from France, of which they are Natives.
Secondly, That a Country is subdued, when, it’s mind or life, it’s prince according to Daniel, or it’s
[v]
genius according to the modern Easterns, or it’s principle according to Europeans, is either supprest, destroyed or chemically combined with that of a foreign country in a form, that leaves the foreign property predominant; and not till then. And this cannot ensue but upon Suicide, upon a previous abandonment on the part of a nation, of its own principle. For when the Creator made every thing very good, he also made it tenable, on the one hand; and on the other complete; consequently without the necessity, without the desire, of encroaching, and also without the capability, except under the penalty of surrendering with its own complete roundness, its own tenability. Thus I arrive at a primary Law of Nature, that every one must fall into the pit that he digs for others; either before or after success, or without success.
Thirdly, That in the European subjugation of America, the American Mind or Life only suffered under a powerful affusion of the European; and, that as the solution proceeds it acquires a stronger and stronger tincture of the Subject, till at length that, which was first subdued, assumes an absolute, in-
[vi]
expugnable predominancy, and a final—inasmuch as the contest is between the two last parts of the world, and there is no prospective umpire to refer to; but it must be decided by the possession of first principles, or the highest Mind in the Hierarchy of Minds; and the European possession of mind having previously arrived at perfection from her long intercourse with AFRICA and Asia and not being able to rescue her from the present grasp and predominancy of American Mind, the question is now settled for ever, and Europe yields to the Influence, Mind and Power of AMERICA, linked in essential principle with AFRICA and Asia, for ever. Besides Europe had full success in her encroachments; she succeeded in throwing America into the pit, and of course, it must be her own turn to go in, now: She depopulated America, and now AMERICA MUST depopulate her.
This survival of American principle, I represent by asserting the survival of her spirits, under the name of the Children of the Sun, according to the Yncas; or The Sons of Virgin Light; while their bodies, or their appearance in the world sank to ocean;
[vii]
that is, were destroyed by Europe, who had the power of the ocean and corresponds thereto. The Resurrection of their Bodies is the Reappearance in the world of persons enlivened by their Life or Spirit, actuated by their principles. What these principles are, will be fully seen in the Notes at the End.
I have said enough to explain my Machinery, and enable the Reader to keep me company as he reads; though I by no means suppose, that this Preface is more than a flash of lightning in a dark night. However, the System yields a strong, steady light with me; and I would be liberal of it to my Reader, if he will permit me.
[viii]
[9]
THE
______
CANTO I.
NEAR where with Tropic heats bright Cancer glows,
And sun beams glitter with perennial force,
Girt with the azure wave an Island lies,
Called by the Spaniards ANTIENT.[1] Its breadth is
Measured by the eye; which, still unsatisfied,
Strikes far beyond the reach of land, Northward
When turned. Its utmost length doubles it’s breadth.ISLANDS, faint seen among the adjacent seas,
Bearing their various headlands in the wave,
A social and romantic scene disclose:[10]
They give the wing for amplest thought to range
On all the mighty wonders of the world!
Scenes undiscovered, uncreate to man,
E’er distant Europe’s energetic arm
Ploughed up the vasty ocean to their base;
And still, with art miraculous, detects
Their sunny ports through many a pathless league.Ah! here, Columbus, with the din of war,
Broke the mild concords of the Mermaid’s (A) shell;
Who, mild, at evening, in the glassy wave,
Joined with the Genii of the neighbour shores,
To sing of Love as spotless as the sky,
And as their ocean clear; bounteous as airs
Wafting full fragrance from the thornless grove
Complicate of sweets, diffusing transport;
And the realm of Love, and Health extatic,
Spread, unjealous, round. Then the glowing sons
Of this mature and Occidental Sun,[11]
(Not less than Memnon, (B) whom Aurora bore
To Eastern mornings; and whose grateful harp
Spontaneous echoed to the rising day)
To bolder measures led the exalting strain;
And, fired with all the radiance of their sire,
Poured elemental music from their strings—
Till Hell’s dread discords from dark Europe broke:
Then the Mermaid to her deeps shot rapid:
Trembling she lay—but safe; and long concealed
From haunts of war.(C) Soon many and many
A son of earth plunged after her, and she gave
A coral sepulchre and tears of heart;
While armied spirits formed, in Fire and Earth
And Air and Seas a phalanx of avengers:
Who far from Europe and it’s bodied forms,(D)
Survived Immortal, Vengeful and Creative.
Expelled, these Sons of Virgin Light retired
Or to refulgent air or terrene depths.
In subterranean vaults where ocean roars (E)[12]
Terror and dread to European hearts,
They hold consult with Genii of the deep,
With placid Mermaids, (who preserve the keys
Of coral tombs; till from their safeguard called,
To repossess once more their hallowed seats,
Forgotten bodies startle the dull world
And take their own from myriads aghast)
With all the good and great of all the world—
The many-murdered Innocence of Ind
Or East or West—and their Avengers great—
However named—in sweet alliance leagued,
Whose fount is God,whose end and stream is bliss.These peaceful murmurs and these pure consults
Of nearing Bliss, speak thunder to the North.
They give prognostic to the fear-worn ears
Of list’ning usurpers of their fertile clime,
In sounds unscanned, of pondered Hurricanes;
When they remount on air triumphant, joined[13]
With dread auxiliars riding on the wave,
And shew their greatness—over pale Europe’s
Miniatures of winds! Reigning superior
To their victors mean, as in fost'ring Peace
So in black War’s rude crash; as in melody,
Just in great discords, throughout all the maze
Of involute, transversive harmony,
Till they repoise the scale in tonal Peace;
Victors on Europe, witherers of her might!
For their’s are Nature’s powers; Elemental strength
Springs in their nerves, to artificial or
Cold Europe’s man unknown; and at the Fount
Divine they drink pursuant of the stream:
They hence are keenly sentient of all truth:
Familiar, hence, is bold Emprize; easy,
Hence, Atchievement, that to Europe’s upward
Navigation is impractical and mad.(F)[14]
Deep in these Caverns, or in Air sublime
A long abode they held; but never slept:
Secure—that Europe dreamed not, or dreaming,
Dared not search for Life in principles of Life,
The ethereal sense and fire’s elastic beam.[2]
They rallied, time by time, their scattered bands,
With antient concords on their still‑tuned harps;
Which, momently, the favoured ear might catch,
At silent dawning in the Zenith Air;
And feel the high seraphic rapture trill,
As the sweet sounds evolved a maze of song—
A song replete with all that Egypt knew,
Or close Eleusis taught her pious youth.(G)Here too I sat with them enwrapt, though open;(H)
Till now the concert hastens to a close,
And all our War is out! Bold and more quick
The countervailing Discords now We sound[15]
And ply the terrible Antistrophe,(I)
With fearful Justice and closed Harmony
Full on Europe, who ghastly sinks to Hell!The Genius of the West is High, and rides
Swiftly on the bold and regulated
Pinion of the Atlantic Wind. His race is won.
His burning wheels run on the rolling floods!
He has not other climes to visit. New
To the world in Afric’s (K) Morning; and in
Asia’s Noon but just reflecting rays
Feeble and broken on European snows—
He challenged no return who made no gift.
But now through Europe his descending beams
Have all diffused their lustre; and at length,
Fresh and resplendent in the Western sky,
He sums up all his Justice and his Strength;
Kindles his orient and meridian blaze
Clear as in Asia, as in Afric bold;[16]
Displays as lucid purple on his throne,
And summons all the Honors of the World.
No lingering twilight in the proud-robed WEST
Shews indecision in the Paths of Day!
But each must grasp the single hour of Light,
Or lose for ever, and in darkness die.IT is not till receding to the point,
Whence, from the lofty Zenith’s blazy height,
Again he darts, with generous force intense,
His arrows vertical; as with quickened march,
He hastens to relume the Southern World,—
That his indignant and protected Sons
Sweep on the Isles commissioned Hurricanes.NOW e’er description bid the tempest pour,
Retire We to the bower of Love and feel
The blaze of Beauty. ‘Tis the hour of Noon:
Tokens have caused an awful expectation:[17]
The Calm; diamond-bright, pellucid, ether;
The cavern murmuring to the troubled wave—
Give note unerring of the big Event.And who will join me in this safe Recess?
Come Love’s and Nature’s offspring pure, whoe’er
Or whence thou art! For thou art mine, I know:
Come Fancy’s sweetest Child! For I am thine
Through the contrasted changes of my Life!
Swift let me lead thee tender, and fearful,
Or of the wild blast, or the madman’s touch,
Assiduous for that calm and full Recess,
To Indian Groves of aromatic breath,
To spicy Thickets and to ample flowers
Redolent of every various sweet that glows
Beneath the beams of Heaven’s Eternal Sun!
Thence, in the house, careless of every blast,
Fixt on the Rock whose Quarry gave its Walls,[18]
And whose Foundations are the central Earth,
We'll smile contempt on every fear around.Before the Tempest darken on the Isle,
We'll view the little Archipelago,
That raise their pleasant banks and slope their beach
Around their parent Isle.Green Island, first,
Excels in verdure, and to listlessness
And summer pleasure spreads the cocoa shade.
Pelican Island on the North-East lies;
Whose shelving shore, or here presents the cool,
Sequestered spot for bathing; or covered o’er
With beauteous shells of every gaudy tinge,
Invites the mind, that springs to Nature’s charms,
Or loves to class what she diffusely throws.
These, with Long Island, and that Isle whose name
The Guana, found in multitudes, imparts;[19]
Successive open to the glad eager eye
Of mariner, now lightly concluding
A long Voyage with Bliss, and down the Northern coast,
Rocky, but pleasant, as his business calls,
With steady breeze and unreefed topsails, sailing.
But far more extacied with all the scene
Is that gay Girl, or this impetuous Youth,
Who, long estranged from early blisses sweet
And all the transports of their infant years,
In search of Learning radiant, or the dance,
Greet joyous now, the pleasant Isle, that holds
Their Friends, their Parents, and (if virtue warm
The feeling bosoms of their race and them)
The orphaned train, whose daily sweat has won
The Pride and Pleasure which exalts them now:
But whom Diviner Justice soon will teach,
That the same hand which sowed, shall reap the field;
And that, which reaps, uninjured, shall enjoy.[20]
Around Us here, while all was tempered Peace,
Pleasing although illusive and unjust;
The balmy trade-wind breathed refreshing airs,
And blew salubrious to the toil-worn slave.The Eastern shore receives the welcome gale;
And leads to caverns, or the brow of rocks,
To gravel banks with glittering shell-fish strewed,
To deep-green mangrove, or the shadowing branch
Of lofty cedar droping blossoms white,
That tremble as they fall and meet the wave
Progressive to their root. Here, oft, at even,
When lengthening shadows to the calmy wave
Shot dubious twilight and alluring gloom,
I sat contemplative; and viewed the breeze
Chequer the water with far-streaming light,
That glistened as with gems: I sat and thought
Ambition was a folly; glory, madness;
And all the hopes attending various man[21]
Were robbers of his rest: I thought, that Love
Was all the sum indulgent Heaven e’er made
To constitute his bliss. I thought so and was blest.FOR four long days a calm through nature reigned;
A calm as dead as ever struck the deep;
As ever marked the silent air with awe,
Or stilled the leaf high trembling, on the bough.
The fifth at eve to my accustomed haunt,
Along the shadow of a Cocoa Grove,
Down to the beach I strolled. The setting sun
Was dyed with crimson; and the full‑orbed moon,
That palely rose above the dusky arch,
Was deeply burred. Settled, encreasing, black,
With jagged clouds, voluminous and deep,
Scudded along the Northern verge of ocean,
And a long labouring swell hove the large
Billow lifeless on the shore, while adverse clouds
In dark battalia swiftly met in air.[22]
Just where the horizon bends to meet the wave,
Within the farthest reach of human ken,
A Sail appeared. The mild ray far beaming
From the Western Sun glanced on her canvas,
And beheld it spread (L) before the rising breeze.
The rising breeze far from the Northward moved,
Ruffling along, and blackened as it came.
The affrighted plover from its blast retired;
The lizard nestled in the watchman’s hut,
And heavy, awful, gloom poured deepening on.
Soon reigning darkness o’er Creation drew
The deep-black curtain of involving night:
The tempest thickened; and the dark wind howled
Encreasing horrors and sublimer blasts
Heavy the deep-hung atmosphere along.
Retired as soon as straws around me felt
The wind, I, hence, enjoyed in silent peace
The rending gale. But, ever and anon,
Some crash of trees or noise of swift destruction[23]
Met my ear. Soon the expected signals of
Distress roll through the heavy storm; the wind
Almost suppressed the deep-mouthed sound it bore.
Reiterate at rapid intervals,
The guns were heard, and oftimes joined the thunder.
The firing ceased. The aggravated storm rode
Wide and unrivalled through the midnight air.
All else was silence.
[24]
CANTO II.
FRESH from the roaring of the darksome wind
Peace for a moment, draw thy mantle round,(M)
Hushing disordered Nature; while rapid
Humanity and Love disperse their beams,
To light the houseless exile to my home,
Before the Hurricane confirm his waste.
Brothers in Vengeance! For one moment’s pause,
I yield you Nature till the golden morn,
And claim from none, to stay your shivering hand!While yet o’er all the solemn stillness reigned,
Instant relief, in all directions sent,
The nearest wanderers found, and safely housed.[25]
The moral victims whom the gale destroyed,
And her preserved with life to Bliss I sing—
If not with metral pomp on harp sublime,
Yet to the youthful heart and virgin’s ear.‘Twas where the sound of guns had marked a wreck,
My own selected path I took, in search
Of objects breathing from the Eastern storm.
Wild and tremendous was the nightly sky:
The clouds involved in vast confusion, deep
And ripening still for action, ascended
Swiftly from the South and West. Exhausted
To the East they thinned, and nearly oped there
The lowering sky; where, dimly seen, one star
Glimmered on night’s dull brow, and then was hid.
Pale twilight from the shroudèd moon discovered
Shattered Nature; and, as we neared the dreadful
Sounding ocean, large torches held aloft[26]
Gleamed fearful on the loud tempestuous waste.
Ocean, why in darkness hid, sounds so deep
Your midnight roar? Clouds, enclosing warring
Winds, why so solemn flit ye o’er? Tell me
All your mighty ravage! Hear I not some
Female shriek now faintly sighing on the
Wings of night? Straightly appeared a gleam of
White before us. Advancing quickly forward,
We saw, on near approach, the tattered sail
Of a ship driven by billows over shelves
Of rocks, high up the creek, and lodged on shore.
Around, no form of life was seen. ’Twas ravage.
No hand remained. The Tempest was her pilot,
And the mighty arm, that winged the ruin.
Hung o’er the side, female attire we found
In shreds; it’s owner sought in vain, was lost.
Within with speed through every hold we search,
And cabin. The first were empty. The last
Repaid my zeal; for here I found, softly[27]
Reclining on a leeward couch a form
Divine. Waked by the noise and lights, her eyes,
As on I came, returned the beams of mine.
With hurried speed she saidELMIRA.
Where is My Mother?
And the captain? How glad I am, that they
Directed you to me!I.
‘Twas no direction
But our own. Come quick thou mildly-beaming
Angel-form with me—The moments stay not—
And I'll lead thee into peace and safety.[28]
ELMIRA.
Where is my mother gone? And are we yet
In England?I.
No: with truest Friends you are.
I placed Her in an idle hammaque near,
Which, held by Negroes, bore her gently on.
And as we went, I aimed, with tenderest talk
To cheer the droopy maid; who, not reluctant
Seemed, to solace: for to Sea unused, young
And innocent, she knew not the dangers
She had passed; but hearing English spoke, and
Dreaming nought of strangers, having sunk to sleep
Among accustomed friends, supposed herself
Still known. Simply eloquent, she told me,[29]
How they disturbed her with their noise on board;
How, being still at length, she hugged her couch,
Rocked by the winds and seas to dead repose,
Till thence awoke by me. So infant spirits,
Who wing their animating flight of Death
In pleasing slumbers from their mother’s arms,
Alight unknowing on celestial ground:
Then press with firmy step the flowery path,
Nor dream of serpents they have never known;
Embrace with smiles their first angelic Friend,
And ope the little treasure of their hearts:
Thus sweet Elmira told her gentle tale,
And lit each generous ardour in my breast.At home arrived and entering at the East—
For now all entrance from the West was barred—
She looked and asked—[30]
ELMIRA.
Where is my mother’s room?
Or where is she? I want to sleep again:
For you removed me when but half awake.
What is this country?I.
A country tis, where—
Daughters and mothers seldom live together.
ELMIRA.
Why not?
I.
They cannot. Young with young, and old
With old together dwell, where you are now.[31]
Your mother fully welcomed just is gone
Where you can never follow. The distance
Is but small; yet bad the road, and water
Lies between you. She begs you here to rest,
Till, with a few days use, you like the place.
You will command whatever you may see,
And all this house is your’s. All varied pleasure
Shall attend the varied day. The morning
Breeze luxuriant shall be your’s in this saloon,
Or in the Orange and Acacia shade;
Where flower or fruit alike regale your taste.
For you shall noon pour tranquil splendour wide,
Not unaired, nor void of rich aroma;
For shrubs that love to drink his ray and live,
Will skreen it from Elmira. The purple
Sorrel-Nectar high, or milk of Cocoa Nut
You then shall drain; and in its sportive shade
Hearken the breeze race on it’s rising stem.
Evening shall bear us to the Thicket Shade;[32]
Or else, at large, we'll catch the rambling air;
And when we see the peaceful breast of ocean
Just rippled over with the wildring breeze,
We'll then descend the beach; and, pleased, inhale
The freshest breath of genial air that blows;
Or snuff the showers collecting in the East
To cool the atmosphere and green the earth.ELMIRA.
But, will my mother never come? I long
To tell her of those pleasant things.I.
Better
Enjoy them first and know them true yourself.
Then, sweet companions of your sex and age
Will join your walk and mix their joys with your’s;[33]
With equal transport catch the lively glow
From Nature’s face, and beam it in their eyes;
While with extatic smiles you hail the scene,
And eager tell, what various pleasures swell.ELMIRA.
WILL none else be with us?
I.
I when you please,
Will join my sweet Elmira and her Friends.
ELMIRA.
I shall always please.
[34]
Safely lodged at home,
And all secured against the wind stern rising,
I pressed refreshment on my travelled guest,
Who well enjoyed the delicate repast
Of viands flavoured new and cooling drinks.
Full easily she believed herself brought
By design to this so happy spot: and sure
She deemed aright—It was her God’s design:
Only she thought from God and not from man.
Think still, sweet maid, the same! No reasoner
Shall e’er disturb thy God’s domain in thee!
Still from the same pure fountain thou shalt drink!
Still, in the Light Divine shalt thou see light.Meanwhile the Tempest turned has rouzed his rage,
And blows on Europe unrelenting fury:
The rain, in spreading sheets, comes whelming down
And forms a flood. Nor man, nor beast, nor house
Unfounded on a rock, sustained the assault[35]
Of winds and rain: The lightnings flamed, and roared
The thunder in tremendous vollies deep:
Now all the soul of Hurricane was poured,
Infuriate raging with the waste of sea.
Through earth or ocean God’s own hand upreared
Quickly destroyed all the destructible:Well sheltered on the West, we felt it less
But heard it more. The hard rain loud battering
The shingled roof surprized my lovely guest;
Who doubted if she were not still afloat:
But soon assured and soon resigned to Peace,
For her’s was bliss innate and incorrupt,
And eager on her novel hopes of life,
She softly sank to beatific sleep.With rising morn the wind subsides: The clouds
Fly lighter and to higher air sublime,[36]
Discharged of all their weight. The Eastern breeze
Resumed is balmy; and Creation lives.THE Wreck we next examine: There, nor man,
Nor boat is found: A mile to leeward shews
The wreck of both: A Female washed on shore
Proclaims Elmira’s mother. But from her
The tragic fact is hid.She broods no tempest
Who conceals no guilt. No mean lust of gain
Propelled Elmira; nor guilt-infected hopes
Taught her the fear of ill, or yet, to fly
To man for safety, which Deity would not
Grant, nor her own breast could claim.The Sailors hoped
To fetch the quiet creek in boats; and haste
Could not await Elmira; nor would fear[37]
Surcharge their yawl; nor their trust in human
Aids permit to take a poor helpless hand:—
Yet, alone, would Innocence have saved them!The female age matured and wise, her child’s
Guardian, hung for life on men! While she prayed
That they would save her daughter’s life and her’s,
A sweeping billow bore her to the deep.Shortly awake Elmira joined me soon,
Treading with cheerful step and unrestrained
The stately portico. ’Twas all enchantment
To her soul. The sun burst brilliant forth and
Welcomed her: All the Isle, the conquered ocean,
Lay before her: Smaller Isles attract her:
Unknown Diversities of Landscape strike:
The distant Hills cite curiosity:
Her God is in her heart in Love and Bliss;
And through the Isle and air she lives.**
[38 (blank page)]
[39]
A
SOLITARY EFFUSION
IN A
SUMMER’s EVENING
[40 (blank page)]
[41]
A SOLITARY EFFUSION.
HAVING SPENT A VERY FINE DAY IN THE HOUSE, IN
THE MIDST OF A VERY FINE COUNTRY, FROM WANT
OF COMPANY TO ENJOY IT WITH ME; I WROTE
THESE LINES AT FIVE IN THE AFTERNOON
ON THE TWENTIETH OF JULY LAST.
________
WHAT is the cloudless sky to me? Nature’s
Devellopt radiance and her thousand charms?
No heart joins mine: no kindred step with me
Winds the lone dingle, or pursues the track
Slow opening through the mazy thicket’s shade:
None rests with me upon the verdant slope,
And runs his eye enraptured o’er the glade,[42]
On to the distant sleeping stream, that walks
With slow and measured lapse, his round of ages
In the circling mead; saw the woad-painted
Briton; beheld, or bore, his sharp-scythed chariot;
Was oft dasht by the fierce arm that ruled it;
Yielded indignant to the new Roman;
Echoed with languid joy and presage sad
The desperate shouts of fainting Freedom,
As they rang from loud Caer-Caradoc [3] amain,
And with their last rude crash shook every dale,
Rouzed each cot in vain; and has lived to hear
That song again from centuries of Death,
On Mason’s lyre revived.Hark! Here are groves
That hold, or held, some Druid. Dark mantling
Round they throw impenetrable shade; and hide,[43]
And have for ever hid, aye unprofaned
By Roman, or by Savage conqueror’s step,
Some Temple sacred by the Mystic Sage.Here, too, are haunts of Love, as well as grand
And rudest Wisdom’s darkest, drear domains.
Groves were sacred once to Love: once were heard,
Low murmuring through the many-turtled shades
Of Peace, respondent sighs, or liveliest notes
Of placid and accordant Love, that mixed
Airs with the Zephyr, whispers with the sacred grove.
Long husht to sullen silence, Groves no more
Echo to human Loves: the Loves refined,
Or antient minstrels sung, of Dryad or
Of Naiad, or perchance of human Maid
From cottage or from palace; or of Gods,
From halls of light descending to the plain,
Unconscious of a change; nor so immixt,[44]
Can learned retrospection trace distinct,
The Nymph, the Goddess or terrestrial Maid.Lonely their solitary haunts I view:
And welcome solitude where they are not:
Where such are not companions of the walk!Tell me, ye Gentle and ye Graceful, tell—
Tell me, ye Chaste, yet not averse from Love—
Tell me, ye Great, who guarded all these Fair,
And make the lofty Groves of Love, that tower
In Zenith Air, terrific to the vain;
As all within was mild, serene and pure—
Tell me, who most have ravaged your retreats;
Who worst your secret delicacies wound,
And boldest all your hidden depths profane?
Which age is vile, the Gothic, or Refined?[45]
“That, which the Heart lays waste!” I hear exclaimed
In choral harmony of Fair and Great.
“Ah! What avails to us, pure Nature’s Spirits!
The managed body and the managed tongue,
Which chaunts no concord to soft Nature’s notes?
The managed foot, that dreads our shady brakes,
And shuns our holiest, wildest, deepest walks?
We give no music to the high-trained ear:
Our concert loved is NATURE’s voice Divine,
And GOD’s and LOVE’s; One unison, that sounds
Through every branch, and trembles in each leaf.
Here oft, when man awakes not, hear we sweet
The voice of GOD conversing in the Calm,
And preaching of his inmost works Himself;
Till all the Seraph glow in all his fires,
And melts the high Society in one
Enraptured Diapason’s holy sound.[46]
’Twas not the Warrior’s gleam, that thinned our shades
And harshly grated human Discords there:
He passed unheeded when the storm was o’er,
And left no measured ravage: Not the man
Of boisterous Nature was our foe; that man
Was Nature still, and her behests obeyed.
The Man of Art, is NATURE’s foe and man’s
And God’s. His desolating axe wastes all,
That speaks a GOD Creator of the Land;
And marks it for his own. The ground not then
Yields an impartial feast to man, to fowl,
And all the Family of GOD; but trained
To furnish famine, mocks at GOD and all.
No shades are holy, nor are rural scenes.
The Man of Art proscribes all Nature; marks
For dread the embowring thicket formed for Love
And Love’s delights of Peace; and wise in this
Career of Ruin, he; for LOVE itself
Is the first dread—LOVE the first great terror[47]
Of the Man of Art—commutual Foe!
And yet is LOVE the Universal Friend:
And, (hear the choir of NATURE, MAN and GOD!)
The Man of Art, the Universal Foe!
He dreads himself—hates LOVE he can't subdue—
His GOD arraigns—all NATURE desolates!
But hence, let NATURE rise and reign in Man!
And him destroy who has destroyed the Earth;
While GOD inspires, and LOVE unites the World!”I hail the blest alternative! Content
To live dissociate of the Man of Art
And his dissociate earth, usurpt and curst!
Shortly his ruin whelms; the Dam is broke!
The Founts of Fire are broken up, as erst
Of the Great Deep, and FIRE now streams along,
Innocuous round my Rest! See! It comes!
And claims the SPRINGS of NATURE for it’s own!
[48 blank]
[49]
________
NOTES
______
[50 blank]
[51]
______
Broke the mild concords of the Mermaid’s shell.
COLUMBUS asserts his having seen Mermaids about the time he first made land, who sank at his approach.
The existence of the Mermaid is now certain; as one was exhibited a long while in Oxford-Street, which I saw two years ago nearly, together with a young one taken in her arms. The length of the mother may have been four feet, and that of the child nine or ten inches. From the loins upward appeared to have been covered with flesh; and
[52]
thence downward, with scales. They were dried, having been caught five years before on the coasts of Italy or of Sicily. The hands were webbed; and the fingers terminated sharp, like a monkey’s. The owner says, he refused One Hundred Guineas for them, from, the British Museum.
WHY not MERMEN and MERMAIDS, as well as Ourang-Outangs? Why not Sea men and maids (imperfect animals though they are) as well as Sea lions, calves and horses?
. . . . . . .
Not less than Memnon whom Aurora bore
To Eastern mornings
HIS statue near Thebes in Egypt, emitted musical sounds, when impinged on by the first rays of the sun, at rising; and did not lose this faculty when half demolisht. Some ingenious strictures on it may be found in Dr. Darwin’s Botannic Garden, among his many other valua-
[53]
ble notes. The mechanism, which produced this singular, but well avouched, effect, is not my business: What I shall argue from it will be equally conclusive, if the mechanism be a fable.
The Celestial Philosophy of the Idea is that Light and Sound are corelates. Creation proceeded in darkness, while it proceeded in silence. At length GOD spake—Let there be Light! And there was light—ipso facto. GOD does not speak darkly: and here our common phraseology, as I shall more fully remark presently, betrays a consciousness of this co‑relation. But to go on with Scripture: The Word was the Light of men. The Stars, which in Genesis i.17, were to give Light upon the earth, are speaking in Psalm xix.3. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard—or ASTROLOGY; which is compounded of two Greek words, signifying, the Word or Voice of the Stars. Perhaps it will be suspected, that had David possessed as much Science in futurity as confidence in Astrology, he would in this assertion, have excepted the summits of Wisdom to which modern Europe has attained, so far beyond the loftiest ken of his capacity. In some degree to avert this
[54]
censure, I must endeavour to supply what was wanting in David with the fulness of the Son of David. He has given as a diagnostic of the last times, that the Stars shall withdraw their shining, and the powers of heaven shall be shaken. What shining is withdrawn? The European will first tell you that their external shining is meant, and also their external droping from the heaven as a fig-tree shaken by the wind casts her untimely figs; and having inexpugnably fortified himself there, because he has too much reverence for holy writ to let it countenance superstition—proceeds immediately to laugh at the profound ignorance in all physical sciences or real learning, of Him, who pretended, that the worlds were made by the word of his power, for asserting, that such immense bodies would fall to the earth. This is one instance of the generous support given by learning to Christianity. Therefore I say to you all, whether College Petit‑maitres, Priests, Moralists, Encyclopaedia Writers, Swedenborgians, or Philosophers,
Non tali auxilio nec defensoribus istis
Christus eget.
Christ wants not such help, nor such defenders.
[55]
Man by Wisdom knew not GOD—much less by idiocy or a national state of insanity. But how then? By the LIGHT, and by the SPEECH and ACTION of a STAR. There shall come a STAR out of JACOB and a Sceptre shall arise out of ISRAEL, combined in signification with it, and shall SMITE the corners of Moab and DESTROY all the children of Seth. And after many years there came WISE men from the East, not from the North, to Jerusalem, searching for the SCEPTRE in consequence of having seen the STAR, and asking, Where is HE who is born KING of the Jews; for we have seen HIS Star in the East, and are come to worship Him. How did they read all this in the Star? For read it or hear it, they unquestionably did. Was it the extraordinary magnitude of the Star, that admonished them? How came it, that the Jews over whom it was vertical did not see it? For Herod called the Wise men and diligently enquired of them, at what time the Star appeared. But perhaps, it is a satisfactory answer, that they always looked upon the ground like Europeans, surrendering the characteristic of MAN, who with a lofty countenance, is made to behold the Stars. If this be allowed, Isaiah has something upon it chap. viii. 22. They shall look unto the earth; and behold trouble and DARKNESS, dimness of anguish;
[56]
and be driven to DARKNESS! However ready the men were, who could not read the STAR, to murder the KING, and till they could atchieve the murder of Innocence impersonified, to regale themselves with the butchery of a multitude of comparative Innocents, the WISE men followed the STAR and worshiped the KING and the GOD; watching its place of stoping and there, themselves, resting: till, warned by a Dream, they returned into their country another way, than through the Jews, or by the King, whom these so religiously obeyed—for, no doubt, they did so, because DAVID had shewn them not to lift their hand against the LORD’s ANOINTED: The natural or external man has no rule to know the Devil’s from the LORD’s.
CHRIST was manifested to the Gentiles by a STAR: JESUS to the Jews by VISIONS OF ANGELS and by DREAMS. Till I exactly know, which of these two or three modes of manifestation the Europeans most confide in, I cannot be clear, whether they are Gentiles or Jews, or even Turks, Infidels or Heretics. I rather think they are a mixture, and if I may judge from the serenity with which they see the heavens and the earth shaken round them. I should say, a happy mixture of all five. But
[57]
the word five reminds me, that the five foolish virgins, (and surely there is virgin folly in this compound) as well as the five wise, slept and slumbered till the Bridegroom came.
THE Speech of the orbs of LIGHT is not an accidental figure, taken up for partial illustration and then abandoned; but a DOCTRINE, which pervades all religions and applies to every perception. [4] In Job, chap. xxxviii. 7, it is said, The Morning STARS SANG together; and this brings us to MEMNON; who seems an impersonation of this sentiment; and designed to represent in stone the immediate correspondential consequences of light, in a recipient organized for sound. MEMNON is a solitary instance of this in human productions or, works of art; but the Crowing of Cocks, and Singing of Birds, are among instances of it, where moral powers predominate rather than physical—that is, in the works of the FATHER of LIGHTS.
IF LIGHT and SOUND are corelates, the propositions by which this is affirmed are equally true in the
[58]
converse; as Psalm cxix. 105. Thy WORD is a LAMP unto my feet and a LIGHT unto my Path. Psalm xix. 3. There is no speech nor language, Where THEIR VOICE is not heard.
WITH the Greeks, Phœbus and Apollo were the same person; or LIGHT and SOUND were twin streams from one spring. With a less philosophical people, a blind man has been thought ridiculous, for conceiving the colour Red to be like the sound of a Trumpet: yet to common perception they both are splendid and spirited. Even the creeping of mechanic philosophy has arrived at discovering the same divisions and proportions in the Diatonic Scale and the Prism.
IT is well observed by Dr. Darwin, that we apply words expressive of LIGHT and SOUND indifferently to each other; as Harmony of colours; a splendid composition or fine painting in Poetry, Oratory or Music; equipoise of sounds. Perhaps the word equipoise actually unites Sounds and Light. I have not scrupled to say, a few lines farther on, that “fired with radiance—they poured Music,” without thinking it any breach of metaphor; though Apollo’s arrows and the lyre of Phœbus
[59]
have been by some critics, held such. Even this, I think, amounted to no more than a solecism, supposing it to have been an error at all; language having prescribed the Word to Apollo and the Light to Phœbus. Scripture, we have just seen, as well as common language, slights the Distinction.
. . . . . . .
Then the MERMAID to her deeps shot rapid:
Trembling she lay; but safe, and long concealed
From haunts of War.
I HAVE anticipated in the Preface, that the machinery of this Poem turns on the thought, that while the inhabitants of AMERICA were subdued, the Europeans were gradually tincturing themselves with the feelings manners and habits, of that new Quarter of the Globe. In other words, while AMERICAN bodies were destroyed by European bodies, AMERICAN SPIRITS were subduing the Europeans—and much more effectually and really, though latently. It was latent to Europeans, only be-
[60]
cause they and their philosophy contemplate forms or externals, alone; and hence, they conclude, when a body is put out of the way, the whole work is done; little considering, that the SPIRIT or PRINCIPLE,which solely gave that body existence, is itself, so far from being extinguisht, that it has burst the crucible which confined it, and enflamed to vengeance ALL those, who are in a similar principle, whether ten, a thousand, a myriad, or in the case of a common SAVIOUR, all Creation—and the murderer himself among the number. And the subjugation effected by AMERICA is more effectual and real, because SPIRIT moves body, but body does not move SPIRIT. It may remove SPIRIT from it; but the good it gains is, that it dies, and the expelled SPIRIT flourishes more exalted, pure and free.
BY SEA I always mean the external, the body or crust, of the world; I mean also Europe, or still more specifically, England; as having understandings calculated for the Sea or for Physics; and excelling alike in the sciences and the arts by which these two are jointly contemplated.
[61]
BUT though the inhabitants of AMERICA were destroyed, yet, as the SPIRIT or GENIUS, or PRINCIPLE of AMERICA infused itself into Europeans, and still goes on rapidly perfusing itself there, it could never be said, in the abstract or in the highest sense, that AMERICAN bodies were destroyed—or, which is the same thing, that there was no trace of the activity of their principles in the world.
WHEN I speak of MERMAIDS, I wish to be understood as expressing by them, the most intelligent inhabitants of the merely natural world; because the Sea is that world, and among its animals the MERMAID nearest approaches to the human form, and consequently to the image and similitude of GOD. And by AMERICAN MERMAIDS specifically, I mean the intelligence and love of NATURAL or SENSUAL Life among and appropriate to, the AMERICANS. Hence
BY the passage, which is the Subject of this Note, I mean that the above INTELLIGENCE and LOVE were
[62]
not extinguisht, but “sunk in the sea,” or transfused into European bodies.
Why is the Sea the ultimate of Creation?
FIRE is visibly the Primary, or rather the ESSE of Being; because FIRE alone has MOTION in itself, or can impart motion, that is, inherent motion to any body. This is testified universally by expansion; and in the case of magnetic bars, by attraction. For, undeniably, where there is attraction, there is motion, a fermentation of parts; and this is produced by imparted heat. If Fire be the Primary, the Opposite of FIRE is the ultimate.
. . . . . . .
Who, far from Europe and its bodied forms.
THAT is, far from the perception of their understanding: and, as the European lives in his understanding alone; that is, places no confidence in any thing, which
[63]
is not mathematically visible, not even in Logic, far less in internal feelings and the experiences of mind—I have said far from him; though they were working so powerfully IN him, as to repeople from Europe, many immense tracts of AMERICA, on one side of the Atlantic; and on the other, combined with a beverage from the East, and the manual cultivation of a still more spiritual country, to establish themselves in every parlour, from the palace, to the mud cottage; and most universally in the most physical kingdom of the most physical Quarter of the Globe, in the form of the most universal, deep‑rooted and medicinal luxury ever known. With every lump of Sugar, a certain portion of Essence of AMERICA and of AFRICA is swallowed; and if refined with the blood of bulls, a proportion of England too; but the first are wholly predominant.
STRANGE it would be, that Mathematicians give no reality to Spirit, while they lay the basis of form in Idea—if they were any thing but Mathematicians. What makes a surface? What makes a line? What makes a point? Here Metaphysics begin [5] —after Physics end, or have attained their grovelling apex. It stands, or has
[64]
stood confest by the Mathematicians that all form rises out of Idea; and justly; only it is a pity that, after knowing their place, they would not keep it. The fly, though he feels himself carried by the wheel, fancies he turns it; but because he is a fly, he cannot be instructed; yet be may be killed: Notwithstanding he is capable of surviving a passage from America to England in a pipe of Madeira wine—an experiment I am fully informed of, while I write—yet he may be trodden down and thoroughly crusht. Impertinence not corrigible by failure and repulse, nor to be awed by example, may be destroyed.
THE importance of a man or of a nation absorbed in one thing, must be decided by the practical importance of the thing absorbing. The highest practical use of Mathesis is Architecture, Land or Naval, and Astronomical Navigation: This last serves to convey comforts home; the second is the medium of the third; and the first is, at once, the primary and ultimate of sensual enjoyment—a sine qua non; and of course the most invaluable achievement. And this may, in a moment, be demolisht by either a human Invention, or by Nature; and must inevitably yield to Time.
[65]
In subterranean vaults, where ocean roars, &c.
A ROARING of the Sea in certain caverns, is one prognostic of an HURRICANE, in Antigua.
BY holding consultations with Genii of the Deep, I mean superadding to themselves the first and highest principles of Physical Sciences, and thereby excelling or vanquishing Europe on her own Element. Whence I have said farther on, “They are victors ON Europe —Witherers of her might.” See the next Note.
. . . . . . . .
For their’s are Nature’s Powers: Elemental strength
Springs in their nerves; to artificial or
Cold Europe’s man unknown; and at the FOUNT
Divine they drink, pursuant of the stream.
They hence are keenly sentient of all Truth;[66]
Familiar, hence, is bold Emprize; easy,
Hence, Atchievement, that to Europe’s upward
Navigation is impractical and mad.
THOSE, who feel internally, think or judge from that feeling, and act from that judgment, are in order; They are bannered in Nature’s Cavalry: Their course of Action is a fine Synthesis; and wherever they proceed, they meet no object but what is below them. They are always on the higher ground. The man of physical feelings, science and action, is always climbing, but never ascending.
BUT why this distribution of parts to AMERICA and Europe ? For Europe I have accounted, in a great measure, already. As to AMERICA, first and foremost I shall give the practical reason, because that is the AMERICAN—and it is this—I AM AN AMERICAN, and Qui SENTIT Ille EST. I say—Such is the ground; I describe it; and did any European teach me? No. Then it is MY OWN ground.
Next, the speculative reason.
[67]
FIRE is the ESSE of Being, or Being itself: EARTH is the ESSENCE; or that which gives DISTINCTION, Solidity or exterior Permanency; WATER is the Ultimate, the Exanimate, the Weak of Creation: AIR is the Result of the Elements; continent of them in various proportions and recipient of every different quality from them. The Hebrews always knew it to be no Element; for of their twenty-two letters, they gave twelve to the Signs of the Zodiac, seven to the planets, and three to FIRE, EARTH and WATER.
As is the Continent or Country, so is the Man of it. AFRICA is evidently the least watered part of the Globe; or, what is still more to the point, the least accessible by water. She is poised on the Equator; and certainly is the FIERY region of the world. ASIA is an Earth to AFRICA; a vehicle, which was contrived to prevent Europe from extinguishing AFRICA, or AFRICA from burning Europe, while heating it. With Asia I have no farther business, than to add she was represented among the Antients by a Ship, as Europe was by Water. But on AFRICA, I shall treat in a separate Note. The African is, however, the most internal man in the world, as his country is the most fiery.
[68]
IF Europe have not more water than AMERICA, nor so much, yet, her chief strength, superiority and energy, lie in that element. AMERICA is AIR.
As Air she possesses the powers and advantages combined (and consequently sublimed and in a fulness of perfection which only the combination can give) of all other Quarters of the Globe. The altitude of her Mountains, the depth and immensity of her Rivers, the quantity of her Metals, her possession of the most noble of them in PLATINA, the number of her Islands, her twofold Continent and its vast extent—join unequivocally to support this fact. Her inhabitants, therefore, contemplating alike Heat and Cold, Mountains and Plains, Woods and Lakes, Rivers and Oceans, each on an imperial throne—may, very well, for a moment be lost in body, but cannot be defective in MIND.
A MAN is supposed to improve by going out into the world, by visiting London. Artificial man does; he extends with his sphere; but alas! that sphere is microscopic: It is formed of minutiae, and he surrenders his genuine vision to the artist, in order to embrace it in his ken. His bodily senses grow acute, even to barren and
[69]
inhuman pruriency; while his mental become proportionally obtuse. The reverse is the Man of Mind: He who is placed in the sphere of Nature and of GOD, might be a mock at Tattersall’s and Brookes’s, and a sneer at St. James’s: He would certainly be swallowed alive by the first Pizarro, that crossed him:—But, when he walks along the River of Amazons; when he rests his eye on the unrivalled Andes; when he measures the long and watered Savannah; or contemplates from a sudden Promontary, the distant, Vast Pacific—and feels himself a FREEMAN in this vast Theatre, and commanding each ready produced fruit of this wilderness, and each progeny of this stream—His exaltation is not less than Imperial. He is as gentle too as he is great: His emotions of tenderness keep pace with his elevation of sentiment; for he says, “These were made by a good Being, who unsought by me, placed me here to enjoy them.” He becomes at once, a Child and a King. His mind is in himself; from hence he argues and from hence he acts; and he argues unerringly and acts magisterially: His Mind in himself is also in his GOD; and therefore he loves, and therefore he soars. He knows where he is; his speculations do not outfly his practice; for he thinks he knows nothing but what he proves. The vast pride of discovering Experimental
[70]
Philosophy cannot, indeed, be his; for Discovery is precluded by incessant KNOWLEDGE.
The European is always climbing, because he always begins with Water, whose property it is, always to sink to a level. He cannot make any progress, because Water originates nothing. He never ascends, because he never quits Water. Hence, for ever, like Sisyphus, struggling up a toilsome, vain Analysis, he judges all things, which are above the height to which Water may be forced by known engines, to be impracticable; and the SCIENCE OF MIND to be impractical and a mad speculation, instead of what it is—THE ONLY AND BRILLIANT REALITY. He always thinks out of himself: hence he never meets GOD, and leaves the PRIME WORK of DEITY, as the least considerable part of creation: but this, he alleges, is because he is not able to consider him at all. He knows not where to begin; he has not one datum in Mind: and the science of all that is real, stands under the term Metaphysics, as a cant name for all that is speculative. If, when arrived here, he could draw a syllogism, and acknowledge his inferiority, he would, at this moment, be an object of my friendship, not of my indignation and invective. But he
[71]
is not Content to be false; he is BAD: he is not content to be ignorant of Mind, but the villain must murder it, if he can—but he cannot. We have just seen him, from the attempt, as bad as he is false; We see him in the conduct of his attempt, as foolish as he is wicked. He throws Water on our seeds, and makes us vegetate. With his ignorance of Mind, he knows not the laws of Victory. He knows not, though he sees it, that the visible body is moved by only the invisible MIND, and that the energies, which impel an imperious course of conduct, lie not in muscles, nor in bones of even six inches diameter: We know it and vanquish him on his own ground; moving body to any thing by spirit. He sees it, did I say? I beg his pardon; I forgot, that eyes can look only outward, and that of course, he cannot see this. But I have an infallible recipe for this blindness; or if not a recipe, an antidote for those, whom its malignant atrocity would poison—it is this; he can FEEL; that is, when he is run through the BODY. Instruction must be written for an European, with ink of blood and a pen of steel.
IF the FIRST MOTIVE of Creation, the CREATOR, the first LIFE, be connected with each detacht part of Creation, with each subordinate Life, and each
[72]
subordinate mover, at all; it must be in the most active, the most vital, and the most plastic, which are also the most recondite, parts of his frame. Who ever found Majesty in a bone, or illumination in the eye of a corpse? But the organization continues, or to what purpose is Anatomy? Therefore the FIRST MOTIVE inheres not in body, nor in its organization. The PERCIPIENT is vanisht, and the MOTIVE is gone. Suppose them to be annihilated, if you will; I am SURE your body is. Yet, in this body you fix demonstration; from this you argue: It is a reasoning worthy of it, that in the principle of its identity and motion, you disdain to seek that of its CREATION, even GOD. Spirit without spirituality; Christians without Christ or Power; Asserters of, nay, brawlers for Jesus, without Salvation, you Englishmen are—Mathematicians: all purer characters are superstitious. The SCIENCE of MIND, to be sure, is Superstition: but it is the Superstition which ARCHIMEDES wanted to raise the World; but which, I tell you, mean men of physics, I HAVE;—and The FRENCH HAVE! And will KEEP and PERFECT, whether you see, and whether you approve, or not. Adieu!
[73]
A song replete with all that EGYPT knew:
Or close ELEUSIS taught her pious youth:
THAT is, replete with the KNOWLEDGE and PHILOSOPHY of the whole world. I assert this of the Setting Sun, because he has seen, and been seen, through all the World; as of the Rising Sun, because he was to see and be seen throughout.
EGYPT and ELEUSIS stand for the Rising Sun, with me; EGYPT for the Knowledge, and ELEUSIS for the Philosophy; because, laying aside the vulgar presumption in favor of Asia for the Spring of human Being, I have not a penumbra of hesitation in affirming it to be ABYSSINIA; nor do I doubt, that the first formation of Man into Societies and apparent order, was in EGYPT. This I first conclude from its being a country lying just below ABYSSINIA, at the mouth of her River, watered by it without the inconvenience of rains, and the only part of AFRICA, that presented the easy means of Extension to other parts of the World; which it did by the
[74]
Isthmus of Suez, and also by two small and smooth Inland Seas, where they might pass their infancy of Navigation; exclusive of a fine River. Secondly, I conclude so, from the corresponding fact that every REVELATION of SCIENCE or INSTRUCTION to Man, pagan or evangelical, has been from EGYPT; and this evidently must be the case, and can be the case only, on the supposition, that HERE was the original OFFICINA GENTIUM, or work-shop or factory of nations. For where organization first began, they could certainly give the best account of it.
THE Birth of Theogony among the Greeks, the remission of Israel to a servitude in EGYPT, and, afterwards of the UNIVERSAL Saviour to the same place for protection in infancy, coupled with the Prophecy, “Out of EGYPT have I called my SON,” at once point it out as the Birth‑place of the Doctrinals of all Religions. Persons read in Emanuel Swedenborg’s Manifestations, will see, how justly I confine it to Doctrinals or Science, in the last instance as well as the two first; because a SON signifies Doctrine; as Males excel by the cultivation of their Understanding; but Women or Females by retaining the purity of their Will.
[75]
LOOK up to ABYSSINIA with an eye of NATURAL Science, that is, on the principles and with the views of Science, that belong to a Heathen Philosopher; and tell me what you see. CHAOS: do you not? Look up abstractedly to the origin of man, with the same eye, not enlightened by Divine Revelation: What do you see? Chaos. Then two things equal to one and the same thing, are equal to one another.
IN short, every Religion but the PRESENT, has begun in EGYPT; and every Religion but the PRESENT has been speculative. MEN are now summoned by a DIVINE AFFLATUS, to contend for the GOOD OF ENJOYMENT and will no longer trust it to futurity, or be content with speculation, that talks about it and about it. Hence the PRESENT originates in ABYSSINIA. The French are embarked and are near landing on this spot of practical, sensual, or corporeal GOOD. It is historically true, that on the confines of Abyssinia, namely at SENNAAR, was the only kingdom in the World, which allowed the king to be regularly tried and put to death; that is, it was the only country that, finding a PRINCIPLE of political life and action to be destructive to happiness, instead of beneficial, abandon-
[76]
ed and destroyed it. How could they venture on this? Because they lived in a superior Principle; and, of course FELT and knew their whole political structure to be subordinate. With the English, it is paramount; for, though they posses a loose belief of a state superior in stability, they FEEL they have no hold of it; and so practically depend on nothing but Wealth and Policy; and deem him, forsooth, an enemy to mankind, who shakes these! It is also true, that as the king of France was sending an ambassador to the emperor of Abyssinia, whence a queen came to hear the wisdom of SOLOMON and where his Progeny by her still reign, that Embassador, with all his suite were cut to pieces before the door of the king’s palace; [6] owing to certain Friars, who, through jealousy, represented (though, most probably with justice) the embassador to be a spy and secret Enemy.
IN a future Note, I shall state some specific reasons for my EGOTISM in this Poem; but I must round this head with something like Anticipation. I am the only Being in the World, who go through every inch and every league of the French Revolution; which, in-
deed, is no wonder, as I had embarked, without sail or oar, in the Revolution to PRACTICAL GOOD, Public and Private, as an individual, before they started. I also have strong symptoms of a neighbourhood to ABYSSINIA. I have such a strong predilection for AFRICA, as, when a youth, to have wished, in crossing the Atlantic without a Mediterranean Pass, to be taken by a Corsair and carried in; and while I was in the latitudes, I looked out impatiently for every sail, in hopes of finding an African Cruizer. There is certainly a Nation of GIBBERTI, who inhabit East and South of ABYSSINIA, and have had a Dynasty on its Throne. As the ABYSSINIANS never leave their country (and I strenuously maintain, that a total aversion from travelling can only consist with being at the ultimate of Enjoyment and the Primary of Being) the GIBBERTI have been ever their Merchants and their Embassadors [7] to Europe. The inference designed may seem almost an infantine speculation to the European, who knows of no relations but what are guaranteed by a parson and clerk, and archived in a register, according to statute; and therefore I have published enough; but with
the aid of two or three other Correspondences, I can infallibly PROVE my Relation from Spirit, because in Spirit, although naturally, it may be thought, improbable.
I SHALL produce another proof, that EGYPT was the first debut of Mankind; which will have weight with Students of Correspondences. The FIRST Gates of the New Jerusalem are East and North. Now the place to which man is brought back, corresponds in principle, for GOD never alters his plan, to the place whence he sat out; and supposing EGYPT to have been the first route taken by Man, its gates or channels of external communication, are East and North. So the first gates from the Country of Creation and Re-creation are East and North.
BY ELEUSIS I mean the PHILOSOPHY of the Springs of Nature. EGYPT was an original spot: ELEUSIS only a representative: Therefore the one gave knowledge, while the other was only a vehicle of Instruction. See farther Note K.
THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES were celebrated in honor of CERES, and were proceeded on in darkness according with the operations of the Goddess; whom the
[79]
Mystery consisted in tracing, step by step: not, however, in the wearisome details and arbitrary jargon of jejune botany, but in the disclosure of the whole parallel between human and vegetable production. They, scripturally, considered MAN as formed to identity from the dust of the Ground, like PLANTS; as a TREE planted by the Hands of JEHOVAH; and his catastrophe, specific and generic, as the gathering in of the harvest.
THIS accordance between SCRIPTURE and ELEUSIS will not appear susprizing, when we recollect, what I have urged already, that EGYPT supplied BOTH markets; and, if we attend to the transactions of JOSEPH’s administration in EGYPT, We shall add, that it supplied the WHOLE of the market to the Gentiles, and for a long time to ISRAEL: for there being a universal famine from which the abode of ISRAEL was not exempted, the granaries of EGYPT supplied all the world with present food, and the seed of future.
HERE, observe, first, that the wheat being cultivated, by the labour, and stored by the providence of Man represents Man as co-operating, in an external sphere with GOD in an internal, for his own and bre-
[80]
thren’s salvation; which produces this Definition of EGYPT in a good sense, viz. SCIENCES, and PRACTICE thereon founded, tributary to LIFE:
Secondly; Man was indebted for the providence, which he exercised, to the immediate Inspiration of GOD in a Dream; which was so much attended to by the king, that he brought a man out of jail to expound it. Here recurs, in the first instance, what I have already observed, a most ardent co-operation of Man: but besides, we are to note, that, in certain stages of fleshly grossness, GOD can communicate with the Spirit, when the body gives him no admission: In these stages, there is no open Vision; as was the case in Israel before SAMUEL rose; but the body is laid asleep, before the Spirit can converse with GOD. If Religion, if Life, consist in a communication with GOD, this remark furnishes an accurate criterion to judge of the general state of Religion at all times, in all nations, and in any individual. Low indeed, is that state, where few see Visions, few dream Dreams, few interpret them, and few are fools enough (for such is the preponderance against DEITY IN ENGLAND—Hear O Earth! And Give Ear, O Heavens!) to seek an Interpretation, when THE LORD
[81]
hath spoken—or to give GLORY to the LORD their GOD, before he cause DARKNESS, by the SILENCE of His WORD, and before their feet stumble on the DARK MOUNTAINS!! For ye are on MOUNTAINS! and know it not! He that SPOKE LIGHT, can be SILENT into DARKNESS.
Thirdly; The Interpreter of the DIVINE WORD, the Reflector of the DIVINE LIGHT on EGYPT, was one Man, and not a Gentile, but an Israelite: that is, lived not in the light of the World, but in the darkness; separate from his brethren of Israel, and locked up from public communication in EGYPT; the first, because he received the WORD of GOD; the second, because he acted as became the Recipient of that WORD; for had he had humility enough to put the WORD of GOD from him in compliment to his brethren, he might have had the honor to live among them: had he been an adulterer he might have flourished in EGYPT. But the instant GOD was acknowledged, Joseph presided.
THESE TWO Considerations enable us to add to the Definition of EGYPT, furnisht by the first, that the said Knowledge and Practice were given by GOD, through the MEDIUM of ONE MAN.
[82]
Fourthly; Though the Gentiles were supplied with this corn from EGYPT, they considered it merely as a temporary supply; carried it into their country, dressed it as many different ways as there were nations or palates; and finally, the Seed degenerated and they even forgot in general, whence it came. The children of Israel went down into EGYPT and SETTLED; earned their subsistence by the Merit of their BROTHER, through his MERCY and FORGIVENESS; ate their Corn fresh from the granary, and it was a STATUTE to them to REMEMBER it throughout all their Generations: a proof that, it must have acted on an ETERNAL Principle.
ALL these things, even to THIS EXTENT, I do not doubt, were taught at ELEUSIS. Hence they were justified in opening their Rites with a Dismission of the profane.—Procul! O procul este profani! To any profane that was present, the consequence certainly was DEATH; for the LIFE OF MAN is the DEATH OF EVIL. Hence also I am not presumptuous in my Motto. We retire from the profane, and then we are authorized to drive the profane from US:—and they then are ready to go with all willingness to their own place; and do go accordingly; for they have nothing in US, and WE NOTHING in them.
[83]
I HAVE said above, that EGYPT supplied the whole market of the Gentiles, and, for a long time that of Israel.—The reason of this reserve I shall now give. The Israelites stand contradistinguisht from other nations, in their subsistence; for, at length, led by GOD, THEY wholly relinquished their Egyptian food; and instead of it are fed with that of angels; to instruct THEM beyond the SCIENCE of ELEUSIS and beyond EGYPT, that man liveth not by Bread alone, but by every Word that proceedeth out of the mouth of GOD. Hence, too, they were informed, that though EGYPT was to mankind the Ne plus ultra of SCIENCE, it was not so of EXISTENCE; and they were reminded, that though EGYPT regulated with the nicest accuracy the floods of the NILE, and knew when to expect, yet it could not command them; that it received no Showers from Heaven, but was subordinate to a COUNTRY, which did, and where both springs, and is replenisht to a capacity of Inundation, the TRIPLE founted RIVER, for so at length it is NOW ascertained to be, which irrigates its lands, and fertilizes its womb: a country, which is ex vi termini the Chaos of the Pagan, Egyptian-derived Mythology; is also the Metaphysical region of the Naturalist—but the EDEN of GOD and of the MAN OF GOD.
[84]
Here too I sat, with them enwrapt, though open.
ENWRAPT in the Principles, and ever forcing them into Action, though I wrought WHOLLY ALONE, of equal Liberty, equal Justice and equal Honor, to all Mankind; regulated alone by Individual desert. Thus acting, I acted against all EUROPE till France joined me. “Though open” is, though in, and acting in, the Body or Europe, or on European Ground.
THE PRINCIPLE of AMERICA is THIS EQUILIBRIUM, and agrees with the Sign attributed by ASTROLOGY to the WEST, namely, LIBRA or THE BALANCE; where SATURN having, by the same Science, his Exaltation, or greatest public Strength, we must also refer SATURNIA REGNA, or the REIGN OF SATURN, so much extolled; and which is thus, in other terms, the Reign of JUST EQUALITY; where the empty scales are always EVEN, and, of the full, that consequently always preponderates, which ought to preponderate. I have said this to clear EQUALITY from the obloquy of the English.
[85]
IT will be curious to one not accustomed to attend to the prevalence of principles in human actions, to observe, how constantly the whole warfare of Europe and AMERICA have turned on Command and Equality; from the Seditions and Rivalships against COLUMBUS, the detractions he suffered from Nobles in Spain, and the jealousy entertained of him at Court; and similar events to subsequent Viceroys—through the System on which AMERICA was settled by every nation in Europe, of SLAVERY—up to the year 1776, when AMERICA declared INDEPENDENCE: and intermingled HER genius with that of FRANCE; whose capital, PARIS, is assigned by Astrologers to the Sign VIRGO, as is also JERUSALEM. In 1775 and 1776, SATURN was in LIBRA. And thus too we see VIRGIL’s Line in Pollio, illustrated;
Jam redit et VIRGO redeunt SATURNIA REGNA;
Returns the VIRGIN, and SATURNIAN REIGN.
EUROPE is the fountain of Slavery; AMERICA the FIELD of FREEDOM: The Fountain of it is GOD in Man, and FIRE in NATURE.
[86]
And ply the terrible ANTISTROPHE.
THE antient Singers in the Temples of Greece, sang the Strophe from the East, and then turned and sang the ANTISTROPHE from the WEST. Such is the usual process of a HURRICANE; particularly that at ANTIGUA in August 1772: for, after blowing from North East, or from Europe for some hours, it lulled for half an hour, and then returned with increasing violence from South West. This is also frequently the case with seasons of Rain. When fully past to the West, they return with an increased load; so that a Western Season is always a good one and gladly welcomed.
HARMONY is an Equipoise of Discords. Europe by the first discords, destroyed, or rather, suspended Harmony; AMERICA strikes the Second, equivalent; and restores it. In short, down to every ramification, EQUILIBRATION will be found throughout the Western World, in nature and in Man. Those families, which
[87]
have been long settled there and had little intercourse with Europe, instead of severity to slaves, are most apt to make them companions; and often, very often, carry indulgence to an excess, that would be deemed criminal in a parent; while the English, Irish and Scotch, who go out as Overseers, are Devils to Negroes.
. . . . . . .
New
To the World In AFRIC’s MORNING—
WHILE the MYSTERIES of ELEUSIS were sacred to CERES, it is evident, they must have contemplated SEEDS and EARTH; or the Springs and Fountains of PLANTS. But that they did not turn “their backs to bright reality,” [8] and study plants botanically, or without reference to their HIGH ANALOGY, is sufficiently known to the learned and too palpable to common sense for me to waste one argument in supporting.
[88]
AFRICA is EARTH: See Robertson’s History of America.
THE OPENING of SEEDS in the EARTH consequent on gradual insinuations of WATER, is the DAWN and progressively the MORNING of BEING:
This, then, I mean, by AFRIC’s MORNING:
BECAUSE the Fountain of Human Being, as well as that of plants is concealed in the Earth; and AFRICA more especially Abyssinia, is characteristically quoad other Continents, the EARTH; as not permeable by Water; and, from many parts, scarcely accessible from want of that small supply of Water, which is necessary to human subsistence; owing to the circumvolution of a FLAMING SUN.
THIS last circumstance brings me to my Scriptural Proofs.
I AM aware of all that is alleged in favour of Asia, for the site of EDEN; as I have it from the FIRST quarter—the most indefatigable Student of Asia, who
[89]
has abilities, learning and opportunities, equal to the research, and whom I am happy to call, likewise, the generous, candid and communicative Friend. But FIRST PRINCIPLES are altogether against it from every point: whence the affirmative rests on Historical and Geographical details; so, that the focus of all arguments in support of Asia, is that Judea may be satisfactorily mapt, concordant with the very summary sketch of EDEN, given in Genesis: and a great deal of this my friend will allow to depend on very nice, though very ingenious, theories on Bdellium, the Onyx Stone, the Land of Havilah, &c. and I am sure, he will confess, that, like the parallax of a Star, they nearly elude Demonstration in the minute. Now, I touch not the minute; his research acts on nothing else; and, on this very ground, I first ADMIT, then EXPLODE the whole System.
I ADMIT, that Judea, or wherever else he may fix, was Eden secundum subjectam materiem, or quoad the Children of Israel in a literal sense; and this is no more than admitting Jerusalem to be Jerusalem.
[90]
IT will be conceded to me, that Scripture ever means by an Ark, a place of temporary retreat from surrounding dangers; preservative, on the like small scale, of a few or of one, till a period arrive of safe Enlargement, and ETERNAL REST, or the REST of the REDEEMED.
THE Israelites in journeying to the Land of Promise, always kept their eyes on the Ark—actually were always surrounded by enemies—and thus were taught to consider themselves as select and guarded few; who were to occupy a select and guarded spot; which was to continue surrounded by enemies; for the Ark, which represented this Land, was under precisely the same amenability to enemies, that they were. I say, the Ark represented the Land, because, 1. It was the Tabernacle or Residence of JEHOVAH their GOD; and 2. Because by it they were guided in their journies, and to it they looked: They looked, of course, to, and were guided by, the Land to which they were bound; and had the Ark been different, they would have had discordant principles of action.
BUT, more than this, the PEOPLE also were the Ark and the Land. They were always considered as one
[91]
in the judgments and prosperity of the Land, which was given them:
BUT this Land and this People together, afterwards become the prey of numerous and various Enemies;
THEREFORE, neither were this People finally redeemed, nor was this Land the final Paradise, nor this “Jerusalem the joy of the whole Earth,” nor, their State eternal Rest; but all were representative, as is echoed throughout the New Testament: the Rest was then temporary and fallacious; the City was the head of a District the Land was a model and the People had finished the first stage of Redemption; and this, not under a hoodwink, but with an express Declaration, that they were to expect “another Prophet.” So attacht, however, were they to the Figure, in length of time, that they forewent the REALITY; so mad, that they rejected it: as, suppose a man to be so long in the habit of Bank Notes, that if, at some given æra, it should be thought advisable to call them in and pay cash, he should absolutely refuse the Gold and keep the Paper; preferring the promise to its Performance. [9]
[92]
THE Prophet, who came to fulfil the Law, to magnify and make it honorable, necessarily abolished the mould wherein it had been cast. When the Palace was built and furnisht, the shed erected for temporary shelter, was demolisht.
AND yet to this shed and the plot of ground in which it stood, are all those still looking, who have persuaded themselves, that they believe on HIM who laid these things waste, At least, they do not know HIM on whom they have believed. They believe, that the great, final, object of him, who builded the Palace, is to refit, and reinhabit the shed, which sheltered the workmen!! Melancholy! Melancholy to contemplate their little progress from the first Temple, who dream they are worshiping in the second! Melancholy the prospect they have exhibited to themselves! This is the nation too wise for dreams! Therefore, God hath sent you strong delusion to believe a lie: for I tell you, you have pleasure in unrighteousness.
I AM NOT UNDERSTOOD. 'Tis well.
I UNDERSTAND MYSELF. It is better.
[93]
WHAT is understood? By England and Europe, I mean. The wise man, who glories in his wisdom; the strong man, who glories in his might; the rich man, who glories in his riches. It is said, there is some sense in these.
BUT I know the things that make for my Peace and nothing shall offend ME.
I AM NOT UNDERSTOOD. If a fox be out, and the hounds, however noisy in their course, run towards the kennel he has left, instead of following his steps, are they likely to see him? Perhaps I have come down low enough to be seen in England, now. If you know not the voice of the Shepherd, you do that of the huntsman. COME then! Let ME turn you! Let ME lead you from a hunt, where, the slaves of incessant hesitation, and paralized to every steady effort, you are, the highest and wisest of you, the staring dupes of any Brothers who cries, Hark! To Jerusalem! Or, on the other hand, on these flimsy claims, the still more flimsy casuists; or the coolly mathematical, or presumptuously declamatory, rejecters of all, either good, bad or indifferent. TURN, I say, from this worse than wild-goose chace, because,
[94]
perchance, when you arrive at the demonstration of ultimate disappointment, the Sun may be set, the night come on, the clouds gather darkness, and you not be sheltered. TURN then with ME, and forgeting the things that are behind, look on to those which are BEFORE, PRESSING forward toward the mark for the prize of your HIGH-CALLING of GOD! He that hath eyes to see, may see.
HAVE done with the temporary state, the partial spot, and all preceding stages of your journey! for you are now brought, be assured, before the walls of Zion; and this very night must be given the Assault, which will either put you in possession of her walls, or throw you out for ever. You are come unto the stronghold of Zion, where neither tame nor blind can enter, and unto the City of the LIVING GOD, the heavenly Jerusalem; and to an Innumerable Company of Angels, to the General Assembly and Church of the Last-born as well as First-born, who are written in Heaven, and to GOD the judge of all, and to the Spirits of Just Men made PERFECT; and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant, and to the Blood of Sprinkling, which speaketh better things than that of Abel did to the old Church; which Abel was succeeded by SHETH.
[95]
WHAT is become of AFRICA all this while? Is not this is a fine, digressive, circumrotatory, flight? No: It is directly progressive.
THE real EDEN, the Celestial, must be a WHOLE. It is not an Ark. To be a WHOLE, it must, in the highest sense, be the Universe, wherein, consequently, every Planet must accord: In a smaller sense, it is a System; in a third, it is a Planet or World; in a fourth and last, it is the CENTER of a World.
ONE circle first, and then another spreads.
IN the smallest sense, AFRICA may be EDEN, and the Garden Eastward, Abyssinia; and in the next, where the whole World is EDEN, the Garden Eastward is AFRICA; equally poised on the Equator, and opening her ports first, to the narrow sea of Asia; then to the broader Mediterranean, and lastly, to all the Ocean: And such undeniably has been the road of Light through the World.
THERE must not be an iron tool heard in framing the Temple. The stones are brought ready polisht.
[96]
Each Planet must be pure, and each part of each. De minimis non curat lex, is a maxim of English, but reverst in Divine, Law. All must be holy to the horse’s bridles.
AND little indeed is purity advanced in the Earth, while such a Continent as AFRICA is abandoned by Europe to efforts of alternate Slavery; as are those of MIND and Body: for I make no scruple to say, that AS THE STATE OF MIND IS, IN The WORLD, OR IN GIVEN PARTS OF THE WORLD, SO IS THE STATE OF AFRICA IN ITSELF, AND IN ITS RELATIONS TO THOSE PARTS RESPECTIVELY.
THE SUN is the Cherub with the flaming Sword, at the East, which turns every way to guard the way to the TREE OF LIFE—which the Eleusinians contemplate.
AFRICA, and especially ABYSSINIA is, the unpenetrated Country of the World.
I SHALL say no more here: but refer to Moses’s SONG in Deuteronomy xxxii, where the curses on the Land of the People of GOD, in their most extensive sense, are those under which AFRICA groans; and quote
[97]
from the last of it at verse 47, “REJOICE YE NATIONS WITH HIS PEOPLE—for he will be gracious to his Land and to his People.” Here are no specific, separate People named; but they are all ONE FOLD, under one Shepherd.
THUS the Glory of the second Temple, founded by a Gentile king, though brilliant by no strong displays of Divine Presence at its commencement—not prosecuted, as was Solomon’s, by immediate Divine Communications with its Founder—shall exceed that of the first, as it gradually concentrates every ray of Jew and Gentile. Its commencement was opposed—therefore not exalted; it was founded on only secondary Inspiration illuminating to the natural eye of CYRUS the letter of a deceast Prophet—therefore its light was clouded; it was founded on faith, not in sight—therefore proceeded with hesitation; in the apparent strength of the natural man—therefore ordinary in appearance and events: As a Thief in the night, it stole on through alarms; (Dan. ix. 25. last clause): But hence—the instant of its completion, was the moment of commencing Triumph over every possible foe; and thence contemplating Eternity. [10]
[98]
AND beheld it SPREAD before the rising breeze.
LEST this should be thought bad Seamanship by Sailors, and that rather the men on board should have clued up their sails and laid all snug; I shall beg them to observe, that it is hardly likely, that the most cautious seaman would not venture a foresail, or even a close-reeft topsail at the beginning of a gale, however threatening; especially, when being near land, he might hope to come to, before night-fall.
_____________
Peace! For a moment draw thy mantle round.
THIS introduces the half hour’s Calm mentioned in Note I, under ANTISTROPHE.
[99]
AFTER all, I well know, that the natural man discerneth not the things of the SPIRIT OF GOD; neither indeed can he, for they are spiritually discerned. A man looking to the WEST can never see the Sunrise. Therefore, instead of seeking for the origin of things in body, or philosophizing on form, pursue THAT, which FORMS body. Study no longer the product, but the Producer. A person, who for ever contemplates body, which is motionless, is so habituated to see nothing move but as it is moved by a force superior to its weight, that he carries it as a law through ALL being, that Action and Reaction are equal and contrary.
THIS, the great Sir Isaac Newton, though not born in Ireland, called a Law of motion: I, though not born in England, call it a Law of NO motion. Sir Isaac wants a Nominative case to the verb moves. I will give
[100]
him one, first from Virgil, and then, from the Wisdom of SOLOMON.
Principio coelum et terras, camposque liquentes,
Lucentemque globum lunae, Titaniaque astra
SPIRITUS intus alit—
Igneus est ollis vigor, et coelestis origo
SEMINIBUS— Virgil. lib. vi.
I quote from memory; so have not the line.
For thine incorruptible SPIRIT is in all things.
Wisdom xii. 1.
And naturally—CENTRAL FIRES, or FIRE forming the CENTER of every Planet is enough to give it motion; without suspending yourself over a bottomless abyss of second causes; each of which is alike without motion; as is yourself, excepting that common to Water, of gravitation; senseless, whether it descend to the root of a plant, or to the foot of a precipice: but ever proceeding to the last with accelerated motion.
[101]
IN writing these NOTES, I have had to steer, as the least enlightened may observe, between Scylla and Charybdis; between saying too much and too little for perspicuity; between an appearance of acrimony and that of indecision; between the appearance of extravagance to those, who are unaccustomed to consider the internal structure of things, on the one hand, and an unfaithful delineation of my own Sentiments and TRUTHS WHICH CONTEMPLATE EXISTENCE on the other. If I have sometimes preferred verging on the first, it was because the last would have been treachery and annihilation. I know, that nothing is done towards enlightening the WORLD at large, till the ESOTERIC overwhelms the Exoteric; and the ACHROMATIC [11] walks trivially. So much for the learned. But to old women, and to young men and maids, I say, that nothing is done, till the knowledge of the LORD cover the earth, as the waters cover the seas: And let him who glorieth, glory in THIS.
YET, do I not condemn the antient Philosophers for this discretion. They acted to the full extent of their sphere. I have too long been confined to distinction, myself. But I have been in an incessant endeavour to level the barrier: while the public of England maintained
[102]
it, and assiduously repaired its breaches. At length, I have conquered; at length I have burst the shell, and arrived at day, plumed and oiled against the shower. While the world itself was partially known and inhabited, the THEOSOPHIST was feign to content himself with a corner of seclusion: for the process, though finisht with him, was scarcely commenced on the whole; and to have opened himself, would have been to admit such impurities, as would have decomposed the first small result. This is no longer the case. The WORLD is before me; from the WORLD I have collected my materials, from Continents, from Islands, from every Quarter: To the WORLD, then I give them; I must give them; for each claims his own, and the derived progeny as eagerly converses the claim. To try to withhold them would be vain; and it would be pusillanimous, thievish and tyrannical: and to exclude an individual from a free choice of receiving the fruit of my Elaboration, would be Murder. Therefore, I pour out and drain the phial on the air and to the four winds of Heaven: and I do it most fearlessly.
IT has been my business to embody SPIRIT: to reflect the Rising Sun by so strong a mirror from the West,
[103]
and that mirror not glass, but untarnishable Platina, that the man of any wisdom may see it; be convinced of its existence and turn candidly to the fountain of LIGHT and of LIFE: ceasing, thus, for ever, to think that it is superstition to WORSHIP TO THE EAST; for GOD can be approacht only by ascending the stream of Being. And Philosophy can be so, only as far as it is THEOSOPHY; as it looks down the stream, from the point of your nearest access to the Fountain. Then you see things proceeding as they actually originate; and will comprehend the meaning of the Prophet, when he said to his GOD, In THY LIGHT, we shall see LIGHT.—However, all that is obscure here, I am ready, at any time, to explain to the meek.
IN the course of a lonesome pilgrimage through the World, which was unavoidable to one, who saw in a light different from ALL THE WORLD, and so much stronger that he could not possibly forego it—I have been obliged to do every office for myself and others. I have taken in their turn, the high-ways and hedges, not to say the ditches and brambles, FOR I HAVE NEVER BEEN BELOW THE MARK IN ANY UNDERTAKING; and then ascended to sweep cobwebs from gilded ceilings. I
[104]
have, often, dirtied myself, it is true; but I did not make the dirt—I only appropriated it; and this, notwithstanding I used exertions constructible into madness to prevent its collection; for the zeal of the Temple had even eaten me up: Now I wash my hands CLEAN, and DRESS. Where the dust lies, let it for ever lie; for the house will NO MORE be swept. I am indifferent where it lies. IT IS NOT WITH ME.
BARREN Fig‑Tree! Let no man pluck fruit from thee, any more, for ever!
I have thought it well to spell with a t the participles wherein d final is pronounced as t; and any errata of this kind will be corrected by the Reader.
__________
HAVING found these NOTES sufficiently voluminous with only THEOSOPHIC Learning, and indeed, the Title promising no more, I have expunged several hints in PHYSICS, which I had first inserted. These I shall shortly swell into a bulk worthy of separate publication, under the Title of
FAREWELL!
WILLIAM GILBERT.
[1] Antigua : the Latin q, is changed by the Spaniards to g.
[2] Æthereum Sensum atque aurai simplicis Ignem. Æneid vi. 747.
[3] The hill, where CARACTACUS made his last stand, and visible from many parts of the County of Salop, where this was written.
[4] I do not speak of Europe, here.
[5] That metaphysics owe their name to the mark of a book-binder is an account worthy of Mathematicians; who are truly vox et praeterea nihil.[Latin: sound without substance].
[6] See Poncet and Bruce.
[7] If these be not meant in Isaiah xviii. 1,2, who are? And if the hard, rough, toiling, χαλεπον [Greek: chalepon = hard, rough, toiling], country, (See my last Note) to which they are sent, be not Europe, what region is it?
[8] COLERIDGE.
[9] I have adopted this simile, merely to give the English reader a just conception of the importance of the subject.
[10] Neither the Messiah’s being cut off, nor the destruction of Cyrus’s Temple , at all invalidates this proposition; for Death was triumpht over, and Captivity was led captive, before the destruction of the MOULD.