The Library | Page 3

laid by,
And roll'd, o'er labour'd
works, th' attentive eye:
Page after page the much-enduring men

Explored the deeps and shallows of the pen:
Till, every former note
and comment known,
They mark'd the spacious margin with their
own;
Minute corrections proved their studious care;
The little index,

pointing, told us where;
And many an emendation show'd the age

Look'd far beyond the rubric title-page.
Our nicer palates lighter labours seek,
Cloy'd with a folio-NUMBER
once a week;
Bibles, with cuts and comments, thus go down:
E'en
light Voltaire is NUMBER'D through the town:
Thus physic flies
abroad, and thus the law,
From men of study, and from men of straw;

Abstracts, abridgments, please the fickle times,
Pamphlets and
plays, and politics and rhymes:
But though to write be now a task of
ease,
The task is hard by manly arts to please,
When all our
weakness is exposed to view,
And half our judges are our rivals too.
Amid these works, on which the eager eye
Delights to fix, or glides
reluctant by,
When all combined, their decent pomp display,
Where
shall we first our early offering pay?
To thee, DIVINITY! to thee, the light
And guide of mortals, through
their mental night;
By whom we learn our hopes and fears to guide;

To bear with pain, and to contend with pride;
When grieved, to
pray; when injured, to forgive;
And with the world in charity to live.
Not truths like these inspired that numerous race,
Whose pious
labours fill this ample space;
But questions nice, where doubt on
doubt arose,
Awaked to war the long-contending foes.
For dubious
meanings, learned polemics strove,
And wars on faith prevented
works of love;
The brands of discord far around were hurl'd,
And
holy wrath inflamed a sinful world:-
Dull though impatient, peevish
though devout,
With wit disgusting, and despised without;
Saints in
design, in execution men,
Peace in their looks, and vengeance in their
pen.
Methinks I see, and sicken at the sight,
Spirits of spleen from yonder
pile alight;
Spirits who prompted every damning page,
With pontiff
pride and still-increasing rage:
Lo! how they stretch their gloomy

wings around,
And lash with furious strokes the trembling ground!

They pray, they fight, they murder, and they weep,-
Wolves in their
vengeance, in their manners sheep;
Too well they act the prophet's
fatal part,
Denouncing evil with a zealous heart;
And each, like
Jonah, is displeased if God
Repent his anger, or withhold his rod.
But here the dormant fury rests unsought,
And Zeal sleeps soundly by
the foes she fought;
Here all the rage of controversy ends,
And rival
zealots rest like bosom-friends:
An Athanasian here, in deep repose,

Sleeps with the fiercest of his Arian foes;
Socinians here with
Calvinists abide,
And thin partitions angry chiefs divide;
Here wily
Jesuits simple Quakers meet,
And Bellarmine has rest at Luther's feet.

Great authors, for the church's glory fired,
Are for the church's
peace to rest retired;
And close beside, a mystic, maudlin race,
Lie
"Crumbs of Comfort for the Babes of Grace."
Against her foes Religion well defends
Her sacred truths, but often
fears her friends:
If learn'd, their pride, if weak, their zeal she dreads,

And their hearts' weakness, who have soundest heads.
But most
she fears the controversial pen,
The holy strife of disputatious men;

Who the blest Gospel's peaceful page explore,
Only to fight against
its precepts more.
Near to these seats behold yon slender frames,
All closely fill'd and
mark'd with modern names;
Where no fair science ever shows her
face,
Few sparks of genius, and no spark of grace;
There sceptics
rest, a still-increasing throng,
And stretch their widening wings ten
thousand strong;
Some in close fight their dubious claims maintain;

Some skirmish lightly, fly, and fight again;
Coldly profane, and
impiously gay,
Their end the same, though various in their way.
When first Religion came to bless the land,
Her friends were then a
firm believing band;
To doubt was then to plunge in guilt extreme,

And all was gospel that a monk could dream;
Insulted Reason fled

the grov'lling soul,
For Fear to guide, and visions to control:
But
now, when Reason has assumed her throne,
She, in her turn, demands
to reign alone;
Rejecting all that lies beyond her view,
And, being
judge, will be a witness too:
Insulted Faith then leaves the doubtful
mind,
To seek for truth, without a power to find:
Ah! when will
both in friendly beams unite,
And pour on erring man resistless light?
Next to the seats, well stored with works divine,
An ample space,
PHILOSOPHY! is thine;
Our reason's guide, by whose assisting light

We trace the moral bounds of wrong and right;
Our guide through
nature, from the sterile clay,
To the bright orbs of yon celestial way!

'Tis thine, the great, the golden chain to trace,
Which runs through
all, connecting race with race;
Save where those puzzling, stubborn
links remain,
Which thy inferior light pursues in vain:-
How vice and virtue in the soul contend;
How widely differ, yet how
nearly blend;
What various passions war on either part,
And now
confirm, now melt the yielding heart:
How Fancy loves around the
world to stray,
While Judgment slowly picks his sober way;
The
stores of memory, and the flights sublime
Of genius, bound by
neither space nor time; -
All these divine Philosophy explores,
Till,
lost in awe, she wonders and adores.
From these, descending to