Epistles to Lorenzo

Table of contents

- [titlepage]

- ADVERTISEMENT.

- EPISTLE THE FIRST. to LORENZO.

- EPISTLE THE SECOND. to LORENZO.

- EPISTLE THE THIRD. to LORENZO.

EPISTLES TO LORENZO.

Nec tardum operior, nec praecedentibus insto.

LONDON, M.DCC.LVI.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE following sheets contain part of several epistolary Rhimes, written on different occasions & in different parts of Europe. The object of the whole would be, to reconcile, within the bounds of moderation, the Zealots & Philosophers of the present age.

The author is sensible the latter, or, as they are call'd, the advocates for natural religion, are the greater bigots of the two; & that a superstitious attachment to infidelity is the master-piece of Enthusiasm: the rapsodies of Jacob Boehmen being much more intelligible than the plain demonstrations, of some modern [*] freethinkers.

To the end propos'd, therefore, the means would be to establish, on undisputed principles, the certainty of those maxims, which most affect the present & future happiness of mankind.

With this view it is necessary the author should wear an assum'd character & propose nothing but what Reason, common to all, may allow. In doing this, then, he would endeavour to shew the principal defects & point out the limits of the Understanding; to prove, a priori, the source of good & evil; the universal propriety of original sin & the moral necessity of that inseparable connection between Happiness & misery, Virtue & Vice; the immortality of the soul being, at the same time, pointed out, from arguments universally acknowledg'd & felt.

Such is the general design of the author: that of the present publication is, to inform himself how far this specimen may give the publick room to think him capable of the whole; or whether any part may be worth a finishing hand.

By the publick, also, he would be understood to mean the philosophical part of the world only; for, as to the gentlemen of the Belles Lettres, he does not willinigly subject himself to their Censure; having chosen a poetical stile for no worse reason than an incapacity to express the same sentiments better in any other: Confiding, therefore, in the well-bred humanity of such Critics, he hopes they will not put his verses to the Horatian torture, by pulling them to pieces, to examine the disjecta membra Poëtae.

Notes

*
If the truth of this observation be call'd in question, the reader may turn, for conviction, to a late pamphlet, call'd the Light of nature the light of the gospel; written by an author, who, for twenty years past has occasionally oblig'd the public with works of the same stamp.
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EPISTLE THE FIRST. to LORENZO.

While zeal pursues, beyond the Grave,

Whom Priest nor Patriot could save,

Lost St. John, sav'd and damn'd by Fame,

An honour'd & a blasted Name;

Lorenzo asks, ingenuous Youth,

What is, & who beleives, the truth.

Lorenzo, wouldst thou learn of me?

Truth is where all the world agree.

Is there no point where all unite?

I answer, none are in the right.

Yet wouldst thou know, so Skepticks err,

To whom enquiry may refer;

Where trembling doubt & error blind

At once a guard & guide may find,

At once successfully apply,

And give to Falsehood's face the Lye?

Alass! denied the perfect rule,

That serves alike the Knave & Fool,

Alike the Ignorant & the Wise;

Adoring these what those despise.

Whether we judge, from Nature's Law

That Truth infallibly we draw,

Or think the just Criterion given

In Revelation pure from Heaven,

It differs not, unless we find

Some active index in the mind,

Some Ray of Heaven's unerring light,

To guide in this or that aright.

Let Christianity display

It's wond'rous Volume to the day;

The sacred lines, however true,

Alike affect not me & you;

Th' accepted sense of holy writ

Still resting on th' accepting wit.

For who that read but comprehend

As taught by Father, Priest, or Friend:

Or tenets new, more nice than wise,

Peculiar to themselves devise.

How then prevails the sacred text,

If by the comment thus perplex'd,

If Hereticks, of ev'ry kind,

Still in the word their Gospel find;

Still if the spirit hides the flaw

That marrs the letter of the Law!

Let Nature's striking scenes engage

The letter'd & unletter'd Age,

No fix'd Ideas yet we find

Convey'd from hence to Humankind.

When meteors shine or Comets blaze,

Behold the wond'ring Crito gaze,

Prognosticate, in error wise,

The Judgments gathering in the skies:

Th' Aurora streaming from the Pole,

What mighty fears his Heart controul!

See him confess his angry God,

And dread his mercies as his rod:

Whilst thou, Blasphemer! Crito cries,

Liftst up thine hand against the skies;

Fearless, in Scientific pride,

On the wild whirlwind's wings wouldst ride:

When Thunder splits the Clouds in twain,

Or Lightnings melt them into Rain,

'Gainst Heaven itself so mad to arm,

In magick steel, you brave the storm;

With Franklin, impiously defie

The Thunderers red right arm on high;

Bold Titan! take your mounted stand,

To wrest the Light'nings from his hand.

Thus, by no certain instinct led,

We comprehend what's seen or read;

But, from unlike experience taught,

Peculiar are our modes of thought.

Dost pause when Pleas of right or wrong

To captious opponents belong;

While this affirm'd or that denied

With equal force on either side?

Avoid Lorenzo vain dispute:

'Tis empty triumph to confute.

No Honour whets the Champion's Blade:

Truth warms no Casuist by Trade.

See the wing'd Cork from side to side

Rebound, the truant school boy's pride!

With equal warmth, with equal noise,

So Disputants, like truant Boys,

Between what Saint or Father saith

Bang the light Shittlecock of Faith.

Our first mistake, Lorenzo, this.

All on their faith wou'd found their bliss;

And, here while flattering hope depends,

To truth presumptuous faith pretends.

Thus contradictions are profess'd,

Yet truth must be to all the test.

But tell me what connection ties

So close the Happy and the Wise.

Ah! what avails the Truth to know,

When Truth the frequent source of woe;

While gilded Fiction's flattering rays

With sunshine beautifie our days;

Or, mildly shed, it's silver beams,

Reflected, light our nightly dreams;

While Pleasure & it's laughing train

Dance by the Moonshine of the brain.

From hence doth bliss or misery flow,

The truth to know or not to know?

For bliss in vain the Learn'd explore;

Swift as their search it flies before,

Thro' ev'ry Clime, on ev'ry wind,

And leaves their panting wish behind.

O say what truth doth science reach,

The Infant's peace of mind to teach!

O say what truth shall faith receive

Exclusive happiness to give!

In Pope or Mufti what is given

But fear of Hell & hope of Heaven;

A view of future bliss or woe,

The guiding prospect here below;

If promis'd, then, Seraphick skies,

Or Osman's sensual Paradise,

Or, with the Indian, taught t'ascend

To converse with a former friend;

Still if the tenet moves to act,

Words & Opinions bow to Fact;

To truth or Knowledge unconfin'd

The Bliss or Woe of Humankind:

As happy those who blindly trust

In Pope, or Mufti, if as just;

No more requir'd by gracious Heaven

Than to requiring Man is given.

Let Calvin, then, selecting, rave,

Or Luther souls unsorted save,

Or Peter's heir deny the Keys

Of Heav'n to Hereticks like these;

Rejecting thou the vain abuse,

Know ev'ry System hath it's use,

Or new or old, or yours or mine,

Subservient all to Heav'ns design:

Tho' truth from each be distant far

As Good hope from the Polar star.

As parts to complex Engines prove,

Inspir'd, by Mechanism, to move,

This retrogade & that direct,

In diff'rent modes to one effect;

So these, or moral or divine,

In nature's grand machine combine.

Machine how vast! how lost is man

In nature's wonder-working plan!

The reason this,—we ever drew

Of Nature a perspective view;

Fix'd to one Station, Time & place,

In power no just survey to trace.

So individuals also draw;

Their eye their rule, their will their law.

No wonder then that wrong & right

Perplex, from various points of Sight;

That widely diff'rent both appear

If view'd from thence or seen from here.

Place lights, with art, the shades between;

And black & white the varying scene:

At points oppos'd each strikes the eyes,

And this affirms what that denies.

The demonstration of his Sight

Who doubts? who knows not black from white

The proofs of both exactly suit,

And evidence supports dispute.

How madly then the world agree

To rave at alien Heresy!

Heirs to Religion's brighter sphere,

How strangely damn'd & damning here!

Halfwitted Zeal, of all the test,

Itself condemning with the rest:

By Sampson's rage, so thousands lost

Fell but at blinded Sampson's cost.

Lorenzo, is't thyself to please?

Dost covet truth in hopes of ease?

Woulds't thou of future bliss or woe

Secure thy hopes and fears below?

Be truth no more thy ardent search;

Behold thy nostrum in the Church;

Faith, by indulgent Heaven, design'd,

To help the weak, to lead the blind,

To check the rash, to warn the bold,

T'affright the young, t'amuse the old,

From our ownselves ourselves to save,

And bring us smiling to the Grave.

Ask'st thou what Church? by each confest

His own superior to the rest.

Enquire of all—of all enquir'd,

Their medium is the term desir'd.

Dost thou require this term of me?

Go, seek it in Conformity:

At London, Pekin, or Peru,

A constant rule for ever true.

From hence deduce that golden mean

Each dagger-drawing Church between;

Nor doubt if here thou fixest right:

In half their difference all unite.

Their half of difference, if unknown,

Will Moderation make thine own.

Hard is the task, advent'rous Youth,

And bold thy enterprize for truth.

Yet canst thou bliss or ease forego,

And burns thy bosom but to know?

Hast, in thine earlier hours, been taught

The gen'rous fortitude of thought,

To set blind prejudice apart,

To rend th'old Woman from the Heart,

To damn tradition's idle rules,

The Mother & the Nurse of Fools?

Th' ingenuous muse shall lead the way

Safe in the theme, tho' rude the lay,

Truth hopes not for poetic praise:

To Fiction sacred are the Bays.

EPISTLE THE SECOND. to LORENZO.

Rul'd by no giant hopes or fears,

Whose stature grows with length of years,

In search of Truth, expect to find

The labour suited to the mind;

With genius Nature bearing part,

The strict, yet gentle, nurse of art:

For aim not thou a point to hit,

Beyond the reach of human wit;

Or join, Lorenzo, blindly, those,

Who first would Nature's God disclose.

For, say the voice of reason true;

Be ours a just abstracted view:

Be it the priviledge of man

To trace, exactly, Nature's plan;

The scale of Beings in his hands,

To know the point at which he stands,

Compar'd with all he boasts to know,

As well above him as below:

Yet, if, of human logick vain,

He links to Heav'n a kindred chain

Man his conclusions idly draws;

And Heav'n prescribes by human laws.

Imagine thou in what degree

A Seraph stands 'tween God & thee:

Conceive thyself a mite unseen

And Being infinite between:

In this Comparison, says Pride,

A Seraph thou, to God allied.

Thy Pride, Lorenzo, disbeleive;

Let Locke nor Addison deceive:

For tho' Creation's varied plan

Assigns degrees respecting man;

Yet Skeptick know, & learn to fear,

God is beyond thy proper Sphere.

Created Beings, all, his care,

Doth he with them Creation share?

Ah no! the System all our own,

God, the Creator, stands alone:

At equal distance all his plan,

The mite, the Seraph or the Man.

Is it not so, the passive clay

Of yon Corinthian Column gay,

That gilt entablature or base,

Or marble of yon shining vase

Resemble more the artist's mind

Than if to meaner use consign'd.

Absurd! is Jones's genius known.

By the great model or the stone?

The Pile erect to Trajan's name,

Affected not by empty fame,

The Cross rever'd, the honour'd Bust

And trodden floor are kindred dust:

For all, in one degree, respect

Their sov'reign Lord, the Architect.

How justly then so e'er we plead

That Reason nature's book doth read,

As by it's known & written laws

Of each effect we trace the cause,

Those laws can ne'er themselves confine

The legislative Pow'r divine;

Whose will that order first decreed

And bade th' effect the cause succeed;

Agent, by some superior scheme,

Of which, in this, we can but dream.

Bear Atticus the Critick's rod.

In vain we, then, define a God,

In vain we attributes bestow;

Or reason, here, from what we know.

Tho' Science teach, religion warm,

What wild Ideas still we form?

Incongruous embrios of the brain,

That strive to scale the Heav'ns in vain.

Too short to reach beyond the sky

The focus of the mental eye;

Too cold our most transporting Zeal

To paint what Heav'ns & light conceal.

Yet will the skeptick ask me why?

Go, rise & to the dog-star fly

Thou canst not: nor the cause unknown.

Central attraction holds thee down;

A pow'r occult, which, e'er thy birth,

Fast bound thee to thy native Earth,

From which thou ne'er canst hope to rise

To Lunar plains or solar skies.

Nor less, within it's sphere, confin'd

The subtle essence of the mind.

Tho' Heav'n has giv'n it pow'r to rove

In Freedom thro' the plains above;

Hath wing'd it's active feet to run,

With Merc'ry, round the central sun;

Has giv'n it distant Worlds t'explore;

And seas of space without a shore:

Yet, still, within Creation's round,

Within our narrow system bound;

Of what's above or what without

We harbour universal doubt.

Say light prevails, no contrast shade

Outlines the void we would pervade:

If darkness reigns, no chearing ray

Delineates blind Enquiry's way.

Hence, mortal man, must ever be

Thy Author, here, unknown to thee;

Destin'd thy erring way to trace

Thro' Nature's parti-colour'd space.

Let Ignorance, then, her Idol dress

In Justice, Love & Happiness;

Adorn with Mercy's golden chain,

With all the virtues grace it's train;

And then adore, in humble plight,

And call those fopperies infinite.

The pagan thus, despis'd as blind,

Creates his Idol to his mind;

Thinking his deity express'd

By bird or beast he likes the best;

Then bows before it's painted shrine;

And calls his wooden God divine.

Cast the presumptuous thought aside:

'Tis not humility but pride;

Unless that truly humble we,

T'adore the God Humanity.

And such it is: for whence arise

Our virtues but from moral ties,

Whose known relations thus define.

That Essence mortals call divine.

Lorenzo, ready for reply,

Lay not thy prompt objection by,

Thou sayst "thy friend himself deceives,

"Nor God adores, nor God beleives:

"For tho' the mind the pow'r descries,

"If left it's [*] essence in the skies,

"If none beleiv'd, or none display'd,

"To what is adoration paid?

"In me no certain Faith is found;

"My deity an empty sound.

Not so: for, granting, Iconfess,

Thy attributes a God express;

Ev'n thou'lt assert "still undefin'd

"The perfect, by th' imperfect, mind;

But to thy attributes must join

Thy infinite, or thy divine.

As jugglers, who t'enhance deceit,

To sacred science give their Cheat,

While, with the curtain, still they hide

The slight of hand, too closely eye'd:

So here sly theologues impart

The Hocus pocus of their art,

And hold religion's sacred veil,

Where slights of Understanding fail:

For know, alass, their wisest plan

Displays but a SUPERIOR MAN,

Whom Infinite, the Conjurer's rod,

Presto, converts into a God:

For till they solve our problem right,

And tell us what is infinite,

They still must be reduc'd to own

Their compound deity unknown:

To all, or reasoning or inspir'd,

This infinite a term requir'd.

Differs Lorenzo, then, with me?

In terms alone we disagree:

Perfection infinite is thine,

Indefinite Perfection mine.

Condemn not, then, half-understood.

I not deny that perfect, good,

All-gracious, merciful and wise,

God reigns, supreme, beyond the skies.

Neither, 'tis true, my terms imply;

But, granting none, I none deny:

Requiring but to acquiesce

That thou thy infinite express.

Idly doth Bolingbroke refine;

Granting that wisdom is divine,

While, full as idly, he denies

Justice & Goodness to the skies.

Ideas, equally our own,

Our Goodness as our wisdom's known:

To both as hard to reconcile

Or Nature's frown or Nature's smile.

Alass! no attributes of thine

Can e'er the deity define;

Impossible to judge, or know,

Of God above from Man below:

Reserv'd the prospect of the skies

To gratifie immortal eyes.

Lorenzo, let us reason right.

No finite spans an infinite;

Unless, with Matho, vers'd in Arts,

We hold th' infinity of parts:

But none th' absurdity will plan,

That God can be contain'd in man;

Tho', as absurdly, they suppose

Our qualities the God disclose.

Join'st thou, with Florio, the dispute,

T'enhance each moral attribute;

Pretending these, however crude,

Divine perfection doth include;

As Species in a Genus they,

Or parts, which do the whole display.

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So, with the grandeur all t'inspire

Of the gay mansion of his sire,

An Idiot Heir, his mother's fool,

Taught his synecdoché, at school,

Conceiv'd by part the whole was shown,

And took a sample of the stone.

Convinc'd, doth Polydore, with me,

That God's indefinite, agree;

Yet argue that our partial view

May still be relatively true:

For, if no abstract lights we gain,

'Tis just our best to entertain;

Our God to call that wond'rous cause,

In Nature trac'd, by nature's laws.

Mistake not here, nor God dethrone:

Be the first Cause in Nature known;

'Tis but a consequent Effect;

Whose Cause no similars respect.

The God we, then, by this define

Nor self existent nor divine.

Be known Creation's various ties;

Whence Physical relations rise;

Explain'd, distinct, to mortal sense,

The wond'rous scheme of Providence:

Say'st thou the Knowledge hence deriv'd

Of him those systems hath contriv'd?

Alass! from hence we only trace

The Features of Creation's face;

The front it bears to human-kind:

But not it's self-existing mind.

Should we, presuming to display

The spirit of the golden day,

Thus, call it's essence it's result,

Attraction, Fire, alike occult;

Or say 'tis Vegetation green;

Who'd think it is the Sun we mean?

So here t'absurdity we fall

Nor thus define a God at all.

Yet while, to thee I freely own,

I reverence a God unknown;

Think not, through Ignorance or Pride

A God was ever yet denied.

No [*] Atheist e'er was known on Earth

'Till fiery Zealots gave him birth,

For controversy's sake, their trade,

And damn'd the Heretic they made.

Doth Clody, impudent & vain,

Deny a God, in skeptick strain,

And yet, in ignorance, advance,

That Natures works were made by Chance?

Warm Theologues, absurdly wife,

With their anathemas despise;

For well may Clody these inflame,

Whose God exists but in a name,

A technic term, devis'd at School:

I pity Clody, as a Fool.

To Epicurus' strains belong

The censures of an Idle song.

For, say "united worlds might join,

"By accident, & not design;

"Atoms might luckily contrive,

"And Strangely find themselves alive,

"Or, by some other scheme as wild,

"The world be Fortune's fav'rite Child.

Explain the terms— say what is meant

By atoms, fortune, accident.

What mean'st thou but th'efficient cause

Of Nature's works & Nature's laws?

O think not, then, th'eternal mind

To term or epithet confin'd;

But take away or change the name;

And Clody's God & mine's the same.

Say'st thou in Chance a pow'r defin'd,

Fortuitous, absurd & blind,

Unworthy that stupendous plan,

Which Nature's scenes display to man:

Where grace, with harmony allied,

And wisdom strike, on ev'ry side.

Alass! to Clody these unknown:

For wond'rous Wisdom's all his own.

In Nature nothing he surveys

That actuates his soul to praise:

In vain the Planets run their course,

Obedient to Attraction's force;

Th'eccentric Comets, far & wide

Pursue the same unerring guide;

In vain describes their varied race,

In equal times, an equal space:

In vain, thro' microscopic eyes,

Innumerable wonders rise,

On the green leaf whole nations crawl,

And myriads perish in it's fall.

Alass! what bears the barren mind!

What beauty can affect the blind!

Should Clody then his chance disclaim,

And own a deity, by name,

The blundering deist must advance

A God, no wiser than his Chance.

How obvious is the truth! & yet,

What learned volumes have been writ,

How Scholiasts labour to confute

What none do actually dispute!

Of the first cause, or fools or wise,

The pure existence none denies;

But in it's [*] essence disagree:

For who defines infinity!

Blush not, Lorenzo, then, to own,

Th'eternal God a God unknown;

Whose face, to mortal eye denied,

Can never gratifie thy Pride.

To him your votive altars raise,

As Athens did, in antient days;

Nor dare pollute his sacred shrine

With human sacrifice divine;

But humble adoration bring,

And silent praise, fit offering!

So the Peruvian, pure in heart,

Strange to the guile or guilt of art,

Unaw'd by tenet, text or tale,

Erects his temple, in the vale,

Sacred to th'universal mind,

The God & guide of Human-kind.

No firstlings here affront the skies,

Nor clouds of smoking incense rise:

No Hypocrite, with acid face,

No Convert, tortur'd into grace,

No solid skull, in wisdom's cowl,

No hooded hawk, nor solemn owl,

Nor blind, nor ominous invade

This spotless consecrated shade:

But, as the native of the spray,

Man hails his maker, with the day,

By Nature taught, Heav'n asks no more,

In spirit & in truth t'adore.

Notes

*
By Essence is meant, here, those attributes or qualities, by which we define any known EXISTENCE or distinguish it from any other.
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*
The word ATHEIST is here us'd to signifie, simply, one who denies the being of a God.
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*
The word ESSENCE is here us'd in the sense above mention'd. page 28.
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EPISTLE THE THIRD. to LORENZO.

Nor to the fount of Hippocrene,

Nor groves of laurel, ever green,

Nor where the wanton Graces stray,

With flowers is strew'd the muse's way.

Lorenzo, no, I more rejoice

At Reason's rough & manly voice

Than at the sprightliest, softest airs

That ever tickled Fancy's cars;

Tho' senseless Echo found them sweet,

And bade the public voice repeat.

Lorenzo, systems throw'n aside,

Be Reason, then, our honest guide;

The guide, not only to the mind

In Science deep or sense refin'd;

But to the plain and honest giv'n

The first, best, artless gift of Heav'n

Reason, that sees not but the sense

Of Ciceronian Eloquence.

The limits of our Reason known,

To Heav'n resign it's honour'd throne:

On humbler wings, but rise to know

Thy Heav'n on Earth, thy God below:

Content to trace, from Nature's laws,

Th' effects of an abstracted cause;

The Cause of all th' effects we see;

The all we mean by deity.

Adapted thus Enquiry's plan

To truths as relative to Man;

Know Nature's law no less extends

To Physical than moral ends.

What moves the fix'd mechanic pow'r,

To shed the soft refreshing show'r,

That, in the womb of teeming Earth,

It's atoms quickens into birth,

Doth in the moral scene connect

The cause & consequent effect.

Hence vice the source of human woe,

As springs of streams that from them flow,

On virtue happiness depends,

As matter to the centre tends.

Nor less capricious, to the sense,

Physicks, indeed, than Providence.

Conceive not then, as skepticks dream,

That nature's an imperfect scheme:

Because, perplex'd with grief & pain,

Man covets perfect bliss in vain.

Say'st thou that Man the work of Heav'n,

To him if imperfection's giv'n,

Imperfect must that system be

Whose Lord a being weak as he.

Lorenzo, let not words deceive,

All imperfection's relative:

For of perfection absolute

All Nature is, beyond dispute:

For all from God itself derives;

And all is perfect God contrives.

Man, surely, perfect, then, you'll cry.

As Man, most perfect, I reply:

The Creature of his maker's will,

But form'd his pleasure to fulfill,

Design'd, in wide Creation's plan

To fill the place & act as Man.

For, doth capacity t'improve

Perfection positive remove?

As well imperfect might'st thou say

The rising sun, at dawn of day,

Since with superior heat & light

It blazes in meridian height.

Form'd with progressive powers to rise,

In this ev'n man's perfection lies:

Perfect, as such, humanity,

Howe'er degraded in degree.

Yet wilt thou say "is man consin'd

"To fill the place by Heav'n assign'd,

"Impossible to rise or fall;

"Why feels he misery at all?

Another question answers this.

What title have mankind to Bliss?

Correct Ideas let us gain:

Say, what the misery of pain?

In vain, Lorenzo, dost thou here

Affected Stoicism fear.

None feels more tenderly than I:

Mine the soft heart & wat'ry eye,

The sanguine hopes, the needless fears,

Yet unsubdued by sense or years.

Yet Ah! how little understood

Mankind's imaginary good.

To Heav'n my grateful vows be paid

That Man in human Frailty made;

That grief & ignorance my lot;

In joy & Literature forgot;

Or best remember'd, in the taste

They give t'improvement's rich repast.

No transport e'er had fir'd my breast,

If born of Sciences possess'd,

As when, by native genius fir'd,

To early knowledge I aspir'd;

By slow degrees instructed grew,

As Nature open'd to my view;

To the weak eye as Hope was giv'n,

Hope! that directs the soul to Heav'n.

Hence, tho' no Stoick, I conceive

All joy and pain comparative.

The glow of Health the bliss of ease

Had never boasted charms to please,

Nor cordial draught nor downy bed

Had e'er reviv'd the drooping head,

Had sickness pale & trembling grief

Ne'er wish'd for wearied eyes, relief.

See Belmont, on the sof;a laid:

What racking Pains his limbs invade!

Take half his Gout; the respite giv'n

He calls a blissful taste of Heav'n.

Give but a Youth, dispersing Wealth,

Who riots on the bloom of Health,

That blissful part which yet remains;

And his were Hell's distracting pains;

Pains which no aggravation know!

And yet, so relative our woe,

Inflict them when, by Chloe's kiss,

The am'rous Youth dissolves in bliss,

Ev'n these distracting pains were worse,

A mortal's most embitter'd curse.

In [*] mental sorrows, thus our grief

Seeks but comparative releif:

The trifling cares that you despise

To some momentous miseries.

Ah me! what threat'ning danger nigh?

Why swells the tear from Delia's eye?

Ah whence proceeds this sad distress?

From th' insignificance of dress.

Thus ev'n to circumstance we owe

The difference of bliss & woe;

Pleasure & pain, as light & shade,

By one the other still display'd.

O what capricious joy & strife

Attend the various scenes of Life!

To wield the Scythe, with sweaty brow,

To turn the soil, beneath the plough,

To sow in hope & reap in joy

Thine Labour! is the sweet employ:

Stranger to hope, from want secure,

Life's easy burthen to endure,

To eat the grape nor prune the vine,

Laborious Idleness! is thine.

Yet Idleness of Care complains,

And Labour quarrels with it's pains.

How sunk & terrible to thee

The hollow eye of Poverty,

While Villius meets her with a smile,

And sings or whistles all the while;

Tho' worn his hands, perplex'd his head,

He relishes the sweets of bread,

And many a time, in pleasant rue,

Dances for joy, without a shoe.

Nor less thy woes, nor more thy joy;

Since equal cares thy peace destroy;

Since wanting ne'er, thou ne'er hast tried

Th' effects of being satisfied;

In Plenty little more enjoy'd

Than the dull bliss of being cloy'd:

The child of Penury but Ease,

As of satiety disease:

Disease, that takes our lives by Stealth

And makes a beggary of Wealth.

When Fortune made thee rich & gay;

It gave th' anxiety for play;

Bade, with thy Hawk, thine acres fly;

Thy freehold totter with the die.

Not greater care poor Villius knows;

As Blest in nothing he can lose.

Thus Plenty, giving bread more white,

But steals the whet of Appetite:

A Blessing, plainly, half-accurst,

That gives me wine but steals my thirst!

Lorenzo farther might we go,

And prove still nearer bliss & woe,

To each inseparably join'd;

Alternate regents in the mind:

Yet so precarious in their reign;

Bliss tyrannizes into pain;

And when to cruel pain we bow,

It's rod grows light, we know not how.

The tension of th' extended nerve,

Say Physiologists, may serve

This seeming paradox t'explain;

Th' affinity of Joy & pain.

As strung the Harp with trembling Wire,

With Nerves so strung the human lyre,

In healthful concord tun'd, they say,

Pleasures harmonious Concert play.

But, if their tension more or less,

From Passion, sickness or distress,

Most tremblingly alive all o'er,

The strings, in discord, charm no more;

But, jarring, plays th' ungrateful strain,

With harpy-singers, deaf'ning Pain.

Deduce we, then, Lorenzo, hence

That joys & pains are modes of sense,

As tunes in musick, where each note

The simple Gamut has by rote,

And, adventitiously combin'd,

Please or displease but as they're join'd.

Should also passion, sense or art

Wind up too high the nervous part,

The tuneful notes in noise expire,

Or breaking strings unman the Lyre.

For as, excess of Joy or Grief

Finds in a tear the same releif;

The rapture of Cleora's kiss

Inflicts the racking pain of bliss:

Th' effect the same, while both destroy,

Exquisite pain extatic joy!

Theme of continual dispute!

No relative is absolute:

No Error, such conceiv'd by Man,

A blunder is in Nature's plan;

Nor dare we impiously pretend

Ills absolute from God descend.

The Question old unanswer'd lies.

From whence did moral evil rise?

Thou say'st, if pow'r to stand was giv'n,

Man had not fell, the care of Heav'n,

No tempter known to lead to vice,

Serpent nor Eve in Paradise.

Lorenzo, in the pride of sense,

Instruction is impertinence:

She therefore, daughter of the wife,

Hath long been shelter'd in disguise;

Ent'ring, beneath the mask of Sport,

The presence, tho forbid the Court;

So fond with young delight to stray,

And moralize the wanton's play,

That ev'n her precepts still prevail

In ev'ry sav'rite Gossip's tale.

Yet so that those, her arts would learn,

May th' allegory's face discern:

The moral, then, from Tales deduct,

And let Philosophy instruct.

Here the grand Error that we make,

Morals for Physicals we take;

Like those half mad, amphibious wits,

Who jumble, in their learned fits,

Effects & causes, each for either,

God, man, Heav'n, Earth & all together

Fire, spirit, virtue, mixture rare!

With darkness soluble in air.

To Hutchinsonian Idiots leave,

What none but Idiots can conceïve:

Nor think thou moral ill exists,

And battles in Creation's lists,

A formal Enemy to man,

Since Nature's monarchy began;

A Being Physical or Pow'r,

Active poor mortals to devour.

For 'tis impossible a cause

Should counter-act Creation's Laws;

As one or other must prevail,

And one, or both together, fail.

Beleive me, then, what Ill we call

Is no abstracted cause at all:

For, stript Creation of mankind,

No moral ill were left behind:

Owing to th' human breast it's rise

For man's first moral action vice.

Lorenzo, state the matter clear.

Be pain & pleasure strangers here:

Strangers to pleasure & to pain,

Induce what motives to complain!

For had we ne'er been griev'd or pain'd

Of vice we never had complain'd.

Suppose we, then, in Nature's plan

T'exist the microcosm of man;

Asleep in senseless matter's arms,

Which perfect rest nor grieves nor charms:

Should Heav'n a conscious mind inspire,

Where reason checks & passions sire,

Nor pain inflict nor pleasure give,

But wake the form alone to live.

Unnerv'd by Hope, unaw'd by fear,

Alike from all reflections clear,

Suppose to action, then, consign'd

This naked, unaffected mind.

Lorenzo, with precision, hence

Let us infer the consequence.

Behold the source of moral ill,

The prior agent was the will;

Reason without the pow'r to act

To censure or advise a fact,

As by Experience nought it knew

Of good or bad, or false or true:

For Reason it's conclusions draws

From similar effect & cause:

No instinct, faculty or sense

That promptly dictates innocence;

That bids us Virtue's steps pursue,

Or points to bliss it never knew.

For, giving reason, then had Heav'n

No less than actual pleasure giv'n.

This not suppos'd— hence Reason's use

Some known effect must introduce.

Now if as [*] innate we maintain

A love of bliss & hate of Pain,

Directed as the passions fir'd,

The will to pleasure first aspir'd:

If Pleasure was the point attain'd

Of Pain an equal sense was gain'd:

As the first tree of Knowledge bore

Of good & evil equal store:

For, when the mind one pleasure knew,

It's state of perfect rest withdrew:

No Neutral sense it might retain,

As less than pleasure, now, was pain.

Thus, felt th' initiated mind

The sting which pleasure left behind,

And Reason did to act commence

On th' information of the sense.

If justly then we're taught to know

Vice as the precedent of woe,

What deeds from Passion take their rise

Must, needs, in consequence, be vice.

In guilt original involv'd,

Here, see the Mystery resolv'd.

To the first man, no more confin'd

Than passions found in ev'ry mind

Is the first cause of grief & pain,

And Vice's hatred, horrid train.

As Man's the source, so Man's the end.

Ourselves our Crimes alone offend.

Is Heav'n's premeditated woe?

Heav'n needs no friend nor fears a foe;

Has no vindictive rage in store,

For it's own sake, on man to pour;

Blest in himself th' almighty Cause,

Or kept or broken human laws.

For know, vain man, no act of thine

Renders defective God's design:

No pow'r to human frailty giv'n

To controvert the will of Heav'n.

Presume not at so high a price

To rate th' iniquity of Vice:

Nor let the vainly-virtuous fool,

Projecting Heav'n by line & rule,

Sore-lash'd & wasting to the bone,

The crime of healthier days t'atone,

Conceive, by want of rest or meat,

Th' eternal purpose to defeat.

Presume not at so low a rate

To value the decrees of Fate.

Ev'n such, in Physics, are the Fools,

Puzzled beyond the maze of schools,

Who boast a pow'r, or, pow'r to form,

Would Nature's fortress take, by storm;

With martial engines, stranger, far,

Than those of Archimedes were;

Madmen Monro could never cure

Of Circles & their quadrature,

Of thinking drunk Creation reels,

Like a slung Coach, on springs & wheels.

Yet say not, therefore, Guilt is free;

Or promise Crimes impunity:

Since 'tis ordain'd the sting of woe

To bliss inordinate shall grow;

That each false pleasure bring it's pain,

And ev'ry Vice it's kindred train.

Lorenzo, evil understood,

How near the source of moral good!

'Twas Reason taught us this to prize:

For Reason virtue did devise.

Know pleasures, which the passions taste,

In haste are won, are lost in haste,

While their equivalent of pains,

Long, the tenacious mind retains.

Hence, did not Reason check below,

The will would work continual woe.

Reason! bestow'd a common friend,

Not to keep faultless, but amend;

To lead self-love, a glutton blind,

Which, else, nor hopes nor fears could bind;

To give it's scene of action light,

And check each sensual appetite:

The bliss of social love to share,

And passion's blunders to repair.

Caelestial Guide! O give my Youth

T'enjoy thy lovelier sister Truth;

For whose Embrace my vows I pay,

In ardent sighs, th' enquiring day:

Nor, when enquiring day is o'er,

Cease by the midnight lamp to pore

O'er the dull tale or tedious page

Of saint, or more laborious sage;

Happy if saint or sage could tell

Where I with her might ever dwell.

With thee, bright Truth! for whom alone

My Genius for the verse be known;

Content for thee to change the bays,

The Poet's for thy Lover's praise.

Notes

*
By mental sorrows are here meant those reflexions, or uneasy sensations, which are vulgarly suppos'd, sometimes, to attend the perfect health of the body.
↵

*
We admit of few receiv'd principles, nor would this have been admitted so easily had it not been what those Philosophers, who doubt of almost ev'ry thing else, will readily agree to.
↵

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Title statement

Epistles to Lorenzo

Kenrick, W. (William), 1725?-1779.

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ID [ota]

http://ota.ox.ac.uk/id/3515

ID [isbn10]

1106005147

ID [isbn13]

9781106005144

ID [TCP]

K016037.000

ID [BIBNO]

CW3306527141

ID [ECSS]

1209200300

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Source

— Epistles to Lorenzo, Kenrick, W. (William), 1725?-1779.. [4],76p. ; 8⁰. London,. 1756.. [Anonymous. By William Kenrick.] [Reproduction of original from the British Library.] [English Short Title Catalog, ESTCN30986.] [Electronic data. Farmington Hills, Mich. : Thomson Gale, 2003. Page image (PNG). Digitized image of the microfilm version produced in Woodbridge, CT by Research Publications, 1982-2002 (later known as Primary Source Microfilm, an imprint of the Gale Group).]

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