KNOWLEDGE. (Contrasted with Wisdom)
May think down hours to moments. Here the heart
May give a useful lesson to the head,
And Learning wiser grow without his books.
Knowledge and Wisdom, far from being one,
Have oftimes no connexion. Knowledge dwells
In heads replete with thoughts of other men ;
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.
Knowledge a rude unprofitable mass,
The mere materials with which Wisdom builds,
Till smooth'd, and squar'd, and fitted to its place,
Does but encumber whom it seems t'enrich.
Knowledge is proud that he has learn'd so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
Books are not seldom talismans and spells,
By which the magic art of shrewder wits
Holds an unthinking multitude enthrall'd.
Some to the fascination of a name
Surrender judgment, hoodwink'd.
Infatuates, and through labyrinths and wilds
Of error leads them, by a tune entranc'd.
While sloth seduces more, too weak to bear
The insupportable fatigue of thought,
And swallowing therefore without pause or choice The total grist unsifted, husks and all.
Ladies, like variegated tulips, show,
'Tis to their changes half their charms we owe; Fine by defect, and delicately weak,
Their happy spots their nice admirer take. POPE.
LADY OF THE LAKE. (Description of)
Never did Grecian chizzel trace
A nymph, a naiad, or a grace,
Of finer form, or lovelier face!-
What, though the sun, with ardent frown,
Had slightly ting'd her cheek with brown;
The sportive toil, which, short and light,
Had dy'd her glowing hue so bright,
Serv'd, too, in hastier swell, to show
Short glimpses of a breast of snow.
What, though no rule of courtly grace
To measur'd mood had train'd her pace;
A foot more light, a step more true,
Ne'er from the heath-flower dash'd the dew;
E'en the slight hare-bell rais'd its head,
Elastic from her airy tread.
What, though upon her speech there hung
The accents of the mountain tongue;
Those silver sounds, so soft, so clear,
The list'ner held his breath to hear.
A chieftain's daughter seem'd the maid ;
Her satin snood, her silken plaid,
Her golden brooch, such birth betray'd.
And seldom was a snood amid
Such wild luxuriant ringlets hid,
Whose glossy black to shame might bring
The plumage of the raven's wing;
And seldom o'er a breast so fair
Mantled a plaid with modest care;
And never brooch the folds combin'd
Above a heart more good and kind.
Her kindness and her worth to spy,
You need but gaze on Ellen's eye;
Not Katrine, in her mirror blue,
Gives back the banks in shapes more true,
Than every free-born glance confess'd
The guileless movements of her breast;
Whether joy danc'd in her dark eye,
Or woe or pity claim'd a sigh,
Or filial love was glowing there,
Or meek devotion pour'd a prayer,
Or tale of injury call'd forth
The indignant spirit of the north.
One only passion, unreveal'd,
With maiden pride the maid conceal'd,
Yet not less purely felt the flame;
O need I tell that passion's name.
The languid lady next appears in state,
Who was not born to carry her own weight;
She lolls, reels, staggers, till some foreign aid
To her own stature lifts the feeble maid.
Then, if ordain'd to so severe a doom,
She by just stages journeys round the room;
But, knowing her own weakness, she despairs
To scale the Alps-that is, ascend the stairs.
My fan, let others say who laugh at toil;
Fan! hood! glove! scarf! is her laconic style.
And that is spoke with such a dying fall,
That Betty rather sees than hears the call:-
Let the robust and the gigantic carve;
Life is not worth so much, she'd rather starve:
But chew she must, herself, ah cruel fate!
That Rosalinda can't by proxy eat.
Loud mirth, mad laughter! wretched comforters, Physicians more than half of thy disease, Laughter, though never censur'd yet as sin, Is half-immoral. Is it much indulg❜d? By venting spleen, or dissipating thought, It shows a scorner, or it makes a fool; And sins, as hurting others, or ourselves.
The lovely young Lavinia once had friends;
And fortune smil'd, deceitful, on her birth.
For, in her helpless years depriv'd of all,
Of every stay, save innocence and Heaven,
She, with her widow'd mother, feeble, old,
And poor, liv'd in a cottage, far retir'd
Among the windings of a woody vale;
By solitude and deep surrounding shades,
But more by bashful modesty, conceal'd.
Together thus they shunn'd the cruel scorn
Which virtue, sunk to poverty, would meet
From giddy passion and low-minded pride:
Almost on Nature's common bounty fed;
Like the gay birds that sung them to repose,
Content, and careless of to-morrow's fare.
Her form was fresher than the morning rose,
When the dew wets its leaves; unstain'd and pure,
As is the lily, or the mountain-snow.
The modest virtues mingled in her eyes,
Still on the ground dejected, darting all
Their humid beams into the blooming flowers:
Or when the mournful tale her mother told,
Of what her faithless fortune promis'd once,
Thrill'd in her thought, they, like the dewy star
Of evening, shone in tears.
A native grace
Sat fair proportion'd on her polish'd limbs,
Veil'd in a simple robe, their best attire,
Beyond the pomp of dress; for loveliness
Needs not the foreign aid of ornament,
But is, when unadorn'd, adorn'd the most.
Lavinia is polite, but not profane;
To church as constant as to Drury-Lane.
She decently in form pays Heav'n its due;
And makes a civil visit to her pew.
Her lifted fan, to give a solemn air,
Conceals her face, which passes for a pray'r:
Curt'sies to curt'sies then with grace succeed;
Not one the fair omits, but at the creed.
Or, if she joins the service, 'tis to speak;
Through dreadful silence the pent heart might break;
Untaught to bear it, women talk away
To God himself, and fondly think they pray.
But sweet the accent, and their air refin'd;
For they're before their Maker-and mankind :
When ladies once are proud of praying well,
Satan himself will toll the parish bell.
LEARNING. (Frauds of)
Learning, that cobweb of the brain
Profane, erroneous, and vain ;
A trade of knowledge as replete,
As others are with fraud and cheat;
An art t' encumber gifts and wit,
And render both for nothing fit;
Makes light inactive, dull and troubled,
Like little David in Saul's doublet;
A cheat that scholars put upon
Other men's reason and their own;
A sort of error, to ensconce
Absurdity and ignorance,
That renders all the avenues
To truth impervious and abstruse,
By making plain things, in debate,
By art perplext and intricate:
For nothing goes for sense or light,
That will not with old rules jump right;
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