all from Sylla to Augustus Mecaenas was the wisest Counsellour the truest Friend both of His Prince and His Country the best Governor of Rome the happiest and ablest Negociator the best Judge of Learning and Vertue the choicest in His Friends and thereby the happiest in His Conversation that has been known in Story and I think to His Conduct in Civil and Agrippa's in Military Affairs may be truly ascribed all the Fortunes and Greatness of Augustus so much celebrated in the World For Lucretius Virgil and Horace they deserve in my Opinion the Honour of the greatest Philosophers as well as the best Poets of their Nation or Age. The two first besides what looks like something more than Human in their Poetry were very great Naturalists and admirable in their Morals And Horace besides the Sweetness and Elegancy of his Lyricks appears in the rest of His Writings so great a Master of Life and of true Sense in the Conduct of it that I know none beyond him It was no mean strain of His Philosophy to refuse being Secretary to Augustus when so great an Emperor so much desired it But all the different Sects of Philosophers seem to have agreed in the Opinion of a wise Man's abstaining from Publick Affairs which is thought the meaning of Pythagoras's Precept To abstain from Beans by which the Affairs or publick Resolutions in Athens were managed They thought that sort of Business too gross and material for the abstracted fineness of their Speculations They esteemed it too sordid and too artificial for the cleanness and simplicity of their Manners and Lives They would have no part in the Faults of a Government and they knew too well that the Nature and Passions of Men made them incapable of any that was perfect and good and therefore thought all the Service they could do to the State they lived under was to mend the Lives and Manners of particular Men that composed it But where Factions were once entred and rooted in a State they thought it madness for Good Men to meddle with Publick Affairs which made them turn their Thoughts and Entertainments to any thing rather than this and Heraclitus having upon the Factions of the Citizens quitted the Government of His City and amusing Himself to play with the Boys in the Porch of the Temple askt those who wondred at Him Whether 't was not better to play with such Boys than govern such Men But above all they esteemed Publick Business the most contrary of all others to that Tranquility of Mind which they esteemed and taught to be the only true Felicity of Man For this reason Epicurus passed His Life wholly in His Garden there He Studied there He Exercised there He taught His Philosophy and indeed no other sort of Abode seems to contribute so much to both the Tranquility of Mind and Indolence of Body which He made His Chief Ends. The Sweetness of Air the Pleasantness of Smells the Verdure of Plants the Cleanness and Lightness of Food the Exercises of working or walking but above all the Exemption from Cares and Sollicitude seem equally to favour and improve both Contemplation and Health the Enjoyments of Sense and Imagination and thereby the Quiet and Ease both of the Body and Mind Though Epicurus be said to have been the first that had a Garden in Athens whose Citizens before Him had theirs in their Villaes or Farms without the City yet the use of Gardens seems to have been the most ancient and most general of any sorts of Possession among Mankind and to have preceded those of Corn or of Cattle as yielding the easier the pleasanter and more natural Food As it has been the Inclination of Kings and the choice of Philosophers so has it been the common Favourite of publick and private Men a Pleasure of the greatest and a Care of the meanest and indeed an Employment and a Possession for which no Man is too high nor too low If we believe the Scripture we must allow that God Almighty esteemed the Life of a Man in a Garden the happiest He could give Him or else He would not have placed Adam in that of Eden that it was the state of Innocence and Pleasure and that the Life of Husbandry and Cities came in after the Fall with Guilt and with Labour Where Paradise was has been much debated and little agreed but what sort of place is meant by it may perhaps easier be conjectured It seems to have been a Persian Word since Zenophon and other Greek Authors mention it as what was much in use and delight among the Kings of those Eastern Countries Strabo describing Jericho says Ibi est palmetum cui immixtae sunt etiam aliae stirpes hortenses locus ferax palmis abundans spatio stadiorum centum totus irriguus ibi est Regia Balsami Paradisus He mentions another place to be prope Libanum Paradisum And Alexander is written to have seen Cyrus's Tomb in a Paradise being a Tower not very great and covered with a shade of Trees about it So that a Paradise among them seems to have been a large space of Ground adorned and beautified with all sorts of Trees both of Fruits and of Forest either found there before it was inclosed or planted after either cultivated like Gardens for Shades and for Walks with Fountains or Streams and all sorts of Plants usual in the Climat and pleasant to the Eye the Smell or the Taste or else employed like our Parks for Inclosure and Harbor of all sorts of Wild Beasts as well as for the pleasure of riding and walking And so they were of more or less extent and of differing entertainment according to the several Humours of the Princes that ordered and inclosed them Semiramis is the first we are told of in Story that brought them in use through Her Empire and was so fond of them as to make one where ever she built and in all or most of the Provinces she subdued which are said to have been from Babylon as far as India The Assyrian Kings continued this Custom and Care or rather this Pleasure till one of them brought in the use of smaller and more regular Gardens For having married a Wife he was fond of out of one of the Provinces where such Paradises or Gardens were much in use and the Country Lady not well bearing the Air or Inclosure of the Palace in Babylon to which the Assyrian Kings used to confine themselves He made Her Gardens not only within the Palace but upon Terrases raised with Earth over the arched Roofs and even upon the top of the highest Tower planted them with all sorts of Fruit-Trees as well as other Plants and Flowers the most pleasant of that Country and thereby made at least the most airy Gardens as well as the most costly that have been heard of in the World This Lady may probably have been Native of the Provinces of Chasimer or of Damascus which have in all
and may be allowed for a great and undisputed Triumph of Nature over Art 'T is agreed in Story that the Scythians Conquered the Medes during the period of that Race in the Assyrian Empire and were Masters of Asia for fifteen years till they returned home upon Domestick Occasions That Cyrus was beaten and slain by their Fury and Revenge under the leading of a Woman whose Wit and Conduct made a great Figure in Ancient Story That the Romans were defeated by the Parthians who were of the Scythian Race But the great Hero of the Eastern Scythians or Tartars I esteem to have been Tamerlane and whether he was Son of a Shepherd or a King to have been the greatest Conqueror that was ever in the World at least that appears upon any present Records of Story His Atchievments were great upon China where he subdued many Provinces and forced their King to such Conditions of a Peace as he was content to impose He made War against the Muscovites with the same success and partly by force partly by consent gained a passage through their Territories for that vast Army which he led against Bajazet then the Terror of the World He conquered this proud Turk and his whole Empire as far as the Hellespont which he crossed and made a Visit to the poor Greek Emperor at Constantinople who had sent to make Allyance with him upon his first Invasion of Bajazet at whose Mercy this Prince then almost lay with the small remainders of the Grecian Empire Nothing was greater or more Heroical in this Victorious Tamerlane than the Faith and Honour wherewith he observed this Allyance with the Greeks For having been received at Constantinople with all the Submissions that could be made him having viewed and admired the Greatness and Structure of that Noble City and said it was fit to make the Seat for the Empire of the World and having the offer of it freely made him by the Greeks to possess it for his own yet after many Honours exchanged between these two Princes he left this City in the freedom and the Greek Emperor in the Possessions he found them went back into Asia and in his return Conquered Syria Persia and India where the great Moguls have ever since boasted to be the Race of Tamerlane After all these Conquests he went home and passed the rest of his Age in his own Native Kingdom and dyed a fair and natural Death which was a strain of Felicity as well as Greatness beyond any of the Conquerors of the Four Renowned Monarchies of the World He was without question a Great and Heroick Genius of great Justice exact Discipline generous Bounty and much Piety adoring one God though he was neither Christian Jew nor Mahometan and deserved a nobler Character than could be allowed by modern Writers to any Person of a Nation so unlike themselves The Turks were another Race of these Eastern Scythians their Original Country being placed by some upon the North-East by others upon the North-West-Coast of the Caspian Sea and perhaps both may have contributed to furnish such numbers as have over-run so great a part of Asia Europe and Africa But I shall have occasion to say more of them and their Conquests in the next Section That part of Scythia that lyes between the two Rivers of the Volga and Boristhenes whereof the one runs into the Caspian and t'other into the Euxine Sea was the Seat of the Getae whom Herodotus mentions as then known by the name of Getae Immortales because they believed that when they dyed they should go to Zamolxis and enjoy a new Life in another World at least such of them as lived according to his Orders and Institutions who had been a great Prince or Law-Giver among them From this Name of Getae came that of Gothae and this part of Scythia in its whole Northern extent I take to have been the vast Hive out of which issued so many mighty Swarms of Barbarous Nations who under the several Names of Goths Vandals Alans Lombards Huns Bulgars Francs Saxons and many others broke in at several times and places upon the several Provinces of the Roman Empire like so many Tempests tore in pieces the whole Fabrick of that Government framed many new ones in its Room changed the Inhabitants Language Customs Laws the usual Names of Places and of Men and even the very Face of Nature where they came and Planted new Nations and Dominions in their Room Thus Italy after many Spoils and Invasions of the Goths and Vandals came to be possessed by the Lombards Pannonia by the Huns Thracia by the Bulgars the Southern parts of Spain or Andaluzia by the Vandals the East or Catalonia by the Catti and Alani the rest of that Continent by the Goths Gaul was subdued by the Francs and Britain by the Saxons both which Nations are thought to have come anciently from the more Northern Regions and seated themselves in those parts of Germany that were afterwards called by their Names from whence they proceeded in time to make their later Conquests The Scutes who Conquered Scotland and Ireland and possessed them under the Names of Albin Scutes and Irin Scutes I guess to have come from Norway and to have retained more of the ancient Scythians before the Goths came into those parts both in their Language and Habit as that of Mantles and in the Custom of removing from one part to another according to the Seasons or Conveniences of Pasture The Normans that came into France I take likewise to be a later Race from Norway but after the Gothick Orders and Institutions had gained more Footing in that Province The Writers of those Times content themselves to lay the Disgraces and Ruins of their Countries upon the numbers and fierceness of these Savage Nations that invaded them or upon their own dis-unions and disorders that made way for so easie Conquests But I cannot believe that the strange Successes and Victorious Progresses of these Northern Conquerors should have been the Effect only of Tumultuary Arms and Numbers or that Governments erected by them and which have lasted so long in Europe should have been framed by unreasonable or unthinking Men. 'T is more likely that there was among them some Force of Order some Reach of Conduct as well as some Principle of Courage above the common Strain that so strange Adventures could not be atchieved but by some enchanted Knights That which first gave me this thought was the Reflection upon those Verses in Lucan Populus quos despicit Arctos Faelices errore suo quos ille timorum Maximus haud urget lethi metus inde ruendi In ferrum mens prona viris animique capaces Mortis ignavum rediturae parcere vitae By this passage it appears that sixteen hundred years ago those Northern People were distinguish'd from all others by a fearlesness of Death grounded upon the belief of another Life which made them despise the care of preserving this Whether
lovely Object drawn by the Skill of an admirable Painter nay Painters themselves have fallen in Love with some of their own Productions and doated on them as on a Mistriss or a fond Child which distinguishes among the Italians the several Pieces that are done by the same Hand into several Degrees of those made Con Studio con Diligenza or con Amore whereof the last are ever the most excelling But there needs no more Instances of this kind than the Stories related and believed by the best Authors as known and undisputed Of the two young Graecians one whereof ventured his Life to be lock'd up all Night in the Temple and satisfie his Passion with the Embraces and Enjoyment of a Statue of Venus that was there set up and designed for another sort of Adoration The other pined away and dyed for being hindered his perpetually gazing admiring and embracing a Statue at Athens The Powers of Musick are either felt or known by all Men and are allowed to work strangely upon the Mind and the Body the Passions and the Blood to raise Joy and Grief to give Pleasure and Pain to cure Diseases and the Mortal Sting of the Tarantula to give Motions to the Feet as well as the Heart to Compose disturbed Thoughts to assist and heighten Devotion it self We need no Recourse to the Fables of Orpheus or Amphion or the Force of their Musick upon Fishes and Beasts 't is enough that we find the Charming of Serpents and the Cure or Allay of an evil Spirit or Possession attributed to it in Sacred Writ For the Force of Eloquence that so often raised and appeased the Violence of Popular Commotions and caused such Convulsions in the Athenian State no Man need more to make him Acknowledge it than to consider Caesar one of the greatest and wisest of mortal Men come upon the Tribunal full of Hatred and Revenge and with a determined Resolution to Condemn Labienus yet upon the Force of Cicero's Eloquence in an Oration for his Defence begin to change Countenance turn pale shake to that degree that the Papers he held fell out of his hand as if he had been frighted with Words that never was so with Blows and at last change all his Anger into Clemency and acquit the brave Criminal instead of condemning him Now if the Strength of these three mighty Powers be united in Poetry we need not wonder that such Virtues and such Honours have been attributed to it that it has been thought to be inspired or has been called Divine and yet I think it will not be disputed that the Force of Wit and of Reasoning the Height of Conceptions and Expressions may be found in Poetry as well as in Oratory the Life and Spirit of Representation or Picture as much as in Painting and the Force of Sounds as well as in Musick And how far these three natural Powers together may extend and to what Effects even such as may be mistaken for Supernatural or Magical I leave it to such Men to Consider whose Thoughts turn to such Speculations as these or who by their native Temper and Genius are in some degree disposed to receive the Impressions of them For my part I do not wonder that the famous Doctor Harvey when he was reading Virgil should sometimes throw him down upon the Table and say he had a Devil nor that the learned Meric Casaubon should find such Charming Pleasures and Emotions as he describes upon the reading some Parts of Lucretius that so many should cry and with downright Tears at some Tragedies of Shake-spear and so many more should feel such Turns or Curdling of their Blood upon the reading or hearing some excellent Pieces of Poetry nor that Octavia fell into a Swound at the Recital made by Virgil of those Verses in the Sixth of his Aeneides This is enough to assert the Powers of Poetry and discover the Ground of those Opinions of old which derived it from Divine Inspiration and gave it so great a share in the supposed Effects of Sorcery or Magick But as the Old Romances seem to lesten the Honor of true Prowess and Valor in their Knights by giving such a part in all their Chief Adventures to Enchantment so the true excellency and just esteem of Poetry seems rather debased than exalted by the Stories or Belief of the Charms performed by it which among the Northern Nations grew so strong and so general that about Five or Six Hundred Years ago all the Runick Poetry came to be decryed and those antient Characters in which they were Written to be abolished by the Zeal of Bishops and even by Orders and Decrees of State which has given a great Maim or rather an irrecoverable Loss to the Story of those Northern Kingdoms the Seat of our Ancestors in all the Western Parts of Europe The more true and natural Source of Poetry may be discovered by observing to what God this Inspiration was ascribed by the Antients which was Apollo or the Sun esteemed among them the God of Learning in general but more particularly of Musick and of Poetry The Mystery of this Fable means I suppose that a certain Noble and Vital Heat of Temper but especially of the Brain is the true Spring of these Two Arts or Sciences This was that Coelestial Fire which gave such a pleasing Motion and Agitation to the minds of those Men that have been so much admired in the World That raises such infinite images of things so agreeable and delightful to Mankind By the influence of this Sun are produced those Golden and Inexhausted Mines of Invention which has furnished the World with Treasures so highly esteemed and so universally known and used in all the Regions that have yet been discovered From this arises that Elevation of Genius which can never be produced by any Art or Study by Pains or by Industry which cannot be taught by Precepts or Examples and therefore is agreed by all to be the pure and free Gift of Heaven or of Nature and to be a Fire kindled out of some hidden spark of the very first Conception But tho' Invention be the Mother of Poetry yet this Child is like all others born naked and must be Nourished with Care Cloathed with Exactness and Elegance Educated with Industry Instructed with Art Improved by Application Corrected with Severity and Accomplished with Labor and with Time before it Arrives at any great Perfection or Growth 'T is certain that no Composition requires so many several Ingredients or of more different sorts than this nor that to excel in any qualities there are necessary so many Gifts of Nature and so many improvements of Learning and of Art For there must be an universal Genius of great Compass as well as great Elevation There must be spritely Imagination or Fancy fertile in a thousand Productions ranging over infinite Ground piercing into every Corner and by the Light of that true Poetical Fire discovering a thousand little Bodies or Images in the
Plantations either for His Master or Himself to draw his Trees out of some Nursery that is upon a leaner and lighter Soyl than his own where he removes them without this care they will not thrive in several years perhaps never and must make way for new which should be avoided all that can be for Life is too short and uncertain to be renewing often your Plantations The Walls of your Garden without their Furniture look as ill as those of your House so that you cannot dig up your Garden too often nor too seldom cut it down I may perhaps be allowed to know something of this Trade since I have so long allowed my self to be good for nothing else which few Men will do or enjoy their Gardens without often looking abroad to see how other matters play what Motions in the State and what Invitations they may hope for into other Scenes For my own part as the Country Life and this part of it more particularly were the Inclination of my Youth it self so they are the Pleasure of my Age and I can truly say that among many great Employments that have fallen to my share I have never asked or sought for any one of them but have often endeavoured to escape from them into the ease and freedom of a private Scene where a Man may go his own way and his own Pace in the common Paths or Circles of Life Inter cunct a leges percunct abere doctos Qua ratione queas traducere leniter aevum Quid curas minuat quid te tibi reddat amicum Quid purè tranquillet honos an dulce lucellum An secretum iter fallentis semita vitae But above all the Learned read and ask By what means you may gently pass your Age What lessens Care what makes thee thine own Friend What truly calms the Mind Honour or Wealth Or else a private path of stealing Life These are Questions that a Man ought at least to ask himself whether he asks others or no and to choose his course of Life rather by his own Humour and Temper than by common Accidents or Advice of Friends at least if the Spanish Proverb be true That a Fool knows more in his own House than a Wise Man in anothers The measure of choosing well is Whether a Man likes what he has chosen which I thank God has befallen me and though among the Follies of my Life Building and Planting have not been the least and have cost me more than I have the confidence to own yet they have been fully recompensed by the sweetness and satisfaction of this Retreat where since my Resolution taken of never entring again into any Publick Employments I have passed Five Years without ever going once to Town though I am almost in sight of it and have a House there always ready to receive me Nor has this been any sort of Affectation as some have thought it but a meer want of Desire or Humour to make so small a Remove for when I am in this Corner I can truly say with Horace Me quoties reficit gelidus Digentia rivus Quid sentire putas quid credis amice precare Sit mihi quod nunc est etiam minus ut mihi vivam Quod superest aevi si quid superesse volent Dii Sit bona librorum provisae frugis in annum Copia ne dubiae fluitem spe pendulus horae Hoc satis est orasse Jovem qui donat aufert Me when the cold Digentian Stream revives What does my Friend believe I think or ask Let me yet less possess so I may live What e're of Life remains unto my self May I have Books enough and one years store Not to depend upon each doubtful hour This is enough of mighty Jove to pray Who as He pleases gives and takes away That which makes the Cares of Gardning more necessary or at least more excusable is that all Men eat Fruit that can get it so as the choice is only whether one will eat good or ill and between these the difference is not greater in point of tast and delicacy than it is of Health For the first I will only say That whoever has used to eat good will do very great penance when he comes to ill And for the other I think nothing is more evident than as ill or unripe Fruit is extreamly unwholsom and causes so many untimely deaths or so much sickness about Autumn in all great Cities where 't is greedily sold as well as eaten so no part of Dyet in any season is so healthful so natural and so agreeable to the Stomach as good and well ripened Fruits for this I make the measure of their being good and let the kinds be what they will if they will not ripen perfectly in our Clymat they are better never planted or never eaten I can say it for my self at least and all my Friends that the season of Summer Fruits is ever the season of health with us which I reckon from the beginning of June to the end of September and for all Sicknesses of the Stomach from which most others are judged to proceed I do not think any that are like me the most subject to them shall complain when ever they eat thirty or forty Cherries before Meals or the like proportion of white Figs soft Peaches or grapes perfectly ripe But these after Michaelmas I do not think wholsom with us unless attended by some fit of hot and dry Weather more than is usual after that Season When the Frosts or the Rain have taken them they grow dangerous and nothing but the Autumn and Winter Pears are to be reckoned in season besides Apples which with Cherries are of all others the most innocent Food and perhaps the best Physick Now whoever will be sure to eat good Fruit must do it out of a Garden of His own for besides the choice so necessary in the sorts the soyl and so many other circumstances that go to compose a good Garden or produce good Fruits there is something very nice in gathering them and choosing the best even from the same Tree The best sorts of all among us which I esteem the white Figs and the soft Peaches will not carry without suffering The best Fruit that is bought has no more of the Masters care than how to raise the greatest gains His business is to have as much Fruit as He can upon as few Trees whereas the way to have it excellent is to have but little upon many Trees So that for all things out of a Garden either of Sallads or Fruits a Poor Man will eat better that has one of His own than a Rich Man that has none And this is all I think of necessary and useful to be known upon this Subject ESSAY III. Of Heroick Virtue AMONG all the Endowments of Nature or Improvements of Art wherein Men have excelled and distinguished themselves most in the World there are two only that have
Song or Epicedium of Regner Ladbrog one of their famous Kings which He composed in the Runick Language about eight hundred years ago after He was mortally stung by a Serpent and before the Venom seized upon His Vitals The whole Sonnet is recited by Olaus Wormius in his Literatura Runica who has very much deserved from the Common-wealth of Learning and is very well worth reading by any that love Poetry and to consider the several stamps of that Coyn according to several Ages and Climates But that which is extraordinary in it is that such an alacrity or pleasure in dying was never expressed in any other Writing nor imagined among any other People The Two Stanzaes are thus translated into Latin by Olaus Stanza XXV Pugnavimus ensi us Hoc ridere me facit semper Quod Balderi Patris Scamna Parata scio in aula Bibemus Cerevisiam Ex concavis crateribus craniorum Non gemit vir fortis contra mortem Magnifici in Odini domibus Non venio desperabundus Verbis ad Othini aulam Stanza XXIX Fert animus finire Invitant me Dysae Quas ex Odini aula Othinus mihi misit Laetus cerevisiam cum Asis In summa sede bibam Vitae elapsae sunt horae Ridens Moriar I am deceived if in this Sonnet and a following Ode of Scallogrim which was likewise made by Him after He was condemned to die and deserved his Pardon for a Reward there be not a vein truly Poetical and in its kind Pindarick taking it with the allowance of the different Climats Fashions Opinions and Languages of such distant Countries I will not trouble my self with more passages out of these Runick Poems concerning this Superstitious Principle which is so perfectly represented in these with the possession it had taken of the Noblest Souls among them for such this Lodbrog appears to have been by His perpetual Wars and Victories in those Northern Continents and in England Scotland and Ireland But I will add a Testimony of it which was given me at Nimeguen by Count Oxenstern the first of the Suedish Ambassadors in that Assembly In discourse upon this Subject and confirmation of this Opinion having been general among the Goths of those Countries He told me there was still in Sueden a place which was a memorial of it and was called Odinshall That it was a great Bay in the Sea encompassed on three sides with steep and ragged Rocks that in the Time of the Gothick Paganism men that were either sick of Diseases they esteemed mortal or incurable or else grown invalid with Age and thereby past all military Action and fearing to dye meanly and basely as they esteemed it in their Beds they usually caused themselves to be brought to the nearest part of these Rocks and from thence threw themselves down into the Sea hoping by the boldness of such a violent Death to renew the Pretence of Admission into the Hall of Odin which they had lost by failing to dye in Combat and by Arms. What effect such a Principle suck'd in with instruction and education and well believed must have upon the Passions and Actions of a People naturally strong and brave is easie to conceive and how far it went beyond all the strains of the boldest and firmest Philosophy for this reached no farther than Constancy in Death or Indifferency in the Opinion of that or of Life but the other infused a Scorn of Life and a desire of Death nay fear and aversion even for a natural Death with pursuit and longing for a violent one contrary to the general Opinions of all other Nations so as they took Delight in War and Dangers as others did in Hunting or such active Sports and fought as much for the hopes of Death as of Victory and found as much pleasure in the supposed Advantages and Consequences of one as in the real Enjoyments of the other This made them perpetually in New Motions or Designs fearless and fierce in the Execution of them and never caring in Battle to preserve their Lives longer than to increase the Slaughter of their Enemies and thereby their own Renown here and Felicity hereafter For my part when I consider the force of this Principle I wonder not at the effects of it their numerous Conquests nor immensity of Countries they subdued nor that such strange Adventures should have been finished by such enchanted Men. But when Christianity introduced among them gave an end to these Delusions the restless humour of perpetual Wars and Action was likewise allay'd and they turned their Thoughts to the establishment of their several Kingdoms in the Provinces they had subdued and chosen for their Seats and applyed themselves to the Orders and Constitutions of their Civil or Political Governments Their Principle of Learning was That all they had among them was applyed to the Knowledge and Distinction of Seasons by the course of the Stars and to the prognosticks of Weather or else to the Praises of Vertue which consisted among them only in Justice to their own Nation and Valour against their Enemies and the rest was employed in displaying the brave and heroick Exploits of their Princes and Leaders and the Prowess and Conquests of their Nation All their Writings were composed in Verse which were called Runes or Viises and from thence the Term of Wise came And these Poets or Writers being esteemed the Sages among them were as such always employed in the attendance upon their Princes both in Courts and Camps being used to advise in their Conduct and to Record their Actions and Celebrate their Praises and Triumphs The Traces of these Customs have been seen within the Compass of this very Age both in Hungary and Ireland where at their Feasts it was usual to have these kind of Poets entertain the Company with their rude Songs or Panegyricks of their Ancestors bold Exploits among which the Number of Men that any of them had slain with their own hands was the chief ingredient in their praises By these they rewarded the Prowess of the old Men among them and inflamed the Courage of the young to equal the boldness and atchievements of those that had travelled before them in these paths of Glory The Principle of Politick or Civil Government in these Northern Nations seems derived from that which was Military among them When a new Swarm was upon the Wing they chose a Leader or General for the Expedition and at the same time the chief Officers to command the several Divisions of their Troops these were a Council of War to the General with whom they advised in the whole progress of their Enterprise but upon great occasions as a Pitch Battle any military exploit of great difficulty and danger the choice of a Country to fix their Seat or the conditions of Peace that were proposed they Assembled their whole Troops and Consulted with all the Souldiers or People they commanded This Tacitus observes to have been in use among the German Princes in His
at Idils or Eclogues and the last though he must be avowed for a true and a happy Genius and to have made some very high Flights yet he is so unequal to himself and his Muse is so young that his Faults are too noted to allow his Pretences Faeliciter audet is the true Character of Lucan as of Ovid Lusit amabiliter After all the utmost that can be atchieved or I think pretended by any Rules in this Art is but to hinder some men from being very ill Poets but not to make any Man a very good one To judge who is so we need go no further for Instruction than three Lines of Horace Ille meum qui Pectus inaniter angit Irritat mulcet falsis terroribus implet Ut Magus mode me Thebis modo ponit Athenis He is a Poet Who vainly anguistes my Breast Provokes allays and with false Terror fills Like a Magician and now sets me down In Thebes and now in Athens Whoever does not affect and move the same present Passions in you that he represents in others and at other times raise Images about you as a Conjurer is said to do Spirits Transport you to the Places and to the Persons he describes cannot be judged to be a Poet though his Measures are never so just his Feet never so smooth or his Sounds never so sweet But instead of Critick or Rules concerning Poetry I shall rather turn my Thoughts to the History of it and observe the Antiquity the Uses the Changes the Decays that have attended this great Empire of Wit It is I think generally agreed to have been the first sort of Writing that has been used in the World and in several Nations to have preceded the very Invention or Usage of Letters This last is certain in America where the first Spaniards met with many strains of Poetry and left several of them Translated into their Language which seem to have flowed from a true Poetick Vein before any Letters were known in those Regions The same is probable of the Scythians the Graecians and the Germans Aristotle says the Agathyrsi had their Laws all in Verse and Tacitus that the Germans had no Annals nor Records but what were so and for the Graecian Oracles delivered in them we have no certain Account when they began but rather reason to believe it was before the Introduction of Letters from Phoenicia among them Pliny tells it as a thing known that Pherecides was the first who writ Prose in the Greek Tongue and that he lived about the time of Cyrus whereas Homer and Hesiod lived some Hundred of Years before that Age and Orpheus Linus Musaeus some Hundreds before them And of the Sybils several were before any of those and in times as well as places whereof we have no clear Records now remaining What Solon and Pythagoras Writ is said to have been in Verse who were something older than Cyrus and before them were Archilochus Simonides Tyrtaeus Sappho Stesichorus and several other Poets Famous in their times The same thing is reported of Chaldoea Syria and China and among the antient Western Goths our Ancestors the Runick Poetry seems to have been as old as their Letters and their Laws their Precepts of Wisdom as well as their Records their Religious Rites as well as their Charms and Incantations to have been all in Verse Among the Hebrews and even in Sacred Writ the most antient is by some Learned Men esteemed to be the Book of Job and that it was Written before the time of Moses and that it was a Translation into Hebrew out of the old Chaldaean or Arabian Language It may probably be conjectured that he was not a Jew from the place of his abode which appears to have been Seated between the Chaldaeans of one side and the Saboeans who were of Arabia on the other and by many passages of that admirable and truly inspired Poem the Author seems to have lived in some parts near the Mouth of Euphrates or the Persian Gulf where he contemplated the Wonders of the deep as well as the other Works of Nature common to those Regions Nor is it easy to find any Traces of the Mosaical Rites or Institutions either in the Divine Worship or the Morals related to in those Writings For not only Sacrifices and Praises were much more antient in Religious Service than the Age of Moses But the Opinion of one Deity and Adored without any Idol or Representation was Professed and Received among the antient Persians and Hetruscans and Chaldoeans So that if Job was an Hebrew it 's probable he may have been of the Race of Heber who lived in Chaldaea or of Abraham who is supposed to have left that Country for the Profession or Worship of one God rather than from the Branch of Isaac and Israel who lived in the Land of Canaan Now I think it is out of Controversy that the Book of Job was Written Originally in Verse and was a Poem upon the Subject of the Justice and Power of God and in Vindication of His Providence against the common Arguments of Atheistical Men who took occasion to dispute it from the usual Events of Human things by which so many ill and impious Men seem Happy and Prosperous in the course of their Lives and so many Pious and Just Men seem Miserable or Afflicted The Spanish Translation of the Jews in Ferrara which pretends to render the Hebrew as near as could be word for word and for which all Translators of the Bible since have had great Regard gives us the Two first Chapters and the Last from the seventh Verse in Prose as an Historical Introduction and Conclusion of the Work and all the rest in Verse except the Transitions from one Part or Person of this Sacred Dialogue to another But if we take the Books of Moses to be the most antient in the Hebrew Tongue yet the Song of Moses may probably have been Written before the rest as that of Deborah before the Book of Judges being Praises sung to God upon the Victories or Successes of the Israelites related in both And I never read the last without observing in it as True and Noble Strains of Poetry and Picture as in any other Language whatsoever in spight of all Disadvantages from Translations into so different Tongues and common Prose If an Opinion of some Learned Men both Modern and Antient could be allowed that Esdras was the Writer or Compiler of the first Historical Parts of the Old Testament tho' from the same Divine Inspiration as that of Moses and the other Prophets then the Psalms of David would be the first Writings we find in Hebrew and next to them the Song of Solomon which was Written when he was young and Ecclesiastes when he was old So that from all sides both Sacred and Prophane It appears that Poetry was the first sort of Writing known and used in the several Nations of the World It may seem strange I confess