Mr. COWLEY's VERSES In PRAISE of M R. HOBBES, OPPOS'D;
By a Lover of Truth and Virtue.
Idcirco Virtus medio jacet obruta coeno:
Nequitiae classes candida vela ferunt.
[...]
—
[...]
[...]—
—
[...]
—
[...].
Sint nunquam mihi tales
Mores
Iupiter Pater: sed viis
Simplicibus vitae insistam—
Laudans Laudanda, Vituperiumque
Inspergens Improbis.
PIND. NEM. ODE
VIII.
LONDON, Printed in the Year, 1680.
To Mr. HOBBES
(1)
VAst Bodies of Philosophy
I oft have seen, and read,
But all are Bodies dead,
Or
Bodies by Art fashioned:
I never yet the Living Soul could see
But in thy Books, and thee.
'Tis only God can know
Whether the fair
Idea thou dost show,
Agree entirely with his own, or no.
This I dare boldly tell,
'Tis so like Truth 'twill serve our turn as well▪
Iust as in *Nature thy
Proportions be.
As full of
Concord their
Varietie;
As firm the parts upon their
Center rest,
And all so Solid are, that they at least
As much as
Nature, Emptiness detest.
(2)
What Bodies of Philosophie
You oft have seen, and read,
I wish you had but mentioned,
Wee'd judge if they're alive, or dead:
We cannot judge before we Trye.
The
Morals of the
Stagarite
Are
Stars which to th' Dark World gave Light,
But
Hobbes by his would turn our Day to Night.
Great
Zenophon, and
Plato, who relate,
How
Socrates embrac'd his Fate,
And all the Brave
Socratick Race,
Whose
Monuments Time can't deface,
Shall live, when
Hobbes shall have his Doom,
So
Lie as dead, as doth TOM THUMB:
Good Men his Knavery spie:
His Books contain some Truths, and many a Lie,
Some Truths
well known, but strange Impiety.
* Stay! stay! where now fond Lad!
Thy Wit thus strain'd, Thou'rt ten times worse than Mad.
What's Nature but the Ordinary way
Wherein our Good Creator doth display
His
Power, and
Wisdom in the things he
made
For his own
Goodness sake? Man's not a
Shade,
But
utter Darkness; whilst he
acts alone,
Whilst his works are
not natures; but
his own ▪
What!
Hobbes, and
Nature thus to
parallel!
What's this but to
confront Bright
Heaven with
Hell!
So doth the Poets wit suit with his
Theme:
He that will
Hobbes Applaud must first
Blaspheme.
(2)
Loug did the mighty
Stagirite retain
The universal
Intellectual Reign,
Saw his own Countrys short-liv'd
Leopard slain;
The stronger Roman
Eagle did out-fly,
Oftner renew'd his Age, and saw that Dye.
Mecha it self in spight of
Mahomet possest,
And chas'd by a wild Deluge from the East,
His Monarchy new planted in the West.
But as in time each great Imperial Race
Degenerates, and gives some new one place:
So did this Noble Empire wast,
Sunk by degrees from Glories past,
And in the
School-mens hands perisht quite at last.
Then nought, but words it grew,
And those all Barbarous too▪
It perisht, and it vanisht, there,
The Life and Soul breath'd out, became but empty Air.
(2)
The Empire of the
Stagarites sublime and piercing wit,
(Thoth'Empire both of
Greece, and
Rome
Time did long since or'ecome)
Shall ne're decay, but men shall still to its vast Power submit;
For All well-order'd thoughts must go
Within the Compass of those Rules, which his great Art did shew.
Our
HARVEY, whose bright Fame
So
Dazel'd Envies Eye, that she
[Page 6] could never see
The least Pretence to lessen his Great Name,
Even He commends the
Stagirite
To all Posterity,
As one that had a Clear Insight
Into the Secret ways of Natures
Majesty.
'Tis true he fail'd in that he did not see
That
things Successive could not be
From all
Eternitie:
But yet he saw
That this is Natures Law,
That all things must depend on him alone,
Who gives to all things Motion, though himself has none,
Who Is, and Was, and Ever shall Be ONE
In
all Simplicitie,
From
Composition, and from
Alteration free:
To whom may all true Praise be given
In Earth, as 'tis in Heaven.
(3)
The Fields which answered well the
Antients Plow,
Spent and out-worn return no
Harvest now,
In Barren Age wild, and unglorious lie
And boast of
past Fertilitie,
The poor relief of present Poverty.
Food, and Fruit we now must want,
Unless New
Lands we
plant.
We break up Tombs with
Sacrilegious hands;
Old
Rubbish we remove,
To walk in
Ruines like vain
Ghosts we love,
And with fond
Divining Wands
We search among the Dead,
[Page 7]For Treasures Buried,
Whilst still the liberal Earth does hold
So many
Virgin Mines of
undiscovered Gold ▪
(3)
That in this Age Men don't their Thoughts confine
Within the Line
Of what Judicious
Aristotle said;
Nor are his Works so
commented,
As they were in those Days;
They don't hereby detract from his Great Praise.
Sith they walk in those ways,
To which his mighty
Genius led.
His
Commendation was not this, that he
Did shew the Truth of this, or that
Particularitie;
But that he shew'd the way to clear our Thought,
That every Man might
find that Truth, which should by him be
sought.
(4)
The
Baltic, Euxin, and the
Caspian,
And slender limb'd
Mediterranean
Seem Narrow
Creeks to
Thee, and only fit
For the poor wretched
Fisher-Boats of Wit ▪
Thy Nobler Vessel the vast
Ocean tries,
And nothing sees but
Seas and
Skies,
Till unknown
Regions it descries.
Thou great
Columbus of the
Golden Lands of New Philosophies,
Thy Task was harder much than his;
For thy learn'd
America is
[Page 8]Not only found out first by thee,
And rudely left to
future Industry;
But thy Eloquence, and thy Wit
Has
planted, peopled, built, and civilized it.
(4)
'Tis true, thy New Philosopher has left the
Caspian,
The
Baltic, Euxin, Mediterranean;
The
Narrow ways to all that
V
[...]ritie
Which
Mortals can descrie;
He Sails i'th'
Ocean of the most
Profound Impiety;
And from the
Coasts of Hell
He brings those
Wares, which he shall never sell
To any, but those dark'ned Souls, which
lie, where
Adam fell.
The Power of Earthly Princes he doth
foolishly pretend
By his
fictitious Loyalty t' extend
To larger measures; gives to Kings what's due to God alone:
Thus what he seems to make
more great, he really makes
none:
For sure on Earth there is
No Monarchy,
If it consist in ABSOLUTE
Sovereignty.
The King of Kings commands us to obey our King,
By
chearful Doing, or by
quiet Suffering:
He that the Power of Kings would have much higher to arise,
His King Dishonours, and his GOD he doth Despise:
Such Folk dwell in those
Colonies,
Which
Hobbes has planted in his
Lands of New Philosophies.
[Page 3]I little thought before,
(Nor being my own self so poor,
Could comprehend so vast a store)
That all the
Wardrobe of rich
Eloquence,
Could have afforded half enuff
Of
bright, of
new, and lasting Stuff,
To cloath the mighty
limbs of thy
Gigantick Sens
[...],
Thy solid Reason like the
Shield from Heaven,
To the
Trojan Heroe given,
Too strong to take a mark from any mortal Dart,
Yet shines with
Gold, and
Gems in every part,
And wonders on it grav'd by the learned hand of Art;
A Shield that gives delight
Even to the
Enemies sight,
Then when they're sure to lose the
Combat by't.
(5)
His Monstrous Thoughts may well be call'd
Gigantick Sense,
To Heaven they fain would offer
violence,
Like those
Giants of old
Of which the
Poets told.
Even like
Goliath they
Defie
The Armies of the Living God, and like him too they
Die.
The Man with his
Gigantick Sense, his mighty
Spear and
Shield
Comes forth into the Field;
And for some time he Boasted there
As if he had no Cause to Fear.
His
Captive-Darkned Soul cann't see,
What 'tis to have our Souls set free
From the Black Chains of dire NECESSITIE;
This and a Thousand Errors more
He strives to
Land upon our Shoar▪
[Page 4]But then the Mighty
BRAMHAL comes, and takes his Arms away,
Shews that this
Painted Shield's not fit for Fight, but Play,
Strikes down the Monster, doth to All his
Ugly Shape display.
Then in another Field he's met by th' Mighty WARD;
And here 'twas plainly seen, that he could neither guard
Himself from being Wounded, or give Wounds;
Down strait he falls, his Armour on him sounds,
What e're his Followers say, he never Rose again:
His
Ghost is heard to
Rave sometimes, but then Bold
TOM was slain.
(6)
Nor can the
Snow, which now cold
Age does shed
Upon thy reverend Head,
Quench or allay the noble
Fires within,
But all which thou hast bin,
And all that
Youth can
be, thou'rt yet,
So fully still dost Thou
Enjoy the
Manhood, and the
Bloom of Wit,
And all the
Natural Heat, but not the
Feaver too.
So
Contraries on
Aetna's Top conspire
Her hoary Frosts, and by them breaks out
Fire.
A secure peace the
faithful Neighbours keep,
Th
[...] emboldned
Snow next to the
Flame does
sleep.
And if we weigh like
Thee,
Nature, and Causes we shall see,
That thus it needs must be▪
To things
Immortal, Time can do no wrong,
And that which never is to
Dye, for ever must be
Young,
[Page 5]TOM's grown
Another Man, and now himself betakes
To Poetry, and
Sonnets makes
Of
Gods, and
Goddesses, and such like things:
He's now the
Eccho of what
HOMER Sings.
If
Versifying be a
Sign of
Youth,
The Man of
Politicks is
youthful still:
He does not here Pretend to shew the
Truth,
On which Pretence how much Ink did he spill!
O that he had spent all the Time
In hard
Translations, and in
Rhyme,
Which he spent in Opposing
Truths, by which to Heaven we climb.
No wonder, that Old Age, & Youth,
Aetnean Cold, & Heat
Should Meet in Him, in whom long since such
Contradictions Met.
I wish he may not Die
too soon after so long a Life,
That he no longer would maintain his cursed
Strife
,Gainst That, which would make him repent of all's Impieties:
Least his Long Life bring him i'th' End to th' WORM that
Never Dies.
FINIS.