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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
A TREATIE OF HUMAN LEARNING (COMPLETE 1-151), by FULKE GREVILLE Poet Analysis Poet's Biography
First Line: The mind of man is this world's true dimension
Last Line: Ere she can judge all other knowledge vain.
Alternate Author Name(s): Brooke, 1st Baron; Brooke, Lord
Subject(s): Art Schools; Men
First Line: The mind of man is this world's true dimension
Last Line: Ere she can judge all other knowledge vain.
Alternate Author Name(s): Brooke, 1st Baron; Brooke, Lord
Subject(s): Art Schools; Men
1
The mind of man is this world's true dimension,
And knowledge is the measure of the mind;
And as the mind, in her vast comprehension,
Contains more worlds than all the worlds can find,
So knowledge doth itself far more extend
Than all the minds of men can comprehend.
2
A climbing height, it is without a head,
Depth without bottom, way without an end,
A circle with no line environed,
Not comprehended, all it comprehends,
Worth infinite, yet satisfies no mind
Till it that infinite of the Godhead find.
3
This knowledge is the same forbidden tree
Which man lusts after to be made his Maker,
For knowledge is of power's eternity,
And perfect glory, the true image-taker,
So as what doth the infinite contain,
Must be as infinite as it again.
4
No marvel, then, if proud desire's reflection,
By gazing on this sun, do make us blind,
Nor if our lust, our centaur-like affection,
Instead of nature, fathom clouds, and wind,
So adding to original defection,
As no man knows his own unknowing mind,
And our Egyptian darkness grows so gross
As we may easily in it feel our loss.
5
For our defects in nature who sees not?
We enter first things present not conceiving,
Not knowing future, what is past forgot:
All other creatures instant power receiving
To help themselves, man only bringeth sense
To feel and wail his native impotence.
6
Which sense, man's first instructor, while it shows
To free him from deceit, deceives him most,
And from this false root that mistaking grows
Which truth in human knowledge hath lost,
So, that by judging sense herein perfection,
Man must deny his nature's imperfection.
7
Which to be false, even sense itself doth prove,
Since every beast in it doth us exceed;
Besides, these senses, which we thus approve,
In us as many diverse likings breed
As there be different tempers in complexions,
Degrees in healths, or ages imperfections.
8
Again, change from without no less deceives
Than do our own debilities within,
For th' object which in gross our flesh conceives
After a sort, yet when light doth begin
These to retail and subdivide, or sleaves
Into more minutes, then grows sense so thin
As none can so refine the sense of man,
That two, or three, agree in any can.
9
Yet these, racked up by wit excessively,
Make fancy think she such gradations finds
Of heat, cold, colors, such variety,
Of smells, and tastes, of tunes such divers kinds,
As that brave Scythian never could descry,
Who found more sweetness in his horse's naying
Than all the Phrygian, Dorian, Lydian playing.
10
Knowledge's next organ is imagination,
A glass wherein the object of our sense
Ought to reflect true height or declination,
For understanding's clear intelligence;
But this power also hath her variation,
Fixed in some, in some with difference,
In all, so shadowed with self-application
As makes her pictures still too foul or fair,
Not like the life in lineament or air.
11
This power, besides, always cannot receive
What sense reports, but what th' affections please
To admit, and as those princes that do leave
Their state in trust to men corrupt with ease,
False in their faith, or but to faction friend,
The truth of things can scarcely comprehend.
12
So must th' imagination from the sense
Be misinformed, while our affections cast
False shapes and forms on their intelligence,
And to keep out true intromissions thence,
Abstracts the imagination, or distastes
With images preoccupately placed.
13
Hence our desires, fears, hopes, love, hate, and sorrow
In fancy make us hear, feel, see impressions,
Such as out of our sense they do not borrow,
And are the efficient cause, the true progression
Of sleeping visions, idle phantasms waking,
Life dreams, and knowledge apparitions making.
14
Again, our memory, register of sense,
And mold of arts, as mother of induction,
Corrupted with disguised intelligence,
Can yield no images for man's instruction,
But as from stained wombs, abortive birth
Of strange opinions, to confound the earth.
15
The last chief oracle of what man knows
Is understanding, which though it contain
Some ruinous notions, which our nature shows,
Of general truths, yet have they such a stain
From our corruption, as all light they lose,
Save to convince of ignorance and sin,
Which where they reign let no perfection in.
16
Hence weak and few those dazzled notions be,
Which our frail understanding doth retain,
So, as man's bankrupt nature is not free
By any arts to raise itself again,
Or to those notions which do in us live
Confused, a well-framed art-like state to give.
17
Nor in a right line can her eyes ascend
To view the things that immaterial are,
For as the sun doth, while his beams descend,
Lighten the earth but shadow every star,
So reason, stooping to attend the sense,
Darkens the spirit's clear intelligence.
18
Besides, these faculties of apprehension,
Admit they were, as in the soul's creation,
All perfect here, which blessed large dimension
As none denies, so but by imagination
Only, none knows, yet in that comprehension,
Even through those instruments whereby she works,
Debility, misprision, imperfection lurks;
19
As many, as there be within the brain
Distempers, frenzies, or indispositions,
Yea, of our fall'n estate the fatal stain
In such, as in our youth, while compositions
And spirits are strong, conception then is weak,
And faculties in years of understanding break.
20
Again, we see the best complexions vain,
And in the worst more nimble subtlety,
From whence wit, a distemper of the brain,
The schools conclude, and our capacity,
How much more sharp, the more it apprehends,
Still to distract, and less truth comprehends.
21
But all these natural defects perchance
May be supplied by sciences and arts,
Which we thirst after, study, admire, advance,
As if restore our fall, recure our smarts.
They could, bring in perfection, burn our rods,
With Demades to make us like our Gods.
22
Indeed, to teach, they confident pretend,
All general, uniform axioms scientifical
Of truth, that want beginning, have no end,
Demonstrative, infallible, only essential.
But if these arts contain this mystery,
It proves them proper to the Deity,
23
Who only is eternal, infinite, all-seeing,
Even to the abstract essences of creatures,
Which pure transcendent power can have no being
Within man's finite, frail, imperfect features.
For proof, what grounds so general, and known,
But are with many exceptions overthrown?
24
So, that where our philosophers confess,
That we a knowledge universal have,
Our ignorance in particulars we express.
Of perfect demonstration, who yet gave
One clear example? Or since time began,
What one true form found out by wit of man?
25
Who those characteristical ideas
Conceives, which science of the Godhead be?
But in their stead we raise and mold tropheas,
Forms of opinion, wit, and vanity,
Which we call arts, and fall in love with these,
As did Pygmalion with his carved tree;
For which men, all the life they here enjoy,
Still fight, as for the Helens of their Troy.
26
Hence do we out of words create us arts,
Of which the people not withstanding be
Masters, and without rules do them impart.
Reason we make an art, yet none agree
What this true reason is, nor yet have powers
To level other's reason unto ours.
27
Nature we draw to art, which then forsakes
To be herself when she with art combines,
Who in the secrets of her own womb makes
The lodestone, sea, the souls of men, and winds
Strong instances to put all arts to school,
And prove the science-monger but a fool.
28
Nay, we do bring the influence of stars,
Yea, God himself even under molds of arts,
Yet all our arts cannot prevail so far
As to confirm our eyes, resolve our hearts,
Whether the heavens do stand still or move,
Were framed by chance, antipathy, or love?
29
Then what is our high-praised philosophy
But books of poesy in prose compiled?
Far more delightful than they fruitful be,
Witty appearance, guile that is beguiled,
Corrupting minds much rather than directing,
The allay of duty and our pride's erecting.
30
For as among physicians what they call
Word-magic never helpeth the disease
Which drugs and diet ought to deal withal,
And by their real working give us ease,
So these word-sellers have no power to cure
The passions which corrupted lives endure.
31
Yet not ashamed these verbalists still are
From youth, till age or study dim their eyes,
To engage the grammar rules in civil war
For some small sentence which they patronize,
As if our end lived not in reformation,
But verb's or noun's true sense or declination.
32
Music instructs me which be lyric moods;
Let her instruct me rather how to show
No weeping voice for loss of fortune's goods.
Geometry gives measure to the earth below;
Rather let her instruct me how to measure
What is enough for need, what fit for pleasure.
33
She teacheth how to lose nought in my bounds,
And I would learn with joy to lose them all.
This artist shows which way to measure rounds,
But I would know how first man's mind did fall,
How great it was, how little now it is,
And what that knowledge was which wrought us this!
34
What thing a right line is, the learned know,
But how avails that him, who in the right
Of life and manners doth desire to grow?
What then are all these human arts and lights
But seas of errors, in whose depths who sound
Of truth find only shadows and no ground?
35
Then, if our arts want power to make us better,
What fool will think they can us wiser make;
Life is the wisdom, art is but the letter
Or shell which oft men for the kernel take,
In moods and figures molding up deceit
To make each science rather hard than great.
36
And as in grounds which salt by nature yield,
No care can make return of other grain,
So, who with books their nature over-build
Lose that in practice which in arts they gain,
That of our schools it may be truly said,
Which former times to Athens did upbraid:
37
That many came first wise men to those schools,
Then grew philosophers, or wisdom-mongers,
Next rhetoricians, and at last grew fools.
Nay, it great honor were to this book-hunger,
If our schools' dreams could make their scholars see
What imperfections in our natures be.
38
But these vain idols of humanity,
As they infect our wits, so do they stain
Or bind our inclinations born more free,
While the nice alchemy of this proud vein
Makes some grow blind by gazing on the sky,
Others, like whelps, in wrangling elenches die.
39
And in the best, where science multiplies,
Man multiplies with it his care of mind,
While in the worst, these swelling harmonies,
Like bellows, fill unquiet hearts with wind
To blow the flame of malice, question, strife,
Both into public states and private life.
40
Nor is it in the schools alone where arts
Transform themselves to craft, knowledge to sophistry,
Truth into rhetoric, since this womb imparts,
Through all the practice of humanity,
Corrupt, sophistical, chemical allays,
Which snare the subject and the king betrays.
41
Though there most dangerous, where wit serveth might,
To shake divine foundations, and human,
By painting vices, and by shadowing right,
With tincture of probabile profane,
Under false color giving truth such rates
As power may rule in chief through all estates.
42
For which respects learning hath found distaste
In governments of great and glorious fame;
In Lacedaemon scorned and disgraced,
As idle, vain, effeminate, and lame;
Engines that did unman the minds of men
From action, to seek glory in a den.
43
Yea, Rome itself, while there in her remained
That ancient, ingenuous austerity,
The Greek professors from her walls restrained,
And with the Turk they still exiled be.
We find in God's law curious arts reproved,
Of man's inventions no one school approved.
44
Besides, by name this high philosophy
Is in the gospel termed a vain deceit,
And caution given, by way of prophecy
Against it, as if in the depth, and height
Of spirit, the apostle clearly did foresee
That in the end corrupt the schoolmen would
God's true religion in a heathen mold.
45
And not alone make flesh a deity,
But gods of all that fleshly sense brings forth,
Give mortal nature immortality,
Yet think all but time present nothing worth,
An angel-pride, and in us much more vain
Since what they could not, how should we attain?
46
For if man's wisdoms, laws, arts, legends, schools
Be built upon the knowledge of the evil,
And if these trophies be the only tools
Which do maintain the kingdom of the Devil,
If all these Babels had the curse of tongues,
So as confusion still to them belongs,
47
Then can these molds never contain their Maker,
Nor these nice forms and different beings show
Which figure in his works; truth, wisdom, nature,
The only objects for the soul to know:
These arts, molds, works can but express the sin,
Whence by man's folly, his fall did begin.
48
Again, if all man's fleshly organs rest
Under that curse, as out of doubt they do,
If sky, sea, earth, lie under it oppressed,
As tainted with that taste of errors too,
In this mortality, this strange privation,
What knowledge stands but sense of declination?
49
A science never scientifical,
A rhapsody of questions controverted,
In which, because men know no truth at all,
To every purpose it may be converted:
Judge then what grounds this can to others give,
That waved ever in itself must live?
50
Besides, the soul of man, prince of this earth,
That lively image of God's truth and might,
If I have lost the bliss of heavenly birth,
And by transgression dim that piercing light,
Which from their inward natures gave the name
To every creature and described the same,
51
If this be stained in essence, as in shrine,
Though all were pure, whence she collects, divides
Good, ill, false, true, things human or divine:
Yet where the judge is false, what truth abides?
False both the objects, judge and method be,
What be those arts then of humanity?
52
But strange chimeras born of mortal sense,
Opinion's curious molds, wherein she casts
Elenches, begot by false intelligence,
Between our reason's and our sense's tastes,
Binding man's mind with earth's imposture-line,
Forever looking up to things divine,
53
Whereby, even as the truth in every heart
Refines our fleshly humors and affection,
That they may easlier serve the better part,
Know, and obey the wisdom to perfection.
These dreams embody and engross the mind
To make the nobler serve the baser kind.
54
In lapse to God though thus the world remains,
Yet doth she with dim eyes in chaosed light,
Strive, study, search through all her finite veins
To be, and know, without God, infinite,
To which end cloisters, cells, schools, she erects,
False molds, that while they fashion, do infect.
55
Whence all man's fleshly idols being built,
As human wisdom, science, power, and arts,
Upon the false foundation of his guilt,
Confusedly do weave within our hearts
Their own advancement, state, and declination,
As things whose beings are but transmutation.
56
Subject not only therein unto time
And all obstructions of misgovernment,
But in themselves, when they are most sublime,
Like fleshly visions, never permanent,
Rising to fall, falling to rise again,
And never can, where they are known, remain.
57
But if they scape the violence of war,
That active instrument of barbarism,
With their own niceness they traduced are,
And like opinion, crafty molds of schism,
As founded upon flatteries of sense,
Which must with truth keep least intelligence,
58
But in a dark successive ignorance
Sometimes lie shadowed and although not dead,
Yet sleeping, till the turns of change or chance
Do in their restless chariots garnished
Among the cloudy meteors made of earth
Give them again, to scourge the world, new birth.
59
Thus, till man end, his vanities go round,
In credit here, and there discredited,
Striving to bind, and never to be bound,
To govern God, and not be governed,
Which is the cause his life is thus confused,
In his corruption by these arts abused.
60
Here see we then the vainness and defect
Of schools, arts, and all else that man doth know,
Yet shall we straight resolve, that by neglect
Of science, nature doth the richer grow?
That ignorance is the mother of devotion,
Since schools give them that teach this such promotion?
61
No, no! amongst the worst let her come in,
As nurse and mother unto every lust,
Since, who commit injustice often sin
Because they know not what to each is just,
Intemperance doth oft our natures win
Because what's foul, indecent, we think best,
And by misprision so grow in the rest.
62
Man must not therefore rashly science scorn,
But choose and read with care since learning is
A bunch of grapes sprung up among the thorns,
Where, but by caution, none the harm can miss,
Nor art's true riches read to understand,
But shall, to please his taste, offend his hand.
63
For as the world by time still more declines
Both from the truth and wisdom of creation,
So at the truth she more and more repines,
As making haste to her last declination.
Therefore, if not to cure, yet to refine
Her stupidness as well as ostentation
Let us set straight that industry again,
Which else as foolish proves, as it is vain.
64
Yet, here, before we can direct man's choice,
We must divide God's children from the rest,
Since these pure souls, who only know his voice,
Have no art, but obedience, for their test,
A mystery between God and the man,
Asking and giving far more than we can.
65
Let us then respite these, and first behold
The world with all her instruments, ways, ends,
What keeps proportion, what must be controlled,
Which be her enemies, and which her friends,
That so we best may counsel or decree
The vanity can never wiser be.
66
Wherein to guide man's choice to such a mood,
As all the world may judge a work of merit,
I wish all curious sciences let blood,
Superfluous purged from wantonness of spirit,
For though the world be built upon excess,
Yet by confusion she must needs grow less.
67
For man being finite both in wit, time, might,
His days in vanity may be misspent,
Use therefore must stand higher than delight;
The active hate a fruitless instrument;
So must the world those busy idle fools,
That serve no other market than the schools.
68
Again, the active, necessary arts
Ought to be brief in books, in practice long;
Short precepts may extend to many parts;
The practice must be large, or not be strong.
And as by artless guides, states ever wane,
So do they where these useless dreamers reign.
69
For if these two be in one balance weighed,
The artless use bears down the useless arts;
With mad men, else how is the madd'st obeyed,
But by degrees of rage in active hearts,
While contemplation doth the world distract
With vain ideas which it cannot act.
70
And in this thinking, undigested notion
Transforms all beings into atomi,
Dissolves, builds not, nor rests, nor gets by motion,
Heads being less than wombs of vanity,
Which visions make all human arts thus tedious,
Intricate, vain, endless, as they prove to us.
71
The world should therefore her instructions draw
Back unto life and actions, whence they came;
That practice, which gave being, might give law,
To make them short, clear, fruitful unto man;
As God made all for use, even so must she,
By choice, and use, uphold her mystery.
72
Besides, where learning, like a Caspian Sea,
Hath hitherto received all little brooks,
Devoured their sweetness, borne their names away,
And in her greenness hid their crystal looks,
Let her turn ocean now and give back more
To those clear springs than she received before.
73
Let her that gathered rules imperial
Out of particular experiments,
And made mere contemplation of them all,
Apply them now to special intents,
That she, and mutual action, may maintain
Themselves by taking what they give again.
74
And where the progress was to find the cause
First by effects out, now her regress should
Form art directly under nature's laws,
And all effects so in their causes mold,
As frail man lively, without school of smart,
Might see successes coming in an art.
75
For sciences from nature should be drawn,
As arts from practice, never out of books,
Whose rules are only left with time in pawn
To show how in them use and nature looks,
Out of which light, they that arts first began
Pierced further than succeeding ages can.
76
Since how should water rise, rise above her fountain?
Or spirits, rule-bound, see beyond that light?
So, as if books be man's Parnassus mountain,
Within them no arts can be infinite,
Nor any multiply himself to more,
But still grow less than he that went before.
77
Again, art should not, like a courtesan,
Change habits, dressing graces every day;
But of her terms one stable counterpane
Still keep to shun ambiguous allay,
That youth in definitions once received,
As in kings' standards, might not be deceived.
78
To which true end, in every art there should
One of two authors be selected out
To cast the learners in a constant mold,
Who if not falsely, yet else go about,
And as the babes by many nurses do,
Oft change conditions and complexions too.
79
The like surveys that spirit of government,
Which molds and tempers all these serving arts,
Should take in choosing out fit instruments
To judge men's inclinations and their parts,
That books, arts, natures may well fitted be
To hold up this world's curious mystery.
80
First dealing with her chief commanding art,
The outward churches, which their ensigns bear
So mixed with power and craft in every part,
As any shape, but truth, may enter there,
All whose hypocrisies, thus built on passion,
Can yet nor being give, nor constant fashion.
81
For though the words she use seem levels true
And strong to show the crookedness of error,
Yet in the inward man there's nothing new,
But masked evil, which still addeth terror,
Helping the vanity to buy or sell,
And rests as seldom as it labors well.
82
Besides, their schoolmen's sleepy speculation,
Dreaming to comprehend the Deity
In human reason's finite elevation,
While they make sense seat of eternity,
Must bury faith, whose proper objects are
God's mysteries, above our reason far.
83
Besides, these nymphs of Nemesis still work
Nets of opinion to entangle spirits,
And in the shadow of the Godhead lurk,
Building a Babel upon faithless merits,
Whence form and matter never can agree
To make one Church of Christianity.
84
The ancient Church which did succeed that light
In which the Jew's high priesthood justly fell,
More faithfully endeavored to unite,
And thereby nearer came to doing well,
Never revealing curious mysteries,
Unless enforced by man's impieties.
85
And when that disobedience needs would deal
With hidden knowledge to profane her Maker,
Or under questions contradiction steal,
Then wisely undertakes this undertaker
With powerful councils, that made error mute,
Not arguments, which still maintain dispute.
86
So, were it to be wished, each kingdom would,
Within her proper sovereignity,
Seditions, schisms, and strange opinions mold
By synods, to a settled unity,
Such, as though error privately did harm,
Yet public schisms might not so freely swarm.
87
For though the world and man can never frame
These outward molds to cast God's chosen in,
Nor give His Spirit where they give His Name,
That power being never granted to the sin,
Yet in the world those orders prosper best
Which from the word, in seeming, vary least.
88
Since therefore she brooks not divinity,
But superstition, heresy, schism, rites,
Traditions, legends, and hypocrisy,
Let her yet form those visions in the light
To represent the truth she doth despise,
And, by that likeness, prosper in her lies.
89
To which end, let her raise the discipline
And practice of repentance, piety, love
To image forth those homages divine,
Which even by shows draw honor from above,
Embracing wisdom, though she hate the good,
Since power thus veiled is hardly understood.
90
Laws be her next chief arts and instruments,
Of which the only best derived be,
Out of those ten words in God's Testaments
Where conscience is the base of policy,
But in the world a larger scope they take,
And cure no more wounds than perchance they make.
91
They being there mere children of disease,
Not formed at once by that all-seeing might,
But rather as opinions markets please,
Whose diverse spirits in times present light,
Will yet teach kings to order and reduce
Those abstract rules of truth to rules of use.
92
Therefore, as shadows of those laws divine,
They must assist Church-censure, punish error,
Since when, from order nature would decline,
There is no other native cure but terror;
By discipline, to keep the doctrine free,
That faith and power still relatives may be.
93
Let this fair handmaid then the Church attend,
And to the wounds of conscience add her pains,
That private hearts may unto public ends
Still governed be by order's easy reins,
And by effect make manifest the cause
Of happy states to be religious laws.
94
Their second noble office is to keep
Mankind upright in traffic of his own,
That fearless each may in his cottage sleep,
Secured that right shall not be overthrown;
Persons indifferent, real arts in prize,
And in no other privilege made wise.
95
Lastly, as links betwixt mankind and kings,
Laws safely must protect obedience,
Under those sovereign, all-embracing wings,
Which from beneath expect a reverence,
That like the ocean, with her little springs,
We for our sweat may feel the salt of kings.
96
Physic, with her fair friend philosophy,
Come next in rank, as well as reputation,
Whose proper subject is mortality,
Which cannot reach that principal creation,
Mixtures of nature, curious mystery
Of timeless time, or bodies' transmutation,
Nor comprehend the infinite degrees
Of qualities, and their strange operation,
Whence both, upon the second causes grounded,
Must justly by the first cause be confounded.
97
Therefore, let these which deck this house of clay,
And by excess of man's corruption gain,
Know probability is all they may,
For to demonstrate they cannot attain;
Let labor, rest, and diet be their way
Man's native heat and moisture to maintain,
As health's true base, and in disease proceed,
Rather by what they know than what they read.
98
Next after comes that politic philosophy,
Whose proper objects form and matters are,
In which she oft corrupts her mystery
By grounding order's offices too far
On precepts of the heathen, humors of kings,
Customs of men, and time's unconstant wings.
99
Besides, what can be certain in those arts,
Which cannot yield a general proposition,
To force their bodies out of native parts?
But, like things of mechanical condition,
Must borrow that wherewith they do conclude,
And so not perfect nature but delude.
100
Redress of which cannot come from below,
But from that orb where power exalted reigns,
To order, judge, to govern, and bestow
Sense, strength, and nourishment, through all the veins,
That equal limbs each other may supply,
To serve the trophies of authority.
101
Once in an age let government then pease
The course of these traditions with their birth,
And bring them back unto their infant days
To keep her own sovereignity on earth,
Else viper-like, their parents they devour,
For all power's children easily covet power.
102
Now, for these instrumental following arts,
Which, in the traffic of humanity,
Afford not matter, but limn out the parts,
And forms of speaking with authority,
I say, who too long in their cobwebs lurks,
Doth like him that buys tools but never works.
103
For whosoever marks the good or evil
As they stand fixed in the heart of man,
The one of God, the other of the devil,
Feel, out of things, men words still fashion can,
So that from life since lively words proceed,
What other grammar do our natures need?
104
Logic comes next, who with the tyranny
Of subtle rules, distinctions, terms, and notions
Confounds of real truth the harmony,
Distracts the judgment, multiplies commotion
In memory, man's wit, imagination,
To dim the clear light of his own creation.
105
Hence strive the schools by first and second kinds
Of substances, by essence, and existence,
That Trine, and yet unitedness divine,
To comprehend, and image to the sense,
As do the misled superstitious minds,
By this one rule, or axiom taken thence,
Look where the whole is, there the parts must be,
Think they demonstrate Christ's ubiquity.
106
The wise reformers therefore of this art
Must cut off terms, distinctions, axioms, laws,
Such as depend either in whole or part
Upon this stained sense of words or saws,
Only admitting precepts of such kind
As without words may be conceived in mind.
107
Rhetoric, to this a sister, and a twin,
Is grown a siren in the forms of pleading,
Captiving reason with the painted skin
Of many words, with empty sounds misleading
Us to false ends, by these false forms abuse,
Brings never forth that truth whose name they use.
108
Besides, this art, where scarcity of words
Forced her, at first, to metaphoric wings,
Because no language in the earth affords
Sufficient characters to express all things,
Yet, since she plays the wanton with this need,
And stains the matron with the harlot's weed.
109
Whereas those words in every tongue are best
Which do most properly express the thought,
For as of pictures, which should manifest
The life, we say not that is fineliest wrought,
Which fairest simply shows, but fair and like,
So words must sparks be of those fires they strike.
110
For the true art or eloquence indeed
Is not this craft of words, but forms of speech,
Such as from living wisdom do proceed,
Whose ends are not to flatter or beseech,
Insinuate or persuade, but to declare
What things in nature good or evil are.
111
Poesy and music, arts of recreation,
Succeed, esteemed as idle men's profession,
Because their scope, being merely contentation,
Can move but not remove or make impression
Really, either to enrich the wit,
Or, which is less, to mend our states by it.
112
This makes the solid judgments give them place
Only as pleasing sauce to dainty food,
Fine foils for jewels, or enamel's grace,
Cast upon things which in themselves are good,
Since, if the matter be in nature vile,
How can it be made precious by a style?
113
Yet, in this life both these play noble parts:
The one, to outward Church-rites if applied
Helps to move thoughts, while God may touch the hearts
With goodness, where He is magnified,
And if to Mars we dedicate this art,
It raiseth passions which enlarge the mind,
And keeps down passions of the baser kind;
114
The other twin, if to describe, or praise
Goodness, or God she her ideas frame,
And like a maker, her creation raise
On lines of truth, it beautifies the same,
And while it seemeth only but to please,
Teacheth us order under pleasure's name,
Which, in a glass, shows nature how to fashion
Herself again by balancing of passion.
115
Let therefore human wisdom use both these,
As things not precious in their proper kind,
The one a harmony to move, and please,
If studied for itself, disease of mind,
The next, like nature, doth ideas raise,
Teaches, and makes, but hath no power to bind,
Both, ornaments to life and other arts,
Whiles they do serve and not possess our hearts.
116
The grace and disgrace of this following train,
Arithmetic, geometry, astronomy,
Rests in the artisan's industry or vein,
Not in the whole, the parts, or symmetry,
Which being only number, measure, time,
All following nature, help her to refine.
117
And of these arts it may be said again,
That since their theoric is infinite,
Of infinite there can no arts remain.
Besides, they stand by courtesy, not right,
Who must their principles as granted crave,
Or else acknowledge they no being have.
118
Their theoric then must not wane their use,
But, by a practice in material things,
Rather awake that dreaming vain abuse
Of lines, without breadth, without feathers, wings,
So that their boundlessness may bounded be
In works and arts of our humanity.
119
But for the most part those professors are
So melted and transported into these,
And with the abstract swallowed up so far
As they lose traffic, comfort, use, and ease,
And are, like treasures with strange spirits guarded,
Neither to be enjoyed nor yet discarded.
120
Then must the reformation of them be,
By carrying on the vigor of them all,
Through each profession of humanity,
Military, and mysteries mechanical,
Whereby their abstract forms yet atomized,
May be embodied, and by doing prized.
121
As, for example, buildings of all kinds,
Ships, houses, halls, for human policy,
Camps, bulwarks, forts, all instruments of war,
Surveying, navigation, husbandry,
Traffic, exchange, accompts, and all such other,
As, like good children, do advance their mother.
122
For thus, these arts pass, whence they came, to life,
Circle not round in self-imagination,
Begetting lines upon an abstract wife,
As children born for idle contemplation,
But in the practice of man's wisdom give
Means for the world's inhabitants to live.
123
Lastly, the use of all unlawful arts
Is main abuse, whose acts, and contemplation,
Equally founded upon crazed parts,
Are only to be cured by extirpation,
The rule being true, that what at first is ill,
Grow worse by use or by refining will.
124
Now as the bullion, which in all estates,
The standard bears of sovereignity,
Although allayed by characters, or rates
Molded in wisdom, or necessity,
Gets credit by the stamp, above his worth,
To buy, or sell, bring home, or carry forth;
125
Ev'n so, in these corrupted molds of art,
Which while they do conform, reform us not,
If all the false infections they impart
Be shadowed thus, thus formally be wrought,
Though what works goodness, only makes men wise,
Yet power thus masked may finely tyrannize.
126
And let this serve to make all people see
The vanity is crafty, but not wise,
Chance, or occasion her prosperity,
And but advantage in her head, no eyes,
Truth is no counselor to assist the evil,
And in his own who wiser than the devil?
127
In which corrupt confusion let us leave
The vanity, with her sophistications,
Deceived by that wherewith she would deceive,
Paying, and paid with vain imaginations,
Changing, corrupting, trading hope, and fear,
Instead of virtues which she cannot bear.
128
And so return to those pure, humble creatures,
Who if they have a latitude in any
Of all these vain, traducing, human features,
Where, out of one root do proceed so many,
They must be sparing, few, and only such,
As help obedience, stir not pride too much;
129
For in the world, not of it, since they be,
Like passengers, their ends must be to take
Only those blessings of mortality,
Which he that made all, fashioned for their sake,
Not fixing love, hope, sorrow, care, or fear
On mortal blossoms which must die to bear.
130
With many links and equal glorious chain
Of hopes eternal those pure people frame,
Yet but one form and metal it contains,
Reason, and passion, being there the same,
Which well-linked chain they fix unto the sky,
Not to draw heaven down but earth up by.
131
Their arts, laws, wisdom, acts, ends, honors being
All stamped and molded in th' eternal breast,
Beyond which truth what can be worth their seeing,
That as false wisdoms all things else detest?
Whereby their works are rather great than many,
More than to know, and do, they have not any.
132
For earth, and earthiness it is alone,
Which envies, strives, hates, or is malcontent,
Which meteors vanish must from this clear zone,
Where each thought is on his Creator bent,
And where both kings and people should aspire
To fix all other motions of desire.
133
Hence have they latitudes, wherein they may
Study sea, sky, air, earth, as they enjoy them,
Contemplate the creation, state, decay
Of mortal things, in them that misemploy them,
Preserve the body to obey the mind,
Abhor the error, yet love human kind.
134
Solomon knew nature both in herbs, plants, beasts,
Used then for health, for honor, pleasure, gain,
Yet, that abundance few crowns well digest,
Let his example, and his book maintain;
Kings, who have travailed through the vanity,
Can best describe us what her visions be.
135
For we in such kings, as clear mirrors, see
And read the heavenly glory of the good;
All other arts, which born of evil be,
By these are neither taught, nor understood,
Who, in the womb of God's true Church, their mother,
Learn they that know Him well, must know no other.
136
Which God this people worship in their king
And through obedience travail to perfection,
Studying their wills under his will to bring,
Yield trust, and honor both, to his direction,
And when they do from his example swerve,
Bear witness to themselves they ill deserve.
137
Since goodness, wisdom, truth, then joined in one,
Show kings and people what the glories be
Of mutual duties to make up a throne,
And weave protection in humility,
Where, else to rocks when men do fasten chains,
Their labors only draw themselves to pains.
138
Now, if this wisdom only can be found
By seeking God, even in the faith He gives;
If earth, heaven, sea, stars, creatures be the bound
Wherein revealed his power, and wisdom lives;
If true obedience be the way to this,
And only who grows better, wiser is;
139
Then, let not curious, silly flesh conceive
Itself more rich or happy when it knows
These words of art, which man, as shells, must cleave,
Before the life's true wisdom they disclose,
Nor when they know to teach, they know not what,
But when their doings men may wonder at.
140
For only that man understands indeed,
And well remembers, which he well can do;
The laws live, only where the law doth breed
Obedience to the works it binds us to;
And as the life of wisdom hath expressed,
If this you know, then do it and be blest.
141
Again, the use of knowledge is not strife,
To contradict, and critical become,
As well in books, as practice of our life,
Which yields dissolving, not a building doom,
A cobweb's work, the thinnest fruit of wit,
Like atomi things real seem to it.
142
But as to war the error is one end,
So is her worthiest to maintain the right,
Not to make question, cavil or contend,
Dazzle the earth with visions infinite,
But nurse the world with charitable food,
Which none can do that are not wise and good.
143
The chief use, then, in man of that he knows,
Is his painstaking for the good of all,
Not fleshly weeping for our own made woes,
Not laughing from a melancholy gall,
Not hating from a soul that overflows
With bitterness, breathed out from inward thrall,
But sweetly rather to ease, loose, or bind,
As need requires, this frail, fall'n human kind.
144
Yet, some seek knowledge merely but to know,
And idle curiosity that is;
Some but to sell, not freely to bestow,
These gain and spend both time, and wealth amiss,
Embasing arts, by basely deeming so;
Some to be known, and vanity is this;
Some to build others which is charity;
But these to build themselves, who wise men be.
145
And to conclude, whether we would erect
Ourselves, or others by this choice of arts,
Our chief endeavor must be to effect
A sound foundation, not on sandy parts
Of light opinion, selfness, words of men,
But that sure rock of truth -- God's word or pen.
146
Next, that we do not overbuild our states,
In searching secrets of the Deity,
Obscurities of nature, casualty of fates,
But measure first our own humanity,
Then on our gifts impose an equal rate,
And so seek wisdom with sobriety,
Not curious what our fellows ought to do,
But what our own creation binds us to.
147
Lastly, we must not to the world erect
Theaters, nor plant our paradise in dust,
Nor build up Babels for the devil's elect;
Make temples of our hearts to God we must,
And then, as godless wisdoms follies be,
So are His lights our true philosophy.
148
With which fair cautions, man may well profess
To study God, whom he is born to serve;
Nature, t' admire the greater in the less;
Time, but to learn; ourselves we may observe,
To humble us; others to exercise
Our love and patience, wherein duty lies.
149
Lastly, the truth and good to love, and do them;
The error, only to destroy, and shun it;
Our hearts in general will lead us to them,
When gifts of grace and faith have once begun it.
For without these, the mind of man grows numb,
The body darkness, to the soul a tomb.
150
Thus are true learnings in the humble heart
A spiritual work, raising God's image, raised
By our transgression, a well-framed art,
At which the world and error stand amazed,
A light divine, where man sees joy, and smart
Immortal, in this mortal body blazed,
A wisdom, which the wisdom us assureth
With hers, even to the sight of God endureth.
151
Hard characters, I grant, to flesh and blood,
Which in the first perfection of creation
Freely resigned the state of being good,
To know the evil where it found privation
And lost her being ere she understood
Depth of this fall, pain of regeneration,
By which she yet must raise herself again,
Ere she can judge all other knowledge vain.
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