'QUICQUID VULT, VALDE VULT.'

DUM tingit Siculus solis cœlique meatus,
Astra polosque tuos quos sibi condit habet.
Nil facit instantis mortis bellique tumultus ;
Usque sed egregium sedulus urget opus.
Non vacat exiguæ curas impendere vitæ ;
Sat sibi curarum Conditor orbis habet.

IN COMITIS EXONIENSIS CRISTAM.

TRITICI FASCEM LEONIBUS SUSTENTATUM, M.DC.LXXXIX.
LEMMA, 'SUSTENTARE ET DEBELLARE.'

DUM tibi dat fortes Cybele veneranda leones,
Flavaque collectas addit Eleusis opes:
Invidia major, victoque potentior ævo,
I decus, I nostra Ceciliana domus.
Sparge inopi fruges, et pelle leonibus hostem;
Copia quid valet hinc, quid timor inde, refer.
Pollens muneribus belli vel pacis, habes, quo
Atque homines superes, atque imitêre Deos.

182

ALMA:

OR,

THE PROGRESS OF THE MIND.

In Three Cantos.

Πανία γελως, και πανία κόνις, και πανία το μηδεν
Πανία γαρ εξ αλογων εςι τα γιγνόμενα

Incert. ap. Stobæum.

CANTO I.

MATTHEW met Richard', when or where
From story is not mighty clear:

Of many knotty points they spoke,
And pro and con by turns they took:
Rats half the manuscript have ate;
Dire hunger! which we still regret.
O! may they ne'er again digest
The horrors of so sad a feast:
Yet less our grief, if what remains,
Dear Jacob', by thy care and pains
Shall be to future times convey'd:
It thus begins:

**** Here Matthew said,

Richard Shelton. 2 Jacob Tonson, the bookseller.

'Alma, in verse; in prose, the Mind;
By Aristotle's pen defined,
Throughout the body squat or tall,
Is bona fide, all in all :

And yet, slap dash, is all again
In every sinew, nerve, and vein;

Runs here and there, like Hamlet's ghost,
While every where she rules the roast.
'This system, Richard, we are told
The men of Oxford firmly hold:
The Cambridge wits, you know, deny
With ipse dixit to comply:

They say, (for in good truth they speak
With small respect of that old Greek)
That, putting all his words together,
'Tis three blue beans in one blue bladder.
Alma, they strenuously maintain,
Sits cock-horse on her throne, the brain;
And from that seat of thought dispenses
Her sovereign pleasure to the senses:
Two optic nerves, they say, she ties,
Like spectacles across the eyes,
By which the spirits bring her word
Whene'er the balls are fix'd or stirr'd;
How quick at park and play they strike;
The duke they court; the toast they like;
And at St. James's turn their grace
From former friends, now out of place.

'Without these aids, to be more serious,
Her power, they hold, had been precarious:
The eyes might have conspired her ruin,
And she not known what they were doing.
Foolish it had been, and unkind,
That they should see, and she be blind.

Wise Nature likewise, they suppose,
Has drawn two conduits down our nose:
Could Alma else with judgment tell
When cabbage stinks, or roses smell?
Or who would ask for her opinion
Between an oyster and an onion?
For from most bodies, Dick, you know,
Some little bits ask leave to flow;
And, as through these canals they roll,
Bring up a sample of the whole;
Like footmen running before coaches,
To tell the inn what lord approaches.
'By nerves about our palate placed,
She likewise judges of the taste;
Else (dismal thought!) our warlike men
Might drink thick Port for fine Champagne,
And our ill-judging wives and daughters
Mistake small-beer for citron-waters.

Hence, too, that she might better hear,
She sets a drum at either ear;

And loud or gentle, harsh or sweet,
Are but the alarums which they beat.

'Last, to enjoy her sense of feeling,
(A thing she much delights to deal in)
A thousand little nerves she sends
Quite to our toes' and fingers' ends ;
And these, in gratitude, again
Return their spirits to the brain;
In which their figure being printed,
(As just before, I think, I hinted)
Alma, inform'd, can try the case,
As she had been upon the place.

'Thus while the judge gives different journeys To country counsel and attorneys,

He on the bench in quiet sits
Deciding, as they bring the writs.

The Pope thus prays and sleeps at Rome,
And very seldom stirs from home;

Yet sending forth his holy spies,
And having heard what they advise,
He rules the church's bless'd dominions,
And sets men's faith by his opinions.
'The scholars of the Stagyrite,

Who for the old opinion fight,

Would make their modern friends confess
The difference but from more to less:
The Mind, say they, while you sustain
To hold her station in the brain,
You grant, at least, she is extended,
Ergo, the whole dispute is ended:
For till to-morrow should you plead
From form and structure of the head,
The Mind as visibly is seen
Extended through the whole machine.
Why should all honour then be ta'en
From lower parts to load the brain,
When other limbs we plainly see
Each in his way as brisk as he?
For music, grant the head receives it,
It is the artist's hand that gives it?
And though the skull may wear the laurel,
The soldier's arm sustains the quarrel.
Besides, the nostrils, ears, and eyes,
Are not his parts, but his allies:
Even what you hear the tongue proclaim,
Comes ab origine from them.

What could the head perform alone,
If all their friendly aids were gone?