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 a:» 5:i SXi 03. .^i:. 03.'S2' 
 
 PRIXCKTON, N. -J. 
 
 w c» :v --VT X o >r o !•- 
 
 SAMUEL AGNEAV, 
 
 OF P 11 I LA DKI-PHI A, PA. 
 
 Book, 
 
 SCO 
 
THE HURRICANE i 
 
 A THEOSOPHICAL AND WESTERN 
 
 ECLOGUE. 
 
 TO WHICH IS SUBJOINED, 
 A 
 
 SOLITARY EFFUSIOJV 
 
 I N A 
 
 SUMMER'S EVENING. 
 
 c^ 
 
 BY WILLIAM GILBERT. 
 
 
 Odi profanum vulgus et arceo. 
 Favete Unguis : Carmina non prlus 
 Audita, Musamm Sacerdos 
 
 ViRGINIBUS PUERISQUE Cauto. 
 
 HoR. Lib. III. Od. 1. 
 
 PRINTED AND SOLD FOR THE AUTHOR, BY R. EDWARDS 
 
 SOLD ALSO BY MARTIN AND BAIN, AND B. CROSBY, 
 
 LONDON ; EDDOWES, SALOP ; AND HAZARD 
 
 AND BARRATT, BATH, 
 
 1796. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 HE following Poem requires some previous elu- 
 cidation, as it comprehends a scope of design far be- 
 yond vulgar research. 
 
 The history of it's progress is, at present, of 
 little importance. Here it is, A whole: arrived at 
 maturity; and wishes not to recolleft the blandish- 
 ments, nor retrace the imperfeftions, of childhood. 
 
 It gives, and is grounded on, a Theosophical 
 view of the relation between America and Europe ; 
 but concatenated, because necessary for illustration, 
 with the two old Quarters of the Globe* Of each 
 of all these the charafleristics are enlarged upon in 
 the Notes: But some general resolution of the fa6l, 
 that Countries have chafaderistics^ h the necessity, 
 which causes this Preface. 
 
 A 3 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 I KNOW it to be a faB, that the elaboration of 
 my own mind assigned to Africa, Asia and Eu- 
 rope, the precise charafters which were respectively 
 attributed to them by the Antients, and have been 
 since by Swedenborg; though each, used his own 
 language; which is a proof, that each was original, 
 and aftually travelled the road himself and saw ob- 
 jefts in his own light. For these I refer to my 
 Notes. Suffice it to say here, that the machinery 
 of my Eclogue thus proceeds on this Doftrine ; 
 namely. 
 
 First, That all Countries have a specific Mind, 
 or determinable principle. This charafter may be 
 traced with as much satisfa6lion in the vegetable as in 
 the animal produftions. Thus, Strength with its at- 
 tributes, viz. Asperity, &c. is the chara6ler or mind 
 of England. Her leading produftions are the Oak, 
 Peppermint, Sloes, Crabs, sour Cherries. All elegance, 
 all polish, is superinduced ; and primarily from France, 
 ©f which they are Natives. 
 
 Secondly, That a Country is subdued, when it's 
 7mnd ox life, it's /^nV?c^ according to Daniel, or it's 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 ■jenius according to the modern Easterns, or it's priti' 
 ciple according to Europeans, is either supprest, de- 
 stroyed or chemically combined with that of a foreign 
 country in a form, that leaves the foreign property 
 predominant ; and not till then. And this cannot en- 
 sue but upon Suicide,, upon a previous abandon- 
 ment on the part of a nation, of its own principle. 
 For when the Creator made everything very good, 
 he also made it tenable, on the one hand ; and ont 
 the other complete ; consequently without the necessity ,^. 
 without the desire, of encroaching, and also without the 
 capability, ' except under the penalty of surrendering 
 with its own complete roundness, its own tenability. 
 Thus I arrive at a primary Lav\r of Nature, that every 
 
 ONE MUST FALL INTO THE PIT THAT HE DIQS: 
 
 EOii OTHERS 5 either before or after success, or with* 
 out success. . ' ,, 
 
 Thirdly, That in the European subjugation of 
 America, the American Mind or Life only 
 suffered under a powerful affusion of the European; 
 and, that as the solution proceeds it acquires a stron- 
 ger and stronger tinfture of the Subjetl, till at length 
 that, which was first subdued, assumes an absolute, in- 
 
VI >KEFACE. 
 
 expugnable predominancy, and a final — inasmuch as 
 the contest is between the two last parts of the world, 
 and there is no prospeclive umpire to refer to ; but 
 it must be decided by the possession of first princi- 
 ples, or the highest Mind in the Hierarchy of Minds ; 
 and the European possession of mind having previously 
 arrived at perfeftion from her long intercourse with 
 AFRICA and Asia, and not being able to rescue 
 her from the present grasp and predominancy of 
 American Mind, the question is now settled for 
 ever, and Europe yields to the Influence, Mind and 
 Power of AMERICA, linked in essential principle 
 with AFRICA and Asia, for ever. Besides Europe 
 had full success in her encroachments ; she succeeded 
 in throwing America into the pit, and of course, it 
 MUST be her own turn to go in, now: She depopu- 
 lated America, and now AMERICA MUST depopu^ 
 late her. 
 
 This survival of American principle, I re- 
 present by asserting the survival of her spirit s, under 
 the name of the Children of the Sun, according to 
 the Yncas ; or The Sons of Virgin Light ; while their 
 bodies, or their appearance in the world sank to ocean; 
 
PREFACE. Vll 
 
 that is, were destroyed by Europe, who had the power 
 of the ocean and corresponds thereto. The Resur- 
 reftlon of their Bodies is the Reappearance in the 
 world of persons enlivened by their Life or Spirit, 
 a6luated by their principles. What these principles 
 are, will be fully seen in the Notes at the End. 
 
 I HAVE said enough to explain my Machinery, 
 and enable the Reader to keep me company as he 
 reads ; though I by no means suppose, that this Pre- 
 face is more than a flash of lightning in a dark night. 
 However, the System yields a strong, steady light 
 with me; and I would be liberal of it to my Rea- 
 per, if he will permit me. 
 
<'^^BX advertisement. X*E%-, 
 
 •«»te80O0(?!5O«0O009O0l 
 
 FRIEND is the occasion of this Advertisement ; who, 
 having printed some hnes of this Poem in a Miscellany that 
 could not fail to introduce it respeftably, in the best sense of 
 the word, has thereby acquired a right to have his feelings at- 
 tended to, m things that may affeft the credit of the Poem. 
 
 He once passed to me a very strong opinion against 
 the Metre of some verses. What is Metre ? It is the 
 focus of Union between the Sense and the Sound ; in the best 
 English Poets, at least : It is a contrivance to throw the accent, 
 not wfiere a common reader or speaker would throw it . but where 
 
 an IMPASSIONED ORATOR Or JUDICIOUS ACTOR WOuld 
 
 throw it. One instance of disapproved accent in The Hur- 
 ricane I suppose will be given in these three lines; 
 
 -Hear I not some 
 
 Female shriek, now faintly sighing on the 
 Wings of Night? Straightly appeared a gleam of 
 White before us. 
 
 The action here is Dramatic. And a person who supposes 
 himself speaking in the situation there described, and running 
 on with volubility, or capable of constantly finishing his periods, 
 supposes an impossible combination of irregular hesita- 
 tion of step, -with regulated volubility of tongue. I have ended 
 the line, and thrown the pause before the leading words. In 
 other instances, where I have not the same reason, I have an 
 equipollent. 
 
 If, after all, the ear is fastidiously offended with a short syl- 
 lable at the end of a line, or with dividing by a line two words, 
 which are joined in construction, let it feed upon my Motto, 
 attack Horace, and let me eo free — 
 
 -Carmina non prius 
 
 Audita- 
 
 Wkh innumerable other instances in Latin and English. 
 
THE 
 
 HURRICAJVE. 
 
 CANTO r. 
 
 1^ EAR where with Tropic heats bright Cancer glows, 
 
 And sun beams glitter with perennial force, 
 
 Girt with the azure wave an Island lies, 
 
 Called by the Spaniards ANTIENT * Its breadth is 
 
 Measured by the eye ; which, still unsatisfied. 
 
 Strikes far beyond the reach of land, Northward 
 
 When turned. Its utmost length doubles it's breadth. 
 
 Islands, faint seen among the adjacent seas, 
 Bearing their various headlands in the wave, 
 A social and romantic scene disclose : 
 
 * Antigua T the Latin q, is changed by the Spaniards to s 
 
 B 
 
10 
 They give the wing for amplest thought to range- 
 On all the mighty wonders of the world ! 
 Scenes undiscovered, uncreate to man, 
 E'er distant Europe's energetic arm 
 Ploughed up the vasty ocean to their base; 
 And still-, with art miraculous, dete6ls 
 Their sunny ports through many a pathless league,. 
 
 Ah ! here, Columbus, with the din of war^ 
 Broke the mild concords of the Mermaid's ((A)) shell ;. 
 Who, mild, at evening, in the glassy wave, 
 Joined with the Genii of the neighbour shores, 
 To sing of Love as spotless as the sky, 
 And as their ocean clear ; bounteous as airs 
 Wafting full fragrance from the thornless grove 
 Complicate of sweets, diffusing transport ; 
 And the realm of Love, and Health extatic, 
 Spread, unjealous, round. Then the glowing son5> 
 Of this mature and Occidental Sun, 
 
11 
 
 (Not less than Memmon, ((b)] v*^hom Aurora bore 
 
 To Eastern mornings ; and whose grateful harp 
 
 Spontaneous echoed to the rising day) 
 
 To bolder measures Jed the exalting strain ; 
 
 And, fired with all the radiance of their sire, 
 
 Poured elemental music from their strings — 
 
 Till Hell's dread, discords from dark Europe broke : 
 
 Then the Mermaid to her deeps shot rapid : 
 
 Trembling she lay — but safe ; and long concealed 
 
 From haunts of war. ((C)) Soon many and many 
 
 A son of earth plunged after her, and she gave 
 
 A coral sepulchre and tears of heart ; 
 
 While armied spirits formed, in Fire and f!,an.h 
 
 And Air and Seas a phalanx of avengers ; 
 
 Who far from Europe and it's bodied forms, [(d)) 
 
 Survived Immortal, Vengeful and Creative. 
 
 Expelled, these Sons of Virgin Light retired 
 
 Or to refulgent air or terrene depths. 
 
 In subterranean vaults where ocean roars p-)) 
 B 2 
 
12 
 
 Terror and dread to European hearts, 
 
 They hold consult with Genii of the deep. 
 
 With placid Mermaids, (who preserve the keys 
 
 Of coral tombs ; till from their safeguard called. 
 
 To repossess once more their hallowed seats, 
 
 Forgotten bodies startle the dull world 
 
 And take their own from myriads aghast) 
 
 With all the good and great of all the world — 
 
 The many. murdered Innocence of Ind 
 
 Or East or West — and their Avengers great — 
 
 However named — in sweet alliance leagued, 
 
 Whose fount is GoD, whose end and stream is bliss, 
 
 These peaceful murmurs and these pure consults 
 Of ncaring Bliss, speak thunder to the North. 
 They give prognostic to the fear-worn ears 
 Of list'ning usurpers of their fertile clime. 
 In sounds unscanned, of pondered Hurricanes ; 
 When they remount on air triumphant, joined 
 
13 
 
 With dread auxiliars riding on the wave, 
 
 And shew their greatness — over pale Europe's 
 
 Miniatures of winds ! Reigning superior 
 
 To their viftors mean, as in fost'ring Peace 
 
 So in black War's rude crash ; as in melody, 
 
 Just in great discords, throughout all the maze 
 
 Of involute, transversive harmony, 
 
 Till they repoise the scale in tonal Peace ; 
 
 Vi£lors on Europe, witherers of her might ! 
 
 For their's are Nature's powers ; Elemental strength 
 
 Springs in their nerves, to artificial or 
 
 Cold Europe's man unknown ; and at the Fount 
 
 Divine they drink pursuant of the stream : 
 
 They hence are keenly sentient of all truth : 
 
 Familiar, hence, is bold Emprize ; easy, 
 
 Hence, Atchievement, that to Europe's upward 
 
 Navigation is impractical and mad.((F'5 
 
14 
 
 Deep in these Caverns, or in Air sublime 
 A long abode they held ; but never slept : 
 Secure— that Europe dreamed not, or dreaming. 
 Dared not search for Life in principles of Life, 
 The ethereal sense and fire's elastic beam.* 
 They rallied, time by time, Their scattered bands. 
 With ANTIENT concords on their still-tuned harps; 
 Which, momently, the favoured ear might catch. 
 At silent dawning in the Zenith Air ; 
 And feel the high seraphic rapture trill. 
 As the SM^eet sounds evolved a maze ©f song — • 
 A song replete with all that Egypt knew. 
 Or close EleuSIS taught her pious youth. ((^)) 
 
 Here too I sat with them enwrapt, though open; [(Hj) 
 Till now the concert hastens to a close. 
 And all OUR War is out ! Bold and more quick 
 The COUNTERVAILING DiscordsNOW We sound 
 
 * i£thercum Senium atque auvai simplicis Ignem. ^nsld vi. 7<}7. 
 
15 
 
 And ply the terrible Antlstrophe, ((I)] 
 With fearful Justice and closed Harmony 
 Full on Europe, who ghastly sinks to Hell ! 
 
 The Genius of the West is High, and rides 
 Swiftly on the bold and regulated 
 Pinion of the Atlantic Wind. His race is won. 
 His burning wheels run on the rolling floods ! 
 He has not other climes to visit. New 
 To the world in Afric*s ((K)) Morning ; and in 
 Asia's Noon but juft refle6ling rays 
 Feeble and broken on European snows — 
 He challenged no return who made no gift. 
 But now though Europe his descending beams 
 Have all diffused their lustre ; and at length, 
 fresh and resplendent in the Western sky, 
 He sums up all his Justice and his Strength ; 
 Kindles his orient and meridian blaze 
 Clear as in Asia, as in Afric bold ; 
 
16 
 
 Displays as lucid purple on his throne, 
 
 And summons all the Honors of the World. 
 
 No lingering twilight in the proud-robed WEST 
 
 Shews indecision in the Paths of Day ! 
 
 But each must grasp the single hour of Light, 
 
 Or lose for ever, and in darkness die. 
 
 It is not till receding to the point, 
 Whence, from the lofty Zenith's blazy height, 
 Again he darts, with generous force intense. 
 His arrows vertical ; as with quickened march, 
 He hastens to relume the Southern World, — 
 That his indignant and protected Sons 
 Sweep on the Isles commissioned Hurricanes. 
 
 Now e'er description bid the tempest pour. 
 Retire We to the bower of Love and feel 
 The blaze of Beauty. 'Tis the hour of Noon : 
 Tokens have caused an awful expeftation : 
 
17 
 
 The Calm; diamond-bright, pellucid, ether ; 
 The cavern murmuring to the troubled wave — 
 Give note unerring of the big Event. 
 
 And who will join me in this safe Recess ? 
 Come Love's and Nature's offspring pure, whoe'e: 
 Or whence thou art ! For thou art mine, I know : 
 Come Fancy's sweetest Child ! For I am thine 
 Through the contrasted changes of my Life I 
 Swift let me lead thee tender, and fearful. 
 Or of the wild blast, or the madman's touch, 
 Assiduous for that calm and full Recess, 
 To Indian Groves of aromatic breath. 
 To spicy Thickets and to ample flowers 
 Redolent of every various sweet that glows 
 Beneath the beams of Heaven's Eternal Sun 1 
 Thence, in the house, careless of every blast, 
 Fixt on the Rock whose Quarry gave its Walls, 
 
 C 
 
18 
 And whose Foundations are the centra! Earth, 
 
 We'll smile contempt on'' every fear around. 
 
 Before the Tempest darken on the Isle, 
 We'll view the little Archipelago, 
 That raise their pleasant banks and slope their beach 
 Around their parent Isle. 
 
 Green Island, first. 
 Excels in verdure, and to listlessness 
 And summer pleasure spreads the cocoa shade. 
 Pelican Island on the North-East lies; 
 Whose shelving shore, or here presents the cool, 
 Sequestered spot for bathing; or covered o'er 
 With beauteous shells of every gaudy tinge, 
 invites the mind, that springs to Nature's charms, 
 Or loves to class what she diffusely throws. 
 These, with Long Island, and that Isle whose name 
 The Guana, found in multitudes, imparts; 
 
19 
 
 Successive open to the glad eager eye 
 Of manner, naw lightly concluding 
 A long Voyage with Bliss, and down the Northern coast. 
 Rocky, but pleasant, as his business calls. 
 With steady breeze and unreefed topsails, sailing. 
 But far more extacied with all the s^ene 
 Is that gay Girl, or this impetuous Youth, 
 Who, long estranged from early blisses sweet 
 And all the transports of their infant years. 
 In search of Learning radiant, or the dance, 
 Greet joyous now, the pleasant Isle, that holds 
 Their Friends, their Parents, and (if virtue warm 
 The feeling bosoms of their race and them) 
 The orphaned train, whose daily sweat has won 
 ^he Pride and Pleasure which exalts them now ; 
 But whom Diviner Justice goon will teach, 
 That the same hand which .sowed, shall reap the field ; 
 And that, which reaps, uninjured, shall enjoy. 
 
 C 2, 
 
20 
 Around Us here, while all was tempered Peace, 
 
 Pleasing although illusive and unjust ; 
 
 The balmy trade-wind breathed refreshing airs, 
 
 And blew salubrious to the toil-worn slave. 
 
 The Eastern shore receives the welcome gale; 
 And leads to caverns, or the brow ot rocks, 
 To gravel banks with glittering shell-fish strewed. 
 To deep. green mangrove, or the shadowing branch 
 Of lofty cedar droping blossoms white, 
 That tremble as they fall and meet the wave 
 Progressive to their root. Here, oft, at even, 
 When lengthening shadows to the calmy wave 
 Sliot dubious twilight and alluring gloom, 
 1 sat contemplative ; and viewed the breeze 
 Chequer the water with far-streaming light, 
 That glistened «5 with gems : I sat and thought 
 Ambition was a folly; glory, madness; 
 And all the hopes attending various man 
 
21 
 Were robbers of his rest : I thought, that Love 
 Was all the sum indulgent Heaven e'er made 
 To constitute his bliss, I thought so and was blest. 
 
 For four long days a calm through nature reigned; 
 A calm as dead as ever struck the deep ; 
 As ever marked the silent air with awe. 
 Or stilled the leaf high trembling, on the bough. 
 The fifth at eve to my accustomed haunt. 
 Along the shadow of a Cocoa Grove, 
 Down to the beach I strolled. The setting sun 
 Was dyed with crimson ; and the full-orbed moon, 
 That palely rose above the dusky arch, 
 Was deeply burred. Settled, encreasing, black, 
 With jagged clouds, voluminous and deep, 
 Scudded along the Northern verge of ocean. 
 And a long labouring swell hove the large 
 Billow lifeless on the shore, while adverse clouds 
 In dark battalia swiftly met in air. 
 
22r 
 
 Just where the horizon bends to meet the wave. 
 Within the farthest reach of human ken, 
 A Sail appeared. The mild ray far beaming 
 From the Western Sun glanced on her canvas, 
 And beheld it spread ^^)) before the rising breeze. 
 The rising breeze far from the Northward moved, 
 Ruffling along, and blackened as it came. 
 The affrighted plover from its blast retired; 
 The lizard nestled in the watchman's hut, 
 And heavy, awful, gloom poured deepening on. 
 Soon reigning darkness o'er Creation drev; 
 The deep-black curtain of involving night : 
 The tempest thickened ; and the dark wind howled 
 Encreasing horrors and sublimer blasts 
 Heavy the deep-hung atmosphere along. 
 Retired as soon as straws around me felt 
 The wind, I, hence, enjoyed in silent peace 
 The rending gale. But, ever and anon. 
 Some crash of trees or noise of swift destruftiojK 
 
23 
 
 Met my car. Soon the expefted signals of 
 Distress roll through the heavy storm ; the wind 
 Almost suppressed the deep-mouthed sound it bore^ 
 Reiterate at rapid intervals, 
 
 The guns were heard, and oftimes joined the thunder. 
 The firing ceased. The aggravated storm rode 
 Wide and unrivalled through the midnight air. 
 All else was silence. 
 
24 
 
 CANTO II. 
 
 
 Jr RESH from the roaring of the darksome wind, 
 Peace for a ?no?nent, draw thy mantle round, [(m)} 
 Hushing disordered Nature ; while rapid 
 Humanity and Love disperse their beams, 
 To light the houseless exile to my home, 
 Before the Hurricane confirm his waste. 
 Brothers in Vengeance ! For one moment's pause 
 I yield you Nature till the golden morn, 
 And claim from none, to stay your shivering hand ! 
 
 While yei o'er all the solemn stillness reigned, 
 Instant relief, in all direftions sent, 
 The nearest wanderers found, and safely housed. 
 
25 
 The moral viftims whom the gale destroyed, 
 And her preserved with life to Bliss I sing — 
 If not with jnetral pomp on harp sublime, 
 Yet to the youthful heart and virgin's ear. 
 
 'TwAS where the sound of guns had marked a wreck, 
 My own selefted path I took, in search 
 Of objefls breathing from the Eastern storm. 
 Wild and tremendous was the nightly sky ; 
 The clouds involved in vast confusion, deep 
 And ripening still for a£lion, ascended 
 Swiftly from the South and West. Exhausted 
 To the East they thinned, and nearly oped there 
 The lowering sky ; where, dimly seen, one star 
 Glimmered on night's dull brow, and then was hid. 
 Pale twilight from the shrouded moon discovered 
 Shattered Nature ; and, as we neared the dreadful 
 Sounding ocean, large torches held aloft 
 
 D 
 
26 
 
 Gleamed fearful on the loud tempestuous waste. 
 Ocean, why in darkness hid, sounds so deep 
 Your midnight roar ? Clouds, enclosing warring 
 Winds, why so solemn flit ye o'er? Tell me 
 All your mighty ravage ! Hear I not some 
 Female shriek now faintly sighing on the 
 Wings of night ? Straightly appeared a gleam of 
 White before us. Advancing quickly foiward, 
 We saw, on near approach, the tattered sail 
 Of a ship driven by billows over shelves 
 Of rocks, high up the creek, and lodged on shore. 
 Around, no form of life was seen. 'Twas ravage* 
 No hand remained. The Tempest was her pilot, 
 And the mighty arm, that winged the ruin. 
 Hung o'er the side, female attire we found 
 In shreds ; it's owner sought in vain, was lost. 
 Within with speed through every hold we search* 
 And cabin. The first were empty. The last 
 Repaid my zeal ; for here I found, softly 
 
27 
 
 Reclining on a leeward couch a form 
 
 Divine, Waked by the noise and lights, her eyes, 
 As on I came, returned the beams of mine. 
 With hurried speed she said 
 
 ElMira. 
 
 Where is my mother? 
 And the captain? How glad I am, that they 
 Direfted you to me ! 
 
 'TwAS no direftion 
 But our own. Come quick thou mildly-beaming 
 Angel-form with me — ^The moments stay not — 
 And I'll lead thee into peace and safety. 
 
 D 2 
 
IB 
 
 Elmira* 
 
 Where is my mother gone? And arc we yet 
 In England ? 
 
 No : with truest Friends you are. 
 
 I PLACED Her in an idle hammaque near, 
 Which, held by Negroes, bore her gently on. 
 And as we went, I aimed, with tenderest talk 
 To cheer the droopy maid ; who, not reluftant 
 Seemed, to solace: for to Sea unused, young 
 And innocent, she knew not the dangers 
 She had passed ; but hearing English spoke, and 
 Dreaming nought of strangers, having sunk to sleep 
 Among accustomed friends, supposed herself 
 Still known. Simply eloquent, she told me, 
 
39 
 
 How they disturbed her with their noise on board ; 
 
 How, being still at length, she hugged her couch, 
 Rocked by the winds and seas to dead repose, 
 Till thence awoke by me. So infant spirits, 
 Who wing their animating flight of Death 
 In pleasing slumbers from their mother's arms, 
 Alight unknowing on celestial ground: 
 Then press with firmy step the flowery path, 
 Nor dream of serpents they have never known; 
 Embrace with smiles their first angelic Friend, 
 And ope the little treasure of their hearts : 
 Thus sweet Elmira told her gentle tale. 
 And lit each generous ardour in my breast. 
 
 At home arrived and entering at the East-* 
 For now all entrance from the West was barred- 
 She looked and asked-=- 
 
30 
 
 Elmira. 
 
 Where is my mother's room? 
 Or where is she ? I want to sleep again : 
 For you removed me when but half awake » 
 What is this country ? 
 
 A country tis, where — 
 Daughters and mothers seldom live together. 
 
 Elmira. 
 
 Why not ? 
 
 They cannot* Young with young, and old 
 With old together dwell, where you are now. 
 
31 
 
 Your mother fully welcomed just is gone 
 
 Where you can never follow. The dist;ance 
 
 Is but small ; yet bad the road, and water 
 
 Lies between you. She begs you here to rest. 
 
 Till, with a few days use, you like the place. 
 
 You will command whatever you may see, 
 
 And all this house is your's. All varied pleasure 
 
 Shall attend the varied day. The morning 
 
 Breeze luxuriant shall be your's in this saloon. 
 
 Or in the Orange and Acacia shade ; 
 
 Where flower or fruit alike regale your taste. 
 
 For you shall noon pour tranquil splendour wide. 
 
 Not unaired, nor void of rich aroma; 
 
 For shrubs that love to drink his ray and live. 
 
 Will skreen it from EliMIRA. The purple 
 
 Sorrel-NeQar high, or milk of Cocoa Nut 
 
 You then shall drain ; and in its sportive shade 
 
 Hearken, the breeze race on it's rising stem. 
 
 ^yenlner shall bear us to the Thicket Shade ; 
 
32 
 Or else, at large, we'll catch the rambling air; 
 And when we see the peaceful breast of ocean 
 Just rippled over with the wildring breeze. 
 We'll then descend the beach; and, pleased, inhale 
 The freshest breath of genial air that blows ; 
 Or snufF the showers colleQing in the East 
 To cool the atmosphere and green the earth, 
 
 Elmira. 
 
 But, will my mother never come? I long 
 To tell her of those pleasant things. 
 
 Better 
 Enjoy them first and know them true yourself. 
 Then, sweet companions of your sex and age 
 Will join your walk and mix their joys with your*s ,- 
 
33 
 
 With equal transport catch the lively glow 
 From Nature's face, and beam it in their eyes ; 
 While with extatic smiles you hail the scene, 
 And eager tell, what various pleasures swell. 
 
 El MIR A, 
 Will none else be with us? 
 
 I. 
 
 I WHEN you please, 
 Will join my sweet Elmira and her Friends, 
 
 Elmira. 
 
 I SHALL always please. 
 
34 
 
 Safely lodged at home, 
 And ail secured against the wind stern rising, 
 I pressed refreshment on my travelled guest, 
 Who well enjoyed the delicate repast 
 Oi viands flavoured new and cooling drinks. 
 Full easily she believed herself brought 
 By design to this so happy spot : and sure 
 She deemed aright — It was her God's design : 
 Only she thought from God and not from man. 
 Think still, sweet maid, the same ! No reasoner 
 Shall e'er disturb thy God's domain in thee! 
 Still from the same pure fountain thou shalt drink! 
 Still, in the Light Divine shalt thou see light* 
 
 Meanwhile the Tempest turned has rouzed his rage, 
 And blows on Europe unrelenting fury : 
 The rain, in spreading sheets, comes whelming down 
 And forms a flood. Nor man, nor beast, nor house 
 Unfounded on a rock, sustained the assault 
 
85 
 
 Of winds and rain : The lightnings flamed, and roared 
 
 The thunder in tremendous vollies deep : 
 
 Now all the soul of Hurricane was poured, 
 
 Infuriate raging with the waste of sea. 
 
 Through earth or ocean God's own hand uprearcd 
 
 Quickly destroyed all the destruQible : 
 
 Well sheltered on the West, we felt it less, 
 But heard it more. The hard rain loud battering 
 The shingled roof surprized my lovely guest ; 
 Who doubted if she were not still afloat : 
 But soon assured and soon resigned to Peace, 
 For her's was bliss innate and incorrupt, 
 And eager on her novel hopes of life, 
 She softly sank to beatific sleep. 
 
 With rising morn th^ wind subsides: The clouds 
 Fly lighter and to higher air sublime, 
 
 E 2 
 
36 
 
 Discharged of all their weight. The Eastern breeze 
 Resumed is balmy; and Creation lives. 
 
 The Wreck we next examine : There, nor man, 
 Nor boat is found : A mile to leeward shews 
 The wreck of both : A Female washed on shore 
 Proclaims Elmira's mother. But from her 
 The tragic fa£l is hid. 
 
 She broods no tempest 
 Who conceals no guilt. No mean lust of gain 
 Propelled Elmira; nor guilt-infefted hopes 
 Taught her the fear of ill, or yet, to fly 
 To man for safety, which Deity would not 
 .Grant, jior her own breast could claim. 
 
 The Sailors hoped- 
 To fetch the quiet creek in boats ; and haste 
 Could not await ELMIRA; nor would fear 
 
37 
 Surcharge their yawl; nor their trust in human 
 
 Aids permit to take a poor helpless hand : — 
 
 Yet, alone, would Innocence have saved them ! 
 
 The female age matured and wise, her child's 
 Guardian, hung for life on men ! While she prayed 
 That they would save her daughter's life and lier*s, 
 A sweeping billow bore her to the deep. 
 
 Shortly awake, El mir a joined me soon, 
 Treading with cheerful step and unrestrained 
 The stately portico. 'Twas all enchantment 
 To her soul. The sun burst brilliant forth and 
 Welcomed her : All the Isle, the conquered oceaUj 
 Lay before her : Smaller Isles attraft her : 
 Unknown Diversities of Landscape strike : 
 The distant Hills cite curiosity ; 
 Her God is in her heart in Love and Bliss; 
 And through the Isle and air she lives.** 
 
SOLITARY EFFUSION 
 
 SUMMER'S EVENING. 
 
SOLITARY EFFUSION. 
 
 nV«"'"//. ««««#» A*'""/l, 
 
 HAVING SPENT A VERY FINE DAV IN THE HOUSE, IN 
 
 THE MIDST OF A VERY FINE COUNTRY, FROM WANT 
 
 OF COMPANY TO ENJOY IT WITH ME', I WROTE 
 
 THESE LINES AT FIVE IN THE AFTERNOON 
 
 ON THE TWENTIETH OF JULY LAST. 
 
 HAT is the cloudless sky to me ? Nature's 
 Devellopt radiance and her thousand charms ? 
 No heart joins mine : no kindred step with me 
 Winds the lone dingle, or pursues the track 
 Slow opening through the mazy thicket's shade; 
 None rests with me upon the verdant slope, 
 And runs his eye enraptured o'er the glade, 
 
 F 
 
42 
 
 Oil to the distant sleeping stream, that walks 
 With slow and measured lapse, his round of ages 
 In the circling mead ; saw the woad-painted 
 Briton ; beheld, or bore, his sharp-scythed chariot ; 
 Was oft dasht by the fierce arm that ruled it ; 
 Yielded indignant to the new Roman ; 
 Echoed with languid joy and presage sad 
 The desperate shouts of fainting Freedom, 
 As they rang from loud C aer-Caradoc* amain, 
 And with their last rude crash shook every dale, 
 Rouzed each cot in vain ; and has lived to hear 
 That song again from centuries of Death, 
 On Mason's lyre revived. 
 
 Hark ! Here are groves 
 That hold, or held, some Druid. Dark mantling 
 Round they throw impenetrable shade ; and hide, 
 
 * The hill, whore Caractac us made his last stand, and visible 
 from many pans of the County of Salop, where this was written. 
 
43 
 
 And have for ever hid, aye unprofaned 
 By Pvoman, or by Savage conqueror's step. 
 Some Temple sacred by the Mystic Sage. 
 
 Here, loo, are haunts of Love, as well as grand 
 And rudest Wisdom's darkest, drear domains. 
 Groves were sacred once to Love : once were heard. 
 Low murm.uring through the many-turtled shades 
 Of Peace, respondent sighs, or livehest notes 
 Of placid and accordant Love, that mixed 
 Airs with the Zephyr, whispers with the sacred grove. 
 Loner husht to sullen silence; Groves no more 
 Echo to human Loves ; the Loves rcnnen, 
 Or antient minstrels sung, of Dryad oV 
 Of Naiad, or perchance of human Maid 
 From cottage or from palace ; or of Gods, 
 From halls of light descending to the plain. 
 Unconscious of a change ; nor so immixt, 
 
 F 2 
 
44 
 
 Can learned retrospeftion trace distinft, 
 
 The^ Nymph, the Goddess or terrestrial Maid. 
 
 Lonely their solitary haunts I view: 
 And welcome solitude where they are not: 
 Where such are not companions of the walk ! 
 
 Tell me, ye Gentle and ye Graceful, tell- 
 Tell me, ye Chaste, yet not averse from Love — 
 Tell me, ye Great, who guarded all these Fair, 
 
 And make the lofty Groves of Love, that tower 
 In Zenith Air, terrific to the vain ; 
 As all within was mild, serene and pure— 
 Tell me, wh© most have ravaged your retreats j 
 Who worst your secret delicacies wound, 
 And boldest all your hidden depths profane ? 
 Which age is vile, the Gothic, or Refined ? 
 
45 
 
 *'Th AT, which the Heart lays waste!" I hear exclahned 
 In choral harmony of Fair and Great. 
 " Ah! What avails to us, pure Nature's Spirits! 
 ** The managed body and the managed tongue, 
 " Which chaunts no concord to soft Nature's notes? 
 " The managed foot, that dreads our shady brakes, 
 ** And shuns our holiest, wildest, deepest walks ? 
 ** We give no music to the high-trained ear : 
 " Our concert loved is NATURE'S voice Divine, 
 *' And GOD's and LOVE's ; One unison, tliat sounds 
 '* Through every branch, and trembles in each leaf. 
 ^' Here oft, when man awakes not, hear we sweet 
 ^* The voice of GOD conversing in the Calm, 
 *' And preaching of his inmost works Himself; 
 *' Till all the Seraph glow in all his fires, 
 '' And melts the high Society in one 
 '' Enraptured Diapason's holy sound. 
 
46 
 
 " T\v AS not the Warrior's gleam, that thinned our shades 
 " And harshly grated human Discords there : 
 *' He passed unheeded when the storm was o'er, 
 " And left no measured ravage : Not the man 
 " Of boisterous Nature was our foe ; that man 
 " Was Nature still, and her behests obeyed. 
 " The Man of Art, is NATUR.E's foe and man's 
 " And God's. His desolating axe wastes ail, 
 " That speaks a GOD Creator of the Land; 
 ** And marks it for his own. The ground not thita 
 *' Yields an impartial feast to man, to fowl, 
 " And all the Family of GOD ; but trained 
 '• To furnish famine, mocks at GOD and all. 
 " No shades are holy, nor are rural scenes. 
 '' The Man of Art proscribes all Nature; marks 
 " For dread the embowring thicket formed tor Love 
 *' And Love's delights of Peace ; and w^ise in this 
 "■ Career of Ruin, he ; for LOVE itself 
 •• Is the fir^t dread— LOVE the first great terror 
 
47 
 
 '' Of the Man of Art — commivtual Foe! 
 
 " And yet is LOVE the Universal Friend : 
 
 ** And, (hear the choir of NATURE, MAN and GOD!} 
 
 " The Man of Art, the Universal Foe! 
 
 *' He dreads hirnself- — hates LOVE he can't subdue — ■ 
 
 " His GOD arraigns— all NATURE desolates ! 
 
 ** But hence, let NATURE rise and reign in Man i 
 
 ** And him destroy who has destroyed the Earth ; 
 
 '' While GOD inspires, and LOVE unites the World T' 
 
 I HAIL the blest alternative! Content 
 To live dissociate of the Man of Art 
 And his dissociate earth, usurpt and curst ! 
 Shortly his ruin whelms ; the Dam is broke ] 
 The Founts of Fire are broken up, as erst 
 Of the Great Deep, and FIRE now streams along. 
 Innocuous round my Rest! See! It comes! 
 And claims the SPRINGS of NATURE for it's own \ 
 
JVOTES, 
 
NOTES. 
 
 
 CANTO I. 
 
 NOTE ((A)) 
 Broke the mild concords of tht Mermaid's shell, 
 
 (LyOLUMBUS asserts his having seen Mermaids 
 about the time he first made land, whg sank, at his 
 approach. 
 
 The existence of the Mermaid is now cer- 
 tain ; as one was exhibited a long while in Oxford- 
 Street, which I saw two years ago nearly, together 
 with a young one taken in her arms. The length 
 of the mother may have been four feet, and that of 
 the child nine or ten inches. From the loins up- 
 ward appeared to have been covered with flesh ; and 
 
 G 2 
 
52 
 
 thence dowms^ard, with scales. They were dried, having 
 been caught five years before on the coasts of Italy or 
 of Sicily. The hands were webbed ; and the fingers 
 terminated sharp, like a monkey's. The owner says, he 
 refused One Hundred Guineas for them, from the British 
 Museum. 
 
 Why not Mermem and Mermaids as vrell as 
 Ourang-Outangs ? Why not Sea men and maids (im- 
 perfeQ animals though they are) as well as Sea lions, 
 calves and horses ? 
 
 NOTE ((b)) 
 
 Not less than Memnon whoin Aurora bore 
 To Eastern mornings 
 
 HIS statue near Thebes in Egypt, emitted musical 
 sounds, when impinged on by the first rays of the sun, at 
 rising ; and did not lose this faculty when half demolisht. 
 Some ingenious strictures on it may be found in Dr. 
 Darzoin's Botannic Garden, among his many other valua- 
 
53 
 
 ble notes. The mechanism, which produced this singu- 
 lar, but well avouched, efFeft, is not my business : 
 What I shall argue from it will be equally conclusive, if 
 the mechanism be a fable. 
 
 The Celestial Philosophy of the Idea is that — 
 Light and Sound ARE CORELATES. Creation pro^ 
 ceeded in darkness, while it proceeded in silence. At 
 length GOD spake — Let there ^^ Light! And there 
 was Light — ipso f ado, GOD does not speak dark- 
 LY : and here our common phraseology, as I shall mor& 
 fully remark presently, betrays a consciousness of this 
 co-relation. But to go on with Scripture : T/2<? Word 
 was the Light of men. The Stars, which in Genesis 
 i. 17, \s!^r^ to give Light upon the earthy are speaking 
 in Psalm xix. 3. There is no speech nor language where 
 their voice is not heard — or ASTROLOGY; which 
 is compounded of two Greek words, signifying, the 
 Word or Voice of ^^<; Stars. Perhaps it will be 
 suspefted, that had David possessed as muck Science 
 in futurity as confidence in Astrology, he would in this 
 assertion, have excepted the summits of Wisdom to 
 which modern Europe has attained, so far beyond the 
 loftiest ken of his capacity. In some degree to avert th'-s 
 
54 
 
 censure, I must endeavour to supply what was wanting in 
 David with the fulness of the Son of David. He 
 has given as a diagnostic of the iasi times, that the Stars 
 shall withdraw their shining, and the powers of 
 HEAVEN shall be shaken. What shining is with- 
 drawn ? The European will first tell you that their ex- 
 ternal shining is meant, and also their external droping 
 from the heaven as a fig-tree shaken by the wind casts 
 her untimely figs; and having inexpugnably fortified 
 himself there, because he has too much reverence for 
 holy writ to let it coimtcnance superstition — proceeds im- 
 mediately to laugh at the profound ignorance in all phy- 
 sical sciences or real learning, of Him, who pretended, 
 that the worlds were made by the word of his power, for 
 asserting, that such immense bodies would fall to the 
 earth. This is one instance of the generous support given 
 by learning to Christianity. Therefore I say to you all, 
 whether College Petit-maltres, Priests, Moralists, Ency- 
 clopaedia Writers, Swedenborglans, or Philosophers, 
 
 Non tali auxilio ncc dcfensoribus istis 
 Christus eget. 
 
 Christ wants not such help^ nor such defenders. 
 
55 
 Man by Wisdom knew not GOD— much less by 
 idiocy or a national state of insanity. But how then ? By 
 the Light, and by the speech and action of a Star. 
 There shall come a Star out ^/^ Jacob, and a Sceptre 
 shall arise out ^/Israel, combined in significatioM 
 with it, and shall SMITE the corners of hiodh and de- 
 stroy all the children ^/Seth. And after many years 
 there came wise men from the East, not from the North, 
 to Jerusalem, searching for the Sceptre in consequence 
 of having seen the Star, and asking, Where is He who 
 is born King of the Jews ; for we have seen his Star 
 in the East, and are come to worship Eim. How did 
 they read all this in the Star"? For read it or hear it, 
 they unquestionably did. Was it the extraordinary mag- 
 nitude of the Star, that adm.onished them ? How came 
 it, that the Jews over whom it was vertical did not see it ? 
 For Herod called the Wise men and diligently enquired 
 of them, at what time the Star appeared. But perhaps, 
 it is a satisfa6lory answer, that they always looked upon 
 the ground like Europeans, surrendering the charaEleristic 
 of Ma^^ who with d lofty countenance, is made to be- 
 hold the Stars, If this be allowed, Isaiah has something 
 upon it chap. viii. £2, They shall look unto the earth ; 
 and behold trouble and dabkness, dimness of anguish ; 
 
56 
 
 and be driven to DARKKESS ! However ready the men 
 were, who could not read the Star, to murder the 
 KING, and till they could atchieve the murder of Inno- 
 cence impersonified, to regale themselves with the but- 
 chery of a multitude of comparative Innocents, the wise 
 men followed the Star and worshiped the King and 
 the GOD ; watching its place of sloping and there, 
 themselves, resting: till, warned by a DreaJii, they re- 
 turned into their country another way, than through the 
 Jews, or by the Kmg^ whom these so religiously obeyed 
 — for, no doubt, they did so, because David had shewn 
 them not to lift their hand against the Lord's Anoin- 
 ted : The natural or external man has no rule to know 
 the Devil's from the Lord's. 
 
 Christ was manifested to the Gentiles by a Star : 
 JESUS to the Jews by Visions of Angels and by 
 Dreams. Till I exaBly know, which of these two or 
 three modes of manifestation the Europeans most confide 
 in, I cannot be clear, whether they are Gentiles or Jews, 
 or even Turks, Infidels or Heretics. I rather think they 
 are a mixture, and if I may judge from the serenity with 
 vi-liich they see the heavens and the earth shaken round 
 them, I should say, a happy mixture of all five. But 
 
57 
 the word five reminds me, that the five foolish virgins, 
 (and surely there is virgin folly in this compound) as well 
 as the five wise, slept and slumbered till the Bridegroom 
 came. 
 
 The Speech of the orbs of Light is not an acci- 
 dental figure, taken up for partial illustration and then 
 abandoned; but a Doctrine, which pervades all re- 
 ligions and applies to every perception* In Job, chap, 
 xxxviii. 7, it is said, The Mor?iing St ars sang toge- 
 ther; and this brings us to Memnon ; who seems an 
 impersonation of this sentiment ; and designed to repre- 
 sent in stone the immediate correspondential consequences 
 of light, in a recipient organized for sound. Memnon 
 is a solitary instance of this in human produ£fions or 
 works of art ; but the Crowing of Cocks, and Singing of 
 Birds, are among instances of it, where moral powers 
 predominate rather than physical — that is, in the works 
 of the Father of Lights. 
 
 If Light and Sound are corelates, the proposi- 
 tions by which this is affirmed are equally true in the 
 
 * I do not speak of Europe, here. 
 
 H 
 
58 
 
 converse ; as Psalm cxix. 105. TAy Word is a Lamp 
 unto my feet and a Light unto my Path, Psalm xix. 3. 
 There is no speech nor language, where their voice 
 is not heard. 
 
 With the Greeks, Phabus and Apollo were the 
 same person ; or Light and Sound were twin streams 
 from one spring. With a less philosophical people, si 
 blind man has been thought ridiculous, for conceiving 
 the colour Red to be like the sound of a Trumpet : yet to 
 common perception they both are splendid and spirited. 
 Even the creeping of mechanic philosophy has arrived 
 at discovering the same divisions and proportions 
 in the Diatonic Scale and the Prism, 
 
 It is well observed by Dr. Darwin, that we apply 
 words expressive of Light and Sound indifferently to 
 each other ; as Harmony of colours ; a splendid composi- 
 tion or fine painting in Poetry, Oratory or Music ; equi-^ 
 poise of sounds. Perhaps the word equipoise aftually 
 unites Sounds and Light. I have not scrupled to say, a 
 few lines farther on, that ** fired with radiance-^-^ihcy 
 poured Music,'" without thinking it any breach of meta- 
 phor ; though Apollo's arrows and the lyre of Phoebus 
 
59 
 
 have been by some critics, held such. Even this, I think, 
 amounted to no more than a solecism, supposing it to 
 have been an error at all ; language having prescribed 
 the Word to Apollo and the Light to Phcebus. Scripture, 
 we have just seen, as well as common language, slights 
 the Distinftion. 
 
 NOTE Ic)] 
 
 Then M(? Mermaid /<? her deeps shot rapid : 
 Trembling she lay ; hut safe, and long concealed 
 From haunts of War, 
 
 I HAVE anticipated in the Preface, that the ma- 
 chinery of this Poem turns on the thought, that while the 
 inhabitants of America were subdued, the Europeans 
 were gradually tinfturing themselves with the feelings, 
 manners and habits, of that new Quarter of the Globe. 
 In other words, while American bodies were destroyed 
 by European bodies, American Spirits were subduing 
 the Europeans — and much more effeftually and really, 
 though latently. It was latent to Europeans, only be- 
 
 H 2 
 
(30 
 cause they and their philosophy contemplate forms or 
 externals^ alone ; and hence, they conclude, when a body 
 is put out of the way, the whole work is done ; little 
 considering, that the Spirit or Principle, which 
 solely gave that body existence, is itself, so far from be- 
 ing extinguisht, that it has burst the crucible which 
 confined it, and enflamed to vengeance all those, who 
 are in a similar principle, whether ten, a thousand, a 
 myriad, or in the case of a common Saviour, all Crea- 
 tion — and the murderer himself among the number. And 
 the subjugation effefted by America is more effeftual 
 and real, because Spirit moves body^ but body does 
 not move Spirit. It may remove Spirit from it ; but 
 the good it gains is, that it dies, and the expelled Spirit 
 flourishes more exalted, pure and free. 
 
 By Sea I always mean the external, the body or 
 crust, of the world ; I mean also Europe, or still more 
 specifically, England ; as having understandings calcu- 
 lated for the Sea or for Physics ; and excelling alike in 
 the sciences and the arts by which these two are jointly 
 contemplated. 
 
6i 
 
 A PROPOSITION. 
 
 But though the inhabitants oT America were 
 destroyed, yet, as the Spirit or Genius, or Princi- 
 ple of America infused itself into Europeans, and 
 still goes on rapidly perfusing itself there, it could never 
 be said, in the abstra6l or in the highest sense, that 
 American bodiei were destroyed — or, which is the same 
 thing, that there was no trace of the activity of their prin- 
 ciples in the world. 
 
 When I speak of Mermaids, I wish to be un- 
 derstood as expressing by them, the most intelligent in*, 
 habitants of the merely natural world ; because the Sea is 
 that world, and among its animals the Mermaid near- 
 est approaches to the human form, and consequently to 
 the image and similitude of GOD. And by American 
 Mermaids specifically, I mean the intelligence and 
 love of natural or sensual Life am.ong and appro- 
 priate to, the Americans. Hence 
 
 By the passage, which Is the Subjcft of this Note, 
 I mean, fkat the cdwve Intelligence and Loy k ziere 
 
02 
 
 net extinguisht, but " sunk in the sea," or transfused 
 into European bodies. 
 
 Why is the Sea the ultimate of Creation ? 
 
 Fire is visibly the Primary, or rather the Esse 
 of Being; because Fire alone has Motion in itself, 
 or can impart motion, that is, inherent motion to any 
 body. This is testified universally by expansion ; and 
 in the case of magnetic bars, by attra6lion. For, unde- 
 niably, where there is attraftion, these is motion^ a fer- 
 mentation of parts ; and this is produced by imparted 
 heat. If Fire be the Primary, the opposite of Fire is 
 the ultimate. 
 
 NOTE {{d)] 
 
 Who, far from Europe and its bodied forms. 
 
 THAT is, far from the perception of their under- 
 ^tandmg : and, as the European lives in his understanding 
 alone ; that is, places no confidence in anything, which 
 
63 
 
 is not mathematically visible, not even in Logic, far less 
 in internal feelings and the experiences of mind — I have 
 said far from him ; though they were working so power- 
 fully IN him, as to repeopU from Europe, many immense 
 trafts of America, on one side of the Atlantic ; and on 
 the other, combined with a beverage from the East, and 
 the manual cultivation of a still more spiritual country, 
 to establish themselves in every parlour, from the palace 
 to the mud cottage ; and most universally in the most 
 physical kingdom of the most physical Quarter of the 
 Globe, in the form of the most universal, deep-rooted 
 and medicinal luxury ever known. With every lump of 
 Sugar, a certain portion of Essence of America and of 
 Africa is swallowed ; and if refined with the blood of 
 bulls, a proportion of England too ; but the first are 
 wholly predominant. 
 
 Strange it would be, that Mathematicians give- 
 no reality to Spirit, while they lay the basis of form in 
 Idea — if they were any thing but Mathematicians. What 
 makes a surface ? What makes a line ? What makes a 
 point ? Here Metaphysics begin* — after Physics end, 
 or have attained their grovelling apex. It stands, or has 
 
 * That Metaphysics owe their name to the mark of a book-kinder is 
 «n account worthy of Mathematicians; who are truly vox ct prxtena nihil 
 
04 
 
 stood contest by the Mathematicians that all form rises 
 out of Idea ; and justly ; only it is a pity that, after know- 
 ing their place, they would not keep it. The fly, though 
 he feels himself carried by the wheel, fancies he turns it ; 
 but because he is a fly, he cannot be instru6led ; yet he 
 may be killed : Notwithstanding he is capable of survi- 
 ving a passage from America to England in a pipe of 
 Madeira wine — an experiment I am fully informed of, 
 while I write — yet he may be trodden down and 
 thoroughly crusht. Impertinence not corrigible by failure 
 and repulse, nor to be awed by example, may be destroyed. 
 
 The importance of a man or of a nation absorbed 
 in one thing, must be decided by tht practical importance 
 of the thing absorbing. The highest practical use of 
 Mathesis is Architeftuie, Land or Naval, and Astrono- 
 mical Navigation : This last serves to convey comforts 
 home ; the second is the medium of the third ; and the 
 first is, at once, the primary and ultimate of sensual en- 
 joyment — a sine qua non ; and of course the most invalu- 
 able atchievement. And this may, in a vioment, be de- 
 molisht by either a human Invention, or by Nature; 
 and must inevitably yield to Time. 
 
05 
 
 NOTE ((E)) 
 
 In subterranean vaults ^ where ocean roars, &c, 
 
 A ROARING of the Sea in certain caverns, is one 
 prognostic of an Hurricane, in Antigua. 
 
 By holding consultations with Genii of the Deep, 
 I mean superadding to themselves the first and highest 
 principles of Physical Sciences, and thereby excelling or 
 vanquishing Europe on her own Element. Whence I 
 have said farther on, " They are viBors ON Europe— 
 Witherers of her might,'* See the next Note, 
 
 NOTE ((F)) 
 
 For their' s are Nature's Powers : Ele?nentai strength 
 Springs in their nerves ; to artificial or 
 Cold Europe s man unknown ; and at the Fount 
 Divine they drink^ pursuant of the stream. 
 They hence are keenly sentient of all Truth ; 
 / 
 
66 
 
 Faniiliar, hence, is bold Emprize ; easy. 
 Hence, Atchievement, that to Europe's upward 
 Navigation is impraclical and mad, 
 
 THOSE, who teel internally, think or judge froi» 
 that ieeling, and a6l from that judgment, are in order ; 
 They are bannered in Nature's Cavalry : Their course of 
 Aftion is a fine Synthesis ; and wherever they proceed, 
 they meet no objeft but what is below them. They arc 
 always on the higher ground. The man of physical feel- 
 ings, science and action, is always climbing, but never 
 ascending. 
 
 But why this distribution of parts to America 
 and Europe ? For Europe I have accounted, in a great 
 measure, already. As to America, first and foremost 
 I shall give the praftical reason, because that is the Ame- 
 rican — and it is this — I am an American, and 
 Qui SEN Til llle EST. I say — Such is the ground ; I de- 
 scribe it ; and did any European teach me ? No. Then 
 it is my own ground. 
 
 Next, the speculative reason. 
 
67 
 
 Fire is the Esse oi' Being, or Being itself: 
 Earth is the Essence ; or that which gives Distinc- 
 tion, Solidity or exterior Permanency ; Water is the 
 Ultimate, the Exanimate, the Weak of Creation : Air is 
 the Result of the Elements ; continent of tliem in vari- 
 ous proportions and recipient of every different quality 
 from them. The Hebrews always knew it to be no Ele- 
 ment ; for of their twenty-two letters, they gave twelve 
 to the Signs of the Zodiac, seven to the planets, and three 
 to Fire, Earth and Water. 
 
 As is the Continent or Country, so is the Man of 
 it. AFRICA is evidently the least watered part of the 
 Globe ; or, what is still more to the point, the least ac- 
 cessible by water. She is poised on the Equator; and 
 certainly is the fiery region of the world. Asia is an 
 jE^tr//^ to Africa ; a vehicle, which was contrived to 
 prevent Europe from extinguishing Africa, or Africa 
 from burning Europe, while heatir.g it. With Asia I 
 have no farther business, than to add she was represented 
 among the Antients by a Ship, as Europe was by Water, 
 But on Africa I shall treat in a separate Note. The 
 African is, however, the most internal man in the world, 
 as his country is the most fiery. 
 
 /2 
 
68 
 
 If Europe have not more water than America, 
 nor so much, yet, her chief strength, superiority and 
 energy, lie in that element. America is AIR. 
 
 As Air she possesses the powers and advantages 
 combined (and consequently sublimed and in a fulness 
 of perfection which only the combination can give) of all 
 other Quarters of the Globe. The altitude of her Moun- 
 tains, the depth and immensity of her Rivers, the quan- 
 tity of her Metals, her possession of the most noble of 
 them in Platin A, the number of her Islands, her two- 
 fold Continent and its vast extent — join unequivocally to 
 support this fa6l. Her inhabitants, therefore, contem- 
 plating alike Heat and Cold, Mountains and Plains, 
 Woods and Lakes, Rivers and Oceans, each on an im- 
 perial throne — may, v^ry well, for a moment be lost i?2 
 body, but cannot be defective in Mind. 
 
 A MAN is supposed to improve by going out into 
 ihe world, by visiting London. Artificial man does ; he 
 extends with his sphere ; but alas ! that sphere is micro- 
 scopic : It is formed of minutiae, and he surrenders his 
 genuine vision to the artist, in order to embrace it in his 
 ken. His bodily senses grow acute, even to barren and 
 
69 
 
 inhuman pruriency ; while his mental become propor- 
 tionally obtuse. The reverse is the Man oF Mind : He 
 who is placed in the sphere of Nature and of GOD, 
 might be a mock atTattersall's and Brookes's, and a sneer 
 at St. James's : He would certainly be swallowed alive by 
 the first Pizarro^ that crossed him : — But, when he walks 
 along the River of Amazons ; when he rests his eye on 
 the unrivalled Andes ; when he measures the long and 
 watered Savannah ; or contemplates from a sudden Pro- 
 montary, the distant, Vast Pacific — and feels himself a 
 Freeman in this vast Theatre, and commanding each 
 ready produced fruit of this wilderness, and each progeny 
 of this stream — His exaltation is not less than Imperial. 
 He is as gentle too as he is great : His emotions of tender- 
 ness keep pace with his elevation of sentiment ; for he says, 
 *' These were made by a good Being, who unsought bv 
 me, placed me here to enjoy them." He becomes at once, 
 a Child and a King. His mind is in himself ; from hence 
 he argues and from hence he afts ; and he argues unerr- 
 ingly and a£fs magisterially : His Mind in himself is also in 
 his GOD ; and therefore he loves, and therefore he soars. 
 He knows where he is ; his speculations do not outfly 
 his praftice ; for he thinks he knows nothing but what 
 he proves. The vast pride of discovering Experimental 
 
70 
 
 Philosophy cannot, indeed, be his; for Discovery is 
 precluded by incessant Knowledge. 
 
 The European is always clinnbing, because he al- 
 ways begins with Water, whose property it is, always to 
 sink to a level. He cannot make any progress, because 
 Water originates nothing. He never ascends, because 
 he never quits Water. Hence, for ever, like Sisyphus, 
 struggling up a toilsome, vain Analysis, he judges all 
 things, which are above the height to which Water may 
 be forced by known engines, to be imprafticable ; and 
 the Science of Mind to be impraftical and a mad 
 speculation, instead of what it is — the only and 
 BRILLIANT REALITY. He always thinks out of 
 himself: hence he never meets GOD, and leaves the 
 PRIME Work of Deity, as the least considerable 
 part of creation : but this, he alleges, is because he is not 
 able to consider him at all. He knows not where to be- 
 gin ; he has not one datum in Mind \ and the science of 
 all that is real, stands under the term Metaphysics, as a 
 cani name for all that is speculative. If, when arrived 
 here, he could draw a syllogism, and acknow'ledge his 
 inferiority, he would, at this moment, be an objeQ of my 
 friendship, not of my indignation and inveftive. But he 
 
71 
 
 is not content to hQ false ; he is bad : he is not content 
 to be ignorant of Mind, but the villain must murder it, if 
 he can — but he cannot. We have just seen him, from the 
 attempt, as ^^^as he \s false ; We see him in the conduct 
 of his attempt, as foolisFi as he is wicked. He throws 
 Water on our seeds, and makes us vegetate. With his 
 ignorance of Mind, he knows not the laws of Vi61orv. 
 He knows not, though he sees it, that the visible body 
 is moved by only the invisible Mind, and that the 
 energies, which impel an imperious course of conduct, 
 lie not in muscles, nor in bones of even six inches dia- 
 meter': We know it and vanquish him on his own ground; 
 moving body to any thing by spirit. He sees it, did I 
 say ? I beg his pardon ; 1 forgot, that eyes can look only 
 outward, and that of course, he cannot see this; But I 
 have an infallible recipe for this blindness ; or if not a 
 recipe, an antidote for those, whom its malignant atrocity 
 would poison — it is this ; he can feel; that is, when 
 he is run through the body. Instru6lion must be written 
 for an European, with ink of blood and a pen of steel. 
 
 If the first Motive of Creation, the Crea- 
 tor, the first Life, be connefted with each detacht 
 part of Creation, with each subordinate Lfe, and each 
 
subordinate mover ^ at all ; it must be in the most aftive, 
 the most vital, and the most plastic, which are also the 
 most recondite, parts of his frame. Who ever found 
 Majesty in a bone, or illumination in the eye of a corpse ? 
 But the organization continues, or to what purpose is 
 Anatomy ? Therefore the first motive inheres not 
 in body, nor in its organization. The percipient is 
 vanisht, and the motive is gone. Suppose them to 
 be annihilated, if you will ; lam sure your body is. 
 Yet, in this body you fix demonstration ; from this you 
 argue : It is a reasoning worthy of it, that in the principle 
 of its identity and motion, you disdain to seek that of 
 its Creation, even GOD. Spirit without spirituality ; 
 Christians without Christ or Power ; Asserters of, nay, 
 brawlers for Jesus, without Salvation, you Englishmen 
 are — Mathematicians : all purer charafters are superstitious. 
 The Science of Mind, to be sure, is Superstition: 
 but it is the Superstition which Archimedes wanted 
 to raise the World ; but which, I tell you, mean men of 
 physics, I HAVE ;— and The FRENCH HAVE ! 
 And will KEEP and PERFECT, whether you see, and 
 whether you approve, or not. Adieu ! 
 
' 73 
 
 NOTEici 
 
 A song replete with all that EgypT knevc : 
 Or close Eleusis taught her pious youth : 
 
 THAT is, replete with the knowledge and 
 Philosophy of the whole world. I assert this of the 
 Setting Sun, because he has seen, and been seen, through 
 all the World ; as of the Rising Sun, because he was to 
 see and be seen throughout. 
 
 Egypt and Eleusis stand for the Rising Sun, 
 with me; Egypt for the Knowledge, and Eleusis 
 for the Philosophy ; because, la)iing aside the vulgar 
 presumption in favor of Asia tor the Spring of human . 
 Being, I have not a penumbra of hesitation in affirming 
 it to be Abyss IN lA ; nor do I doubt, that the first forma- 
 tion of Man into Societies and apparent order, was in 
 Egypt. This I first conclude from its being a country- 
 lying just below Abyssinia, at the mouth of her River, 
 watered by it without the inconvenience oi rains, and the 
 only part of Af RIG A, that presented the easy means ot Ex- 
 tension to other parts of the World \ which it did by the 
 
 K 
 
74 
 
 Isthmus of Suez, and also by two small and smooth Li- 
 land Seas, where they might pass their infancy oi Navi- 
 gation ; exclusive of a fine River. Secondly, I conclude 
 so, from the corresponding y^^?, that every revela- 
 tion of Science or Instruction to Man, pagan 
 or evangelical, has been from Egypt ; and this evidently 
 must be the case, and can be the^ case only, on the sup- 
 position, that here was the original ore ic in A gen- 
 tium, or work-shop or factory of nations. For where 
 organization first began, they could certainly give the 
 best account of it. 
 
 TriE Birth of Theogony among the Greeks, the 
 remission of Israel to a servitude in Egypt, and, after- 
 wards of the Universal Sa\-iour to the same place for 
 proteftion in infancy, coupled with the Prophecy, "Out 
 of Egypt have I called my Son," at once point it out as 
 the Birth-place of the Doclnnals of all Religions. Per- 
 sons read in Emanuel Swedenborg's Manifestations, will 
 sec, how justly I confine it to DotlrinaU or Science, in 
 the last instance as well as the two first ; because a Son 
 signifies Do6trine ; as Males excel by the cultivation of 
 their Understanding ; but Women or Females by retain- 
 ing the purity of their Will. 
 
7^ 
 
 Look up lo Abyssinia with an eye of natu- 
 ral 5c?>«rf, that is, on the principles and with the views 
 of Science, that belong to a Heathen Philosopher ; and 
 tell me what you see. Chaos: do you not? Look 
 up abstraBedly to the origin of man, wilh the same eye, 
 not enlightened by Divine Revelation : What do you 
 see ? Chaos. Then two things equal to one and the 
 same thing, are equal to one another, 
 
 Ln[ short, every Religion but the PRESENT, has 
 begun in Egypt ; and every Religion but the PRE- 
 SENT has been speculative. MEN are now summoned 
 by a Divine Afflatus, to contend For the GOOD 
 OF ENJOYMENT and ^vill no longer trust it to futu- 
 rity, or be content with speculation, that talks about 
 it and about it. Hence the present originates in 
 Abyssinia. The French are embarked and are near 
 landing on this spot of practical, sensual, or corporeal 
 Good. It is historically true, that on the confines o\ 
 Abyssinia, namely at SexNN aar, was the only kingdom 
 in the World, wliich allowed the king to be regularly 
 tried and put to death ; that is, it was the only country, 
 that, finding a principle of political life and ad.ion to 
 be dtstruBive to happiness, instead of beneficial, abandoa- 
 
 K 2 
 
76 
 
 ed and destroyed it. How could they venture on this ? 
 Because they lived in a superior Principle; and, of course 
 FELT and knew their whole political struBure to be 
 subordinate. With the English, it is paramount ; for, 
 though they posses a loose belief of a state superior in 
 stability, they feel they have no hold of it ; and so 
 pradically depend on nothing but Wealth and Policy ; 
 and deem him, forsooth, an enemy to mankind, who 
 shg'.kes these ! It is also true, that as the king of France 
 was sending an ambassador to the emperor of Abyssinia, 
 whence a queen came to hear the wisdom of Solomon 
 and where his Progeny by her still reign, that Embassa- 
 dor, with all his suite were cat to pieces before the door 
 of the kings palace-,'^ owing to certain Friars, who, 
 through jealousy, represented (though, most probably, 
 with justice) the embassador to be ?. spy and secret 
 Enemy. 
 
 In a future Note, I shall state some specific reasons 
 for my Egotism in this Poem; but I must round this 
 liead with something like Anticipation. I am the only 
 Being in the World, who go through every inch 
 and every league of the French Revolution j which, in- 
 
 * Sec Poncct and Bruce 
 
77 
 
 deetl, is no wonder, as I had embarked, without sail or oar, 
 in the Revolution to practical Good, Public and Pri- 
 vate, as an individual, before they started. / also have 
 strong symptoms of a neighbourhood to Abyssinia. 
 I have such a strong predileftion for Africa, as, when a 
 youth, to have wished, in crossing the Atlantic without a 
 Mediterranean Pass, to be taken by a Corsair and carried in; 
 and while I was in the latitudes, I looked out impatiently 
 for every sail, in hopes of finding an African Cruizer. 
 There is certainly a Nation of Gibberti, who inhabit 
 East and South of Abyssinia, and have had a Dynasty 
 on its Throne. As the Abyssinians never leave their 
 country (and I strenuously maintain, that a total aversion 
 from travelling can only consist with being at the ulti- 
 ??iateoi Enjoyment and the Primary of Being) the Gib- 
 berti have been ever their Merchants and their Embas- 
 sadors* to Europe. The inference designed may seem 
 almost an infantine speculation to the European, who 
 knows of no relations but what are guaranteed by a par- 
 son and clerk, and archived in a register, according to 
 statute ; and therefore I have published enough ; but witk 
 
 * If these be not meant in Isaiah xviii. i, 2, who are ? And if the hard, 
 rough, toiling, xaASTTOV, country, (See my laft Note) to which they are 
 Tent, be not Europe, what region is it ? 
 
78 
 
 the aid of two or three other Correspondences, I can 
 infallibly prove my Relation yr^/« Spirit, because in 
 Spirit^ akhough naturally, it may be thought, improbable. 
 
 I SHALL produce another proof, that Egypt was 
 the first debut of Mankind ; which will have weight with 
 Students of Correspondences, The yikst Gates of the 
 New Jerusalem are East and North. Now the place to 
 which man is brought back, corresponds in principle, 
 for GOD never alters his plan, to the place whence he 
 sat out; and supposing Egypt to have been the first 
 route taken by Man, its gates or channels of external 
 communication, are East and North. So the first gates 
 from the Country of Creation and Re-creation are East 
 and North. 
 
 By Eleusis I mean the Philosophy of the 
 Springs of Nature. Egypt was an original spot : 
 Eleusis only a representative : Therefore the one gave 
 knowledge, while the other was only a vehicle of Instruc- 
 tion. See farther Note K. 
 
 The Eleusinian Mysteries were celebrated 
 in honor of Ceres, and were proceeded on in darkness 
 according with the operations of the Goddess ; whom the 
 
79 
 
 Mystery consisted in tracing, step by step : not, however, 
 in the wearisome details and arbitrary jargon of jejune 
 botany, but in the disclosure of the whole parallel be- 
 tween human and vegetable produ61ion. They, scriptu- 
 rally, considered Man as formed to identity from the 
 dust of the Ground, like Plants; as a Tree planted 
 by the Hands of JEHOVAH ; and his catastrophe, spe- 
 cific and generic, as the gathering in of the harvest. 
 
 This accordance between Scripture and Ele- 
 USis will not appear susprizing, when we recolleft, 
 what I have urged already, that Egypt supplied both 
 m.arkets ; and, if we attend to the transaftions of Jo- 
 seph's administration in Egypt, we shall add, that it 
 supplied the whole of the market to trie Gentiles, and 
 for a long time to Israel : for there being a universal 
 famine from which the abode of Israel was not exemp- 
 ted, the granaries of Egypt supplied all the world with 
 present food, and the seed of future. 
 
 Here, observe,^ri/, that the wheat being culti- 
 vated by the labour, and stored by the providence of 
 Man, represents Man as co-operating, in an external 
 sphere with GOD in an internal, for his own and bre- 
 
80 
 thren's salvation ; which produces this Definition ol 
 Egypt in a good sense, viz. Sciences, a7id Practice 
 thereon foundal, tributary to L,iYZ'. 
 
 Secondly ; Man was indebted for the providence, 
 which he exercised, to the immediate Inspiration of 
 GOD in a Dream ; which was so much attended to by 
 the king, that he brought a man out of jail to expound it. 
 Here recurs, in the first instance, what I have already 
 observed, a most ardent co-operation of Man ; but besides, 
 we are to note, that, in certain stages of fleshly grossncss, 
 GOD can communicate with the Spirit, when the body 
 gives him no admission : In these stages, there is no 
 open Vision; as was the case in Israel before Samuel 
 rose ; but the body is laid asleep, before the Spirit can 
 converse with GOD, If Religion, if Life, consist in a 
 communication with GOD. this remark furnishes an 
 accurate criterion to judge of the general state of Religion 
 at all times, in all nations, and in any individual. Low 
 indeed, is that state, where few see Visions, few dream 
 Dreams, few interpret them, and few are fools enough 
 (for such is the preponderance against DEITY IN 
 ENGLAND— Hear O Earth ! And Give Ear, O Hea- 
 vei:s !J to seek an Interpretation, when THE LORD 
 
81 
 
 hath spoken — or to give Glory to the LORD their 
 GOD, before he cause darkness, by the silence of 
 His Word, and before their feet stumble on the dar^; 
 MOUNTAINS ! ! For ye are on MOUNTAINS ! and 
 know it not ! He that spoke Light, can be silent 
 
 intoDARKNESS. 
 
 Thirdly; The Interpreter of the Divine Word, 
 the Refleftor of the Divine Light on Egypt, was 
 one Man, and not a Gentile, but an Israelite : that is, 
 lived not in the light of the World, but in the darkness ; 
 separate from his brethren of Israel, and locked up from 
 public communication in Egypt; the first, because he 
 received the Word of GOD; the second, because he 
 <2(?^^ as became the Recipient of that Word; for had 
 he had humility enough to put the WORD of GOD 
 from him in compliment to his brethren, he might have 
 had the honor to live among them : had he been an adul- 
 terer he might have flourished in Egypt. But the 
 instant GOD was acknowledged, Joseph presided. 
 
 These Two Considerations enable us to add to 
 the Definition of Egypt, furnisht by the first, that 
 the said Knowledge and Practice were given by GOD, 
 through the medium of one Man . 
 
 L 
 
82 
 
 Fourthly ; Though the Gentiles were supplied 
 with this corn from Egypt, they considered it merely 
 as a temporary supply ; carried it into their country, 
 dressed it as many different ways as there were nations or 
 palates ; and finally, the Seed degenerated and they even 
 lorgot, in general, whence it came. The children of 
 Israel went down into Egypt and settled ; earned 
 their subsistence by the Merit of their Brother, 
 through his Mercy and Forgiveness ; ate their Corn 
 fresh from the granary, and it was a Statute to them 
 to REMEMBER it throughout all their Generations : a proof 
 that, it must have a£lcd on an Eternal Principle. 
 
 All these things, even to this Extent, I do 
 not doubt, were taught at El e us is. Hence they were 
 justified in opening their Rites witli a Dismission of the 
 profane. — Procul ! O procul este profani ! To any 
 profane that was present, the consequence certainly zuas 
 Death; for the Life of Man is the Death of 
 Evil. Hence also I am not presumptuous in my Motto. 
 We retire from the profane, and then we are authorized 
 to drive \\\t profane from us : — and they then are ready- 
 to go with all willingness to their own place ; and do go 
 accordingly; for they have nothing in US, and WE 
 nothing in them. 
 
I HAVE said above, that Egypt supplied the 
 whole market of the Gentiles, and,yi??^ a long time that of 
 Israel. — The reason of .this reserve I shall now give. 
 The Israelites stand contradistinguisht from other na- 
 tions, in their subsistence', for, at length, led by GOD, 
 THEY wholly relinquished their Egyptian food ; and in- 
 stead of it are fed with that of angels ; to instru6l them 
 beyond the Science of Eleu sis and beyond Egypt, 
 that man liveth not by Bread alone, but by every Word 
 that proceedeth out of the mouth of GOD, Hence, too, 
 they were informed, that though Egypt was to mankind 
 the Ne plus ultra ^/Science, it was not so of Exis- 
 tence ; and they were reminded, that though Egypt 
 regulated with the nicest accuracy the floods of the Nile, 
 and knew when to expe61:, yet it could not command 
 them; that it received no Showers fro7n Heave):, but was 
 subordinate to a Country, which did, and where both 
 springs^ and is replenlsht to a capacity of Inundation, 
 the triple founted River, for so at length it is now 
 ascertained to be, which irrigates its lands, and fertilizes 
 its womb : a country, which is ex vi termini the Chaos 
 of the Pagan, Egyptian-derived, Mythology ; is also the 
 Metaphysical region o^ the Naturalist — but the Eden ol 
 GOD and of the Man o^ GOD, 
 
 L 2 
 
34 
 
 NOTE ((h)) 
 
 Here too I sat, with them enwrapt^ though open. 
 
 ENWRAPT in the Principles, and ever forcing 
 them into A6lion, though I wrought wpiolly alone, 
 of equal Liberty, equal Justice and equal Honor, to all 
 Mankind ; regulated alone by Individual desert. Thus 
 aBing, I afted against all Europe till France joined me. 
 *' Though open," is, though in, and aBing i?i, the Body 
 or Europe, or on European Ground, 
 
 The Principle of America is this Equi- 
 librium, and agrees with the Sign attributed by 
 Astrology to the West, namely. Libra or the 
 Balance; where Saturn having, by the same 
 Science, his Exaltation, or greatest public Strength, we 
 must also refer Saturn ia Regna, or the Reign of 
 Saturn, so much extolled; and which is thus, in 
 other terms, the Reign of just E(^uality ; where the 
 empty scales are alzvays even, and, of ih^ full, that 
 consequently always preponderates, which ought to 
 preponderate^. I have said this to clear Equality from 
 the obloquy of the English, 
 
85 
 
 It will be curious to one not accustomed to attend 
 to the prevalence oi principles in human aftions, to ob- 
 serve, how constantly the whole warfare of Europe and 
 America have turned on Command and Equality ; 
 from the Seditions and Rivalships against Columbus, 
 the detraftions he suffered from Nobles in Spain, and the 
 jealousy entertained of him at Court ; and similar events 
 to subsequent Viceroys — through the System on which 
 America was settled by every nation in Europe, of 
 Slavery — up to the year 1776, when America de- 
 clared Independence : and intermingled her genius 
 with that of France ; whose capital, Paris, is assigned 
 by Astrologers to the Sign Virgo, as is also Jerusa- 
 lem. In 1775 and 1776, Saturn was in Libra. 
 And thus too we sccVirgil's Line in Pollio, illustrated; 
 
 Jam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturn ia Regna ; 
 Returns the Virgin, and Saturnian Reign. 
 
 Europe is t\\e. fountain oi Slavery ; America 
 the Field of Freedom : The Fountain of it is GOD 
 in Man, and Fire in Nature, 
 
86 
 
 NOTE [{i)j 
 
 And ply the terrible An tistrophe. 
 
 THE antient Singers in the Temples of Greece, 
 sang the Strophe from the East, and then turned and 
 sang the Antistrophe from the West. Such is the 
 usual process of a HuRPacANE; particularly that at 
 Antigua in August 1772 : for, after blowing from 
 North East, oy from Europe for some hours, it lulled 
 for half an hour, and then returned with increast 
 violence from South West. This is also frequently 
 the case with seasons of Rain. When fully past to the 
 West, they return with an increast load ; so that a 
 Western Season is always a good one, and gladly 
 welcomed. 
 
 Harmony is an Equipoise of Discords. Europe 
 by the first discords, destroyed, or rather, suspended Har- 
 mony ; America strikes the second, equivalent; and 
 restores it. In short, down to every ramification, Equi- 
 libration will be found throughout the Western 
 World, in nature and in Man. Those families, which 
 
87 
 
 have been long settled there and had little intercourse 
 with Europe, instead of severity to slaves, are most apt 
 to make them companions ; and often ^ very often ^ carry 
 indulgence to an excess, that would be deemed criminal 
 in a parent ; while the English, Irish and Scotch, who 
 go out as Overseers, are Devils to Negroes. 
 
 NOTE ((K)] 
 
 New 
 To the World in Afric's Morning 
 
 WHILE the Mysteries of Eleusis were 
 sacred to Ceres, it is evident, they must have contem- 
 plated Seeds and Earth ; or the Springs and Foun- 
 tains of PLANTS. But that they did not turn '* their 
 backs to bright reality ^''^ and study plants botanically, or 
 without reference to their high analogy, is suffi- 
 ciently known to the learned and too palpable to common 
 sense, for me to waste one argument in supporting. 
 
 * Coleridge. 
 
88 
 
 Africa is Earth : See Robertson's History of 
 America. 
 
 The opening of Seeds in the Earth conse- 
 quent on gradual insinuations of Water, is the Dawn 
 and progressively the Morning of Being : 
 
 This, then, I mean, by Afric's Morning : 
 
 Because the Fountain of Human Being, as well 
 as that of plants is concealed in the Earth ; and Afr ICA 
 more especially Abyssinia, is charafteristically quoad 
 other Continents, the Earth ; as not permeable by Wa- 
 ter ; and, from many parts, scarcely accessible from 
 want of that small supply of Water, which is necessary 
 to human subsistence ; owing to the circwnvolutio^i of 
 a Flaming Sun. 
 
 This last circumstance brings me to my Scrip- 
 tural Proofs. 
 
 I am aware of all that is alleged in favour of Asia, 
 for the she of Eden; as I have it from the first 
 quarter — the most indefatigable Student of Asia^ who 
 
89 
 
 has abilities, learning and opportunities, equal to the 
 research, and whom I am happy to call, likewise, the 
 generous, candid and communicative Friend. But 
 FIRST PRINCIPLES are altogether against it from every 
 point : whence the affirmative rests on Historical and 
 Geographical details ; so, that the focus of all arguments 
 in support of Asia^ is that Judea may be satisfaftorily 
 mapt, concordant with the very summary sketch of 
 Eden, given in Genesis : and a great deal of this my 
 friend will allow to depend on very nice, though very 
 ingenious, theories on Bdellium, the Onyx Stone, the 
 Land of Havilah, &c. and I am sure, he will confess, 
 that, like the parallax of a Star, they nearly elude De- 
 monstration in the minute. Now, I touch not the min- 
 ute ; his research afts on nothing else ; and, on this very 
 ground, I first admit, then explode the whole 
 System. 
 
 I ADMIT, that Judea, or wherever else he may 
 fix, was Eden secundum subjeBam materiem^ or quoad 
 the Children of Israel in a literal sense ; and this is no 
 more than admitting Jerusalem to be Jerusalem. 
 
 M 
 
90 
 
 It will be conceded to me, that Scripture ever 
 means by an Ark^ a place of temporary retreat from sur- 
 rounding dangers ; preservative, on the like small scaky 
 of 2iJ'ew or of one, till a period arrive of safe Enlargement, 
 and Eternal Rest, or the Rest of the Redeemed. 
 
 The Israelites in journeying to the Land of Pro- 
 mise^ always kept their eyes on the Ark — aftually were 
 always surrounded by enemies — and thus were taught to 
 consider themselves as a seleft and guarded y«:y; who 
 were to occupy a seleS and- guarded spot ; which was to 
 continue surrounded by enemies; for the Ark, which 
 represented this Land, was under precisely the same 
 amenability to enemies, that they were, I say, the Ark 
 represented the Land^ because, i. It was the Tabernacle 
 or Residence of JEHOVAH their GOD; and 2. Be- 
 cause by it they were guided in their journies, and to it 
 they locked : They looked, of course, to, and were 
 guided by, the Land to which they were bound ; and had 
 the Ark been different, they would have had discordant 
 principles of a6lion. 
 
 But, more than this, the People also were the 
 Arti and the Land, They werealwavs considered as one 
 
in the judgments and prosperity of tlie Land, whlcli was 
 frlvcn t'hcm : 
 
 But this LaJid ^nd this P^^/?/e together, artcrvvards, 
 become the prey of numerous and various Enemies ; 
 
 Therefore, neither were this People finally 
 redeemed, nor was this Land the final Paradise, nor this 
 *' Jerusalem the joy of the zukoie Earth," nor thci?- State 
 eternal Rest ; but all were representative, as is echoed 
 throuo-hout the New Testame*nt : the Rest w^s, then 
 temporary and fallacious ; the City was the head of a 
 District ; the Lewd was a model, and the People had 
 finished the first st^q-c of Redem;ption ; and this, not 
 under a hoodwink, but with an express Declaration,, that 
 they were to expeO; " another Prophet.''' So attacht, 
 hov/ever, v/ere they to the Figure, in length oi' time, that 
 they forewent tlie Reality ; so m.ad, that ihey rejefted 
 it : as, suppose a man to be so long in the habit of Bank 
 Notes, that if, at some given aera, it should be thought 
 advisable to call them in and pay cash, he should abso- 
 lutely refuse the Gold and keep the Paper ; preferring 
 the promise to its Performance.* , 
 
 * I have adopted tins simile, merely to give the Ev^liih reader a ju:1 
 concepiion olthe importance of thesubjeft. 
 
 M 2 
 
92 
 
 The Prophet, who came to fulfil the Law, to mag- 
 nify and make it honorable, necessarily abolished the 
 mould wherein it had been cast. When the Palace was 
 built and furnisht, the shed erefted for temporary shelter, 
 was demolisht. 
 
 And yet to this shed and the plot of ground in 
 which it stood, are all those still looking, who have per- 
 suaded themselves, that they believe on Him who laid 
 these things waste. At least, they do not know him on 
 whom they have believed. They believe, that the great, 
 final, objeft of him, who builded the Palace, is to refit, 
 and reinhabit the shed, which sheltered the workmen ! ! 
 Melancholy I Melancholy to contemplate their little 
 progress from the first Temple, who dream they are 
 worshiping in the second ! Melancholy the prospeft 
 they have exhibited to themselves ! This is the nation too 
 wise for dreams ! Therefore, God hath sent you strong 
 delusion to believe a lie : for I tell you, you have pleasure 
 in unrighteousness. 
 
 I AM NOT UNDERSTOOD. 'Tis Well. 
 
 I UNDERSTAND MYSELF. It is better. 
 
93 
 
 What is understood ? By England and Europe, 
 I mean. The wise man, who glories in his wisdom ; 
 the strong man, who glories in his might ; the rich man, 
 who glories in his riches. It is said, there is some sense 
 in these. 
 
 But I know the things that make for my Peace : 
 and nothing shall offend me. 
 
 I AM NOT UNDERSTOOD. If a fox be out, and 
 the hounds, however noisy in their course, run towards 
 the kennel he has left, instead of following his steps, are 
 they likely to see him ? Perhaps I have come down low 
 enough to be seen in England, now. If you know not the 
 voice of the Shepherd, you do that of the huntsman. 
 Come then ! Let me turn you! Let .me lead you 
 from a hunt, where, the slaves of incessant hesitation, 
 and paralized to every steady effort, you are, the highest 
 and wisest of you, the staring dupes of any Brothers who 
 cries. Hark! To Jerusalem! Or, on the other band, on 
 these flimsy claims, the still more flimsy casuists ; or the 
 coolly mathematical, or presumptuously declamatory, 
 rejefters of all, either good, bad or indifferent. Turn, 
 I say, from this worse than wild-goose chace, because, 
 
94 
 
 perchance, when you arrive at the demonstration of ulti- 
 mate disappointment, the Sun may be set, the night come 
 on, the clouds gather darkness, and you not be sheltered. 
 Turn then with ME, Tundi forgeting the things that are 
 behind, look on to those which are before, pressing 
 forward toward the mark for the prize of your high- 
 CALLIN G of GOD ! He that hath eyes to see, may see. 
 
 Have done with the temporary state, the par- 
 tial spot, and all preceding stages of your journey ! for 
 you arc now brought, be assured, before the walls of 
 Zion; and this very night must be given the Assault, 
 which will either put you in possession of her walls, or 
 tlirough you out for ever. You are come unto the strong 
 hold of Zion, where neither lame nor blind can enter, 
 and unto the City of the Living GOD, the heavenly 
 Jerusalem ; and to an Innumerable Company of Angels, 
 to the General Assembly and Church of the Last-horn as 
 well as First-born, who arc written in Heaven, and to 
 GOD the Judge of all, and to the Spirits of Just Men 
 made perfect ; and to Jesus the Mediator of the New 
 Covenant, and to the Blood of Sprinkling, which speak- 
 eth better things than that of Abd did to the old Church ; 
 which Abd was succeeded by Sheth. 
 
95 
 What is become of Africa all this while ? Is 
 not this is a fine, digressive, circumrotatory, flight ? No : 
 It is dire6Hy progressive. 
 
 The real Eden, the Celestial, must be a whole. 
 It IS 7iot an JrL To be a Whole, it must, in the 
 highest sense, be the Universe, wherein, consequently, 
 every Planet must accord : In a smaller sense, it is a 
 System ; in a third, it is a Planet or World ; in a fourth 
 and last, it is the Center of a World. 
 
 On e circle first, and then another spreads. 
 
 In the smallest sense, Africa may be Eden, 
 and the Garden Eastward, Abyssinia ; and in the next, 
 where the whole World is Eden, the Garden Eastward 
 is Africa ; equally poised on the Equator, and opening 
 her Forts Jirst, to the narrow sea of Asia ; then to the 
 broader Mediterranean, and lastly, to all the Ocean : And 
 such undeniably has been the road of Light through the 
 World. 
 
 There must not bean iron tool heard in framing 
 the Temple. The stones are brought ready poli^ht. 
 
96 
 
 Each Planet must be pure, and each part of each. Be 
 minimis non curat lex, is a maxim of English, but reverst 
 in Divine, Law. All must be holy to the horse's bridles. 
 
 An d little indeed is purity advanced in the Earth, 
 while such a Continent as Africa is abandoned by 
 Europe to efforts of alternate Slavery ; as are those of 
 Mind and^^^jy; fori make no scruple to say, that 
 
 AS THE STATE OF MiND IS, IN THE WoRLD, OR 
 IN GIVEN PARTS OF THE WoRLD, SO IS THE 
 
 STATE OF Africa in itself, and in its re- 
 lations TO those parts respectively. 
 
 The Sun is the Cherub with the flaming Sword, 
 at the East, which turns every way to guard the way to 
 the Tree OF Life — which the Eleusinians contemplate. 
 
 Africa, and especially Abyssinia is, the un-' 
 penetrated Country of the World. 
 
 I SHALL say no more here : but refer to Moses's 
 Song in Deuteronomy xxxii, where the curses on the 
 Land of the People of GOD, in their most extensive 
 sense, are those under which Africa groans ; and quote 
 
97 
 
 from the last of it at verse 47, " Rejoice ye Nations 
 WITH HIS People — for he will be gracious to his Land 
 and to his People.'" Here are no specific, separate People 
 named ; but they are all one fold, under one Shepherd. 
 
 Thus the Glory of the second Temple, founded 
 by a Gentile king, though brilliant by no strong displays 
 of Divine Presence at its commencement — not prosecu- 
 ted, as was Solomon's, by immediate Divine Communi- 
 cations with its Founder — shall exceed that of the first, 
 as it gradually concentrates every ray of Jew and Gentile. 
 Its commencement was opposed — therefore not exalted ; 
 it was founded on only secondary Inspiration illuminating 
 to the natural eye of Cyrus the letter of a deceast 
 Prophet — therefore its light was clouded ; it was founded 
 on faith, not in sight — therefore proceeded with hesi- 
 tation ; in the apparent strength of the natural man 
 — therefore ordinary in appearance and events : As a 
 Thief in the night, it stole on through alarms ; (Dan. 
 ix. 25. last clause): But hence — the instant of its com- 
 pletion, was the moment of commencing Triumph over 
 every possible foe ; and thence contemplating Eternity.* 
 
 * Neither the Messiah's being cut off, nor the destruftion of Cyrus's 
 Temple, at all invalidates this proposition ; for Death was triumpht over, 
 and Captivity was led captive, before the destruftion of the mould. 
 
 N 
 
98 
 
 NOTE II)) 
 And beheld it spread before the rising breeze. 
 
 Lest this should be thought bad Seamanship by 
 Sailors, and that rather the men on board should have 
 clued up their sails and laid all snug ; I shall beg them to 
 observe, that it is hardly likely, that the most cautious 
 seaman would not venture a foresail, or even a close- 
 reeft topsail at the beginning of a gale, however 
 threatening ; especially, when being near land, he might 
 hope to come to, before night-fall. 
 
 CANTO II. 
 
 NOTElyq 
 
 Peace ! For a moment drazo thy mantle round. 
 
 This introduces the half hour's Calm mentioned 
 mNotcl^ under Antistrophe. 
 
99 
 
 «*C«^^;: POSTSCRIPT. ^^Ite. 
 
 jTjlFTER all, I well know, that the natural man dis- 
 cerneth not the things of the SPIRIT o F GOD ; neither 
 indeed can he, for they are spiritually discerned. A 
 man looking to the West can never see the Sunrise. 
 Therefore, instead of seeking for the origin of things in 
 body, or philosophizing on form, pursue that, which 
 FORMS body. Study no longer the produB, but the 
 Producer. A person, who for ever contemplates 
 body, which is motionless, is so habituated to see nothing 
 move but as it is moved by a force superior to its weight, 
 that he carries it as a law through all being, that A6lion 
 and Reaftion are equal and contrary. 
 
 This, the gy-eat Sir Isaac Newton, though not 
 born in Ireland, called a Law of motion : I, though not 
 born in England, call it a Law of NO motion. Sir Isaac 
 wants a Nominative case to the verb moves. I v/ill give 
 
 i\r2 
 
100 
 him one, first from Virgily and then, from the Wisdom 
 of Solomon. 
 
 Principle ccelum ct terras, camposque liquentes 
 Lucentemque globum lunae, Titaniaque astra 
 S p I R I T u s intus alit 
 
 Igneus est oUis vigor, et cccUstis ori^o 
 Semi N I BUS — — - VirgiL lib. vi. 
 
 I quote from memory; so have not the line. 
 
 For thine incorruptible Spirit is in all things. 
 
 Wisdom xii. i. 
 
 And naturally — Central Fires, or Fire forming 
 the Center of every Planet is enough to give it motion ; 
 without suspending yourself over a bottomless abyss of 
 second causes ; each of which is alike without motion ; as 
 is yourfelf, excepting that common to Watci\, of gravi- 
 tation ; senseless, whether itdescend to the root of a plant, 
 or to the foot of a precipice ; but ever proceeding to the 
 last with accelerated motion. 
 
101 
 
 In writing these Notes, I have had to steer,. ;as 
 the least enlightened may ohserve, between Scylia and 
 Charybdis ; between saying -oo much and too little for 
 perspicuity ; between an appearance oi acrimony and 
 that of indecision ; between the appearance of extrava- 
 gance to those, who are unaccustomed to consider the 
 internal stru6lure of things, on the one liLad, and an un- 
 faithful delineation of my own Sentiments and TRUTHS 
 WHICH CONTEMPLATE EXISTENCE, on the Other. 
 If I have sometimes preferred verging on the first, it was 
 because the last would have been treachery and annihila- 
 tion. I know, that nothing is done towards enlightening 
 the WORLD at large, till the Esoteric overwhelms the 
 Exoteric; and the Achromatic walks trivially. So 
 much for the learned. But to old women, and to young 
 men and maids, I say, that nothing is done, till the 
 knowledge of the Lord cover the earth, as the waters 
 cover the seas : And let him who gloneth, glory i?i this. 
 
 Yet, do I not condemn the anticnt Philosophers 
 for this discretion. They afted to the full extent of their 
 sphere. I have too long been confined to distinftion, 
 myself. But I have been in an incessant endeavour to 
 level the barrier : while the public of England maintained 
 
102 
 
 It, and assiduously repaired its breaches. At length, I 
 have conquered ; at length I have burst the shell, and 
 arrived at day, plumed and oiled against the shower. 
 While the world itself was partially known and inhabited, 
 the Theosopiiist was feign to content himself with a 
 corner of seclusion : for the process, though finisht with 
 him, was scarcely commenced on the whole ; and to 
 have opened himself, W'ould have been to admit such 
 impurities, as would have decomposed the first small 
 result. This is no longer the case. The World is 
 •before me ; from the World I have collected my ma- 
 terials, from Continents, from Islands, from every Quar- 
 ter : To the World, then, I give them; I must give 
 them ; for each claims his own, and the derived progeny 
 as eagerly converses the claim. To try to withhold them 
 would be vain ; and it would be pusillanimous, thievish 
 and tyrannical : and to exclude an individual from a free 
 clioicc of receiving the fruit of my Elaboration, would 
 be Murder. Therefore, I pour out and drain the phial 
 -on the air and to the four winds of Heaven : and I do it 
 most fearlesslv. 
 
 It has been my business to embody spirit : to re- 
 flect the Rising Sun by so strong a mirror from the West, 
 
103 
 
 and that mirror not glass, but untarnishable Platlna, that 
 the man of any wisdom may see it ; be convinced of its 
 existence and turn candidly to the fountain of Light 
 and of Life: ceasing, thus, forever, to think that it 
 is superstition to Vv^orship to the East; for GOD- 
 can be approacht only by ascending the stream of Being. 
 And Philosophy can be so, only as far as it is Theoso- 
 PHY ; as it looks down the stream, from the point of 
 your nearest access to the Fountain. Then you see 
 things proceeding as they a6i:aally originate ; and will 
 comprehend the meaning of the Prophet, when he said 
 
 to his GOD, In thy Light, zue shall see Light. 
 
 However, all that is obscure here, I am ready at any 
 hour, to explain to the meek. 
 
 In the course of a lonesome pilgrimage through the 
 World, which was unavoidable to one, who saw in a light 
 different from all the World, and so much stronger 
 that he could not possibly forego it 1 have been obli- 
 ged to do every office for myself and others. I have taken 
 in their turn, the high-ways and hedges, not to say the 
 ditches and brambles, for I have never been 
 
 BELOW THE MARK IN ANY UNDERTAKING; and 
 
 then ascended to sweep cobwebs from gilded ceilings. I 
 
104 
 
 have, often, dirtied myself, it is true ; but I did not 
 make the dirt — I only appropriated it ; and this, not- 
 withstanding I used exertions construftible into madness 
 to prevent its colleflion ; for the zeal of the Temple had 
 even eaten me up : Now I wash my hands clean, and 
 DRESS. Where the dust lies, let it for ever lie ; for 
 the house will NO more be swept. I am indifferent 
 where it lies. It is not with ME. 
 
 Barren Fig-Tree ! Let no man pluck fruit, 
 from thee, any more, for ever ! 
 
 *^* Instead of Acroamatic, I have used Achromatic, 
 from a privative, and yj-j:y.aliKOc, colore imbutus — fignifying 
 CLEAR Truth. 
 
 I have thought it well to spell with a t the participles 
 wherein d final is pronounced as t ; and any errata of this kind 
 will be correftcd by the Reader. 
 
 ERRATA, 
 
 P. 11 1. 1 read Mem N ON. 
 P. 66 1. 4 from the bottom, read sent it. 
 P. 77. In the Note forx read ^ 
 
 P. 80. Transpose the period and comma in the fifteenth 
 and sixteenth lines after GOD- 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 '"UinW"'' ®»ee©* "wwifi^ 
 
 Jtl^FING found these Notes sufficiently 
 voluminous with only Theosophic Learnings 
 and indeed, the Title promising no more, I have 
 expunged several hints m Physics, which 1 had 
 first inserted. These I shall shortly swell into 
 a hulk worthy of separate publication, under 
 the Title of 
 
 THE LATF OF FIRE. 
 
 Fakkwell ! 
 WILLIAM GILBERT. 
 
i-