SATYR.
79
What Fops had these been, had they liv'd with us,
Where the best Reason's made ridiculous;
And all the plain and sober Things we say,
170 By Raillery are put beside their Play?
For Men are grown above all Knowledge now,
And, what they're ignorant of, disdain to know;
Engross Truth (like Fanatics) underhand,
And boldly judge, before they understand,
175 The self-same Courses equally advance.
In spiritual, and carnal Ignorance;
And, by the same Degrees of Confidence,
Become impregnable against all Sense;
For, as they outgrew Ordinances then,
180 So would they now Morality agen.
Tho' Drudgery and Knowledge are of Kin,
And both descended from one Parent Sin;[1]
And therefore seldom have been known to part,
In tracing out the Ways of Truth, and Art;
Where the best Reason's made ridiculous;
And all the plain and sober Things we say,
170 By Raillery are put beside their Play?
For Men are grown above all Knowledge now,
And, what they're ignorant of, disdain to know;
Engross Truth (like Fanatics) underhand,
And boldly judge, before they understand,
175 The self-same Courses equally advance.
In spiritual, and carnal Ignorance;
And, by the same Degrees of Confidence,
Become impregnable against all Sense;
For, as they outgrew Ordinances then,
180 So would they now Morality agen.
Tho' Drudgery and Knowledge are of Kin,
And both descended from one Parent Sin;[1]
And therefore seldom have been known to part,
In tracing out the Ways of Truth, and Art;
- ↑ 181, 182. Tho' Drudgery and Knowledge are of Kin—And both descended from one Parent Sin;) Butler here alludes to the Sin of our first Parents, which he supposes not only introduc'd Drudgery and Labour into the World, the Curse of eating our Bread, &c. but the thorny and difficult Way of arriving at Knowledge; and therefore justly satirizes those, who wou'd obtain it without any Pains at all.
We
