Book IV.
The Dunciad.
191
455 See Nature in some partial narrow shape,
And let the Author of the Whole escape:
Learn but to trifle; or, who most observe,
To wonder at their Maker, not to serve.
Be that my task (replies a gloomy Clerk,[R 1]
460 Sworn foe to Myst'ry, yet divinely dark;
Whose pious hope aspires to see the day
When Moral Evidence shall quite decay,[R 2]
And damns implicit faith, and holy lies,
Prompt to impose, and fond to dogmatize:)
465 Let others creep by timid steps, and slow,[R 3]
On plain Experience lay foundations low,
And let the Author of the Whole escape:
Learn but to trifle; or, who most observe,
To wonder at their Maker, not to serve.
Be that my task (replies a gloomy Clerk,[R 1]
460 Sworn foe to Myst'ry, yet divinely dark;
Whose pious hope aspires to see the day
When Moral Evidence shall quite decay,[R 2]
And damns implicit faith, and holy lies,
Prompt to impose, and fond to dogmatize:)
465 Let others creep by timid steps, and slow,[R 3]
On plain Experience lay foundations low,
Remarks
- ↑ Ver. 459. a gloomy Clerk,] The Epithet gloomy in this line may seem the same with that of dark in the next. But gloomy relates to the uncomfortable and disastrous condition of an irreligious Sceptic, whereas dark alludes only to his puzzled and embroiled Systems.
- ↑ Ver. 462. When Moral Evidence shall quite decay,] Alluding to a ridiculous and absurd way of some Mathematicians, in calculating the gradual decay of Moral Evidence by mathematical proportions: acccording to which calculation, in about fifty years it will be no longer probable that Julius Cæsar was in Gaul, or died in the Senate House. See Craig's Theologiæ Christianæ Principia Mathematica. But as it seems evident, that facts of a thousand years old, for instance, are now as probable as they were five hundred years ago; it is plain that if in fifty more they quite disappear, it must be owing, not to their Arguments, but to the extraordinary Power of our Goddess; for whose help therefore they have reason to pray.
- ↑ Ver. 465–68. Let others creep—thro' Nature led.] In these lines are described the Disposition of the rational Inquirer, and the means and end of Knowledge. With regard to his disposition, the contemplation of the works of God with
to the Educators of Youth, she shews them how all Civil Duties may be extiguish'd, in that one doctrine of divine Hereditary Right. And in this third, she charges the Investigators of Nature to amuse themselves in Trifles, and rest in Second causes, with a total disregard of the First. This being all that Dulness can wish, is all she needs to say; and we may apply to her (as the Poet hath manag'd it) what hath been said of true Wit, that She neither says too little, nor too much.
