of poetry
  Is at a loss for figures to express
  Men’s folly, whimseys, and inconstancy,
  And by a faint description makes them less. 
Then tell us what is Fame, where shall we search for it? 
Look where exalted Virtue and Religion sit,
      Enthroned with heavenly Wit! 
      Look where you see
  The greatest scorn of learned vanity! 
  (And then how much a nothing is mankind! 
Whose reason is weigh’d down by popular air,
  Who, by that, vainly talks of baffling death;
  And hopes to lengthen life by a transfusion of breath,
    Which yet whoe’er examines right will find
  To be an art as vain as bottling up of wind!)
And when you find out these, believe true Fame is there,
  Far above all reward, yet to which all is due: 
  And this, ye great unknown! is only known in you.

VIII

  The juggling sea-god,[5] when by chance trepann’d
By some instructed querist sleeping on the sand,
  Impatient of all answers, straight became
  A stealing brook, and strove to creep away
    Into his native sea,
  Vex’d at their follies, murmur’d in his stream;
  But disappointed of his fond desire,
  Would vanish in a pyramid of fire. 
  This surly, slippery God, when he design’d
    To furnish his escapes,
  Ne’er borrow’d more variety of shapes
Than you, to please and satisfy mankind,
And seem (almost) transform’d to water, flame, and air,
  So well you answer all phenomena there: 
Though madmen and the wits, philosophers and fools,
With all that factious or enthusiastic dotards dream,
And all the incoherent jargon of the schools;
  Though all the fumes of fear, hope, love, and shame,
Contrive to shock your minds with many a senseless doubt;
Doubts where the Delphic God would grope in ignorance and night,
    The God of learning and of light
  Would want a God himself to help him out.

IX

  Philosophy, as it before us lies,
Seems to have borrow’d some ungrateful taste
  Of doubts, impertinence, and niceties,
    From every age through which it pass’d,
But always with a stronger relish of the last. 
  This beauteous queen, by Heaven design’d
  To be the great original
For man to dress and polish his uncourtly mind,
In what mock habits have they put her since the fall! 
  More oft in fools’ and madmen’s hands than sages’,
    She seems a medley of all ages,
With a huge farthingale to swell her fustian stuff,
  A new commode, a topknot, and a ruff,
  Her face patch’d o’er with modern pedantry,
      With a long sweeping train
Of comments and disputes, ridiculous and vain,
    All of old cut with a new dye: 
    How soon have you restored her charms,
  And rid her of her lumber and her books,
    Drest her again genteel and neat,
      And rather tight than great! 
How fond we are to court her to our arms! 
  How much of heaven is in her naked looks!