Compelled their beings to enshrine Precipitate adown the steep With hideous rout were plunging in the deep, Wert thou begot by Discord on Confusion! What tho' no name's sonorous power While concords wing their distant flight. Sable clerk of Tiverton. And oft where Otter sports his stream, DEVONSHIRE ROADS. THE indignant Bard compos'd this furious ode, When the sad fiends thro' Hell's sulphureous roads Or when the fall'n Archangel fierce Dar'd through the realms of Night to pierce, What time the Blood Hound lur'd by Human scent Thro' all Confusion's quagmires floundering went. 1790. Nor cheering pipe, nor Bird's shrill note Their boding songs shall scritch owls pour INSIDE THE COACH. 'Tis hard on Bagshot Heath to try Who lov'st with Limbs supine to lie ; Listen, listen to my prayer; And to thy votary dispense What tho' around thy drowsy head The seven-fold cap of night be spread, Yet lift that drowsy head awhile And yawn propitiously a smile; In drizzly rains poppean dews O'er the tir'd inmates of the Coach diffuse; We snore quartettes in ecstacy of nose. To dreary Bagshot Heath again! 1790. 1790. I have often been surprised that Mathematics, the quintessence of Truth, should have found admirers so few and so languid. Frequent consideration and minute scrutiny have at length unravelled the case; viz. that though Reason is feasted, Imagination is starved; whilst Reason is luxuriating in its proper Paradise, Imagination is wearily travelling on a dreary desert. To assist Reason by the stimulus of Imagination is the design of the following production. In the execution of it much may be objectionable. The verse (particularly in the introduction of the ode) may be accused of unwarrantable liberties, but they are liberties equally homogeneal with the exactness of Mathematical disquisition, and the boldness of Pindaric daring. I have three strong champions to defend me against the attacks of Criticism; the Novelty, the Difficulty, and the Utility of the work. I may justly plume myself, that I first have drawn the nymph Mathesis from the visionary caves of abstracted Idea, and caused her to unite with Harmony. The first-born of this Union I now present to you; with interested motives indeed-as I expect to receive in return the more valuable offspring of your Muse. March 31, 1791. To the Rev. G. C. Thine ever, S. T. C. This is now-this was erst, Proposition the first-and Problem the first. II. From the centre A. at the distance A. B. Describe the circle B. C. D. At the distance B. A. from B. the centre The round A. C. E. to describe boldly venture. (Third postulate see.f And from the point C. In which the circles make a pother Bid the straight lines a journeying go. C. A. C. B. those lines will show To the points, which by A. B. are reckon❜d, For Authority ye know. Triumphant shall be An Equilateral Triangle, Not Peter Pindar carp, nor Zoilus can wrangle. III. Because the point A. is the centre Of the circular B. C. D. A. C. to A. B. and B C. to B. A. Both extend the kind hand To the basis A. B, Unambitiously join'd in Equality's Band. But to the same powers, when two powers are equal My mind forebodes the sequel; My mind does some celestial impulse teach, And equalizes each to each. Thus C. A with B. C. strikes the same sure alliano That C. A. and B. C. had with A. B. before; And in mutual affiance None attempting to soar Above another, The unanimous three C. A. and B. C. and A. B. All are equal, each to his brother, Preserving the balance of power so true: The great Mussulman Would stain his Divan With Urine the soft-flowing daughter of Fright. IV. But rein your stallion in, too daring Nine! And Proposition, gentle maid, Who soothly ask'd stern Demonstration's aid, Of Angles three Is shown to be of equal side; And now our weary steed to rest in fine, 'Tis raised upon A. B. the straight, the given line. THE NOSE. YE souls unus'd to lofty verse, Who sweep the earth with lowly wing, As erst Prometheus stole from heaven the fire * Empress of Russia. B* |