Bacon, with every power of genius fraught,Spreads over worlds his mantling wings of thought,Draws in firm lines, and tells in nervous toneAll that is yet and all that shall be known,Withes Proteus Matter in his arms of might,And drags her tortuous secrets forth to light,Bids men their unproved systems all forgo,Informs them what to learn, and how to know,Waves the first flambeau thro the night that veilsEgyptian fables and Phenician tales,Strips from all-plundering Greece the cloak she wore,And shows the blunders of her borrow'd lore.
One vast creation, lately borne abroad,Cheers the young nations like a nurturing God,Breathes thro them all the same wide-searching soul.Forms, feeds, refines and animates the whole,Guards every ground they gain, and forward bringsGlad Science soaring on cerulean wings,Trims her gay plumes, directs her upward course,Props her light pinions and sustains her force,Instructs all men her golden gifts to prize,And catch new glories from her beamful eyes,--Tis the prolific Press; whose tablet, fraughtBy graphic Genius with his painted thought,Flings forth by millions the prodigious birth,And in a moment stocks the astonish'd earth.
Genius, enamor'd of his fruitful bride,Assumes new force and elevates his pride.No more, recumbent o'er his finger'd style,He plods whole years each copy to compile,Leaves to ludibrious winds the priceless page,Or to chance fires the treasure of an age;But bold and buoyant, with his sister Fame,He strides o'er earth, holds high his ardent flame,Calls up Discovery with her tube and scroll,And points the trembling magnet to the pole.Hence the brave Lusitanians stretch the sail,Scorn guiding stars, and tame the midsea gale;And hence thy prow deprest the boreal wain,Rear'd adverse heavens, a second earth to gain,Ran down old Night, her western curtain thirl'd,And snatch'd from swaddling shades an infant world.
Rome, Athens, Memphis, Tyre! had you butknownThis glorious triad, now familiar grown,The Press, the Magnet faithful to its pole,And earth's own Movement round her steadfast goal,Ne'er had your science, from that splendid height,Sunk in her strength, nor seen succeeding night.Her own utility had forced her sway,All nations caught the fast-extending ray,Nature thro all her kingdoms oped the road,Resign'd her secrets and her wealth bestow'd;Her moral codes a like dominion rear'd,Freedom been born and folly disappear'd,War and his monsters sunk beneath her ban,And left the world to reason and to man.
But now behold him bend his broader way,Lift keener eyes and drink diviner day,All systems scrutinize, their truths unfold,Prove well the recent, well revise the old,Reject all mystery, and define with forceThe point he aims at in his laboring course,--To know these elements, learn how they windTheir wondrous webs of matter and of mind,What springs, what guides organic life requires,To move, rule, rein its ever-changing gyres,Improve and utilise each opening birth,And aid the labors of this nurturing earth.
But chief their moral soul he learns to trace,That stronger chain which links and leads the race;Which forms and sanctions every social tie,And blinds or clears their intellectual eye.He strips that soul from every filmy shadeThat schools had caught, that oracles had made,Relumes her visual nerve, develops strongThe rules of right, the subtle shifts of wrong;Of civil power draws clear the sacred line,Gives to just government its right divine,Forms, varies, fashions, as his lights increase,Till earth is fill'd with happiness and peace.
Already taught, thou know'st the fame that waitsHis rising seat in thy confederate states.There stands the model, thence he long shall drawHis forms of policy, his traits of law;Each land shall imitate, each nation joinThe well-based brotherhood, the league divine,Extend its empire with the circling sun,And band the peopled globe beneath its federal zone.
As thus he spoke, returning tears of joySuffused the Hero's cheek and pearl'd his eye:Unveil, said he, my friend, and stretch once moreBeneath my view that heaven-illumined shore;Let me behold her silver beams expand,To lead all nations, lighten every land,Instruct the total race, and teach at lastTheir toils to lessen and their chains to cast,Trace and attain the purpose of their birth,And hold in peace this heritage of earth.The Seraph smiled consent, the Hero's eyeWatch'd for the daybeam round the changing sky.
.
The vision resumed, and extended over the whole earth. Present character of different nations. Future progress of society with respect to commerce; discoveries; inland navigation; philosophical, med and political knowledge. Science of government. Assimilation and final union of all languages. Its effect on education, and on the advancement of physical and moral science. The physical precedes the moral, as Phosphor precedes the Sun. View of a general Congress from all nations, assembled to establish the political harmony of mankind. Conclusion.
Hesper again his heavenly power display'd,And shook the yielding canopy of shade.Sudden the stars their trembling fires withdrew.Returning splendors burst upon the view,Floods of unfolding light the skies adorn,And more than midday glories grace the morn.So shone the earth, as if the sideral train,Broad as full suns, had sail'd the ethereal plain;When no distinguisht orb could strike the sight,But one clear blaze of all-surrounding lightO'erflow'd the vault of heaven. For now in viewRemoter climes and future ages drew;Whose deeds of happier fame, in long array,Call'd into vision, fill the newborn day.
Far as seraphic power could lift the eye,Or earth or ocean bend the yielding sky,Or circling sutis awake the breathing gale,Drake lead the way, or Cook extend the sail;Where Behren sever'd, with adventurous prow,Hesperia's headland from Tartaria's brow;Where sage Vancouvre's patient leads were hurl'd,Where Deimen stretch'd his solitary world;All lands, all seas that boast a present name,And all that unborn time shall give to fame,Around the Pair in bright expansion rise,And earth, in one vast level, bounds the skies.
They saw the nations tread their different shores,Ply their own toils and wield their local powers,Their present state in all its views disclose,Their gleams of happiness, their shades of woes,Plodding in various stages thro the rangeOf man's unheeded but unceasing change.Columbus traced them with experienced eye,And class'd and counted all the flags that fly;He mark'd what tribes still rove the savage waste,What cultured realms the sweets of plenty taste;Where arts and virtues fix their golden reign,Or peace adorns, or slaughter dyes the plain.
He saw the restless Tartar, proud to roam,Move with his herds and pitch a transient home;Tibet's long tracts and China's fixt domain,Dull as their despots, yield their cultured grain;Cambodia, Siam, Asia's myriad islesAnd old Indostan, with their wealthy spoilsAttract adventures masters, and o'ershadeTheir sunbright ocean with the wings of trade.Arabian robbers, Syrian Kurds combined,Create their deserts and infest mankind;The Turk's dim Crescent, like a day-struck star,As Russia's Eagle shades their haunts of war,Shrinks from insulted Europe, who divideThe shatter'd empire to the Pontic tide.He mark'd impervious Afric, where aloneShe lies encircled with the verdant zoneThat lines her endless coast, and still sustainsHer northern pirates and her eastern swains,Mourns her interior tribes purloined away,And chain'd and sold beyond Atlantic day.Brazilla's wilds, Mackensie's savage landsWith bickering strife inflame their furious bands;Atlantic isles and Europe's cultured shoresHeap their vast wealth, exchange their growing stores,All arts inculcate, new discoveries plan,Tease and torment but school the race of man.While his own federal states, extending far,Calm their brave sons now breathing from the war,Unfold their harbors, spread their genial soil,And welcome freemen to the cheerful toil.
A sight so solemn, as it varied sound,Fill'd his fond heart with reveries profound;He felt the infinitude of thoughts that passAnd guide and govern that enormous mass.The cares that agitate, the creeds that blind,The woes that waste the many-master'd kind,The distance great that still remains to trace,Ere sober sense can harmonize the race,Held him suspense, imprest with reverence meek,And choked his utterance as he wish'd to speak:When Hesper thus: The paths they here pursue,Wide as they seem unfolding to thy view,Show but a point in that long circling courseWhich cures their weakness and confirms their force,Lends that experience which alone can closeThe scenes of strife, and give the world repose.Yet here thou seest the same progressive planThat draws for mutual succour man to man,From twain to tribe, from tribe to realm dilates,In federal union groups a hundred states,Thro all their turns with gradual scale ascends,Their powers; their passions and their interest blends;While growing arts their social virtues spread,Enlarge their compacts and unlock their trade;Till each remotest clan, by commerce join'd,Links in the chain that binds all humankind,Their bloody banners sink in darkness furl'd,And one white flag of peace triumphant walks the world.
As infant streams, from oozing earth at firstWith feeble force and lonely murmurs burst,From myriad unseen fountains draw the rillsAnd curl contentious round their hundred hills,Meet, froth and foam, their dashing currents swell,O'er crags and rocks their furious course impel,Impetuous plunging plough the mounds of earth,And tear the fostering flanks that gave them birth;Mad with the strength they gain, they thicken deepTheir muddy waves and slow and sullen creep,O'erspread whole regions in their lawless pride,Then stagnate long, then shrink and curb their tide;Anon more tranquil grown, with steadier sway,Thro broader banks they shape their seaward way,From different climes converging, join and spreadTheir mingled waters in one widening bed,Profound, transparent; till the liquid zoneBands half the globe and drinks the golden sun,Sweeps onward still the still expanding plain,And moves majestic to the boundless main.Tis thus Society's small sources rise;Thro passions wild her infant progress lies;Fear, with its host of follies, errors, woes,Creates her obstacles and forms her foes;Misguided interest, local pride withstand,Till long-tried ills her growing views expand,Till tribes and states and empires find their place,Whose mutual wants her widest walks embrace;Enlightened interest, moral sense at lengthCombine their aids to elevate her strength,Lead o'er the world her peace-commanding sway.And light her steps with everlasting day.
From that mark'd stage of man we now behold,More rapid strides his coming paths unfold;His continents are traced, his islands found,His well-taught sails on all his billows bound,His varying wants their new discoveries ply,And seek in earth's whole range their sure supply.
First of his future stages, thou shalt seeHis trade unfetter'd and his ocean free.From thy young states the code consoling springs,To strip from vulture War his naval wings;In views so just all Europe's powers combine,And earth's full voice approves the vast design.Tho still her inland realms the combat wageAnd hold in lingering broils the unsettled age,Yet no rude shocks that shake the crimson plainShall more disturb the labors of the main;The main that spread so wide his travell'd way,Liberal as air, impartial as the day,That all thy race the common wealth might share,Exchange their fruits and fill their treasures there,Their speech assimilate, their counsels blend,Till mutual interest fix the mutual friend.Now see, my son, the destined hour advance;Safe in their leagues commercial navies dance,Leave their curst cannon on the quay-built strand,And like the stars of heaven a fearless course command.
The Hero look'd; beneath his wondering eyesGay streamers lengthen round the seas and skies;The countless nations open all their stores,Load every wave and crowd the lively shores;Bright sails in mingling mazes streak the air,And commerce triumphs o'er the rage of war.
From Baltic streams, from Elba's opening side,From Rhine's long course and Texel's laboring tide,From Gaul, from Albion, tired of fruitless fight,From green Hibernia, clothed in recent light,Hispania's strand that two broad oceans lave,From Senegal and Gambia's golden wave,Tago the rich, and Douro's viny shores,The sweet Canaries and the soft Azores,Commingling barks their mutual banners hail,And drink by turns the same distending gale.Thro Calpe's strait that leads the Midland main,From Adria, Pontus, Nile's resurgent reign,The sails look forth and wave their bandrols highAnd ask their breezes from a broader sky.Where Asia's isles and utmost shorelands bend,Like rising suns the sheeted masts ascend;Coast after coast their flowing flags unrol,From Deimen's rocks to Zembla's ice-propt pole,Where Behren's pass collapsing worlds divides,Where California breaks the billowy tides,Peruvian streams their golden margins boast,Or Chili bluffs or Plata flats the coast.Where, clothed in splendor, his Atlantic waySpreads the blue borders of Hesperian day,From all his havens, with majestic sweep,The swiftest boldest daughters of the deepSwarm forth before him; till the cloudlike trainFrom pole to pole o'ersheet the whitening main.
So some primeval seraph, placed on high,From heaven's sublimest point o'erlooke'd the sky,When space unfolding heard the voice of God,And suns and stars and systems roll'd abroad,Caught their first splendors from his beamful eye,Began their years and vaulted round their sky;Their social spheres in bright confusion play,Exchange their beams and fill the newborn day.
Nor seas alone the countless barks behold;Earth's inland realms their naval paths unfold.Her plains, long portless, now no more complainOf useless rills and fountains nursed in vain;Canals curve thro them many a liquid line,Prune their wild streams, their lakes and oceans join.Where Darien hills o'erlook the gulphy tide,Cleft in his view the enormous banks divide;Ascending sails their opening pass pursue,And waft the sparkling treasures of Peru.Moxoe resigns his stagnant world of fen,Allures, rewards the cheerful toils of men,Leads their long new-made rivers round his reign,Drives off the stench and waves his golden grain,Feeds a whole nation from his cultured shore,Where not a bird could skim the skies before.
From Mohawk's mouth, far westing with the sun,Thro all the midlands recent channels run,Tap the redundant lakes, the broad hills brave,And Hudson marry with Missouri's wave.From dim Superior, whose uncounted sailsShade his full seas and bosom all his gales,New paths unfolding seek Mackensie's tide,And towns and empires rise along their side;Slave's crystal highways all his north adorn,Like coruscations from the boreal morn.Proud Missisippi, tamed and taught his road,Flings forth irriguous from his generous floodTen thousand watery glades; that, round him curl'd,Vein the broad bosom of the western world.
From the red banks of Arab's odorous tideTheir Isthmus opens, and strange waters glide;Europe from all her shores, with crowded sails,Looks thro the pass and calls the Asian gales.Volga and Obi distant oceans join.Delighted Danube weds the wasting Rhine;Elbe, Oder, Neister channel many a plain,Exchange their barks and try each other's main.All infant streams and every mountain rillChoose their new paths, some useful task to fill,Each acre irrigate, re-road the earth,And serve at last the purpose of their birth.
Earth, garden'd all, a tenfold burden brings;Her fruits, her odors, her salubrious springsSwell, breathe and bubble from the soil they grace,String with strong nerves the renovating race,Their numbers multiply in every land,Their toils diminish and their powers expand;And while she rears them with a statelier frameTheir soul she kindles with diviner flame,Leads their bright intellect with fervid glowThro all the mass of things that still remains to know.
He saw the aspiring genius of the ageSoar in the Bard and strengthen in the Sage:The Bard with bolder hand assumes the lyre,Warms the glad nations with unwonted fire,Attunes to virtue all the tones that rollTheir tides of transport thro the expanding soul.For him no more, beneath their furious gods,Old ocean crimsons and Olympus nods,Uprooted mountains sweep the dark profound,Or Titans groan beneath the rending ground,No more his clangor maddens up the mindTo crush, to conquer and enslave mankind,To build on ruin'd realms the shrines of fame,And load his numbers with a tyrant's name.Far nobler objects animate his tongue,And give new energies to epic song;To moral charms he bids the world attend,Fraternal states their mutual ties extend,O'er cultured earth the rage of conquest cease,War sink in night and nature smile in peace.Soaring with science then he learns to stringHer highest harp, and brace her broadest wing,With her own force to fray the paths untrod,With her own glance to ken the total God,Thro heavens o'ercanopied by heavens beholdNew suns ascend and other skies unfold,Social and system'd worlds around him shine,And lift his living strains to harmony divine.
The Sage with steadier lights directs his ken,Thro twofold nature leads the walks of men,Remoulds her moral and material frames,Their mutual aids, their sister laws proclaims,Disease before him with its causes flies,And boasts no more of sickly soils and skies;His well-proved codes the healing science aid,Its base establish and its blessing spread,With long-wrought life to teach the race to glow,And vigorous nerves to grace the locks of snow.
From every shape that varying matter gives,That rests or ripens, vegetates or lives,His chymic powers new combinations plan,Yield new creations, finer forms to man,High springs of health for mind and body trace,Add force and beauty to the joyous race,Arm with new engines his adventurous hand,Stretch o'er these elements his wide command,Lay the proud storm submissive at his feet,Change, temper, tame all subterranean heat,Probe laboring earth and drag from her dark sideThe mute volcano, ere its force be tried;Walk under ocean, ride the buoyant air,Brew the soft shower, the labor'd land repair,A fruitful soil o'er sandy deserts spread,And clothe with culture every mountain's head.
Where system'd realms their mutual glories lend,And well-taught sires the cares of state attend,Thro every maze of man they learn to wind,Note each device that prompts the Proteus mind,What soft restraints the tempered breast requires,To taste new joys and cherish new desires,Expand the selfish to the social flame,And rear the soul to deeds of nobler fame.
They mark, in all the past records of praise,What partial views heroic zeal could raise;What mighty states on others' ruins stood,And built unsafe their haughty seats in blood;How public virtue's ever borrow'd nameWith proud applauses graced the deeds of shame,Bade each imperial standard wave sublime,And wild ambition havoc every clime;From chief to chief the kindling spirit ran,Heirs of false fame and enemies of man.
Where Grecian states in even balance hung,And warm'd with jealous fires the patriot's tongue,The exclusive ardor cherish'd in the breastLove to one land and hatred to the rest.And where the flames of civil discord rage,And Roman arms with Roman arms engage,The mime of virtue rises still the same,To build a Cesar's as a Pompey's name.
But now no more the patriotic mind,To narrow views and local laws confined,Gainst neighboring lands directs the public rage.Plods for a clan or counsels for an age;But soars to loftier thoughts, and reaches farBeyond the power, beyond the wish of war;For realms and ages forms the general aim,Makes patriot views and moral views the same,Works with enlighten'd zeal, to see combinedThe strength and happiness of humankind.
Long had Columbus with delighted eyesMark'd all the changes that around him rise,Lived thro descending ages as they roll,And feasted still the still expanding soul;When now the peopled regions swell more near,And a mixt noise tumultuous stuns his ear.At first, like heavy thunders roll'd in air,Or the rude shock of cannonading war,Or waves resounding on the craggy shore,Hoarse roll'd the loud-toned undulating roar.But soon the sounds like human voices rise,All nations pouring undistinguisht cries;Till more distinct the wide concussion grownRolls forth at times an accent like his own.By turns the tongues assimilating blend,And smoother idioms over earth ascend;Mingling and softening still in every gale,O'er discord's din harmonious tones prevail.At last a simple universal soundWinds thro the welkin, sooths the world around,From echoing shores in swelling strain replies,And moves melodious o'er the warbling skies.
Such wild commotions as he heard and view'd,In fixt astonishment the Hero stood,And thus besought the Guide: Celestial friend,What good to man can these dread scenes intend?Some sore distress attends that boding soundThat breathed hoarse thunder and convulsed the ground.War sure hath ceased; or have my erring eyesMisread the glorious visions of the skies?Tell then, my Seer, if future earthquakes sleep,Closed in the conscious caverns of the deep,Waiting the day of vengeance, when to rollAnd rock the rending pillars of the pole.Or tell if aught more dreadful to my raceIn these dark signs thy heavenly wisdom trace;And why the loud discordance melts againIn the smooth glidings of a tuneful strain.
The guardian god replied: Thy fears give o'er;War's hosted hounds shall havoc earth no more;No sore distress these signal sounds foredoom,But give the pledge of peaceful years to come;The tongues of nations here their accents blend.Till one pure language thro the world extend.
Thou know'st the tale of Babel; how the skiesFear'd for their safety as they felt him rise,Sent unknown jargons mid the laboring bands,Confused their converse and unnerved their hands,Dispersed the bickering tribes and drove them far,From peaceful toil to violence and war;Bade kings arise with bloody flags unfurl'd,Bade pride and conquest wander o'er the world,Taught adverse creeds, commutual hatreds bred,Till holy homicide the climes o'erspread.--For that fine apologue, writh mystic strain,Gave like the rest a golden age to man,Ascribed perfection to his infant state,Science unsought and all his arts innate;Supposed the experience of the growing raceMust lead him retrograde and cramp his pace,Obscure his vision as his lights increast,And sink him from an angel to a beast.
Tis thus the teachers of despotic swayStrive in all times to blot the beams of day,To keep him curb'd, nor let him lift his eyesTo see where happiness, where misery lies.They lead him blind, and thro the world's broad wastePerpetual feuds, unceasing shadows cast,Crush every art that might the mind expand,And plant with demons every desert land;That, fixt in straiten'd bounds, the lust of powerMay ravage still and still the race devour,An easy prey the hoodwink'd hordes remain,And oceans roll and shores extend in vain.
Long have they reign'd; till now the race at lastShake off their manacles, their blinders cast,Overrule the crimes their fraudful foes produce,By ways unseen to serve the happiest use,Tempt the wide wave, probe every yielding soil,Fill with their fruits the hardy hand of toil,Unite their forces, wheel the conquering car,Deal mutual death, but civilize by war.
Dear-bought the experiment and hard the strifeOf social man, that rear'd his arts to life.His Passions wild that agitate the mind,His Reason calm, their watchful guide designed,While yet unreconciled, his march restrain,Mislead the judgment and betray the man.Fear, his first passion, long maintain'd the sway,Long shrouded in its glooms the mental ray,Shook, curb'd, controll'd his intellectual force,And bore him wild thro many a devious course.Long had his Reason, with experienced eye,Perused the book of earth and scaled the sky,Led fancy, memory, foresight in her train,And o'er creation stretch'd her vast domain;Yet would that rival Fear her strength appal;In that one conflict always sure to fall,Mild Reason shunn'd the foe she could not brave,Renounced her empire and remained a slave.
But deathless, tho debased, she still could findSome beams of truth to pour upon the mind;And tho she dared no moral code to scan,Thro physic forms she learnt to lead the man;To strengthen thus his opening orbs of sight,And nerve and clear them for a stronger light.That stronger light, from nature's double codes,Now springs expanding and his doubts explodes;All nations catch it, all their tongues combineTo hail the human morn and speak the day divine.
At this blest period, when the total raceShall speak one language and all truths embrace,Instruction clear a speedier course shall find,And open earlier on the infant mind.No foreign terms shall crowd with barbarous rulesThe dull unmeaning pageantry of schools;Nor dark authorities nor names unknownFill the learnt head with ignorance not its own;But wisdom's eye with beams unclouded shine,And simplest rules her native charms define;One living language, one unborrow'd dressHer boldest flights with fullest force express;Triumphant virtue, in the garb of truth,Win a pure passage to the heart of youth,Pervade all climes where suns or oceans roll,And warm the world with one great moral soul,To see, facilitate, attain the scopeOf all their labor and of all their hope.
As early Phosphor, on his silver throne,Fair type of truth and promise of the sun,Smiles up the orient in his dew-dipt ray,Illumes the front of heaven and leads the day;Thus Physic Science, with exploring eyes,First o'er the nations bids her beauties rise,Prepares the glorious way to pour abroadHer Sister's brighter beams, the purest light of God.Then Moral Science leads the lively mindThro broader fields and pleasures more refined;Teaches the temper'd soul, at one vast view,To glance o'er time and look existence thro,See worlds and worlds, to being's formless end,With all their hosts on her prime power depend,Seraphs and suns and systems, as they rise,Live in her life and kindle from her eyes,Her cloudless ken, her all-pervading soulIllume, sublime and harmonize the whole;Teaches the pride of man its breadth to boundIn one small point of this amazing round,To shrink and rest where nature fixt its fate,A line its space, a moment for its date;Instructs the heart an ampler joy to taste,And share its feelings with each human breast,Expand its wish to grasp the total kindOf sentient soul, of cogitative mind;Till mutual love commands all strife to cease,And earth join joyous in the songs of peace.
Thus heard Columbus, eager to beholdThe famed Apocalypse its years unfold;The soul stood speaking thro his gazing eyes,And thus his voice: Oh let the visions rise!Command, celestial Guide, from each far pole,John's vision'd morn to open on my soul,And raise the scenes, by his reflected light,Living and glorious to my longing sight.Let heaven unfolding show the eternal throne,And all the concave flame in one clear sun;On clouds of fire, with angels at his side,The Prince of Peace, the King of Salem ride,With smiles of love to greet the bridal earth,Call slumbering ages to a second birth,With all his white-robed millions fill the train,And here commence the interminable reign!Such views, the Saint replies, for sense too bright,Would seal thy vision in eternal night;Man cannot face nor seraph power displayThe mystic beams of such an awful day.Enough for thee, that thy delighted mindShould trace the temporal actions of thy kind;That time's descending veil should ope so farBeyond the reach of wretchedness and war,Till all the paths in nature's sapient planFair in thy presence lead the steps of man,And form at last, on earth's extended ball,Union of parts and happiness of all.To thy glad ken these rolling years have shownThe boundless blessings thy vast labors crown,That, with the joys of unborn ages blest,Thy soul exulting may retire to rest,But see once more! beneath a change of skies,The last glad visions wait thy raptured eyes.
Eager he look'd. Another train of yearsHad roll'd unseen, and brighten'd still their spheres;Earth more resplendent in the floods of dayAssumed new smiles, and flush'd around him lay.Green swell the mountains, calm the oceans roll,Fresh beams of beauty kindle round the pole;Thro all the range where shores and seas extend,In tenfold pomp the works of peace ascend.Robed in the bloom of spring's eternal year,And ripe with fruits the same glad fields appear;O'er hills and vales perennial gardens run,Cities unwall'd stand sparkling to the sun;The streams all freighted from the bounteous plainSwell with the load and labor to the main,Whose stormless waves command a steadier galeAnd prop the pinions of a bolder sail:Sway'd with the floating weight each ocean toils,And joyous nature's full perfection smiles.
Fill'd with unfolding fate, the vision'd ageNow leads its actors on a broader stage;When clothed majestic in the robes of state,Moved by one voice, in general congress meetThe legates of all empires. Twas the placeWhere wretched men first firm'd their wandering pace;Ere yet beguiled, the dark delirious hordesBegan to fight for altars and for lords;Nile washes still the soil, and feels once moreThe works of wisdom press his peopled shore.
In this mid site, this monumental clime,Rear'd by all realms to brave the wrecks of timeA spacious dome swells up, commodious great,The last resort, the unchanging scene of state.On rocks of adamant the walls ascend,Tall columns heave and sky-like arches bend;Bright o'er the golden roofs the glittering spiresFar in the concave meet the solar fires;Four blazing fronts, with gates unfolding high,Look with immortal splendor round the sky:Hither the delegated sires ascend,And all the cares of every clime attend.
As that blest band, the guardian guides of heaven,To whom the care of stars and suns is given,(When one great circuit shall have proved their spheres,And time well taught them how to wind their years)Shall meet in general council; call'd to stateThe laws and labors that their charge await;To learn, to teach, to settle how to holdTheir course more glorious, as their lights unfold:From all the bounds of space (the mandate known)They wing their passage to the eternal throne;Each thro his far dim sky illumes the road,And sails and centres tow'rd the mount of God;There, in mid universe, their seats to rear,Exchange their counsels and their works compare:So, from all tracts of earth, this gathering throngIn ships and chariots shape their course along,Reach with unwonted speed the place assign'dTo hear and give the counsels of mankind.
South of the sacred mansion, first resortThe assembled sires, and pass the spacious court.Here in his porch earth's figured Genius stands,Truth's mighty mirror poizing in his hands;Graved on the pedestal and chased in gold,Man's noblest arts their symbol forms unfold,His tillage and his trade; with all the storeOf wondrous fabrics and of useful lore:Labors that fashion to his sovereign swayEarth's total powers, her soil and air and sea;Force them to yield their fruits at his known call,And bear his mandates round the rolling ball.Beneath the footstool all destructive things,The mask of priesthood and the mace of kings,Lie trampled in the dust; for here at lastFraud, folly, error all their emblems cast.Each envoy here unloads his wearied handOf some old idol from his native land;One flings a pagod on the mingled heap,One lays a crescent, one a cross to sleep;Swords, sceptres, mitres, crowns and globes and stars,Codes of false fame and stimulants to warsSink in the settling mass; since guile began,These are the agents of the woes of man.
Now the full concourse, where the arches bend,Pour thro by thousands and their seats ascend.Far as the centred eye can range around,Or the deep trumpet's solemn voice resound,Long rows of reverend sires sublime extend,And cares of worlds on every brow suspend.High in the front, for soundest wisdom known,A sire elect in peerless grandeur shone;He open'd calm the universal cause,To give each realm its limit and its laws,Bid the last breath of tired contention cease,And bind all regions in the leagues of peace;Till one confederate, condependent swaySpread with the sun and bound the walks of day,One centred system, one all-ruling soulLive thro the parts and regulate the whole.
Here then, said Hesper, with a blissful smile,Behold the fruits of thy long years of toil.To yon bright borders of Atlantic dayThy swelling pinions led the trackless way,And taught mankind such useful deeds to dare,To trace new seas and happy nations rear;Till by fraternal hands their sails unfurl'dHave waved at last in union o'er the world.
Then let thy steadfast soul no more complainOf dangers braved and griefs endured in vain,Of courts insidious, envy's poison'd stings,The loss of empire and the frown of kings;While these broad views thy better thoughts composeTo spurn the malice of insulting foes;And all the joys descending ages gain,Repay thy labors and remove thy pain.
Tho it would be more convenient to the reader to find some of these notes, especially the shorter ones, at the bottom of the pages to which they refer, yet most of them are of such a length as would render that mode of placing them disadvantageous to the symmetry of the pages and the general appearance of the work. It seemed necessary that these should be collected at the end of the Poem; and it was thought proper that the others should not be separated from them.
The notes will probably be found too voluminous for the taste of some readers; but others would doubtless be better pleased to see them still augmented, as several of the philosophical subjects and historical references are left unexplained. Were I to offer apologies in this case, I should hardly know on which side to begin. I will therefore only say that in this appendage, as in the body of the work, I have aimed, as well as I was able, at blending in due proportions the useful with the agreeable.
One gentle guardian once could shield the brave; But now that guardian slumbers in the grave.
Book I. Line 105.
The death of queen Isabella, which happened before the last return of Columbus from America, was a subject of great sorrow to him. In her he lost his only powerful friend in Spain, on whose influence he was accustomed to rely in counteracting the perpetual intrigues of a host of enemies, whose rank and fortune gave them a high standing at the court of Valladolid. Their situation and connexions must havee commanded a weight of authority not easily resisted by an individual foreigner, however illustrious from his merit.
It was a grievous reflection for Columbus that his services, tho great in themselves and unequalled in their consequences to the world, had been performed in an age and for a nation which knew not their value, as well as for an ungrateful monarch who chose to disregard them.
As, awed to silence, savage lands gave place, And hail'd with joy the sun-descended race.
Book I. Line 243.
The original inhabitants of Hispaniola were worshippers of the sun. The Europeans, when they first landed there, were supposed by them to be gods, and consequently descended from the sun. See the subject of solar worship treated more at large in a subsequent note.
High lanterned in his heaven the cloudless White Heaves the glad sailor an eternal light;
Book I. Line 333.
The White Mountain of Newhampshire, tho eighty miles from the sea, is the first land to be discovered in approaching that part of the coast of North America. It serves as a landmark for a considerable length of coast, of difficult navigation.
Whirl'd from the monstrous Andes' bursting sides, Maragnon leads his congregating tides;
Book I. Line 365.
This river, from different circumstances, has obtained several different names. It has been called Amazon, from an idea that some part of the neighboring country was inhabited by a race of warlike women, resembling what Herodotus relates of the Amazons of Scythia. It has been called Orellana, from its having been discovered by a Spanish officer of that name, who, on a certain expedition, deserted from the younger Pizarro on one of the sources of this river, and navigated it from thence to the ocean. Maragnon is the original name given it by the natives; which name I choose to follow.
If we estimate its magnitude by the length of its course and the quantity of water it throws into the sea, it is much the greatest river that has hitherto come to our knowledge. Its navigation is said by Condamine and others to be uninterrupted for four thousand miles from the sea. Its breadth, within the banks, is sixty geographical miles; it receives in its course a variety of great rivers, besides those described in the text. Many of these descend from elevated countries and mountains covered with snow, the melting of which annually swells the Maragnon above its banks; when it overflows and fertilizes a vast extent of territory.
He saw Xaraycts diamond lanks unfold, And Paraguay's deep channel paved with gold.
Book I. Line 435.
Some of the richest diamond mines are found on the banks of the lake Xaraya. The river Paraguay is remarkable for the quantities of gold dust found in its channel. The Rio de la Plata, properly so called, has its source in the mountains of Potosi; and it was probably from this circumstance that it received its name, which signifies River of Silver. This river, after having joined the Paraguay, which is larger than itself, retains its own name till it reaches the sea. Near the mouth, it is one hundred and fifty miles wide; but in other respects it is far inferior to the Maragnon.
Soon as the distant swell was seen to roll, His ancient wishes reabsorb'd his soul;
Book I. Line 449.
The great object of Columbus, in most of his voyages, was to discover a western passage to India. He navigated the Gulph of Mexico with particular attention to this object, and was much disappointed in not finding a pass into the South Sea. The view he is here supposed to have of that ocean would therefore naturally recal his former desire of sailing to India.
This idle frith must open soon to fame, Here a lost Lusitanian fix his name,
Book I. Line 491.
The straits of Magellan, so called from having been discovered by a Portuguese navigator of that name, who first attempted to sail round the world, and lost his life in the attempt.
Say, Palfrey, brave good man, was this thy doom? Dwells here the secret of thy midsea tomb?
Book I. Line 627.
Colonel Palfrey of Boston was an officer of distinction in the American army during the war of independence. Soon after the war he proposed to visit Europe, and embarked for England; but never more was heard of. The ship probably perished in the ice. His daughter, here alluded to, is now the wife of William Lee, American consul at Bordeaux.
The beasts all whitening roam the lifeless plain, And caves unfrequent scoop the couch for man.
Book I. Line 753.
The color of animals is acquired partly from the food they eat, thro successive generations, and partly from the objects with which they are usually surrounded. Dr. Darwin has a curious note on this subject, in which he remarks on the advantages that insects and other small animals derive from their color, as a means of rendering them invisible to their more powerful enemies; who thus find it difficult to distinguish them from other objects where they reside. Some animals which inhabit cold countries turn white in winter, when the earth is covered with snow; such as the snowbird of the Alps. Others in snowy regions are habitually white; such as the white bear of Russia.
A different cast the glowing zone demands, In Paria's blooms, from Tombut's burning sands.
Book II. Line 97.
Paria is a fertile country near the river Orinoco; the only part of the continent of America that Columbus had seen. Tombut, in the same latitude, is the most sterile part of Africa. America embraces a greater compass of latitude by many degrees than the other continent; and yet its inhabitants present a much less variety in their physical and moral character. When shall we be able to account for this fact?
Yet when the hordes to happy nations rise, And earth by culture warms the genial skies,
Book II. Line 119.
Without entering into any discussion on the theory of heat and cold (a point not yet settled in our academies) I would just observe, in vindication of the expression in the text, that some solid matter, such for instance as the surface of the earth, seems absolutely necessary to the production of heat. At least it must be a matter more compact than that of the sun's rays; and perhaps its power of producing heat is in proportion to its solidity.
The warmth communicated to the atmosphere is doubtless produced by the combined causes of the earth and the sun; but the agency of the former is probably more powerful in this operation than that of the latter, and its presence more indispensable. For masses of matter will produce heat by friction, without the aid of the sun; but no experiment has yet proved that the rays of the sun are capable of producing heat without the aid of other and more solid matter. The air is temperate in those cavities of the earth where the sun is the most effectually excluded; whereas the coldest regions yet known to us are the tops of the Andes, where the sun's rays have the most direct operation, being the most vertical and the least obstructed by vapors. Those regions are deprived of heat by being so far removed from the broad surface of the earth; a body that appears requisite to warm the surrounding atmosphere by its cooperation with the action of the sun.
From these principles we may conclude that cultivation, in a woody country, tends to warm the atmosphere and ameliorate a cold climate; as, by removing the forests and marshes, it opens the earth to the sun, and allows them to act in conjunction upon the air.
According to the descriptions given of the middle parts of Europe by Cesar and Tacitus, it appears that those countries were much colder in their days than they are at present; cultivation seems to have softened that climate to a great degree. The same effect begins to be perceived in North America. Possibly it may in time become as apparent as the present difference in the temperature of the two continents.
A ruddier hue and deeper shade shall gain, And stalk, in statelier figures, on the plain.
Book II. Line 127.
The complexion of the inhabitants of North America, who are descended from the English and Dutch, is evidently darker, and their stature taller, than those of the English and Dutch in Europe.
Like Memphian hieroglyphs, to stretch the span Of memory frail in momentary man.
Book II. Line 287.
We may reckon three stages of improvement in the graphic art, or the art of communicating our thoughts to absent persons and to posterity by visible signs. First, The invention ofpainting ideas,or representing actions, dates and other circumstances of historical fact, by the images of material things, drawn usually on a flat surface, or sometimes carved or moulded in a more solid form. This was the state at which the art had arrived in Egypt before the introduction of letters, and in Mexico before the arrival of the Spaniards. The Greeks in Egypt called it hieroglyphic.
Second, The invention ofpainting sounds,which we do by the use of letters, or the alphabet, and which we call writing. This was a vast improvement; as it simplified in a wonderful degree the communication of thought. For ideas are infinite in number and variety; while the simple sounds we use to convey them to the ear are few, distinct and easy to be understood. It would indeed be impossible to express all our ideas by distinct and visible images. And even if the writer were able to do this, not many readers could be made to understand him; since it would be necessary that every new idea should have a new image invented and agreed upon between the writer and the reader, before it could be used. Which preliminary could not be settled without the writer should see and converse with the reader. And he might as well, in this case, convey his ideas by oral speech; so that his writing could be of little use beyond a certain routine of established signs.
The number of simple sounds in human language, used in discourse, is not above eighteen or twenty; and these are so varied in the succession in which they are uttered, as to express an inconceivable and endless variety of thought and sentiment. Then, by the help of an alphabet of about twenty-six letters or visible signs, these sounds are translated from the ear to the eye; and we are able, by thus painting the sound, to arrest its fleeting nature, render it permanent, and talk with distant nations and future ages, without any previous convention whatever, even supposing them to be ignorant of the language in which we write. This is the present state of the art, as commonly practised in all the countries where an alphabet is used. It is called the art of writing; and to understand it is called reading.
Third, Another invention, which is still in its infancy, is the art ofpainting phrases,or sentences; commonly called shorthand writing. This is yet but little used, and only by a few dexterous persons, who make it a particular study. Probably the true principles on which it ought to be founded are yet to be discovered. But it may be presumed, that in this part of the graphic art there remains to the ingenuity of future generations a course of improvements totally inconceivable to the present; by which the whole train of impressions now made upon the mind by reading a long and well written treatise may be conveyed by a few strokes of the pen, and be received at a glance of the eye. This desideratum would be an abridgment of labor in our mental acquisitions, of which we cannot determine the consequences. It might make, in the progress of human knowledge, an epoch as remarkable as that which was made by the invention of alphabetical writing, and produce as great a change in the mode of transmitting the history of events.
One consequence of the invention of alphabetical writing seems to have been to throw into oblivion all previous historical facts; and it has thus left an immense void, which the imagination knows not how to fill, in contemplating the progress of our race. How many important discoveries, which still remain to our use, must have taken their origin in that space of time which is thus left a void to us! A vast succession of ages, and ages of improvement, must have preceded (for example) the invention of the wheel. The wheel must have been in common use, we know not how long, before alphabetical writing; because we find its image employed in painting ideas, during the first stage of the graphic art above described. The wheel was likewise in use before the mysteries of Ceres or those of Isis were established; as is evident from its being imagined as an instrument of punishment in hell, in the case of Ixion, as represented in those mysteries. The taming of the ox and the horse, the use of the sickle and the bow and arrow, a considerable knowledge of astronomy, and its application to the purposes of agriculture and navigation, with many other circumstances, which show a prodigious improvement, must evidently have preceded the date of the zodiac; a date fixed by Dupuis, with a great degree of probability, at about seventeen thousand years from our time. This epoch would doubtless carry us back many thousand years beyond that of the alphabet; the invention of which was sufficient of itself to obliterate the details of previous history, as the event has proved.
How far the loss of these historical details is to be regretted, as an impediment to our progress in useful knowledge, I will not decide; but in one view, which I am going to state, it may be justly considered as a misfortune.
The art of painting ideas, being arrested in the state in which the use of the alphabet found it, went into general disuse for common purposes; and the works then extant, as well as the knowledge of writing in that mode, being no longer intelligible to the people, became objects of deep and laborious study, and known only to the learned; that is, to the men of leisure and contemplation. These men consequently ran it into mystery; making it a holy object, above the reach of vulgar inquiry. On this ground they established, in the course of ages, a profitable function or profession, in the practice of which a certain portion of men of the brightest talents could make a reputable living; taking care not to initiate more than a limited number of professors; no more than the people could maintain as priests. This mode of writing then assumed the name of hieroglyphic, or sacred painting, to distinguish it from that which had now become the vulgar mode of writing, by the use of the alphabet. This is perhaps the source of that ancient, vast and variegated system of false religion, with all its host of errors and miseries, which has so long and so grievously weighed upon the character of human nature.
In noticing the distinction of the three stages in the graphic art above described, I have not mentioned the wonderful powers we derive from it in the language of the mathematics and the language of music. In each of these, though its effects are already astonishing, there is no doubt but great improvements are still to be made. Our present mode of writing in these, as in literature, belongs to thesecondoralphabeticalstage of the graphic art. The ten ciphers, and the other signs used in the mathematical sciences, form the alphabet in which the language of those sciences is written. The few musical notes, and the other signs which accompany them, furnish an alphabet for writing the language of music.
The mode of writing in China is still different from any of those I have mentioned. The Chinese neither paint ideas nor sounds: but they make a character for every word; which character must vary according to the different inflections and uses of that word. The characters must therefore be insupportably numerous, and be still increasing as the language is enriched with new words by the augmentation and correction of ideas.
The English language is supposed to contain about twelve thousand distinct words, and the Italian about seventeen thousand, in the present state of our sciences. I know not how many the Chinese may contain; but if we were to write our languages in the Chinese method, it would be the business of a whole life for a man to learn his mother tongue, so as to read and write it for his ordinary purposes.
As the Chinese have not adopted an alphabet, but have adhered to an invariable state of the graphic art, which is probably more ancient by several thousand years than our present method, may we not venture to conjecture that the traces of their very ancient history have been, for that reason, better preserved? and that their pretensions to a very high antiquity, which we have been used to think extravagant and ridiculous, are really not without foundation? If so, we might then allow a little more latitude to ourselves, and conclude that we are in fact as old as they, and might have been as sensible of it, if we had adhered to our ancient method of writing; and not changed it for a new one which, while it has facilitated the progress of our science, has humbled our pride of antiquity, by obliterating the dates of those labors and improvements of our early progenitors, to which we are indebted for more of the rudiments of our sciences and our arts than we usually imagine.
It is much to be regretted, that the Spanish devastation in Mexico and Peru was so universal as to leave us but few monuments of the history of the human mind in those countries, which presented a state of manners so remarkably different from what can be found in any other part of the world. The pictorial writing of the Mexicans, tho sometimes called hieroglyphic, does not appear to merit that name, as it was not exclusively appropriated by the priests to sacred purposes. Indeed it could not be so appropriated till a more convenient method could be discovered and adopted for common purposes. For a thing cannot become sacred, in this sense of the word, until it ceases to be common.
No Bovadilla seize the tempting spoil, No dark Ovando, no religious Boyle,
Book II. Line 303.
Bovadilla and Ovando are mentioned in the Introduction as the enemies and successors of Columbus in the government of Hispaniola. They began that system of cruelty towards the natives which in a few years almost depopulated that island, and was afterwards pursued by Cortez, Pizarro and others, in all the first settlements in Spanish America.
Boyle was a fanatical priest who accompanied Ovando, and, under pretence of christianizing the natives by the sword, gave the sanction of the church to the most shocking and extensive scenes of slaughter.
He gains the shore. Behold his fortress rise, His fleet high flaming suffocates the skies.
Book II. Line 329.
The conduct of Cortez, when he first landed on the coast of Mexico, was as remarkable for that hardy spirit of adventure, to which success gives the name of policy, as his subsequent operations were for cruelty and perfidy. As soon as his army was on shore, he dismantled his fleet of such articles as would be useful in building a new one; he then set fire to his ships, and burnt them in presence of his men; that they might fight their battles with more desperate courage, knowing that it would be impossible to save themselves from a victorious enemy by flight. He constructed a fort, in which the iron and the rigging were preserved.
With cheerful rites their pure devotions pay To the bright orb that gives the changing day.
Book II. Line 421.
It is worthy of remark, that the countries where the worship of the sun has made the greatest figure are Egypt and Peru; the two regions of the earth the most habitually deprived of rain, and probably of clouds, which in other countries so frequently obstruct his rays and seem to dispute his influence. Tho in the rude ages of society it is certainly natural in all countries to pay adoration to the sun, as one of the visible agents of those changes in the atmosphere which most affect the people's happiness, yet it is reasonable to suppose that this adoration would be more unmixed, and consequently more durable, in climates where the agency of the sun appears unrivalled and supreme.
On the supposition that Greece and Western Asia, regions whose early traditions are best known to us, derived their first theological ideas from Egypt, it is curious to observe how the pure heliosebia of Egypt degenerated in those climates in proportion as other visible agents seemed to exert their influence in human affairs. Greece is a mountainous country, subject to a great deal of lightning and other meteors, whose effects are tremendous and make stronger impressions on rude savages than the gentle energies of the sun.
The Greeks therefore, having forgotten the source of their religious system, ceased to consider the sun as their supreme god; his agency being, in their opinion, subject to a more potent divinity, the Power of the air or Jupiter, whom they styled the Thunderer. So that Apollo, the god of light, became, in their mythology, the subject and offspring of the supreme god of the atmosphere. This religion became extremely confused and complicated with new fables, according to the temperature and other accidents of the different climates thro which it passed. The god of thunder obtained the supreme veneration generally in Europe: known in the south by the name of Jupiter or Zeus and in the north by that of Thor.
Europe in general has an uneven surface and a vapory sky, liable to great concussions in the lower regions of the atmosphere which border the habitation of man. There is no wonder that in such a region the god of the air should appear more powerful than the god of light. This disposition of the elements has given a gloomy cast to the mind, and in the north more than in the south. The Thor of the Celtic nations was more tremendous, more feared and less beloved, than the Jupiter of the Greeks and Romans; he was worshipped accordingly with more bloody sacrifices. But in all Europe, Western Asia and the northwestern coast of Africa, where the earth is uneven and the climate variable, their religion was more gloomy and their gods more ferocious than among the ancient Egyptians.
A like difference is observed in the religions of the two countries in America where civilization was most advanced before the arrival of the Spaniards. Peru enjoyed a climate of great serenity and regularity. Of all the sensible agents that operated on the earth and air, the sun was apparently the most uniform and energetic. The worship of the sun was therefore the most predominant and durable; and it inspired a mildness of manners analogous to his mild and beneficent influence. In Mexico and other uneven countries, where storms and earthquakes were frequent, the sun, altho he was reckoned among their deities, was not considered so powerful as those of a more boisterous and maleficent nature. The Mexican worship was therefore addressed chiefly to ferocious beings, enemies to human happiness, who delighted in the tears and blood of their votaries. The difference in the moral cast of religion in Peru and Mexico, as well as in Egypt and Greece, must have been greatly owing to climate. Indeed in what else should it be found? since the origin of religious ideas must have been in the energies of those visible agents which form the distinctive character of climates.
Long is the tale; but tho their labors rest By years obscured, in flowery fiction drest,
Book II. Line 455.
The traditions respecting these founders of the Peruvian empire are indeed obscure; but they excite in us the same sort of veneration that we feel for the most amiable and distinguished characters of remote antiquity. The honest zeal of Garcilasso de la Vega in collecting these traditions into one body of history, as a probable series of facts, is to be applauded; since he has there presented us with one of the most striking examples of thebeau idealin political character, that can be found in the whole range of literature. He treats his subject with more natural simplicity, tho with less talent, than Plutarch or Xenophon, when they undertake a similar task, that of drawing traditional characters to fill up the middle space between fable and history.
With regard to the true position that the portrait of Manco Capac ought to hold in this middle space, how near it should stand to history and how near to fable, we should find it difficult to say, and perhaps useless to inquire. Plutarch has gravely given us the lives and actions of several heroes who are evidently more fabulous than Capac, and of others who should be placed on the same line with him. The existence of Theseus, Romulus and Numa is more doubtful and their actions less probable than his. The character of Capac, in regard to its reality, stands on a parallel with that of the Lycurgus of Plutarch and the Cyrus of Xenophon; not purely historical nor purely fabulous, but presented to us as a compendium of those talents and labors which might possibly be crowded into the capacity of one mind, and be achieved in one life, but which more probably belong to several generations; the talents and labors that could reduce a great number of ferocious tribes into one peaceable and industrious state.
Garcilasso was himself an Inca by maternal descent, born and educated at Cusco after the Spanish conquest. He writes apparently with the most scrupulous regard to truth, with little judgment and no ornament. He discovers a credulous zeal to throw a lustre on his remote ancestor Manco Capac, not by inventing new incidents, but by collecting with great industry all that had been recorded in the annals of the family. And their manner of recording events, tho not so perfect as that of writing, was not so liable to error as traditions merely oral, like those of the Caledonian and other Celtic bards, with respect to the ancient heroes of their countries.
His account states, that about four centuries previous to the discovery of that country by the Spaniards, the natives of Peru were as rude savages as any in America. They had no fixed habitations, no ideas of permanent property; they wandered naked like the beasts, and like them depended on the events of each day for a subsistence. At this period Manco Capac and his wife Mauna Oella appeared on a small island in the lake Titiaca, near which the city of Cusco was afterwards built. These persons, to establish a belief of their divinity in the minds of the people, were clothed in white garments of cotton, and declared themselves descended from the sun, who was their father and the god of that country. They affirmed that he was offended at their cruel and perpetual wars, their barbarous modes of worship, and their neglecting to make the best use of the blessings he was constantly bestowing, in fertilizing the earth and producing vegetation; that he pitied their wretched state, and had sent his own children to instruct them and to establish a number of wise regulations, by which they might be rendered happy.
By some uncommon method of persuasion, these persons drew together a few of the savage tribes, laid the foundation of the city of Cusco, and established what is called the kingdom of the Sun, or the Peruvian empire. In the reign of Manco Capac, the dominion was extended about eight leagues from the city; and at the end of four centuries it was established fifteen hundred miles on the coast of the Pacific ocean, and from that ocean to the Andes. During this period, thro a succession of twelve monarchs, the original constitution, established by the first Inca, remained unaltered; and this constitution, with the empire itself, was at last overturned by an accident which no human wisdom could foresee or prevent.
For a more particular detail of the character and institutions of this extraordinary personage the reader is referred to a subsequent note, in which he will find a dissertation on that subject.
In the passage preceding this reference, I have alluded to the fabulous traditions relating to these children of the sun. In the remainder of the second and thro the whole of the third book, I have given what may be supposed a probable narrative of their real origin and actions. The space allowed to this episode may appear too considerable in a poem whose principal object is so different. But it may be useful to exhibit in action the manners and sentiments of savage tribes, whose aliment is war; that the contrast may show more forcibly the advantages of civilized life, whose aliment is peace.