So learned men, by authors' names unknown,
Have gain'd no small improvement to their own,
And he 's esteem'd the learned'st of all others,
That has the largest catalogue of authors.

FRAGMENTS

190

OF AN INTENDED

SECOND PART

OF THE FOREGOING SATIRE.

MEN'S talents grow more bold and confident,

The further they 're beyond their just extent,

As

Thefe Fragments were fairly written out, and several times, with fome little variations, tranfcribed by Butler, but never connected, or reduced into any regular form. They may be confidered as the principal parts of a curious edifice, each feparately finished, but not united into one general defign.

From these the reader may form a notion and tolerable idea of our Author's intended fcheme; and will, I doubt not, regret, with me, that he did not apply himself to the finishing of a fatire fo well fuited to his judgment and particular turn of wit.

It may be thought, perhaps, that fome parts of it ought to have been illuftrated with notes; but as the printing an imperfect work may be judged, by fome readers of great delicacy, a fort of intrufion upon the public, I did not care to enhance the objection by clogging it with additional observations of my own..

As fmatterers prove more arrogant and pert,
The lefs they truly understand an art;
And, where they 've leaft capacity to doubt,
Are wont t' appear moft peremptory and ftout;
While thofe that know the mathematic lines
Where Nature all the wit of man confines ;
And when it keeps within its bounds, and where
It acts beyond the limits of its sphere;
Enjoy an abfoluter free command

O'er all they have a right to understand,

Than those that falfely venture to encroach
Where Nature has deny'd them all approach,
And still, the more they strive to understand,
Like great eftates, run furtheft behind-hand;
Will undertake the univerfe to fathom,
From infinite down to a fingle atom;
Without a geometric inftrument,
To take their own capacity's extent;
Can tell as eafy how the world was made,
As if they 'ad been brought up to the trade,
And whether Chance, Neceffity, or Matter,
Contriv'd the whole eftablishment of Nature;
When all their wits to understand the world
Can never tell why a pig's tail is curl'd,
Or give a rational account why fish,
That always ufe to drink, do never pifs.

WHAT

WHAT mad fantastic gambols have been play'd By th' ancient Greek forefathers of the trade, That were not much inferior to the freaks

Of all our lunatic fanatic fects!

The first and best philofopher of Athens

Was crackt, and ran stark-staring mad with patience,
And had no other way to fhew his wit,
But when his wife was in her fcolding-fit;
Was after in the Pagan inquifition,
And fuffer'd martyrdom for no religion.
Next him, his fcholar, ftriving to expel
All poets his poetic commonweal,
Exil'd himself, and all his followers,
Notorious poets, only bating verse.
The Stagyrite, unable to expound

The Euripus, leapt into 't, and was drown'd:
So he that put his eyes out, to confider

And contemplate on natural things the steadier,
Did but himself for idiot convince,

Though reverenc'd by the learned ever fince.
Empedocles, to be efteem'd a god,

Leapt into Etna, with his fandals shod:
That being blown out, discover'd what an afs
The great philofopher and juggler was,
That to his own new deity facrific'd,
And was himself the victim and the priest.
The Cynic coin'd false money, and, for fear
Of being hang'd for 't, turn'd philofopher;
Yet with his lantern went, by day, to find
One honest man i' th' heap of all mankind ;

An idle freak he needed not have done,

If he had known himself to be but one.
With swarms of maggots of the self-same rate,
The learned of all ages celebrate

Things that are properer for Knightsbridge college,
Than th' authors and originals of knowledge;
More fottish than the two fanatics, trying
To mend the world by laughing, or by crying;
Or he that laugh'd until he chok'd his whistle,
To rally on an afs that ate a thistle;

That th' antique fage, that was gallant t' a goose,
A fitter mistress could not pick and chufe,
Whose tempers, inclinations, sense, and wit,
Like two indentures, did agree so fit.

THE ancient fceptics conftantly deny'd What they maintain'd, and thought they juftify'd; For when they' affirm'd that nothing 's to be known, They did but what they faid before disown; And, like Polemics of the Poft, pronounce The fame thing to be true and false at once. These follies had fuch influence on the rabble, As to engage them in perpetual fquabble; Divided Rome and Athens into clans

Of ignorant mechanic partisans ;

That, to maintain their own hypothefes,

Broke one another's blockheads, and the peace ;;

Were often fet by officers 'i th' ftocks

For quarreling about a paradox:

When

When pudding-wives were launcht in cock-quean stools,
For falling foul on oyfter-women's schools,
No herb-women fold cabbages or onions,
But to their goffips of their own opinions.
A Peripatetic cobler fcorn'd to foal

A pair of fhoes of any other school;
And porters of the judgment of the Stoics,
To go an errand of the Cyrenaics;

That us'd t' encounter in athletic lifts,

With beard to beard, and teeth and nails to fifts,
Like modern kicks and cuffs among the youth

Of academics, to maintain the truth.

But in the boldest feats of arms the Stoic

And Epicureans were the most heroic,

That ftoutly ventur'd breaking of their necks,
To vindicate the interefts of their fects,
And ftill behav'd themfelves as refolute

In waging cuffs and bruifes as difpute,

Until, with wounds and bruises which they' had got,
Some hundreds were kill'd dead upon the spot;
When all their quarrels, rightly understood,
Were but to prove difputes the fovereign good.

DISTINCTIONS, that had been at first defign'd To regulate the errors of the mind,

By being too nicely overftrain'd and vext,
Have made the comment harder than the text,
And do not now, like carving, hit the joint,
But break the bon s in pieces, of a point,