The progress of science. A poem delivered at Harvard College before a committee of overseers, April 21, 1780. / By a junior sophister.

The progress of science. A poem delivered at Harvard College before a committee of overseers, April 21, 1780. / By a junior sophister.

Table of contents

Title page

§

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE.

[Page]

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE.

LET martial souls, whom wild ambition warms,

The trumpet's clangor, and rude din of arms,

Point out the path victorious heroes trod,

The pest of nations, and the scourge of God:

Mine be the task, in humbler verse to trace

The real greatness of the human race.

Tho' rude and savage Afric's sons we find,

Yet there first Science dawn'd upon mankind,

There curb'd the passions in perpetual strife,

And there begat the softer arts of life.

Blest by kind nature with a gen'rous soil,

That yielded herbage, tho' not dress'd with toil,

[Page]In philosophic ease they pass'd their years,

And watch'd the motions of the rolling Spheres.

Their modest wants plain Nature could redress,

And Science gave them rural happiness.

Egypt beheld her twilight's fainter ray,

And form'd fond hopes of her meridian day;

When, lo! tyrannic rage usurp'd the whole,

And cramp'd with fetters each high swelling soul.

Disorder'd fancy superstition bred;

She clap'd her wings, and thought her foe was dead;

Yet she but fled, to gain in happy Greece,

What Egypt had deny'd her, rural peace.

The Grecian souls, form'd of the subtlest kind,

In Freedom nurtur'd, strength'ned and refin'd,

Quick catch'd the flame; it ran from soul to soul,

And like electric fire, inspir'd the whole.

Here Poets sang, and Rhetoricians plead,

Here Statesmen sat, and patriot Worthies bled.

Ah blindness to the future! headlong toss'd,

They grasp'd the shadow, but the substance lost.

Greece led her armies Troy's high walls to rase;

The city shook and totter'd to its base,

At length it fell—but from its ruins rose

A vagrant band to subjugate their foes.

[Page]Imperial Rome, the mistress of the world,

Towns, cities, kingdoms into ruin hurl'd,

And reign'd supreme alone. Greece felt her force,

Nor stem'd the torrent in its rapid course;

All victims fell to its resistless rage,

The rough Barbarian, and the Grecian Sage.

Ardent the Romans Grecian science view'd,

Nor scorn'd to learn of those they had subdu'd;

They reach'd the same sublimity of thought,

And those, who learned, equal'd those, who taught.

There godlike Homer rear'd his awful head,

Here Virgil sang, and here great Tully plead.

As when some mighty torrent, swol'n with rain,

Falls rushing, dashing, 'till it meets the plain,

O'er craggy rocks bends its resistless force,

From clift to clift loud thund'ring in its course;

So did the Athenian patriotic rave,

And taught his country to be nobly brave.

Not so the Roman. As the ancient Nile

Glides smoothly on within its banks a while,

Slow, gradual, rising, then o'erspeads the plain,

And adds all Egypt to the swelling main;

So syren Tully onward gently rolls,

Enchants, enraptures, and subdues our souls.

[Page]

Behold far north the gath'ring tempest rise,

Rushing impetuous, as the whirlwind flies;

Towns, cities, kingdoms from their basis fall,

And one wide ruin overwhelms them all.

Eternal Rome sinks to the common grave,

Bursts, like a bubble dancing on the wave,

Flies off in smoke, and rules the world no more—

Oh! blush then, earthly grandeur! pageant power!

Age after age in one sad tenor ran,

A blank—a chasm in the page of man.

Men drudg'd their labour'd dulness to rehearse,

To form an anagram, or egg in verse;

They stifled genius with pedantic rules,

And labour'd hard to prove that—they were fools.

No mighty task, tho' labour'd in so long,

Each line was proof, was demonstration strong;

And men, Oh dulness to perfection brought!

Blush'd to be guilty of a noble thought.

Yet in this gloom did Roger Bacon rise,

Like lightning flashing thro' the clouded skies,

He burst the barrier of pedantic rules,

And all the labour'd jargon of the schools.

As forked lightnings, with their hasty light,

Serve but to shew the horrors of the night;

So he but shew'd the dulness of the age,

A stain—a blot upon historic page.

[Page]

As when cold Zembla, wrapt in darkest shade,

First sees the Sun erect his radiant head,

In gratitude to the benignant power,

They gather round and Persian-like adore;

He gives them light, not only light, but heat;

Warms with new life, and makes that life compleat;

Th' expanding blossoms smile on every clod,

And laughing vallies own the present God;

Loud hymns of praise the feather'd tribes employ,

And savage beasts howl their tremendous joy;

A second Bacon thus divine appear'd,

Took hoary dulness by his grisly beard,

Shook the grim tyrant first, then headlong hurl'd,

And reinstated Science in the world.

Hence brilliant worthies our attention claim,

Who grace the annals of Britannia's fame.

While sun, or moon, or planetary spheres,

Traverse the circle of revolving years;

While nature's laws exist, great Newton's name

Shall stand the foremost on the list of fame.

He saw creation in her mystic dance,

By order govern'd, not by devious chance;

He trac'd the planets thro' their mazy road,

Caught wand'ring comets in their dark abode,

[Page]Explor'd great nature's universal chain,

Hung earth self-ballanc'd in the vast inane,

Unfolded the philosophy of light,

Taught us why this is black, why that is white,

Taught us why bodies are so prone to fall,

What heaves old ocean, and unravell'd all

This riddle of creation.—

To reach his merit I can never hope,

Then take his euge in the words of Pope.

"Superior beings, when of late they faw

"A mortal man unfold all nature's law,

"Admir'd such wisdom in all earthly shape,

"And shew'd a Newton as we shew an ape."

Thee, tuneful Pope, with equal praise they show,

Whose noble thoughts in strains, harmonious flow.

Hail! Shakespear, hail! We feel thy force divine,

Feel nature's pathos live in ev'ry line.

Thro' distant climes shall Milton's fame be heard,

Our modern Homer, and sublimest bard.

In Metaphysics too a Locke we find,

Unfolding the recesses of the mind,

Teaching mankind the great Creator's plan;

Yet less admire the author than the man.

[Page]Great in himself, he could with pleasure leave

The tinfel'd greatness that a Court can give,

Refuse a place—a pension, and retire

From glitt'ring pomp, to fan celestial fire.

Nor Britain only can her worthies boast;

They rise in crouds throughout all Europe's coast.

E'en this far western world can boast a few;

We've had a Franklin, and a Winthrop too.

Ah! Winthrop's dead—Then o'er his sacred hearse

Pay the sad tribute of elegiac verse

Yet wherefore grieve? To Winthrop now 'tis giv'n,

Not to survey, but to inhabit Heav'n

Eccentric souls, great as himself shall rise,

Spring loose from Earth, and emulate the skies.

For see, in Europe Science reigns no more,

Their souls are fetter'd with tyrannic power.

Tiptoe she stands on Europe's utmost verge,

With wing high-hovering o'er the foaming surge;

See her in air her form majestic raise,

See placid ocean motionless to gaze

See clumsy whales in awkward measures play,

And the mild radiance of her gladsom day

Tremble upon the wide extended plain,

And adoration universal reign.

[Page]

Hail, beauteous Goddess! here erect thy seat,

Let infant Harvard be thy fam'd retreat.

All hail, ye Worthies, who with gen'rous views

Nurture this Dwelling for the tuneful Muse.

When the Supreme in that tremendous day

Shall from creation wipe this spot of clay;

When the dread mandate shall in Heav'n be pass'd,

And Nature in convulsions groan her last;

When liquid flames in molten columns rise,

And the swift Cherub thro' our system flies,

Blows out yon taper in his mighty power,

And swears that "time on earth shall be no more;"

Then shall a Hollis, then a Hancock rise,

And spring with rapture to their native skies.

§

§

[Page]

[Page]

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. A POEM Delivered at HARVARD COLLEGE Before a Committee of Overseers, April 21, 1780.

By a JUNIOR SOPHISTER.

Printed in the Year 1780.

§

§

[Page]

It is humbly presumed that the Youth of the Author will be esteemed by the Candid a sufficient Apology for any juvenile Errors in the following Poem.

Me verò primùm dulces ante omnia Musae,

Quarum sacra fero, ingenti perculs [...]s amore,

Accipiant.

VIRGIL'S GEORGICS.

Information about this book

Title statement

The progress of science. A poem delivered at Harvard College before a committee of overseers, April 21, 1780. / By a junior sophister.

Dexter, Samuel, 1761-1816.

Publication

Publisher

Text Creation Partnership,

Place of publication

Ann Arbor, MI :

Date

2011-05.

ID [DLPS]

N13256

ID [TCP]

N13256

ID [STC]

Evans 16759

ID [NOTIS]

APZ0872

ID [IMAGE-SET]

16759

ID [EVANS-CITATION]

99038506

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Series

Early American Imprints, 1639-1800 ; no. 16759.

Notes

(Evans-TCP ; no. N13256)

Transcribed from: (Readex Archive of Americana ; Early American Imprints, series I ; image set 16759)

Images scanned from Readex microprint and microform: (Early American imprints. First series ; no. 16759)

Source

— The progress of science. A poem delivered at Harvard College before a committee of overseers, April 21, 1780. / By a junior sophister., Dexter, Samuel, 1761-1816., Harvard College (1636-1780)..

Extent

10 p. ; 24 cm. (folio)

s.n.],. [Boston? ;: Printed in the year 1780.. (Attributed to Samuel Dexter in the Dictionary of American biography.)

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