Receive as Gospel, and which grow more rooted,

As all truths must, the more they are disputed:

VII.

I merely mean to say what Johnson said,

That in the course of some six thousand years,

All nations have believed that from the dead

A visitant at intervals appears:[773]

And what is strangest upon this strange head,

Is, that whatever bar the reason rears

'Gainst such belief, there's something stronger still