If I could think how these my thoughts to leave;
Or thinking still, my thoughts might have good end;
If rebel Sense would Reason's law receive,
Or Reason foiled would not in vain contend;
Then might I think what thoughts were best to think,
Then might I wisely swim, or gladly sink.
Nor with Des-Portes,
O pensers trop pensez, que rebellez mon ame!
O debile raison! O lacqs! O traits!
thanks to that kind Providence which has hitherto enabled me through good and evil fortune to maintain an even and well-regulated mind. Neither need I say with the pleasant authors of the “Rejected Addresses” in their harmless imitation of a most pernicious author,
Thinking is but an idle waste of thought,
And nought is every thing and every thing is nought.
I have never worked in an intellectual treadmill, which as it had nothing to act on was grinding the wind.
“He that thinks ill,” says Dean Young, (the poet's father,) “prevents the Tempter, and does the Devil's business for him; he that thinks nothing, tempts the Tempter, and offers him possession of an empty room; but he that thinks religiously, defeats the Tempter, and is proof and secure against all his assaults.” I know not whether there be any later example where the word prevent is used as in the Collect in its Latin sense.
It is a man's own fault if he excogitate vain thoughts, and still more if he enunciate and embody them; but it is not always in his power to prevent their influx. Even the preventative which George Tubervile recommends in his monitory rhymes, is not infallible;
Eschew the idle life!
Flee, flee from doing nought!
For never was there idle brain
But bred an idle thought.
Into the busiest brain they will sometimes intrude; and the brain that is over-busy breeds them. But the thoughts which are not of our own growth or purchase, and which we receive not from books, society, or visible objects, but from some undiscovered influence, are of all kinds.