And sometimes it issued in absurdities, of which, perhaps, he was not conscious:
Then we upon our orb's last verge shall go,
And see the ocean leaning on the sky;
From thence our rolling neighbours we shall know,
And on the lunar world securely pry.
These lines have no meaning; but may we not say, in imitation of Cowley on another book,
'Tis so like sense 'twill serve the turn as well?
This endeavour after the grand and the new, produced sentiments either great or bulky, and many images either just or splendid:
I am as free as nature first made man,
Ere the base laws of servitude began,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran.
—'Tis but because the living death ne'er knew,
They fear to prove it, as a thing that's new:
Let me th' experiment before you try,
I'll show you first how easy 'tis to die.
—There with a forest of their darts he strove,
And stood like Capaneus defying Jove,
With his broad sword the boldest beating down,
While fate grew pale, lest he should win the town,
And turn'd the iron leaves of his dark book
To make new dooms, or mend what it mistook.
—I beg no pity for this mouldering clay;
For if you give it burial, there it takes
Possession of your earth;
If burnt, and scatter'd in the air, the winds
That strew my dust diffuse my royalty,
And spread me o'er your clime; for where one atom
Of mine shall light, know there Sebastian reigns.
Of these quotations the two first may be allowed to be great, the two latter only tumid.