We have called attention to the poet’s scorn. It is very bitter, and is at its best when it attacks not so much persons or matters which are at least open to question as when it deals with obvious shams and pretentious littleness. What could be better than this placid treatment of the modern scientific school which can see nothing more than its telescope and its instruments disclose to it?
“Not greatly moved with awe am I
To learn that we may spy
Five thousand firmaments beyond our own.
The best that’s known
Of the heavenly bodies does them credit small.
View’d close, the Moon’s fair ball
Is of ill objects worst.
A corpse in Night’s highway, naked, fire-scarr’d, accurst;
And now they tell