To draw the Picture of Unkindness truly
Is, to express two that have dearly loved
And fal’n at variance.
[From the “Bride,” a Comedy, by Thomas Nabbs, 1640.]
Antiquities.
Horten, a Collector. His friend.
Friend. You are learned in Antiquities?
Horten. A little, Sir.
I should affect them more, were not tradition
One of the best assurances to show
They are the things we think them. What more proofs,
Except perhaps a little circumstance,
Have we for this or that to be a piece
Of Delphos’ ruins? or the marble statues,
Made Athens glorious when she was supposed
To have more images of men than men?
A weather-beaten stone, with an inscription
That is not legible but thro’ an optic,
Tells us its age; that in some Sibyl’s cave
Three thousand years ago it was an altar,
Tis satisfaction to our curiosity,
But ought not to necessitate belief.—
For Antiquity,
I do not store up any under Grecian;
Your Roman antiques are but modern toys
Compared to them. Besides they are so counterfeit
With mouldings, tis scarce possible to find
Any but copies.
Friend. Yet you are confident
Of yours, that are of more doubt.
Horten. Others from their easiness
May credit what they please. My trial’s such
Of any thing I doubt, all the impostors,
That ever made Antiquity ridiculous,
Cannot deceive me. If I light upon
Ought that’s above my skill, I have recourse
To those, whose judgment at the second view
(If not the first) will tell me what Philosopher’s
That eye-less; nose-less, mouth-less Statue is,
And who the workman was; tho’ since his death
Thousands of years have been revolved.
Accidents to frustrate Purpose.
How various are the events that may depend
Upon one action, yet the end proposed
Not follow the intention! accidents
Will interpose themselves; like those rash men,
That thrust into a throng, occasioned
By some tumultuous difference, where perhaps
Their busy curiosity begets
New quarrels with new issues.
C. L.