  Feb. 19, 1798. THE PROGRESS OF MAN.[121] A Didactic Poem, IN FORTY CANTOS, WITH NOTES CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY: CHIEFLY OF A PHILOSOPHICAL TENDENCY. DEDICATED TO R. P. KNIGHT, ESQ. CANTO FIRST. Contents.—The Subject proposed.—Doubts and Waverings.—Queries not to be answered.—Formation of the stupendous Whole.—Cosmogony; or the Creation of the World:—the Devil—Man—Various Classes of Being:—Animated Beings—Birds—Fish—Beasts—the Influence of the Sexual Appetite—on Tigers—on Whales—On Crimpt Cod—on Perch—on Shrimps—on Oysters.—Various Stations assigned to different Animals:—Birds—Bears—Mackerel.—Bears remarkable for their fur—Mackerel cried on a Sunday—Birds do not graze—nor Fishes fly—nor Beasts live in the Water.—Plants equally contented with their lot:—Potatoes—Cabbage—Lettuce—Leeks—Cucumbers.—Man only discontented—born a Savage; not choosing to continue so, becomes polished—resigns his Liberty—Priest-craft—King-craft—Tyranny of Laws and Institutions.—Savage Life—description thereof:—The Savage free—roaming Woods—feeds on Hips and Haws—Animal Food—first notion of it from seeing a Tiger tearing his prey—wonders if it is good—resolves to try—makes a Bow and Arrow—kills a Pig—resolves to roast a part of it—lights a fire—Apostrophe to fires—Spits and Jacks not yet invented.—Digression.—Corinth—Sheffield.—Love, the most natural desire after Food.—Savage Courtship.—Concubinage recommended.—Satirical Reflections on Parents and Children—Husbands and Wives—against collateral Consanguinity.—Freedom the only Morality, &c. &c. &c. Whether some great, supreme o’er-ruling Power Stretch’d forth its arm at Nature’s natal hour, Composed this mighty whole with plastic skill, [122]Wielding the jarring elements at will? Or whether, sprung from Chaos’ mingling storm, 5 The mass of matter started into form? Or Chance o’er earth’s green lap spontaneous fling The fruits of autumn and the flowers of spring? Whether material substance unrefined, Owns the strong impulse of instructive mind, 10 Which to one centre points diverging lines, Confounds, refracts, invig’rates, and combines? [123]Whether the joys of earth, the hopes of heaven, By man to God, or God to man, were given? [124]If virtue leads to bliss, or vice to woe? 15 Who rules above, or who reside below? [125]Vain questions all—shall man presume to know? On all these points, and points obscure as these, Think they who will,—and think whate’er they please! Let us a plainer, steadier theme pursue— 20 Mark the grim savage scoop his light canoe; Mark the dark rook, on pendent branches hung, With anxious fondness feed her cawing young.— Mark the fell leopard through the desert prowl, Fish prey on fish, and fowl regale on fowl;— 25 How Lybian tigers’ chawdrons [126] love assails, And warms, ’midst seas of ice, the melting whales;— [127]Cools the crimpt cod, fierce pangs to perch imparts, Shrinks shrivell’d shrimps, but opens oysters’ hearts;— [128]Then say, how all these things together tend 30 To one great truth, prime object, and good end? First—to each living thing, whate’er its kind, Some lot, some part, some station is assign’d. The feather’d race with pinions skim the air— [129]Not so the mackerel, and still less the bear; [130]35 This roams the wood, carniv’rous for his prey! [131] That with soft roe pursues his watery way: [132] This, slain by hunters, yields his shaggy hide;[133] That, caught by fishers, is on Sundays cried.— [134] But each contented with his humble sphere, 40 Moves unambitious through the circling year; Nor e’er forgets the fortune of his race, Nor pines to quit, or strives to change his place. Ah! who has seen the mailed lobster rise, Clap her broad wings, and soaring claim the skies? [135]45 When did the owl, descending from her bow’r, Crop, ’midst the fleecy flocks, the tender flow’r; Or the young heifer plunge, with pliant limb, In the salt wave, [136] and fish-like strive to swim? The same with plants [137]—potatoes ’tatoes breed— [138]50 Uncostly cabbage springs from cabbage seed; Lettuce to lettuce, leeks to leeks succeed; Nor e’er did cooling cucumbers presume To flow’r like myrtle, or like violets bloom. —Man, only,—rash, refined, presumptuous man, 55 Starts from his rank, and mars creation’s plan. Born the free heir of nature’s wide domain, To art’s strict limits bounds his narrow’d reign; Resigns his native rights for meaner things, For faith and fetters—laws, and priests, and kings. 60 We are sorry to be obliged to break off here. The remainder of this admirable and instructive Poem is in the press, and will be continued the first opportunity. [The following is the commencement of Knight’s poem:— Whether primordial motion sprang to life From the wild war of elemental strife; In central chains the mass inert confined, And sublimated matter into mind: Or, whether one great all-pervading soul Moves in each part and animates the whole; Unnumbered worlds to one great centre draws, And governs all by pre-established laws: Whether in fates’ eternal fetters bound, Mechanic nature goes her endless round: Or ever varying, acts but to fulfil The sovereign mandates of Almighty will;— Let learned folly seek, or foolish pride, Rash in presumptuous ignorance, decide.—Ed.] [Eminent as Richard Payne Knight was as a classical scholar and archÆologist, his poetical powers were not highly appreciated by his literary contemporaries, as is amusingly shown in a letter from Horace Walpole, dated 22nd March, 1796, to the Rev. W. Mason, in which he declares how much he is “offended and disgusted by Mr. Knight’s new, insolent, and self-conceited poem”. He winds up thus: “I send you a parody on two lines of Mr. Knight, which will show you that his poem is seen in its true light by a young man of allowed parts, Mr. Canning, whom I never saw. The originals are the two first lines at the top of page 5:”— “Some fainter irritations seem to feel, Which o’er its languid fibres gently steal”.—Knight. “Cools the crimp’d cod, to pond-perch pangs imparts, Thrills the shelled shrimps, and opens oysters’ hearts.”—Canning. It is evident from this that Canning had thought of parodying the poem immediately after its publication, and that Walpole had seen a specimen in manuscript, nearly two years before its publication in the Anti-Jacobin, in which the two lines (28, 29) are thus altered:— “Cools the crimpt cod, fierce pangs to perch imparts, Shrinks shrivell’d shrimps, but opens oysters’ hearts”. By an oversight, Peter Cunningham, in his edition of Walpole’s Letters, attributes the latter’s attack to a previous production of Knight’s, published in 1794, entitled The Landscape: a didactic Poem in three Books, a work which had excited Walpole’s high indignation by expressing opinions opposed to his own.—Ed.]
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