SUPPLEMENTAL HISTORY OF MAN. 203 



In tempests ; quits his grasp upon the winds, 



And gives them all their fury ; bids a plague 



Kindle a fiery bile upon the skin, 



And putrefy the breath of blooming health. 



He calls for famine ; and the meagre fiend 



Blows mildew from between his shrivell'd lips 



And taints the golden ear : he springs his mines, 



And desolates a nation at a blast. 



Forth steps the spruce philosopher, and tells 



Of homogeneal and discordant springs 



And principles ; of causes, how they work, 



By necessary laws their Sure effects, 



Of action and re-action. He has found 



The source of the disease that nature feels, 



And bids the world take heart and banish fear. 



Thou fool ! will thy discovery of the cause 



Suspend th' effect, or heal it ? Has not God 



Still wrought by means since first he made the world ? 



And did he not of old employ his means 



To drown it ? What is his creation less 



Than a capacious reservoir of means 



Form'd for his use, and ready at his will ! 



Go dress thine eyes with eye-salve ; ask of him, 



Or ask of whomsoever he has taught, 



And learn, though late, the genuine Cause of all. 



