Part 3 (1/2)
[Footnote: _The age-worn fibres_, l. 3. Why the same kinds of food, which enlarge and invigorate the body from infancy to the meridian of life, and then nourish it for some years unimpaired, should at length gradually cease to do so, and the debility of age and death supervene, would be liable to surprise us if we were not in the daily habit of observing it; and is a circ.u.mstance which has not yet been well understood.
Before mankind introduced civil society, old age did not exist in the world, nor other lingering diseases; as all living creatures, as soon as they became too feeble to defend themselves, were slain and eaten by others, except the young broods, who were defended by their mother; and hence the animal world existed uniformly in its greatest strength and perfection; see Additional Note VII.]
”But REPRODUCTION with ethereal fires New Life rekindles, ere the first expires; Calls up renascent Youth, ere tottering age Quits the dull scene, and gives him to the stage; Bids on his cheek the rose of beauty blow, And binds the wreaths of pleasure round his brow; With finer links the vital chain extends, And the long line of Being never ends. 20
[Footnote: _But Reproduction_, l. 13. See Additional Note VIII.]
”Self-moving Engines by unbending springs May walk on earth, or flap their mimic wings; In tubes of gla.s.s mercurial columns rise, Or sink, obedient to the inc.u.mbent skies; Or, as they touch the figured scale, repeat The nice gradations of circ.u.mfluent heat.
But REPRODUCTION, when the perfect Elf Forms from fine glands another like itself, Gives the true character of life and sense, And parts the organic from the chemic Ens.-- 30 Where milder skies protect the nascent brood, And earth's warm bosom yields salubrious food; Each new Descendant with superior powers Of sense and motion speeds the transient hours; Braves every season, tenants every clime, And Nature rises on the wings of Time.
[Footnote: _Unbending springs_, l. 21. See Additional Note I.
4.]
”As LIFE discordant elements arrests, Rejects the noxious, and the pure digests; Combines with Heat the fluctuating ma.s.s, And gives a while solidity to gas; 40 Organic forms with chemic changes strive, Live but to die, and die but to revive!
Immortal matter braves the transient storm, Mounts from the wreck, unchanging but in form.--
[Footnote: _Combines with Heat_, l. 39. It was shown in note on line 248 of the first Canto, that much of the aerial and liquid parts of the terraqueous globe was converted by the powers of life into solid matter; and that this was effected by the combination of the fluid, heat, with other elementary bodies by the appetencies and propensities of the parts of living matter to unite with each other. But when these appetencies and propensities of the parts of organic matter to unite with each other cease, the chemical affinities of attraction and the apt.i.tude to be attracted, and of repulsion and the apt.i.tude to be repelled, succeed, and reduce much of the solid matters back to the condition of elements; which seems to be effected by the matter of heat being again set at liberty, which was combined with other matters by the powers of life; and thus by its diffusion the solid bodies return into liquid ones or into ga.s.ses, as occurs in the processes of fermentation, putrefaction, sublimation, and calcination.
Whence solidity appears to be produced in consequence of the diminution of heat, as the condensation of steam into water, and the consolidation of water into ice, or by the combination of heat with bodies, as with the materials of gunpowder before its explosion.]
[Footnote: _Immortal matter_, l. 43. The perpetual mutability of the forms of matter seems to have struck the philosophers of great antiquity; the system of transmigration taught by Pythagoras, in which the souls of men were supposed after death to animate the bodies of a variety of animals, appears to have arisen from this source. He had observed the perpetual changes of organic matter from one creature to another, and concluded, that the vivifying spirit must attend it.]
”So, as the sages of the East record In sacred symbol, or unletter'd word; Emblem of Life, to change eternal doom'd, The beauteous form of fair ADONIS bloom'd.-- On Syrian hills the graceful Hunter slain Dyed with his gus.h.i.+ng blood the shuddering plain; 50 And, slow-descending to the Elysian shade, A while with PROSERPINE reluctant stray'd; Soon from the yawning grave the bursting clay Restor'd the Beauty to delighted day; Array'd in youth's resuscitated charms, And young DIONE woo'd him to her arms.-- Pleased for a while the a.s.surgent youth above Relights the golden lamp of life and love; Ah, soon again to leave the cheerful light, And sink alternate to the realms of night. 60
[Footnote: _Emblem of Life_, l. 47. The Egyptian figure of Venus rising from the sea seems to have represented the Beauty of organic Nature; which the philosophers of that country, the magi, appear to have discovered to have been elevated by earthquakes from the primeval ocean. But the hieroglyphic figure of Adonis seems to have signified the spirit of animation or life, which was perpetually wooed or courted by organic matter, and which perished and revived alternately. Afterwards the fable of Adonis seems to have given origin to the first religion promising a resurrection from the dead; whence his funeral and return to life were celebrated for many ages in Egypt and Syria, the ceremonies of which Ezekiel complains as idolatrous, accusing the women of Israel of lamenting over Thammus; which St. Cyril interprets to be Adonis, in his Commentaries on Isaiah; Danet's Diction.]
II. ”HENCE ere Vitality, as time revolves, Leaves the cold organ, and the ma.s.s dissolves; The Reproductions of the living Ens From sires to sons, unknown to s.e.x, commence.
New buds and bulbs the living fibre shoots On lengthening branches, and protruding roots; Or on the father's side from bursting glands The adhering young its nascent form expands; In branching lines the parent-trunk adorns, And parts ere long like plumage, hairs, or horns. 70
”So the lone Truffle, lodged beneath the earth, Shoots from paternal roots the tuberous birth; No stamen-males ascend, and breathe above, No seed-born offspring lives by female love.
From each young tree, for future buds design'd Organic drops exsude beneath the rind; While these with appetencies nice invite, And those with apt propensities unite; New embryon fibrils round the trunk combine With quick embrace, and form the living line: 80 Whose plume and rootlet at their early birth Seek the dry air, or pierce the humid earth.
[Footnote: _So the lone Truffle_, l. 71. Lycoperdon tuber.
This plant never rises above the earth, is propagated without seed by its roots only, and seems to require no light.
Perhaps many other fungi are generated without seed by their roots only, and without light, and approach on the last account to animal nature.]
[Footnote: _While these with appetencies_, l. 77. See Additional Note VIII.]
”So safe in waves prolific Volvox dwells, And five descendants crowd his lucid cells; So the male Polypus parental swims, And branching infants bristle all his limbs; So the lone Taenia, as he grows, prolongs His flatten'd form with young adherent throngs; Unknown to s.e.x the pregnant oyster swells, And coral-insects build their radiate sh.e.l.ls; 90 Parturient Sires caress their infant train, And heaven-born STORGE weaves the social chain; Successive births her tender cares combine, And soft affections live along the line.
[Footnote: _Prolific Volvox_, l. 83. The volvox globator dwells in the lakes of Europe, is transparent, and bears within it children and grandchildren to the fifth generation; Syst. Nat.]
[Footnote: _The male polypus_, l. 85. The Hydra viridis and fusca of Linneus dwell in our ditches and rivers under aquatic plants; these animals have been shown by ingenious observers to revive after having been dried, to be restored when mutilated, to be multiplied by dividing them, and propagated from portions of them, parts of different ones to unite, to be turned inside outwards and yet live, and to be propagated by seeds, to produce bulbs, and vegetate by branches. Syst. Nat.]
[Footnote: _The lone Taenia_, l. 87. The tape-worm dwells in the intestines of animals, and grows old at one extremity, producing an infinite series of young ones at the other; the separate joints have been called Gourd-worms, each of which possesses a mouth of its own, and organs of digestion. Syst.
Nat.]
[Footnote: _The pregnant oyster_, l. 89. Ostrea edulis dwells in the European oceans, frequent at the tables of the luxurious, a living repast! New-born oysters swim swiftly by an undulating movement of fins thrust out a little way from their sh.e.l.ls. Syst. Nat. But they do not afterwards change their place during their whole lives, and are capable of no other movement but that of opening the sh.e.l.l a little way: whence Professor Beckman observes, that their offspring is probably produced without maternal organs; and that those, who speak of male and female oysters, must be mistaken: Phil.
Magaz. March 1800. It is also observed by H. I. le Beck, that on nice inspection of the Pearl oysters in the gulf of Manar, he could observe no distinction of s.e.xes. Nicholson's Journal. April 1800.]