Still Less Have I Seen Such Strong And Wilderness
Tints On Any Poet's String.
These modern ingenious sciences and arts do not affect me as
those more venerable arts of hunting and fishing,
And even of
husbandry in its primitive and simple form; as ancient and
honorable trades as the sun and moon and winds pursue, coeval
with the faculties of man, and invented when these were invented.
We do not know their John Gutenberg, or Richard Arkwright, though
the poets would fain make them to have been gradually learned and
taught. According to Gower, -
"And Iadahel, as saith the boke,
Firste made nette, and fishes toke.
Of huntyng eke he fond the chace,
Whiche nowe is knowe in many place;
A tent of clothe, with corde and stake,
He sette up first, and did it make."
Also, Lydgate says: -
"Jason first sayled, in story it is tolde,
Toward Colchos, to wynne the flees of golde,
Ceres the Goddess fond first the tilthe of londe;
* * * * *
Also, Aristeus fonde first the usage
Of mylke, and cruddis, and of honey swote;
Peryodes, for grete avauntage,
From flyntes smote fuyre, daryng in the roote."
We read that Aristeus "obtained of Jupiter and Neptune, that the
pestilential heat of the dog-days, wherein was great mortality,
should be mitigated with wind." This is one of those dateless
benefits conferred on man, which have no record in our vulgar
day, though we still find some similitude to them in our dreams,
in which we have a more liberal and juster apprehension of
things, unconstrained by habit, which is then in some measure put
off, and divested of memory, which we call history.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 55 of 422
Words from 15138 to 15414
of 116321
