V

This hopeful sect, now it begins to see How little, very little, do prevail Their first and chiefest force To censure, to cry down, and rail, Not knowing what, or where, or who you be, Will quickly take another course: And, by their never-failing ways Of solving all appearances they please, We soon shall see them to their ancient methods fall, And straight deny you to be men, or anything at all. I laugh at the grave answer they will make, Which they have always ready, general, and cheap: 'Tis but to say, that what we daily meet, And by a fond mistake Perhaps imagine to be wondrous wit, And think, alas! to be by mortals writ, Is but a crowd of atoms justling in a heap: Which, from eternal seeds begun, Justling some thousand years, till ripen'd by the sun: They're now, just now, as naturally born, As from the womb of earth a field of corn.