Edward Young: ‘Devotion! daughter of Astronomy!’

From a French edition of Night Thoughts

The soul of man was made to walk the skies.
Nor, as a stranger, does she wander there;
But, wonderful herself, through wonder strays;
Contemplating their grandeur, finds her own;
~ Edward Young, Night Thoughts 9

IT was a nice to discover that the quote, ‘An undevout astronomer is mad,’ credited to an unnamed “poet” by Thomas Dick in the last post, comes from Edward Young. Young’s most famous work is the epic poem, Night Thoughts (The Complaint: or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, & Immortality), published in several volumes from 1742 to 1745. Immensely popular for a century after its writing, it then strangely fell into obscurity. Night Thoughts is quite long, but Young’s mastery of iambic pentameter blank verse and talent for turning a memorable phrase make it reading enjoyable. The more intense and inspired sections crescendo into virtual hymns and litanies, where Young finds his Muse.

The quote appears in Night 9 — the final part — of Night Thoughts. Most of Night 9 (over 2000 lines) considers the spectacle of the night sky as a source of religious and moral inspiration. As some may not want to read it entirely, below are assembled the most inspiring lines. (I’ve taken the liberty of rearranging some sections.)

Two people are named here. Lorenzo is a worldly man the narrator addresses throughout Night Thoughts, whom he wishes to convert to religion and philosophy. Philander is a recently deceased, virtuous friend.

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ROUSE, rouse, Lorenzo, then, and follow me,
Where truth, the most momentous man can hear,
Loud calls my soul, and ardour wings her flight.
I find my inspiration in my theme:
The grandeur of my subject is my Muse.
At midnight, when mankind is wrapt in peace,
And worldly fancy feeds on golden dreams;

Night opes the noblest scenes, and sheds an awe,
Which gives those venerable scenes full weight,
And deep reception, in th’ intender’d heart;
While light peeps through the darkness, like a spy;
And darkness shows its grandeur by the light.
Nor is the profit greater than the joy,
If human hearts at glorious objects glow,
And admiration can inspire delight.
What speak I more, than I, this moment, feel?
With pleasing stupor first the soul is struck
(Stupor ordain’d to make her truly wise!):
Then into transport starting from her trance,

Stars teach, as well as shine. At Nature’s birth,
Thus their commission ran — “Be kind to Man.”
Where art thou, poor benighted traveller?
The stars will light thee, though the moon should fail.
Where art thou, more benighted! more astray!
In ways immoral? The stars call thee back;
And, if obey’d their counsel, set thee right.
This prospect vast, what is it? — Weigh’d aright,
’Tis Nature’s system of divinity,
And every student of the Night inspires.
’Tis elder Scripture, writ by God’s own hand:
Scripture authentic! uncorrupt by man.

The planets of each system represent
Kind neighbours; mutual amity prevails;
Sweet interchange of rays, received, return’d;
Enlightening, and enlighten’d! all, at once,
Attracting, and attracted! Patriot like,
None sins against the welfare of the whole;
But their reciprocal, unselfish aid,
Affords an emblem of millennial love.
Nothing in nature, much less conscious being,
Was e’er created solely for itself:
Thus man his sovereign duty learns in this
Material picture of benevolence.

I see His ministers; I see, diffused
In radiant orders, essences sublime,
Of various offices, of various plume,
In heavenly liveries, distinctly clad,
Azure, green, purple, pearl, or downy gold,
Or all commix’d; they stand, with wings outspread,
Listening to catch the Master’s least command,
And fly through nature, ere the moment ends;
Numbers innumerable! — well conceived
These, as a cloud of witnesses, hang o’er us;
In a throng’d theatre are all our deeds;
Perhaps, a thousand demigods descend
On every beam we see, to walk with men.
Awful reflection! Strong restraint from ill!
Yet, here, our virtue finds still stronger aid
From these ethereal glories sense surveys.
Something, like magic, strikes from this blue vault;
With just attention is it view’d? We feel
A sudden succour, unimplored, unthought;
Nature herself does half the work of Man.

With love, and admiration, how she glows!
This gorgeous apparatus! this display!
This ostentation of creative power!
This theatre! — what eye can take it in?
By what divine enchantment was it raised,
For minds of the first magnitude to launch
In endless speculation, and adore?
One sun by day, by night ten thousand shine;
And light us deep into the Deity;
How boundless in magnificence and might!
O what a confluence of ethereal fires,
Form urns unnumber’d, down the steep of heaven,
Streams to a point, and centres in my sight!
Nor tarries there; I feel it at my heart.
My heart, at once, it humbles, and exalts;
Lays it in dust, and calls it to the skies.

Who sees it unexalted? or unawed?
Who sees it, and can stop at what is seen?
Material offspring of Omnipotence!
Inanimate, all-animating birth!
Work worthy Him who made it! worthy praise!
All praise! praise more than human! nor denied
Thy praise divine! — But though man, drown’d in sleep,
Withholds his homage, not alone I wake;
Bright legions swarm unseen, and sing, unheard
By mortal ear, the glorious Architect,
In this His universal temple hung
With lustres, with innumerable lights,
That shed religion on the soul; at once,
The temple, and the preacher! O how loud

It calls devotion! genuine growth of Night!
Devotion! daughter of Astronomy!
An undevout astronomer is mad.
True; all things speak a God; but in the small,
Men trace out Him; in great, He seizes man;
Seizes, and elevates, and wraps, and fills
With new inquiries, ’mid associates new.
Tell me, ye stars! ye planets! tell me, all

Shall God be less miraculous, than what
His hand has form’d? Shall mysteries descend
From unmysterious? things more elevate,
Be more familiar? uncreated lie
More obvious than created, to the grasp
Of human thought? The more of wonderful
Is heard in Him, the more we should assent.

Could we conceive Him, God He could not be;
Or He not God, or we could not be men.
A God alone can comprehend a God;
Man’s distance how immense! On such a theme,
Know this, Lorenzo! (seem it ne’er so strange)
Nothing can satisfy, but what confounds;
Nothing, but what astonishes, is true.

The scene thou seest, attests the truth I sing,
And every star sheds light upon thy creed.
These stars, this furniture, this cost of heaven,
If but reported, thou hadst ne’er believed;
But thine eye tells thee, the romance is true.
The grand of nature is th’ Almighty’s oath,
In Reason’s court, to silence Unbelief.
How my mind, opening at this scene, imbibes
The moral emanations of the skies,
While nought, perhaps, Lorenzo less admires!
Has the Great Sovereign sent ten thousand worlds
To tells us, He resides above them all,
In glory’s unapproachable recess?
And dare earth’s bold inhabitants deny
The sumptuous, the magnific embassy
A moment’s audience? Turn we, nor will hear
From whom they come, or what they would impart
For man’s emolument; sole cause that stoops
Their grandeur to man’s eye? Lorenzo! rouse;
Let thought, awaken’d, take the lightning’s wing,
And glance from east to west, from pole to pole.

Who sees, but is confounded, or convinced?
Renounces reason, or a God adores?
Mankind was sent into the world to see:
Sight gives the science needful to their peace;
That obvious science asks small learning’s aid.
Would’st thou on metaphysic pinions soar?
Or wound thy patience amid logic thorns?
Or travel history’s enormous round?
Nature no such hard task enjoins: she gave
A make to man directive of his thought;
A make set upright, pointing to the stars,
As who shall say, “Read thy chief lesson there.”*

*A reference to Cicero’s notion that, unlike other animals, humans were created erect so they may raise their heads and see the heavens, from whence they learn religion.

The soul of man was made to walk the skies;
Delightful outlet of her prison here!
There, disencumber’d from her chains, the ties
Of toys terrestrial, she can rove at large;
There, freely can respire, dilate, extend,
In full proportion let loose all her powers;
And, undeluded, grasp at something great.
Nor, as a stranger, does she wander there;
But, wonderful herself, through wonder strays;
Contemplating their grandeur, finds her own;
Hence greatly pleased, and justly proud, the soul
Grows conscious of her birth celestial; breathes
More life, more vigour, in her native air;
And feels herself at home amongst the stars;
And, feeling, emulates her country’s praise.

Call it, the noble pasture of the mind;
Which there expatiates, strengthens, and exults,
And riots through the luxuries of thought.
Call it, the garden of the Deity,
Blossom’d with stars, redundant in the growth
Of fruit ambrosial; moral fruit to man.
Call it, the breastplate of the true High Priest,
Ardent with gems oracular, that give,
In points of highest moment, right response;

As yet thou know’st not what it is: how great,
How glorious, then, appears the mind of man,
When in it all the stars, and planets, roll!
And what it seems, it is: great objects make
Great minds, enlarging as their views enlarge;
Those still more godlike, as these more divine.
And more divine than these, thou canst not see.
Dazzled, o’erpower’d, with the delicious draught
Of miscellaneous splendours, how I reel
From thought to thought, inebriate, without end!
An Eden, this! a Paradise unlost!
I meet the Deity in every view,
And tremble at my nakedness before him!
O that I could but reach the tree of life!
For here it grows, unguarded from our taste;
No flaming sword denies our entrance here;
Would man but gather, he might live for ever.

Aid then, aid, all ye stars! — Much rather, Thou,
Great Artist! Thou, whose finger set aright
This exquisite machine, with all its wheels,
Though intervolved, exact; and pointing out
Life’s rapid, and irrevocable flight,
With such an index fair, as none can miss,
Who lifts an eye, nor sleeps till it is closed.
Open mine eye, dread Deity! to read
The tacit doctrine of thy works; to see
Things as they are, unalter’d through the glass

Stupendous Architect! Thou, Thou art all!
My soul flies up and down in thoughts of Thee,
And finds herself but at the centre still!
I AM, thy name! Existence, all thine own!

What more prepares us for the songs of heaven?
Creation, of archangels is the theme!
What, to be sung, so needful? What so well
Celestial joys prepare us to sustain?
The soul of man, His face design’d to see,
Who gave these wonders to be seen by man,
Has here a previous scene of objects great,
On which to dwell; to stretch to that expanse
Of thought, to rise to that exalted height
Of admiration, to contract that awe,
And give her whole capacities that strength,
Which best may qualify for final joy.
The more our spirits are enlarged on earth,
The deeper draught shall they receive of heaven.

The mind that would be happy, must be great;
Great, in its wishes; great, in its surveys.
Extended views a narrow mind extend;
Push out its corrugate, expansive make,
Which, ere long, more than planets shall embrace.
A man of compass makes a man of worth;
Divine contemplate, and become divine.
As man was made for glory, and for bliss,
All littleness is in approach to woe;
Open thy bosom, set thy wishes wide,

Man’s mind is in a pit, and nothing sees;
Emerge from thy profound; erect thine eye;
See thy distress! how close art thou besieged!
If, then, on the reverse, the mind would mount
In magnitude, what mind can mount too far,
To keep the balance, and creation poise?
Defect alone can err on such a theme;
What is too great, if we the cause survey?
Of matter’s grandeur, know, one end is this,
To tell the rational, who gazes on it —
“Though that immensely great, still greater He,

The triumph of my soul is, — that I am;
And therefore that I may be — what? Lorenzo!
Look inward, and look deep; and deeper still;
Unfathomably deep our treasure runs
In golden veins, through all eternity!
Ages, and ages, and succeeding still
New ages, where the phantom of an hour,
Which courts each night, dull slumber, for repair,
Shall wake, and wonder, and exult, and praise,
And fly through infinite, and all unlock;
And (if deserved) by Heaven’s redundant love,
Made half adorable itself, adore;
And find, in adoration, endless joy!
Where thou, not master of a moment here,
Frail as the flower, and fleeting as the gale,
May’st boast a whole eternity, enrich’d
With all a kind Omnipotence can pour.

Thus, darkness aiding intellectual light,
And sacred silence whispering truths divine,
And truths divine converting pain to peace,
My song the midnight raven has outwing’d,
And shot, ambitious of unbounded scenes,
Beyond the flaming limits of the world,
Her gloomy flight. But what avails the flight
Of fancy, when our hearts remain below?
Virtue abounds in flatterers, and foes;
’Tis pride, to praise her; penance, to perform.
To more than words, to more than worth of tongue,
Lorenzo! rise, at this auspicious hour;
An hour, when Heaven’s most intimate with man;
When, like a fallen star, the ray divine
Glides swift into the bosom of the just;
And just are all, determined to reclaim;
Which sets that title high within thy reach.
Awake, then; thy Philander calls: awake!

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Bibliography

Young, Edward. Night Thoughts. Ed. George Gilfillan. London, 1853.

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Timeline of Cambridge Platonists and Metaphysical Poets

Click image to enlarge

SOME time ago I used an online service to make this timeline of Cambridge Platonists and Metaphysical Poets, thinking it might help others.  I naively assumed that by posting it on my Christian Platonist webpage, it would be routinely noticed by Google’s web crawlers, which would index it and cause it to appear in relevant Google image searches.I was wrong.  As sophisticated as the Google search engine is, it somehow couldn’t figure out (1) that this exactly what it claims, and (2) it would be of interest to anyone who searched for a timeline of, say, Cambridge Platonists or Metaphysical Poets.

Rather than pry into this enigma, it seems simpler to simply re-post the chart here, on a different web page and hope for better results!

John Davies: Adversity Makes Us Look Within

JOHN DAVIES (1569 –1626) was an English poet and government official.  His poem Nosce Teipsum (Know Thyself) — an outstanding example of Elizabethan verse — enjoyed great popularity both during and after his lifetime and deserves more attention today than it receives.  The core of the work consists of a series of arguments for the soul’s immortality largely adapted from those of Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations 1.  Here Davies begins by commenting on how adversity has the compensation of forcing us to direct our attention within. The circumstances surrounding the composition of Nosce Teipsum not without interest. Davies wrote it during a period of seclusion and remorse after being disbarred for cudgeling a former friend in response to a public insult from the latter.

Adversity

And as the man loues least at home to bee,
That hath a sluttish house haunted with sprites;
So she impatient her owne faults to see,
Turnes from her selfe and in strange things delites.

For this few know themselves: for merchants broke
View their estate with discontent and paine;
And seas are troubled, when they doe revoke
Their flowing waves into themselves againe.

And while the face of outward things we find,
Pleasing and faire, agreeable and sweet;
These things transport, and carry out the mind,
That with her selfe her selfe can never meet.

Yet if Affliction once her warres begin,
And threat the feebler Sense with sword and fire;
The Minde contracts her selfe and shrinketh in,
And to her selfe she gladly doth retire:

As Spiders toucht, seek their webs inmost part;
As bees in stormes unto their hives returne;
As bloud in danger gathers to the heart;
As men seek towns, when foes the country burn.

If ought can teach us ought, Affliction’s lookes,
(Making us looke into our selves so neere,)
Teach us to know our selves beyond all bookes,
Or all the learned Schooles that ever were.

This mistresse lately pluckt me by the eare,
And many a golden lesson hath me taught;
Hath made my Senses quicke, and Reason cleare,
Reform’d my Will and rectifide my Thought.

So doe the winds and thunders cleanse the ayre;
So working lees settle and purge the wine;
So lop’t and pruned trees doe flourish faire;
So doth the fire the drossie gold refine.

Neither Minerva nor the learned Muse,
Nor rules of Art, nor precepts of the wise;
Could in my braine those beames of skill infuse,
As but the glance of this Dame’s angry eyes.

She within lists my ranging minde hath brought,
That now beyond my selfe I list not goe;
My selfe am center of my circling thought,
Onely my selfe I studie, learne, and know.

I know my bodie’s of so fraile a kind,
As force without, feavers within can kill;
I know the heavenly nature of my minde,
But ’tis corrupted both in wit and will:

I know my Soule hath power to know all things,
Yet is she blinde and ignorant in all;
I know I am one of Nature’s little kings,
Yet to the least and vilest things am thrall.

I know my life’s a paine and but a span,
I know my Sense is mockt with every thing:
And to conclude, I know my selfe a MAN,
Which is a proud, and yet a wretched thing.

Bibliography

Davies, John.  Nosce Teipsum (extract). In: Alexander B. Grosart, (ed.), The Complete Poems of Sir John Davies, 2 vols, Vol. 2, Chatto and Windus, 1876; 22−24.
https://archive.org/details/completepoemsofs01daviuoft

Henry More

CAMBRIDGE Platonist Henry More (1614 – 1687) studied Plato and Plotinus, Hermeticism and Christian Cabalism. A prolific writer, he produced, among other things, a marvelous set of poems collectively titled A Platonick Song of the Soul.  The set includes four poems, all written in the poetic style of Spenserian stanzas (named after Edmund Spenser, whose most notable work was the Neoplatonic allegory, The Fairie Queen): Psychozoia, Psychathanasis, Antipsychopannychia and Antimonopsychia. The word “Soul” in the title refers both to the individual human soul and the Platonic world soul. Strongly influenced by Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, they explore many themes of Platonism and Neoplatonism, including metaphysics and ethics.

More is known for having attained certain elevated states of consciousness. He explained in an autobiographical passage how in early life he had an insatiable desire for secular learning, but eventually this left him empty.

But after taking my Degree, to pass over and omit abundance of things (…) [i]t fell out truly very happily for me, that I suffer’d so great a disappointment in my studies. For it made me seriously at last begin to think with my self; whether the knowledge of things was really that supreme felicity of man; or something greater and more divine was: or, supposing it to be so, whether it was to be acquir’d by such an eagerness and intentness in the reading of authors, and contemplating of things; or by the [purging] of the mind from all sorts of vices whatsoever.

Also unhappy with the strict Calvinist doctrines of his childhood, he characterized his general state of mind in a short poem titled, Aporia (i.e., puzzlement or impasse):

Nor whence, nor who I am, poor Wretch! know I:
Nor yet, O Madness! Whither I must goe:
But in Grief’s crooked Claws fast held I lie;
And live, I think, by force tugg’d to and fro.
Asleep or wake all one. O Father Jove,
’Tis brave, we Mortals live in Clouds like thee.
Lies, Night-dreams, empty Toys, Fear, fatal Love,
This is my Life: I nothing else do see.

He further explained how he then investigated various religious writings that discuss the moral and intellectual purification that are a prerequisite for an authentic spiritual life:

Especially having begun to read now the Platonick Writers, Marsilius Ficinus, Plotinus himself, Mercurius Trismegistus; and the Mystical Divines; among whom there was frequent mention made of the Purification of the Soul, and of the Purgative Course that is previous to the Illuminative; as if the Person that expected to have his Mind illuminated of God, was to endeavour after the Highest Purity. ”

But amongst all the Writings of this kind there was none, to speak the Truth, so pierced and affected me. as that Golden little Book, with which Luther is also said to have been wonderfully taken. viz. Theologia Germanica [note: a 14th work on Christian mysticism influenced by Meister Eckhart and Pseudo-Dionysius].

After his conversion and purification,  which lasted several years, he enjoyed certain exalted states of consciousness, described by himself and his biographers.

More knew and had scholarly debates with alchemists like Thomas Vaughan (the twin brother of metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan), and evidently considered the real purpose of alchemy to be to effect a religious transformation of consciousness.

And that insatiable desire and thirst of mine after the knowledge of things was wholly almost extinguish’d in me, as being sollicitous now, about nothing so much as a more full union with this Divine and Coelestial Principle: the inward flowing Well-spring of Life eternal. With the most fervent prayers breathing often unto God, that he would be pleas’d throughly to set me free from the dark chains, and this so sordid captivity of my own will.

But here openly to declare the thing as it was; when this inordinate desire after the knowledge of things was thus allay’d in me, and I aspir’d after nothing but this sole purity and simplicity of mind, there shone in upon me daily a greater assurance than ever I could have expected, even of those things which before I had the greatest desire to know. Insomuch that within a few years, I was got into a most joyous and lucid state of mind, and such plainly as is ineffable; though, according to my custom, I have endeavoured to express it, to my power, in another stanza of eight verses.

The poem More refers to here is called Euporia (fullness):

I come from Heav’n; am an immortal ray
Of  God; O joy! and back to God shall goe.
And here sweet Love on’s wings me up doth stay.
I live, I’m sure; and joy this Life to know.
Night and vain dreams be gone: Father of Lights,
We live, as Thou, clad with Eternal Day.
Faith, Wisdom, Love, fix’d Joy, free winged
Might,This is true Life: All else death and decay.

His, biographer, Richard Ward, supplies some examples of More’s religious experiences:

When yet early in the morning he was wont to awake usually into an immediate unexpressible life and vigour; with all his thoughts and notions raying (as I may so speak) about him, as beams surrounding the centre from whence they all proceed.

He was once for ten days together, no where (as he term’d it) or in one continued fit of contemplation: during which, though he eat, drank, slept, went into the hall, and convers’d, in a measure, as at other times; yet the [thread] of it for all that space was never once, as it were, broken or interrupted; nor did he animadvert (in a sort) on the things which he did.

And he hath been heard likewise unaffectedly to profess; that his thoughts would often-times be as clear as he could almost desire: and that he could take them off, or fix them upon a subject in a manner as he pleas’d. So that he himself seems plainly to have got that Chimical Art spoken of in his Ethics [Enchiridion ethicum, 1667] of making the volatile fixum, et fixum volatile, the volatile fix’d and the fix’d volatile; upon which some promise themselves, it seems, such wonderful matters: that is, he had reduc’d his spirits (as he there goes on) to a sufficient tenuity and volatility; and could yet at the same time, fix them steadily, at his pleasure, upon any object he had a mind to contemplate. Which things are notwithstanding (I conceive) to be understood with their reasonable qualifications. It was pleasant, he said, to go quick in a man’s thoughts from notion to notion, without any images of words in the mind. And elsewhere [Preface, An Explanation of the Grand Mystery of Godliness, 1660] he speaks more particularly of the exceeding great pleasure of speculation, and that easy springing up of coherent thoughts and conceptions within: And how that the lazy [i.e., relaxed] activity (as he there calls it) of his mind, in compounding and dissevering of notions and ideas in the silent observation of their natural connexions and disagreements, was as a holy day, and sabbath of rest to his soul. His very dreams were often regular, and he could study in them. And the constitution of his spirits was moreover such, if I may be allow’d to mention it, that he could on design sometimes, by thinking upon distant external objects, bring them as to his view; and thus continue, or disolve them for a time, at pleasure.” Source: Richard Ward, Life of Dr. Henry More, 1710, pp. 41−43.

More’s own experiences are important in understanding his own understanding of godliness, or as patristic writings call it, theosis (divinization).

References

Crocker, Robert. Mysticism and enthusiasm in Henry More. In S. Hutton (ed.), Henry More (1614-1687) Tercentenary Studies, 137-55. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990.

Grosart, Alexander Balloch (ed.). The Complete Poems of Henry More. Edinburgh University Press, 1878.

Henry, John, Henry More, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), < https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/henry-more/ >.

Hutton, Sarah (ed.); Crocker, Robert. Henry More (1614–1687): Tercentenary Studies. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990.

Jacob, Alexander. Henry More: A Platonick Song of the Soul. Bucknell University Press, 1998.

Leech, David. Henry More: Bibliography. Cambridge Platonist Research Group. 2017. < https://cprg.hypotheses.org/bibliography/henry-more >

Ward, Richard. The life of the learned and pious Dr. Henry More. London: Jos. Downing, 1710; modern edition (eds. S. Hutton, C. Courtney, M. Courtney R. Crocker, R. Hall) Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2000; ebook: Springer, 2013.

Art: Henry More (detail), by William Faithorne; etching and line engraving, 1675. National Portrait Gallery NPG D22865.

Edward Young’s Night Thoughts – A New Edition for Modern Readers

IGHT THOUGHTS by Edward Young (1683—1765) might easily be the greatest English literary work of the last 300 years.  A masterpiece judged by any standard, it rivals the works of Shakespeare and Milton and exceeds those of Young’s better-known contemporary, Pope. It is testimony to the infidelity of the modern age the neglect into which this great work has fallen.

Its topics?  Ones of greatest moment and timeless concern: Life, Death, Eternity, heaven-sent Philosophy, and the true meaning of the Delphic maxim, Know Thyself.

Young published Night Thoughts in nine installments or Nights.  The present new edition, with an introduction and notes for modern readers, supplies the first four Nights — originally conceived by Young as a complete work, and which supply the work’s main lines of thought. For a limited time an advance copy of the new edition is available for free here.

The topic, the motives, and the poetic skill of Young are magnificent.  The work is inspired, and one of the great jewels of English literature, not to be missed.