And fruitless, late remorse doth trace- Disjointed numbers, sense unknit, My scalded eyes no longer brook A FAREWELL TO TOBACCO. MAY the Babylonish curse Straight confound my stammering verse, Or a language to my mind (Still the phrase is wide or scant), To take leave of thee, GREAT PLANT! Or in any terms relate Half my love, or half my hate: For I hate yet love thee so, That, whichever thing I show, The plain truth will seem to be And the passions to proceed More from a mistress than a weed. Sooty retainer to the vine, More and greater oaths do break Than reclaimèd lovers take 'Gainst women: thou thy siege dost lay Much too in the female way, While thou suck'st the lab'ring breath Faster than kisses or than death. Thou in such a cloud dost bind us, That our worst foes cannot find us, While each man, through thy height'ning steam, (Fancy and wit in richest dress) Thou through such a mist doth show us, Bacchus we know, and we allow As the false Egyptian spell Brother of Bacchus, later born, Or judge of thee meant: only thou Scent to match thy rich perfume Nature, that did in thee excel, For the smaller sort of boys, Or for greener damsels meant; Stinking'st of the stinking kind, Filth of the mouth and fog of the mind, Breeds no such prodigious poison, Nay, rather, Plant divine, of rarest virtue; Blisters on the tongue would hurt you. At a need, when, in despair To paint forth their fairest fair, Which their fancies doth so strike, Witch, Hyena, Mermaid, Devil, But no other way they know Borders so upon excess, Or as men, constrained to part Lose discrimination quite, Though it be, as they, perforce, For I must (nor let it grieve thee, Friendliest of plants, that I must) leave thee. For thy sake, TOBACCO, I Would do anything but die, And but seek to extend my days HUGUES FÉLICITÉ ROBERT DE LAMENNAIS. HUGUES FÉLICITÉ ROBERT DE LAMENNAIS, a French ecclesiastic, polemical, and political writer, born at St. Malo, June 19, 1782; died at Paris, Feb. 27, 1854. He was ordained priest in 1817. The same year appeared the first volume of his "Essay upon Indifference in the Matter of Religion" (4 vols. 1807-1820), a work of profound learning and of strict orthodoxy. He developed his views further in "Religion Considered in its Relation to the Civil and Political Order" (1825), and "Progress of the Revolution and of the War against the Church" (1829). By degrees he became the critic of Church policy, and his journal L'Avenir (The Future) was condemned by the Pope. Lamennais bowed to Rome's decree; but after a year was published his "Words of a Believer" (1834), in which he repudiates all authority of popes and bishops. The little volume is written in archaic style, imitating the language of the Hebrew sacred books; it had an enormous circulation among the masses of the people in every country of Europe. It was followed by "The Book of the People" (1837), and "The Past and Future of the People" (1842), in the same tone. He wrote also: "Sketch of a Philosophy" (3 vols., 1841); "Religion "; and translated the Gospels, accompanying the text with notes. OF THE NATURE, EFFECT AND IMPORT OF RELIGION (From "Essay on Indifference in Religion.") GOD is indeed the sovereign of mankind: therefore atheism which, by rejecting God, separates man from infinite truth and from all truth, is but the absolute lack of all good, or the sovereign ill. Deism, which admits God without knowing him, for it rejects Jesus Christ, the Mediator, by whom alone we may know God; deism, which misconstruing the necessary bonds uniting man to God and to other men, establishes arbitrary bonds or fails to establish any; deism, which offers the mind mere probabilities without certainty; deism, pure opinion, leaves man |