lousy
307. Cocks, Quails, Stags, Boars 313. Knights of Romance 327. Helen
and Paris 333. Connubial love 341. Married Birds, nests of the Linnet
and Nightingale 343. Lions, Tigers, Bulls, Horses 357. Triumphal car
of Cupid 361. Fish, Birds, Insects 371. Vegetables 389. March of Hymen
411. His lamp 419. VII. Urania's advice to her Nymphs 425. Dines with
the Muse on forbidden Fruit 435. Angels visit Abraham 447-458.

CANTO II.

REPRODUCTION OF LIFE.

I. "How short the span of LIFE! some hours possess'd,
Warm but to cool, and active but to rest!--
The age-worn fibres goaded to contract,
By repetition palsied, cease to act;
When Time's cold hands the languid senses seize,
Chill the dull nerves, the lingering currents freeze;
Organic matter, unreclaim'd by Life,
Reverts to elements by chemic strife.
Thus Heat evolv'd from some fermenting mass
Expands the kindling atoms into gas; 10
Which sink ere long in cold concentric rings,
Condensed, on Gravity's descending wings.

[Footnote: _How short the span of Life_, l. 1. The thinking
few in all ages have complained of the brevity of life,
lamenting that mankind are not allowed time sufficient to
cultivate science, or to improve their intellect. Hippocrates
introduces his celebrated aphorisms with this idea; "Life is
short, science long, opportunities of knowledge rare,
experiments fallacious, and reasoning difficult."--A
melancholy reflection to philosophers!]

[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 circumstance 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 stren