our Creator, very weak and ignorant; that we do not uphold the chain of existence; and that we could not make one another with more skill than we are made. We may learn yet more; that the arts of human life were copied from the inftinctive operations of other animals; that if the world be made for man, it may be faid that man was made for geese." This fort of burlesque abftract, which may be fo eafily but so unjustly made of any compofition whatever, is exactly fimilar to the imperfect and unfair representation which the fame critic has given of the beautiful imagery in Il Penferofo of Milton. Very different was the opinion of the ingenious and acute Dr. Balguy on the Effay on Man; who, in various paffages of his excellent treatise, intitled, "Divine Benevolence," has manifeftly copied many of its doctrines and reasonings; who has written two fermons on the vanity of our pursuits after knowledge, which contain, as hath been already observed, little more than is comprehended in ten lines of this Effay; and who has even done Pope the honour of prefixing to his admirable fermons, as a motto, the following fentence from the preface to this Effay: "If I could flatter myself that these Essays have any merit, it is in fteering between the extremes of doctrines feemingly oppofite; in paffing over terms utterly unintelligible; and in forming a temperate, yet not inconfiftent fyftem." THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER. DEO OPT. MAX. FATHER of All! in ev'ry Age, By Saint, by Savage, and by Sage, NOTES. Thou VER. 1. FATHER of All!] For closeness and comprehenfion of thought, and for brevity and energy of expreffion, few pieces of poetry in our language can be compared with this Prayer. I am furprised Johnson fhould not make any mention of it. When it was first published, many orthodox perfons were, I remember, offended at it, and called it, The Deift's Prayer. It were to be wished the Deifts would make use of so good an one. VER. 4. Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!] " It is of very little confequence," fays Seneca, De Beneficiis, "by what name you call the first Nature, and the divine Reason, that prefides over the universe, and fills all the parts of it. He is ftill the fame God. You may give Him as many names as you please, provided you allow but one Sole Principle every where prefent." "Notwithstanding all the extravagancies and miscarriages of the Poets," fays Cudworth, chap. 4. "we fhall now make it plainly appear, that they really afferted, not a multitude of felfexiftent and independent Deities, but one, only, unmade Deity; and all the other, generated or created gods. This hath been already M 4 |