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His foul, proud Science never taught to stray
Far as the folar walk, or milky way;

Yet fimple Nature to his hope has giv❜n,

Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heav'n;

Some fafer world in depth of woods embrac'd, ros Some happier island in the watʼry waste,

Where flaves once more their native land behold,

No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
To Be, contents his natural defire,

He afks no Angel's wing, no Seraph's fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal fky,
His faithful dog fhall bear him company.

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115

IV. Go, wifer thou! and, in thy fcale of fenfe, Weigh thy Opinion against Providence ; Call imperfection what thou fancy'st such, Say, Here he gives too little, there too much : Destroy all creatures for thy fport or gust, Yet cry, If Man's unhappy, God's unjust; If Man alone ingrofs not Heav'n's high care, Alone made perfect here, immortal there:

120

Snatch

VARIATIONS.

After Ver. 108. in the firft Ed.

But does he say the Maker is not good,
Till he's exalted to what ftate he wou'd:
Himself alone high Heav'n's peculiar care,
Alone made happy when he will, and where?

NOTES.

VER. 120. Alone made perfect here,] The obvious meaning is, "Be content with the prefent life; it is your pride only that makes you think yourself ill-treated, and induces you to look for another and more perfect state."

C 4

Bolingbroke

Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,
Rejudge his justice, be the GoD of GOD.
In Pride, in reas'ning Pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.
Pride still is aiming at the bleft abodes,
Men would be Angels, Angels would be Gods.

NOTES.

125

Afpiring

Bolingbroke is for ever repeating the fame note, and saying, "It is profane even to infinuate, and much more to affirm peremptorily, that the proceedings of God towards man, in the prefent life, are unjuft; and, if that could be admitted, it would be abfurd to admit that this may be set right; which means, if the words have any meaning, that this injustice must cease to be injustice, on the received hypothefis of his proceedings towards man in another life. One is profane, notwithstanding all the questions they beg to fupport the charge: the other is abfurd, on the very principles on which they argue, and according to our clearest and most distinct ideas or notions of human juftice."

It is a fingular fact, and not sufficiently attended to, that neither the ancient philofophers nor poets, though they abound in complaints of the unequal diftribution of good and evil at prefent, yet do not even infer or draw any arguments, from this fuppofed inequality, for the neceffity of a future life, where such inequality will be rectified, and Providence vindicated.

VER. 126. Men would be Angels,] Verbatim from Bolingbroke, vol. v. p. 465.; as are many other paffages. How are we to interpret the affertion, that Pope did not really understand the principles of Bolingbroke, when the latter fays to him, “ These fubjects have been fo often treated of between you and me, that I fhall fay nothing of them here." The following paffage, relating to the caution and timidity of Pope, may give us a key to his conduct, vol. iv. p. 190. "Read," fays Bolingbroke to him, "the entire paffage; confult your memory; look round you, and then you shall tell me what you think of Clarke's argument. You fhall tell it in my ear: I expect no more; for I know how defirous you are to keep fair with orders, whatever liberties you take with particular men."

Afpiring to be Gods, if Angels fell,

Afpiring to be Angels, Men rebel:

And who but wishes to invert the laws

Of ORDER, fins against th' Eternal Cause.

130

V. Afk

NOTES.

VER. 127. If Angels fell,] It may mortify our pride to confider how little we know of the Fall of Angels; on which event depends the Fall of Man, effected by the agency of the chief of these Fallen Angels. Revelation is not exprefs on this important fubject. All is imperfect conjecture. We have only a few hints on the fubject: Such as that in Ifaíah, c. xiv. v. 12.; and in Ezekiel, c. xxviii. v. 14.; and in the Apocalypfe, concerning the feven-headed dragon. "I had rather know the history of Lucifer," fays Burnet, in his Theory, "than of all the Babylonian and Persian kings; nay, than of all the kings of the earth: what the birthright was of that mighty prince; what his dominions; where his imperial court and refidence; how he was depofed; for what crime, and by what power; how he still wages war against heaven in his exile; what confederates he hath; what is his power over mankind, and how limited."

Milton, in book v. copies from the Rabbinical writers, from the fathers, and fome of the schoolmen, the causes of the rebellion of Satan and his affociates; but feems more particularly to have in view an obscure Latin poem written by Odoricus Valmarana, and printed at Vienna in 1627, intitled, "Dæmonomachiæ, five de Bello Intelligentiarum fuper Divini Verbi Incarnatione ;" in which the revolt of Satan, or Lucifer, is exprefsly afcribed to his envy at the exaltation of the Son of God. See Newton's Milton, vol. i. p. 407. But the commentators on Milton have not observed that there is still another poem which he seems to have copied, "L'Angeleida di Erafmo di Valvasone," printed at Venice, in quarto, in 1590, defcribing the battle of the Angels against Lucifer, and which Gordon de Porcel, in his Library of Romances, tom. ii. p. 190. thought related to Angelica, the heroine of Boiardo and Ariofto. I beg leave to add, that Milton seems alfo to have attended to a poem of Taffo, not much noticed, on the Creation," Le Sette Giornate del Mondo Creato," in 1607.

V. Ask for what end the heav'nly bodies shine, Earth for whofe use? Pride answers, " "Tis for mine: "For me kind Nature wakes her genial pow'r, "Suckles each herb, and spreads out ev'ry flow'r; “Annual for me, the grape, the rose renew,

135

"The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew; "For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings; "For me, health gufhes from a thousand fprings; "Seas roll to waft me, funs to light me rife; "My foot-stool earth, my canopy the skies." But errs not Nature from this gracious end, From burning suns when livid deaths descend,

NOTES.

140

When

VER. 131. Ask for what end, &c.] If there be any fault in thefe lines, it is not in the general fentiment, but in the ill choice of inftances made ufe of in illuftrating it. It is the highest abfurdity to think that Earth is man's foot-flool, his canopy the Skies, and the heavenly bodies lighted up principally for his ufe; yet, furely, it is very excufable to fuppose fruits and minerals given for this end.

There is most affuredly a fault.

W.

VER. 141. But errs not Nature] The whole of this doctrine is thus clearly stated in fome valuable manufcripts of the late James Harris, Efq.

"Whence evil in the univerfe, and why? Some things, perhaps, which thou thinkest such, are not evil, but in appearance. Where the whole is vastly great, the connections will be innumerable. When, therefore, a part only is feen, many of these connections will be inexplicable. Being inexplicable, they will often exhibit appearances of evil, where yet in fact is no evil, but only good, not understood.

66

Again, throughout the whole there is more good than evil : For in the fyftem of the heavens we know of no evil at all. The

fame

When earthquakes fwallow, or when tempefts fweep Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep?

NOTES.

"No

fame perhaps is true in many other parts of the whole. And with respect even to men, 'tis their intereft to be good, if it be true that by Nature they are rational and focial. So that if, by vice of any kind, they chance to introduce evil, 'tis by deviating from Nature, and thwarting her original purpose. Indeed, all evil in general appears to be of the cafual kind; not fomething intended by the Maker of the world, (for all his preparations plainly tend towards good,) but something which follows, without being intended, and that perhaps neceffarily, from the nature and effence of things. Indeed, the nature and effence of every being is immutable; and, while it exists itself, all its attributes will exift likewife. To fay, therefore, a thing fhould be, without its infeparable and conftitutive attributes, is the fame as to say, it should be, and not be. A miller works in his mill, and becomes white: a collier works in his mine, and becomes black: yet were neither of these incidents intended by either; but, other and better ends being purposed to be answered, they were neceffarily attended by thefe collateral incidents. So it is in the univerfe. The good leads, the evil follows: the good is always defigned, the evil only admitted the good has exiftence, by being the final cause of all things; the evil has existence, because it cannot be avoided: the good appears to be fomething in character and form, which all beings fome way or other are framed to enjoy the evil, on the contrary, appears to be something which all beings fome way or other are framed to avoid; fome by talons, others by teeth; fome by wings, others by fins; and, laftly, man, by genius ripened into arts, which alone is fuperior to the fum of all other preparations.

:

"Again, fome evil, though evil, is yet productive of good, and therefore had better be, than not be, elfe there had not been

the good. For example, human nature is infirm; expofed to many and daily hardships; to pinching colds and scorching heats; to famines, droughts, diseases, wounds. Call this all of it evil, if you please. Yet what a variety of arts arise from this evil, and which, if this evil had not urged, had never existed? Where had been agriculture, architecture, medicine, weaving, with a thou

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