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But ALL fubfifts by elemental ftrife;

And paffions are the elements of Life.

170

The gen❜ral ORDER, fince the whole began,

Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man.

VI. What would this Man? Now upward will he

foar,

And little less than Angels, would be more;
Now looking downwards, just as griev'd appears 175
To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears.

NOTES.

Made

VER. 169. But All fubfifts, &c.] See this fubject extended in Epiftle ii. from Ver. 90 to 112, 155, &c.

VER. 171. The general Order,] It feems utterly impoffible to explain these two remarkable lines in a way at all reconcileable to the doctrine of a lapfed condition of man, which opinion is the chief foundation of the Chriftian revelation, and the capital argument for the neceffity of redemption.

"That fyftem of philofophy," fays an able writer, "which profeffes to justify the ways of God to man, without having recourse to the doctrine of a future state, must ever be confidered as in the highest degree inimical to religion, whose very nature and effence it is to direct our views beyond the narrow limits of the present state of existence.” See Effays Philofophical, Historical, and Literary, p. 399. for fome very acute obfervations on the Effay on Man.

Pope in these lines uses almost the very words of Bolingbroke : "To think worthily of God, we must think that the natural order of things has always been the fame; and that a being of infinite wisdom and knowledge, to whom the past and the future are like the present, and who wants no experience to inform him, can have no reason to alter what infinite wisdom and knowledge have once done." Section 58. Effays to Pope.

VER. 174. And little less than Angels, &c.] Thou haft made him a little lower than the Angels, and haft crowned him with glory and honour. Pfalm viii.

VOL. III.

9.

D

Made for his use all creatures if he call,

Say, what their use, had he the pow'rs of all;
Nature to thefe, without profufion, kind,
The proper organs, proper pow'rs affign'd;
Each feeming want compenfated of course,
Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force;
All in exact proportion to the state;
Nothing to add, and nothing to abate,

Each beast, each infect, happy in its own :

Is Heav'n unkind to Man, and Man alone?
Shall he alone, whom rational we call,

180

185

Be pleas'd with nothing, if not blefs'd with all? The blifs of Man (could Pride that bleffing find)

Is not to act or think beyond mankind;

190

No pow'rs of body or of foul to fhare,

But what his nature and his ftate can bear.

Why has not Man a microscopic eye?

For this plain reason, Man is not a Fly.

Say

NOTES.

VER. 182. Here with degrees of fwiftness, &c.] It is a certain axiom in the anatomy of creatures, that in proportion as they are formed for ftrength, their swiftness is leffened; or as they are formed for fwiftnefs, their ftrength is abated.

P.

VER. 183. All in exact proportion] I cannot forbear thinking, that a little French treatife on Providence, published at Paris, 1728, formed on the principles of Leibnitz, fomewhat moderated, had fallen into the hands both of Bolingbroke and Pope, from the great fimilarity of the reasoning there employed.

VER. 186. Is Heav'n unkind to Man,] Cudworth, Leibnitz, King, Shaftesbury, Hutchefon, Balguy, have all strenuously argued for the prepollency of good to evil in our present system ; but none more forcibly than Balguy from p. 103 to p. 125 of his Di vine Benevolence.

Say what the ufe, were finer optics giv❜n,

T' inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n?
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,

To smart and agonize at ev'ry pore?

Or quick effluvia darting through the brain,
Die of a rofe in aromatic pain?

If Nature thunder'd in his op'ning ears,

And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres,
How would he wish that Heav'n had left him still
The whifp'ring Zephyr, and the purling rill?
Who finds not Providence all good and wife,
Alike in what it gives, and what denies?

VII. Far as Creation's ample range extends,
The scale of fenfual, mental pow'rs afcends:

NOTES.

195

200

205

Mark

VER. 202. And flunn'd him] The argument certainly required an instance drawn from real found, and not from the imaginary mufic of the spheres. Locke's illustration of this doctrine is not only proper but poetical: "If our sense of hearing were but one thousand times quicker than it is, how would a perpetual noife diftract us; and we fhould, in the quieteft retirement, be lefs able to fleep or meditate, than in the middle of a fea-fight." In line before 193, the expreffion of microfcopic eye is from Locke.

VER. 207. Far as Creation's ample range extends,] He tells us (from Ver. 206 to 233.) that the complying with fuch extravagant defires would not only be useless and pernicious to Man, but would be breaking into the order, and deforming the beauty of God's Creation, in which this animal is fubject to that, and every one to Man; who by his Reason enjoys the sum of all their powers.

W.

In the prefent improved state of Reason, poets of philosophy will be preferred to poets of fancy. It may be doubted whether our author has excelled Dryden in the art of reasoning in rhyme, whose

D 2

Mark how it mounts, to Man's imperial race,

From the green myriads in the peopled grafs :

NOTES.

210

What

whofe Religio Laici, and Hind and Panther, are in this refpect admirable; though the fable of the latter abounds in abfurdities and inconfiftencies.

VER. 209. Mark how it mounts,] When it is faid that Pope was guilty of fome contradictions and fome inconfistencies in his reasonings on the best, let us also remember that so also was his guide and philofophical friend, who, it is to be wished, had always expressed himself as in the following terms, p. 121. v. 5.

"Methinks I hear a fincere and devout theift, in the midst of fuch meditations as thefe, cry out, "No; the world was not made for man, nor man only to be happy. The objections urged by atheists and divines against the wisdom and goodness of the Supreme Being, on these arbitrary fuppofitions, destroy their own foundations. Mankind is expofed, as well as other animals, to many inconveniencies and to various evils, by the conftitution of the world. The world was not, therefore, made for him, nor he to be happy. But he enjoys numberlefs benefits, by the fitness of his nature to this conftitution, unasked, unmerited, freely beftowed. He returns, like other animals, to the duft; yet neither he nor they are willing to leave the state wherein they are placed here. The wisdom and the goodness of God are therefore manifeft. I thank thee, O my Creator! that I am placed in a rank, low in the whole order of being, but the first in that animal system to which I belong: a rank wherein I am made capable of knowing thee, and of difcovering thy will, the perfection of my own nature, and the means of my own happiness. Far be it from me to repine at my prefent ftate, like those who deny thee; or like those who own thee, only to cenfure thy works and the difpenfations of thy providence. May I enjoy thankfully the benefits beflowed on me by thy divine liberality! May I suffer the evils, to which I ftand expofed, patiently, nay willingly! None of thy creatures are made to be perfectly happy like thyself; nor did thy goodness require that they fhould be fo. Such of them as are more worthy objects of it than thy human creatures, fuperior natures that inhabit other worlds, may be affected in fome degree or other by phyfical evils, fince thefe are effects of the general laws of

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What modes of fight betwixt each wide extreme,
The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam :
Of smell, the headlong lioness between,

And hound fagacious to the tainted green:

NOTES.

Of

matter and motion. They must be affected too, in fome degree or other, by moral evil, fince moral evil is the confequence of error, as well as of diforderly appetites and paffions, and fince error is the confequence of imperfect understanding. Lefs of this evil may prevail among them. But all that is finite, the most exalted intelligences, must be liable to fome errors. Thou, O God! that Being who is liable to none, and to whom infallibility and impeccability belong,

"Duc me, parens celfique dominator poli,

"Quocumque placuit. Nulla parendi mora eft,
"Affum impiger *.”

VER. 210. From the green myriads] These lines are admirable patterns of forcible diction. The peculiar and discriminating expreffiveness of the epithets ought to be particularly regarded. Perhaps we have no image in the language more lively than that of the last verse: "To live along the line," is equally bold and beautiful. In this part of the epiftle the poet seems to have remarkably laboured his style, which abounds in various figures, and is much elevated. Pope has practised the great secret of Virgil's art, which was to difcover the very fingle epithet that precisely fuited each occafion. If Pope muft yield to other poets in point of fertility of fancy, or harmony of numbers, yet in point of propriety, clofenefs, and elegance of diction, he can yield to none. Very inferior is the tranflation of Abbé du Refnel, of all this fine paffage, to the original, though it is evident he took pains about it. See his four lines on the spider:

Contemplez l'araignée en fon réduit obfcur;

Que fon toucher eft vif, qu'il eft prompt, qu'il eft fur;

Sur ces pieges, tendus fans ceffe vigilante,

Dans chacun de fes fils elle paroit vivante.

VER. 213. The headlong lioness] The manner of the lions hunting their prey in the defarts of Africa is this: At their first going

* Sen. Ep. 107.

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