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Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood,

215

To that which warbles through the vernal wood?
The spider's touch, how exquifitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line:
In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true
From pois'nous herbs extracts the healing dew? 220
How Instinct varies in the grov'ling fwine,
Compar'd, half-reas'ning elephant, with thine!

'Twixt that, and Reason, what a nice barrier?
For ever fep'rate, yet for ever near !

Remembrance and Reflection, how ally'd;

What thin partitions Senfe from Thought divide?

225

And

NOTES.

out in the night-time they set up a loud roar, and then liften to the noise made by the beafts in their flight, pursuing them by the ear, and not by the noftril. It is probable the ftory of the jackall's hunting for the lion, was occafioned by the observation of this defect of fcent in that terrible animal.

P.

VER. 224. For ever fep'rate, &c.] Near, by the fimilitude of the operations; Separate by the immense difference in the nature of the powers.

W.

VER. 226. What thin partitions, &c.] So thin, that the Atheiftic Philofophers, as Protagoras, held that THOUGHT was only SENSE; and from thence concluded, that every imagination or opinion of every man was true: Πᾶσα Φανασία ἐςὶν ἀληθής. But the Poet determines more philofophically; that they are really and effentially different, how thin foever the partition be by which they are divided. Thus, (to illuftrate the truth of this obfervation,) when a geometer confiders a triangle, in order to demonftrate the equality of its three angles to two right ones, he has the picture or image of some sensible triangle in his mind, which is sense; yet notwithstanding, he must needs have the motion or idea of an intellectual triangle likewise, which is thought; for this plain reafon, because every image or picture of a triangle must needs be obtufangular, or rectangular, or acutangular; but that which, in his mind, is the fubject of his propofition is the ratio of a triangle, undetermined

And Middle natures, how they long to join,
Yet never pass th' infuperable line!

Without this juft gradation, could they be
Subjected, these to thofe, or all to thee?

The pow'rs of all fubdu'd by thee alone,

Is not thy Reafon all thefe pow'rs in one?

230

VIII, See, through this air, this ocean, and this

earth,

All matter quick, and bursting into birth,

Above, how high, progreffive life may go!
Around, how wide, how deep extend below!
Vast chain of Being! which from God began,
Natures ethereal, human, angel, man,

235

VER. 238. Ed. ift.

VARIATIONS.

Beast,

Ethereal effence, fpirit, fubftance, man.

NOTES.

undetermined to any of these species. On this account it was that Ariftotle faid, Νοηματα τιν διοίσει, τὰ μὴ Φαντάσματα εἶναι, η δι ταῦτα φαλάσματα, ἀλλ ̓ ἐκ ἄνευ φωνάσματων. The conceptions of the mind differ fomewhat from fenfible images; they are not fenfible images, and yet not quite free or disengaged from fenfible images.

VER. 232. Is not thy Reafon] "Such then is the admirable diftribution of nature, her adapting and adjusting not only the stuff or matter to the shape itself and form, to the circumftance, place, element, or region; but alfo the affections, appetites, fenfations, mutually to each other, as well as the matter, form, action, and all befides; all managed for the beft, with perfect frugality and just reserve: profufe to none, but bountiful to all: never employing in one thing more than enough; but with exact œconomy retrenching the fuperfluous, and adding force to what is principal in every thing: And is not thought and reafon principal in man? would we have no reserve for thefe; no faving for this part of his engine?" Shaftsbury, in the Moralift, vol. ii. p. 99.

VER. 235. Above, how high,] This is a magnificent paffage. Thomfon had before faid, in Summer, v. 333.

[blocks in formation]

Beast, bird, fish, infect, what no eye can see,
No glass can reach; from infinite to thee,
From thee to Nothing.-On fuperior pow'rs
Were we to press, inferior might on ours:
Or in the full creation leave a void,

240

Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd:
From Nature's chain whatever link you ftrike, 245
Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
And, if each fyftem in gradation roll
Alike effential to th' amazing Whole,
The least confufion but in one, not all

That fyftem only, but the Whole must fall.

250 Let

NOTES.

-Has any feen

The mighty chain of beings, leffening down

From infinite Perfection, to the brink

Of dreary Nothing, defolate abyfs!

From which astonish'd thought recoiling turns?

See alfo Locke, vol. ii. p. 49.

"Na

VER. 240. No glafs can reach ;] " There are," fays Hooke the naturalist, “8,280,000 animalcula in one drop of water." ture, in many inftances," fays Themiftius, "appears to make her tranfitions fo imperceptibly, and by little and little, that in fome beings it may be doubted whether they are animal or vegetable.

VER. 244. The great fcale's deftroy'd:] All that can be faid of the fuppofition of a scale of beings, gradually defcending from perfection to non-entity, and complete in every rank and degree, is to be found in the third chapter of King's Origin of Evil, and in a note of the Archbishop, marked G, p. 137. of Law's tranflation, ending with these emphatical words: "Whatever fyftem God had chofen, all creatures in it could not have been equally perfect; and there could have been but a certain determinate multitude of the most perfect; and, when that was completed, there would have been a station for creatures less perfect, and it would still have been an inftance of goodness to give them a being as well as others."

VER. 245. From Nature's chain] Almoft the words of Marcus Antoninus, l. v. c. 8.; as alfo v. 265. from the fame.

Let Earth unbalanc'd from her orbit fly,

Planets and stars run lawless through the sky;
Let ruling Angels from their spheres be hurl'd,
Being on Being wreck'd, and world on world;
Heav'n's whole foundations to their centre nod, 255
And Nature trembles to the throne of God.

NOTES.

All

VER. 251. Let Earth unbalanc'd] i. e. Being no longer kept within its orbit by the different directions of its progreffive and attractive motions; which, like equal weights in a balance, keep it in an equilibre.

W..

It is obfervable, that these noble lines were added after the first folio edition. It is a pleafing and useful amusement to trace out the alterations that a great and correct writer gradually makes in his works. At first it ran,

How inftinct varies! What a hog may want
Compar'd with thine, half-reasoning Elephant.

And again;

What the advantage if his finer eyes

Study a mite, not comprehend the skies.

Which lines at present stand thus:

How instinct varies in the growling fwine,

Compar'd, half-reas'ning Elephant, with thine:
Say what the ufe were finer optics given,
T' infpect a mite, not comprehend the Heav'n.
Formerly it flood thus:

No felf-confounding faculties to share,
No fenfes ftronger than his brain can bear.

At prefent;

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

But what his nature and his ftate can bear.

It appeared at first very exceptionably;

Expatiate far o'er all this fcene of Man,
A mighty maze! of walks without a plan.

Which contradicted his whole system, and it was altered to,
A mighty maze! but not without a plan!

All this dread ORDER break for whom? for thee?

Vile worm!-oh Madness! Pride! Impiety!

IX. What if the foot, ordain'd the dust to tread, Or hand, to toil, afpir'd to be the head?

What if the head, the eye, or ear repin'd

To ferve mere engines to the ruling mind?
Juft as abfurd for any part to claim

260

To be another, in this gen❜ral frame :

Juft as abfurd, to mourn the tasks or pains,
The great directing MIND OF ALL ordains.
All are but parts of one ftupendous whole,
Whole body Nature is, and God the soul;

NOTES.

265

That,

VER. 265. Just as abfurd, &c.] See the profecution and application of this in Ep. iv.

P.

VER. 266. The great directing Mind, &c.] "Veneramur autem et colimus ob dominium. Deus enim fine dominio, providentia, et caufis finalibus, nihil aliud eft quam FATUM et NATURA." Newtoni Princip. Schol. gener. fub finem.

VER. 267. All are but parts] These are lines of a marvellous energy and clofenefs of expreffion. They are exactly like the old Orphic verfes quoted in Ariftotle, De Mundo. Edit. Lugd.

folio, 1590, p. 378.; and line 289 as minutely refembles the doctrine of the fublime hymn of Cleanthes the Stoic; not that I imagine Pope or Bolingbroke ever read that hymn, especially the latter, who was ignorant of Greek.

VER. 268. Whose body Nature is, &c.] Mr. de Croufaz remarks, on this line, that "A Spinozist would exprefs himself in this manner." I believe he would; for so the infamous Toland has done, in his Atheist's Liturgy, called PANTHEISTICON: But fo would St. Paul likewife, who, writing on this fubject, the omnipresence of God in his Providence, and in his Substance, says, in the words of a pantheistical Greek Poet, In him we live, and move, and have our being; i. e. we are parts of him, his offspring:

And

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