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That, chang'd through all, and yet in all the fame ; Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame;

NOTES.

270 Warms

And the reafon is, because a religious theift and an impious pantheift both profess to believe the omniprefence of God. But would Spinoza, as Mr. Pope does, call God the great directing Mind of all, who hath intentionally created a perfect Universe? Or would a Spinozist have told us,

"The workman from the work diftinct was known?"

a line that overturns all Spinozism from its very foundations.

But this fublime description of the Godhead contains not only the divinity of St. Paul; but, if that will not fatisfy the men he writes against, the philofophy likewise of Sir Ifaac Newton.

The Poet fays,

"All are but parts of one ftupendous whole,

Whose body Nature is, and God the foul;" &c.

The Philofopher :-" In ipfo continentur et moventur univerfa, fed abfque mutua paffione. Deus nihil patitur ex corporum motibus; illa nullam fentiunt refiftentiam ex omnipræfentia Dei.-Carpore omni et figura corporea deftituitur.-Omnia regit et omnia cognofcit-Cum unaquæque Spatii particula fit femper, et unumquodque Durationis indivifibile momentum, ubique certe rerum omnium Fabricator ac Dominus non erit nunquam, nufquam."

Mr. Pope;

"Breathes in our foul, informs our mortal part,

"As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;

"As full, as perfect, in vile Man that mourns,
"As the rapt Seraph that adores and burns :

"To him, no high, no low, no great, no small;,

"He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all."

Sir Ifaac Newton :-" Annon ex phænomenis conftat effe entem incorporeum, viventem, intelligentem, omnipræfentem, qui in fpatio infinito, tanquam fenforio fuo, res ipfas intime cernat, penitusque perfpiciat, totafque intra fe præfens præfentes complectatur." But now admitting there were an ambiguity in these expreffions, fo great that a Spinozift might employ them to exprefs his own particular

Warms in the fun, refreshes in the breeze,

Glows in the stars, and bloffoms in the trees,

NOTES.

Lives

particular principles; and such a thing might well be, because the Spinozifts, in order to hide the impiety of their principle, are wont to exprefs the Omniprefence of God in terms that any religious. Theift might employ; in this cafe, I fay, how are we to judge of the Poet's meaning? Surely by the whole tenor of his argument. Now take the words in the fenfe of the Spinozifts, and he is made, in the conclufion of his epiftle, to overthrow all he had been advancing throughout the body of it: For Spinozifm is the deftruction of an Universe, where every thing tends, by a foreseen contrivance in all its parts, to the perfection of the Whole. But allow him to employ the paffage in the sense of St. Paul, That we and all creatures live, and move, and have our being in God; and then it will be seen to be the moft logical fupport of all that had preceded. For the Poet having, as we say, laboured through his Epistle to prove, that every thing in the Universe tends, by a foreseen contrivance, and a prefent direction of all its parts, to the perfection of the Whole; it might be objected, that fuch a difpofition of things implying in God a painful, operofe, and inconceivable extent of Providence, it could not be supposed that such care extended to all, but was confined to the more noble parts of the creation. This grofs conception of the First Cause the Poet exposes, by fhewing that God is equally and intimately present to every particle of Matter, to every fort of Substance, and in every instant of Being.

W.

VER. 269. That, chang'd thro' all] “Every ear," fays a critic of the trueft tafte," must feel the ill effect of the monotony in these lines. The cause of it is obvious. This verfe confifts of ten fyllables, or five feet. When the paufe falls on the fourth fyllable, we shall find that we pronounce the fix last in the same time that we do the four firft; fo that the couplet is not only divided into two equal lines, but each line, with respect to time, is divided into two equal parts." Webb's Remarks on the Beauties of Poetry.

VER. 270. Great in the earth,] It is remarkable that perhaps the most folid refutation of Spinoza is in the 5th volume of Bayle's Dictionary, p. 199.

Lives through all Life, extends through all extent, Spreads undivided, operates unfpent;

Breathes in our foul, informs our mortal part, 275

As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;

As full, as perfect, in vile Man that mourns,

As the rapt Seraph, that adores and burns:

NOTES.

To

VER. 274. Operates unfpent;] To Lucretius, who, in these very bold and magnificent lines, has asked,

"Quis? regere immenfi fummam ; quis habere profundi
Indu manu validas potis eft moderanter habenas?
Quis pariter cœlos omneis convertere? et omneis
Ignibus ætheriis terras fuffire feraceis ?

Omnibus inque locis effe omni tempore præstó?

To this question, I say, we may answer, " That Great Being who is so powerfully defcribed by Pope in this paffage."

See on this subject the fine and convincing Difcourfe of Socrates with Ariftodemus, in the first book of Xenophon's Memorabilia. VER. 276. In a hair as heart;] How much fuperior to a conceit of Cowley, addreffed to J. Evelyne, Efq.

"If we could and intend our eye,

open

We all, like Mofes, fhould efpy,

E'en in a Bush, the radiant Deity!"

Very fublime is the idea of the Great First Cause in a fragment of Empedocles :

Φρὴν ἱερὴ, καὶ ἀθεσμεσαῖος ἔπλεῖο μένον,
Φροντίσι κόσμον ἁπαλα καλαίσσεσα θοῆσι.

Ammonius, p. 199.

M. du Refnel has tranflated all this paffage of Pope unfairly and abfurdly.

Our author ftrove hard to excel four fine lines of his master Dryden, and has fucceeded in the attempt; they are in a speech of Raphael in the "State of Innocence," amidst much trash :

"Where'er thou art, he is; th' eternal Mind
Acts thro' all places; is to none confin'd:
Fills ocean, earth, and air, and all above,
And thro' the universal mass does move."

To him no high, no low, no great, no fmall;

He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.

280

X. Cease

NOTES.

VER. 280. He fills, he bounds,] This is a noble paffage. Akenfide entered the lifts on this fubject with our author. It will be pleasant to compare two fuch writers:

"Thee, O Father, this extent
Of matter; Thee, the sluggish earth and tract
Of feas, the heavens and heavenly splendors feel
Pervading, quickening, moving. From the depth
Of thy great effence, forth did'st thou conduct
Eternal Form; and there, where Chaos reign'd,
Gav'ft her dominion to erect her feat,

And fanctify the manfion. All her works
Well-pleas'd thou did'ft behold. The gloomy fires
Of ftorm or earthquake, and the pureft light
Of Summer; foft Campania's new-born rofe;
And the flow weed, which pines on Ruffian hills,
Comely alike to thy full vifion, ftand:
To thy furrounding vifion, which unites
All effences and powers of the great world
In one fole order; fair alike they stand,
As features well confenting, and alike
Requir'd by Nature ere fhe could attain
Her just resemblance to the perfect fhape
Of univerfal beauty, which with Thee
Dwelt from the first.".

Book i. 569. The Pleasures of Imagination. I will here add, as the best commentary on the prevailing doctrines of this first Epistle, a very exalted paffage from Plotinus, in which he has introduced a fublime profopopoeia of Nature, or the Univerfe, fpeaking of the defign of Creation; and I will give it in the forcible and energetic translation of Cudworth, book i. p. 881. without apology for any antiquated expreffions that this truly great divine and philofopher has made use of:

"That which God made was the Whole, as One thing; which he that attends to may hear it speaking to him after this manner : "God Almighty hath made Me, and from thence came I perfect and complete, and standing in need of nothing, because in Me are

contained

X. Cease then, nor ORDER Imperfection name: Our proper blifs depends on what we blame.

VARIATIONS.

Know

After Verfe 282. in the MS.

Reason, to think of God when she pretends,
Begins a Cenfor, an Adorer ends.

NOTES.

contained all things; plants and animals, and good fouls, and men happy with virtue; and innumerable demons, and many gods. Nor is the earth alone in me adorned with all manner of plants and variety of animals; or does the power of foul extend at most no further than to the feas, as if the whole air, and æther, and heaven, in the mean time, were quite devoid of foul, and altogether unadorned with living inhabitants. Moreover, all things in me defire good, and every thing reaches to it, according to its power and nature. For the whole world depends upon that first and highest good, the gods themselves who reign in my feveral parts, and all animals and plants, and whatsoever seems to be inanimate in me. For fome things in me partake only of being, fome of life alfo, fome of fenfe, fome of reafon, and fome of intellect above reason. But no man ought to require equal things from unequal; nor that the finger fhould fee, but the eye; it being enough for the finger to be a finger, and to perform its own office. As an artificer would not make all things in an animal to be eyes fo neither has the Divine Ayos, or Spermatic Reason of the World, made all things gods; but fome gods, and some demons, and fome men, and fome lower animals: not out of envy, but to difplay its own variety and fecundity: but we are like unfkilful spectators of a picture, who condemn the limner, because he hath not put bright colours every where: whereas he had fuited his colours to every part refpectively, giving to each fuch as belonged to it. Or elfe are we like thofe who would blame a comedy or tragedy, because they were not all kings or heroes that acted in it, but fome fervants and ruftic clowns introduced alfo, talking after their rude fashion. Whereas the dramatic poem. would neither be complete, nor elegant and delightful, were all those worfer parts taken out of it."

The learned reader will be highly gratified by turning to a fine paffage on this fubject in Plutarch, De Animi Tranquillitate,

vol.

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