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THE DESIGN.

HAVIN AVING proposed to write fome pieces on Human Life and Manners, such as (to ufe my Lord Bacon's expreffion) come home to Men's Bufinefs and Befoms, I thought it more fatisfactory to begin with confidering Man in the abftract, his Nature and his State; fince, to prove any moral duty, to enforce any moral precept, or to examine the perfection or imperfection of any creature whatsoever, it is neceffary first to know what condition and relation it is placed in, and what is the proper end and purpose of its being.

The science of Human Nature is, like all other sciences, reduced to a few clear points: There are not many certain truths in this world. It is therefore in the Anatomy of the Mind as in that of the Body; more good will accrue to mankind by attending to the large, open, and perceptible parts, than by studying too much fuch finer nerves and veffels, the conformations and ufes of which will for ever escape our obfervation. The difputes are all upon these last, and, I will venture to fay, they have lefs fharpened the wits than the hearts of men against each other, and have diminished the practice, more than advanced the theory, of Morality. If I could flatter myself that this Effay has any merit, it is in fteering betwixt the extremes of doctrines feemingly oppofite, in paffing over terms utterly unintelligible, and in forming a temperate, yet not inconfiftent, and a fhort, yet not imperfect, system of Ethics.

This I might have done in profe; but I chose verse, and even rhyme, for two reafons. The one will appear obvious; that principles, maxims, or precepts fo written, both ftrike the reader more ftrongly at first, and are more

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eafily retained by him afterwards: The other may seem odd, but is true. I found I could exprefs them more bortly this way than in prose itself; and nothing is more certain, than that much of the force as well as grace of arguments or instruction depends on their conciseness. I was unable to treat this part of my fubject more in detail, without becoming dry and tedious; or more poetically, without facrificing perfpicuity to ornament, without wandering from the precifion, or breaking the chain of reasoning: If any man can unite all these without diminution of any of them, I freely confefs he will compass a thing above my capacity.

What is now published, is only to be confidered as a general Map of MAN, marking out no more than the greater parts, their extent, their limits, and their connection, but leaving the particular to be more fully delineated in the charts which are now to follow. Confequently these Epistles in their progrefs (if I have health and leisure to make any progrefs) will be less dry, and more susceptible of poetical ornament. I am here only opening the fountains, and clearing the paffage. To deduce the rivers, to follow them in their course, and to observe their effects, may be a task more agreeable.

P.

ARGUMENT OF EPISTLE I.

Of the Nature and State of Man, with respect to

the UNIVERSE.

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OF Man in the abstract.-I. That we can judge only with regard to our own fystem, being ignorant of the relations of fyftems and things, Ver. 17, &c. II. That Man is not to be deemed imperfect, but a Being fuited to his place and rank in the creation, agreeable to the general Order of things, and conformable to Ends and Relations to him unknown, Ver. 35, &c. III. That it is partly upon his ignorance of future events, and partly upon the hope of future ftate, that all his happiness in the prefent depends, Ver. 77, &c. IV. The pride of aiming at more knowledge, and pretending to more perfection, the cause of Man's error and mifery. The impiety of putting himself in the place of God, and judging of the fitness or unfitness, perfection or imperfection, juftice or injuftice, of his difpenfations, Ver. 109, &c. V. The abfurdity of conceiting himself the final cause of the creation, or expecting that perfection in the moral world, which is not in the natural, Ver. 131, &c. VI. The unreasonableness of his complaints against Providence, while on the one hand he demands the Perfections of the Angels, and on the other the bodily qualifications of the Brutes; though, to poffefs any of the fenfitive faculties in a higher degree, would render bim miferable, Ver. 173, &c. VII. That throughout the whole vifible world, an univerfal order and gradation in the fenfual and mental faculties is obferved, which causes a fubordination of creature to creature, and of all creatures to Man. The gradations of fenfe, inftinct, thought, reflection,

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flection, reason: that Reafon alone countervails all the other faculties, Ver. 207. VIII. How much further this order and fubordination of living creatures may extend, above and below us; were any part of which broken, not that part only, but the whole connected creation must be deftroyed, Ver. 233. IX. The extravagance, madness, and pride of fuch a desire, Ver. 250. X. The confequence of all, the abfolute fubmiffion due to Providence, both as to our present and future state, Ver. 281, &c. to the end.

events.

IF it be a true obfervation, that for a poet to write happily and well, he must have seen and felt what he describes, and muft draw from living models alone; and if modern times, from their luxury and refinement, afford not manners that will bear to be described; it will then follow, that those species of poetry bid faireft to fucceed at prefent, which deliver doctrines, not display Of this fort is didactic and defcriptive poetry. Accordingly the moderns have produced many excellent pieces of this kind. We may mention the Syphilis of Fracaftorius, the Silkworms and Chefs of Vida, the Ambra of Politian, the Agriculture of Alamanni, the Art of Poetry of Boileau, the Gardens of Rapin, the Cyder of Phillips, the Chafe of Somerville, the Pleafures of Imagination, the Art of preserving Health, the Fleece, the Religion of Racine the younger, the elegant Latin poem of Brown on the Immortality of the Soul, the Latin poems of Stay and Bofcovick, and the philofophical poem before us; to which, if we may judge from fome beautiful fragments, we might have added Gray's didactic poem on Education and Government, had he lived to finish it: And the English Garden of Mr. Mason must not be omitted.

Pope informs us, in his first preface to this Effay," that he chofe this epiftolary way of writing, notwithstanding his fubject was high, and of dignity, because of its being mixed with argument which of its nature approacheth to profe." He has not wandered into any useless digreffions; has employed no fictions, no tale or story, and has relied chiefly on the poetry of his style for the purpose of interesting his readers. His ftyle is concife and figurative, forcible and elegant. He has many metaphors and images, artfully interspersed in the drieft paffages, which flood moft in need of fuch ornaments. Nevertheless there are too many lines, in this performance, plain and profaic. The meaner the fubject is of a preceptive poem, the more ftriking appears the art of the poet: It is even of use, perhaps, to choose a low subject. In this respect Virgil has the advantage over Lucretius; the latter, with all his vigour and fublimity of genius, could hardly fatisfy and come up to the grandeur of his theme. Pope labours under the fame difficulty. If any beauty in this Effay be uncommonly transcendent

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