Bids each on other for affiftance call, Till one Man's weakness grows the strength of all. NOTES. Wants friends, relations, and acquaintance: and this is the fecond general divifion. III. The Poet having thus fhewn the use of the Paffions in Society, and in Domeftic life, comes, in the laft place, (from Ver. 260 to the end) to shew their use to the Individual, even in their illufions; the imaginary happiness they present, helping to make the real miseries of life less infupportable: And this is his third general divifion : "OPINION gilds with varying rays Thofe painted clouds that beautify our days; And not a VANITY is giv'n in vain.” Which must needs vaftly raise our idea of God's goodness; who hath not only provided more than a counterbalance of real happinefs to human miseries, but hath even, in his infinite compaffion, bestowed on those who were fo foolish as not to have made this provision, an imaginary happiness; that they may not be quite overborne with the load of human miseries. This is the Poet's great and noble thought; as ftrong and folid as it is new and ingenious: It teaches, that these illufions are the faults and follies of Men, which they wilfully fall into; and thereby deprive themfelves of much happiness, and expose themselves to equal mifery : but that ftill, God (according to his univerfal way of working) graciously turns these faults and follies so far to the advantage of his miferable creatures, as to become, for a time, the folace and fupport of their distresses : -“Tho' Man's a fool, yet God is wise." W. It was an objection conftantly urged by the ancient Epicureans, that Man could not be the creature of a benevolent Being, as he was formed in a state so helpless and infirm: Montague took it, and urged it also. They never confidered or perceived that this very infirmity and helpleffness were the cause and cement of fo ciety; that if men had been perfect and felf-fufficient, and had ftood in no need of each other's affistance, there would have been no occafion for the invention of the arts, and no opportunity for the exertion of the affections. The lines, therefore, in which Lu cretius Wants, frailties, paffions, clofer ftill ally The common int'rest, or endear the tie. Το NOTES. cretius proposes this objection, are as unphilofophical and inconclufive, as they are highly pathetic and poetical. "Tum porrò puer, ut fævis projectus ab undis Vagitúque locum lugubri complet, ut æquum eft, There is a paffage in the Moralifts which I cannot forbear thinking Pope had in his eye, and which I must not therefore omit, as it ferves to illuftrate and confirm so many parts of the Effay on Man; I shall therefore give it at length, without apology: "The young of most other kinds are inftantly helpful to them. felves, fenfible, vigorous, know how to fhun danger, and feek their good: a human infant is of all the most weak, helpless, infirm. And wherefore should it not have been fo ordered? Where is the lofs in such a species? Or what is Man the worse for that defect, amidst fuch large fupplies? Does not this defect engage him the more strongly to fociety, and force him to own that he is purposely, and not by accident, made rational and fociable; and can no otherwise increase or fubfift than in that focial intercourse and community which is his natural ftate? Is not both conjugal affection, and natural affection to parents, duty to magiftrates, love of a common city, community, or country, with the other duties and focial parts of life, deduced from hence, and founded in these very wants? What can be happier than fuch a deficiency, as it is the occafion of so much good? What better, than a want fo abundantly made up, and answered by fo many enjoyments? Now, if there are ftill to be found among mankind, fuch as even, in the midst of these wants, seem not ashamed to affect a right of independency, and deny themselves to be by nature fociable; where would their fhame have been had nature otherwise supplied their wants? What duty or obligation had been ever thought of? What refpect or reverence of parents, magiftrates, their country, or their kind? Would not their full and felf-fufficient state more Lib. v. ver. 223. Itrongly To these we owe true friendship, love fincere, 255 260 Whate'er the Paffion, knowledge, fame, or pelf, Not one will change his neighbour with himself. The fool is happy that he knows no more; The rich is happy in the plenty giv'n, The poor contents him with the care of Heav'n. The fot a hero, lunatic a king; 265 The NOTES. ftrongly have determined them to throw off nature, and deny the ends and author of their creation?” VER. 253. Wants, frailties, passions, clofer ftill ally The common int'reft, &c.] As these lines have been misunderstood, I shall give the reader their plain and obvious meaning. To these frailties (fays he) we owe all the endearments of private life; yet, when we come to that age, which generally difpofes men to think more seriously of the true value of things, and consequently of their provision for a future state, the confideration, that the grounds of those joys, loves, and friendships, are wants, frailties, and paffions, proves the best expedient to wean us from the world; a difengagement fo friendly to that provifion we are now making for another state. The obfervation is new, and would in any place be extremely beautiful, but has here an infinite grace and propriety, as it fo well confirms, by an instance of great moment, the general thefis, That God makes Ill, at every flep, productive of Good. W. VER. 266. With the care of Heav'n.] It is, alas! with difficulty we can perfuade the Poor that they are as much the favourites of Heaven as the Rich. The starving chemist in his golden views. See fome strange comfort ev'ry state attend, Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die. NOTES. 270 Behold VER. 270. The poet in his Mufe.] The Author having faid, that no one could change his own profeffion or views for those of another, intended to carry his obfervation still further, and fhew that men were unwilling to exchange their own acquirements even for those of the fame kind, confeffedly larger, and infinitely more eminent, in another.. To this end he wrote, "What partly pleases, totally will fhock: I queftion much, if Toland would be Locke." But wanting another proper inftance of this truth, he referved the lines above for fome following edition of this Effay; which he did not live to give. W. VER. 271. See fome ftrange comfort] How exquifite is this ftanza of an unfinished Ode of Gray? "Still where rofy Pleasure leads See a kindred Grief purfue; Behind the steps that Mifery treads, The hues of Bliss more brightly glow, The strength and harmony of life." VER. 272. And pride] From La Rochefoucault, whose words are: Nature, who fo wifely has fitted the organs of our body to make us happy, feems likewife to have beftowed pride on us, on purpose, as it were, to fave us the pain of knowing our own imperfections." Maxim 36. VER. 274. Hope travels through,] Is this Hope then no more than one of those strange comforts, thofe delufive pleasures, thofe forts of groundless happiness, that constitute the chief enjoyment of the fot, the chemist, the poet, and the lunatic? 275 age: 280 Behold the child, by nature's kindly law, NOTES. 285 Thefe VER. 280. And beads and pray'r-books are the toys of age:] A Satire on what is called, in Popery, the Opus operatum. As this is a defcription of the circle of human life returning into itself by a fecond child-hood, the Poet has with great elegance concluded his description with the same image with which he fet out—And life's poor play is o'er. W. VER. 280. The toys of age:] Exactly what Fontenelle fays, "Il est des hochets pour tout age.” And Prior, "Give us play-things for old age." Yet it is certain that Fontenelle could not have taken this verfe from Prior, for he did not understand English, though Prior wrote it more than twenty years before Fontenelle. De Lifle, whose translation of Virgil's Georgics is fo frequently and fo unjustly praised by Voltaire, has alfo tranflated, but not published, the Effay on Man. Millot has given another, publifhed 1762. VER. 286. And each vacuity of fenfe by Pride:] An eminent Cafuift, Father Francis Garaffe, in his Somme Theologique, has drawn a very charitable conclusion from this principle; which he hath well illuftrated: "Selon la Juftice" (fays this equitable Divine)" tout travail honnête doit être recompenfé de loüange |