Who ask and reason thus, will scarce conceive God gives enough, while he has more to give: Immense the pow'r, immense were the demand; Say, at what part of nature will they stand? 166 What nothing earthly gives, or can destroy, The soul's calm sunshine, and the heart-felt joy, Is virtue's prize. A better would you fix? Then give humility a coach and six, COMMENTARY. 170 Ver. 167. What nothing earthly gives, &c.] But this is not all; the Poet sheweth next (from ver. 166 to 185) that these demands are not only unreasonable, but in the highest degree absurd likewise. For that those very goods, if granted, would be the destruction of that virtue for which they are demanded as a reward. He concludes, therefore, on the whole, that "What nothing earthly gives, or can destroy, The soul's calm sunshine, and the heart-felt joy, Is virtue's prize" And that to aim at other, which not only is of no use to us here, but, what is more, will be of none hereafter, is a passion like that of an infant or a savage; where the one is impatient for what he will soon despise; and the other makes a provision for what he can never want. NOTES. But there are too many passages in this Essay to suffer us to admit of the forced interpretation here given by Ramsay. Warton. If Ramsay has in the foregoing passage carried his ideas somewhat too far, he has marked the intention and characterized the work of Pope much more accurately than Warton, who, like all those who represent it as favourable to infidel principles, has laid a stress on particular passages which they were never intended to bear; and by separating them from the rest, reminds us of a person who cuts out a corner of a picture, as a specimen from which we are desired to judge of the whole. Ver. 170. Then give humility] In a work of so serious and severe a cast, in a work of reasoning, in a work of theology, designed to explain the most interesting subject that can employ the Justice a conqueror's sword, or truth a gown, Expect thy dog, thy bottle, and thy wife, NOTES. 175 mind of man, surely such strokes of levity, of satire, of ridicule, as also lines 204, 223, 276, however poignant and witty, are ill placed and disgusting, are violations of that propriety which Pope in general so strictly observed. Lucretius preserves throughout the dignity he at first assumed; even his sarcasms and irony on the superstitious have something august, and a noble haughtiness in them; as in particular where he asks, "How it comes to pass that Jupiter sometimes strikes his own temples with his thunderbolts; whether he employs himself in casting them in the deserts for the sake of exercising his arm; and why he hurls them in places where he cannot strike the guilty. "Tum fulmina mittat; et ædes Sæpe suas disturbet; et in deserta recedens He has turned the insult into a magnificent image. Warton. In answer to the foregoing observations of Dr. Warton, the reader may consult Warburton's note on Ep. ii. ver. 31. of this Essay. Ver. 173. Weak, foolish Man!] These eight succeeding lines were not in former editions; and indeed none of them, especially lines 177 and 179, do any credit to the author, and rather make us wish they had been suppressed. Warton. Ver. 177. Go, like the Indian, &c.] Alluding to the example of VARIATIONS. the After Ver. 172. in the MS. Say, what rewards this idle world imparts, Or fit for searching heads or honest hearts. Warburton. As well as dream such trifles are assign'd, * 180 To whom can riches give repute, or trust, 185 Content, or pleasure, but the good and just? COMMENTARY. Ver. 185. To whom can riches give repute, or trust,] The Poet now enters more at large upon the matter; and still continuing his discourse to this third sort of complainers (whom he indulgeth, as much more pardonable than the first or second, in rectifying all their doubts and mistakes), he proves, both from reason and example, how unable any of those things are, which the world. most admires, to make a good man happy. For as to the Philosophic mistakes concerning happiness, there being little danger of their making a general impression, he had, after a short confutation, dismissed them altogether. But external goods are those Syrens, which so bewitch the world with dreams of happiness, that it is of all things the most difficult to awaken it out of its delusions; though, as he proves in an exact review of the most pretending, they dishonour bad men, and add no lustre to the good. That it is only this third, and least criminal sort of complainers, against whom the remaining part of the discourse is directed, appeareth from the Poet's so frequently addressing himself, henceforward, to his friend. I. He beginneth therefore (from ver. 184 to 205.) with considering RICHES. 1. He examines first, what there is of real use or enjoyment NOTES. the Indian, in Epist. i. ver. 99, which shews, that that example was not given to discredit any rational hopes of future happiness, but only to reprove the folly of separating them from Charity: as when Zeal, not Charity, became the guide, And hell was built on spite, and heaven on pride." Warburton. Judges and senates have been bought for gold; COMMENTARY. 190 enjoyment in them; and sheweth, they can give the good man only that very contentment in himself, and that very esteem and love from others, which he had before; and scornfully cries out to those of a different opinion: "Oh fool! to think God hates the worthy mind, The lover and the love of human-kind, Whose life is healthful, and whose conscience clear, 2. He next examines the imaginary value of riches, as the fountain of honour. For the objection of his adversaries standeth thus :-As honour is the genuine claim of virtue; and shame the just retribution of vice; and as honour, in their opinion, follows riches, and shame, poverty; therefore the good man should be rich. He tells them in this they are much mistaken: "Honour and shame from no condition rise; Act well your part; there all the honour lies." What power then has' Fortune over the Man? None at all; for as her favours can confer neither worth nor wisdom; so neither can her displeasure cure him of any of his follies. On his garb, indeed, she hath some little influence; but his heart still remains the same: "Fortune in men has some small difference made; So that this difference extends no further than to the Habit; the pride of heart is the same both in the flaunter and the flutterer; as it is the Poet's intention to insinuate by the use of those terms. NOTES. Ver. 189. God hates the worthy mind,] The ground of the complaint is, not that the worthy man does not possess a large and ample fortune, but because he sometimes wants even necessaries. Warton. VOL. V. Whose life is healthful, and whose conscience clear, Because he wants a thousand pounds a year. Honour and shame from no condition rise; Act well your part; there all the honour lies. Fortune in men has some small difference made; One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade; NOTES. Ver. 194. Act well your part ;] The Ancients were very fond of this comparison of human life with a drama. Epictetus uses it in a well-known passage, chapter 27. and Arrian also recites it; it is repeated twice or thrice in Stobæus; and Antoninus finishes his meditations with an allusion to it. Ivie has given it from Epictetus in a manner so truly Horatian, that I cannot forbear repeating it: "Nos sumus in scenâ; quin et mandante magistro, In triviis rogitem æra; placet lex” But our author found the same illustration in his friend's Essay. See Bolingbroke, vol. v. p. 79. "The whole world, nay, the whole universe is filled with Beings, which are all connected in one immense design. The sensitive inhabitants of our globe, like the dramatis personæ, have different characters, and are applied to different purposes of action in every scene. The several parts of the material world, like the machines of a theatre, were contrived not for the actors, but for the action: and the whole order and system of the drama would be disordered and spoiled, if any alteration was made in either. The nature of every creature, his manner of being, is adapted to his state here, to the place he is to inhabit, and, as we may say, to the part he is to act. If man was a creature inferior or superior to what he is, he would be a very preposterous creature in this system. Gulliver's horses made a very absurd figure in the place of men, and men would make one as absurd in the place of horses. I do not think that philo sophers |