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But thinks admitted to that equal fky,

His faithful dog fhall bear him company.

IV. Go wiser thou; and in thy scale of sense, Weigh thy Opinion against Providence ;

Call imperfection what thou fancy'st such, 115
Say, here he gives too little, there too much;
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,
Yet cry, If Man's unhappy, God's unjust;
If Man alone ingrofs not Heav'n's high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there:
Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,
Re-judge his juftice, be the God of God.
In Pride, in reas'ning Pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rufh into the skies.

NOTES.

120

this common HOPE of Mankind: But though his untutored mind had betrayed him into many childish fancies concerning the nature of that future ftate, yet he is fo far from excluding any part of his own species (a vice which could proceed only from the pride of science) that he humanely admits even his faithful dog to bear him company.

VER. 123. In Pride, &c.] Arnobius has paffed the fame cenfure on these very follies, which he fuppofes to arife from the cause here affigned.-"Nihil eft quod nos "fallat, nihil quod nobis polliceatur fpes caffas (id quod "nobis à quibufdam dicitur viris immoderata fui opinione "fublatis) animas immortales effe, Deo rerum ac principi, "gradu proximas dignitatis, genitor illo ac patre prolatas, divinas, fapientes, doctas, neque ulla corporis attre"Etatione contiguas." Adverfus gentes.

Pride ftill is aiming at the blest abodes,

Men would be Angels, Angels would be Gods. 125
Afpiring to be Gods, if Angels fell,
Afpiring to be Angels, Men rebel :

And who but wilhes to invert the laws

Of ORDER, fins aganft th' Eternal Cause. 130 V. Afk for what end the heav'nly bodies fhine, Earth for whofe ufe? Pride anfwers, ""Tis for mine: "For me kind Nature wakes her genial pow'r, "Suckles each herb, and spreads out ev'ry flow'r; “Annual for me, the grape, the rose renew 135 "The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew; "For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings; "For me, health gushes from a thousand springs;

NOTES.

VER. 131. Afk for what end the heav'nly bodies fine, &c.] The ridicule of imagining the greater portions of the material fyftem to be folely for the ufe of man, Philofophy has fufficiently exposed: and Common sense, as the poet obferves, inftructs us to know that our fellow-creatures, placed by providence the joint-inhabitants of this globe, are defigned by Providence to be joint-fharers with us of its bleffings.

VER. ib. Afk for what end, &c.] If there be any fault in these lines, it is not in the general fentiment, but a want of exactness in expreffing it. - It is the highest abfurdity to think that Earth is man's footftool, his canopy the fkies, and the heavenly bodies lighted up principally for his ufe; yet not fo, to fuppofe fruits and minerals given, for this end.

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"Seas roll to waft me, funs to light me rife;

"My foot-ftool earth, my canopy the skies.” 140 But errs not Nature from this gracious end, From burning funs when livid deaths defcend, When earthquakes fwallow, or when tempefts sweep Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep? "No, ('tis reply'd) the first Almighty Cause 145 "Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral laws;

"Th' exceptions few; fome change fince all began: "And what created perfect ?"-Why then Man? If the great end be human happiness,

Then nature deviates; and can man do lefs? 150
As much that end a conftant course requires
Of fhow'rs and fun-fhine, as of Man's defires;
As much eternal springs and cloudless skies,
As Men for ever temp'rate, calm, and wife,

If plagues or earthquakes break not heav'n's defign,
Why then a Borgia, or a Catiline?

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NOTES.

156

comets

VER. 150. Then Nature deviates, &c.] While " move in very eccentric orbs, in all manner of pofi"tions, blind Fate could never make all the planets 66 move one and the fame way in orbs concentric; some "inconfiderable irregularities excepted, which may have "rifen from the mutual actions of comets and planets "upon one another, and which will be apt to increase, till "this fyftem wants a reformation." Sir Ifaac Newton's Optics, Quæft. ult.

VER. 155. If plagues, &c.] What hath misled some

Who knows but he, whofe hand the light'ning forms, Who heaves old Ocean, and who wings the storms; Pours fierce Ambition in a Cæfar's mind, 159 Or turns young Ammon loose to fcourge mankind?

NOTES.

perfons in this paffage, is their fuppofing the comparison to be between the effects of two things in this fublunary world; when not only the elegancy, but the juftness of it, confifts in its being between the effects of a thing in the univerfe at large, and the familiar and known effects of one in this fublunary world. For the pofition inforced in thefe lines is this, that partial evil tends to the good of the whole.

Refpecting Man, whatever wrong we call, May, must be right, as relative to all. ver. 51. How does the poet inforce it? if you will believe these perfons, in illuftrating the effects of partial moral evil in a particular fyftem, by that of partial natural evil in the Same fyftem, and fo he leaves his pofition in the lurch. But the poet reasons at another rate: The way to prove his point, he knew, was to illuftrate the effect of partial moral evil in the universe, by partial natural evil in a particular fyftem. Whether partial moral evil tend to the good of the universe, being a queftion which, by reason of our ignorance of many parts of that univerfe, we cannot decide, but from known effects; the rules of argument require that it be proved by analogy, i. e. fetting it by, and comparing it with, a thing certain; and it is a thing certain that partial natural evil tends to the good of our particular Syftem.

VER. 157. Who knows but he, &c.] The fublimity with which the great Author of Nature is here characterised, is but the fecond beauty of this fine paffage. The greatest is the making the very difpenfation objected to, the periphrafis of his Title.

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From pride, from pride, our very reas'ning fprings; Account for moral, as for natʼral things:

Why charge we Heav'n in those, in these acquit? In both, to reason right is to submit.

Better for Us, perhaps, it might appear, Were there all harmony, all virtue here;

NOTES.

165

VER. 165. Better for Us, &c.] It might, fays he, perhaps, appear better to us, that there were nothing in this world but peace and virtue.

That never air or ocean felt the wind;

That never paffion discompos'd the mind.

But then confider, that as our natural fyftem is supported by the ftrife of its elementary particles; fo is our intellectual fyfiem by the conflict of our Paffions, which are the elements of human action.

In a word, as without the benefit of tempeftuous winds, both air and ocean would ftagnate, corrupt, and fpread univerfal contagion throughout all the ranks of animals that inhabit, or are fupported by them; fo, without the benefit of the Paffions, fuch virtue as was merely the effect of the absence of those Passions would be a lifeless calm, a ftoical Apathy.

Contracted all, retiring to the breast:

But health of mind is Exercife, not Reft. Ep. ii. ver. 103. Therefore, instead of regarding the conflict of the elements, and the paffions of the mind as diforders, you ought to confider them as part of the general order of Providence. And that they are fo, appears from their always preserving the fame unvaried course, throughout all ages, from the creation to the present time:

The gen'ral order, fince the Whole began,
Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man.

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