N.Blakey inv.&del. Ravenet sculp. HOPE humblythen; with trembling Pinions soar. Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore! Essay on Man, Ep.I. EPISTLE I. A WAKE, my ST. JOHN ! leave all meaner things To low ambition, and the pride of Kings. Let us (fince Life can little more fupply Than just to look about us and to die) Expatiate free o'er all this scene of Man ; ૐ A mighty maze! but not without a plan; COMMENTARY. in THE Opening of this poem, in fifteen lines, is taken up giving an account of the Subject; which, agreeably to the title, is an ESSAY on MAN, or a Philofophical Enquiry into his Nature and End, his Paffions and Purfuits. The Exordium relates to the whole work, of which the Essay on Man was only the first book. The 6th, 7th, and 8th lines allude to the fubjects of this Effay, viz. the general Order and Defign of Providence; the Conftitution of the human Mind; the origin, ufe, and end of the Paffions and Affections, both felfish and social; and the wrong pursuits of Power, Pleasure, and Happiness. The 10th, 11th, 12th, &c. have relation to the fubjects of the books intended to follow, viz. the Characters and Capacities of Men, and the Limits of Learning and IgnorThe 13th and 14th, to the Knowledge of Mankind, and the various Manners of the age. ance. NOTES. VER. 7, 8. A Wild,- Or Garden,] The Wild relates to the human paffions, productive (as he explains in the fecond epiftle) both of good and evil. The Garden, to human reafon, fo often tempting us to tranfgrefs the bounds God has fet to it, and wander in fruitless enquiries. Together let us beat this ample field, ΙΟ Try what the open, what the covert yield; COMMENTARY. Next, in line 16, he tells us with what defign he wrote, viz. To vindicate the ways of God to Man. The Men he writes againft, he frequently informs us, are fuch as weigh their opinion against Providence (114) fuch as cry, if Man's unhappy, God's unjuft ( 118) or fuch as fall into the notion, that Vice and Virtue there is none at all (Ep. ii. 212) This occafions the poet to divide his vindication of the ways of God into two parts. In the first of which he gives direct anfwers to thofe objections which libertine Men, on a view of the disorders arifing from the perverfity of the human will, have intended against Providence. And in the second, he obviates all thofe objections, by a true delineation of human Nature; or a general, but exact, map of Man. The firft epiftle is employed in the management of the firft part of this difpute; and the NOTES. VER. 12. Of all who blindly creep, &c.] i. e. Those who only follow the blind guidance of their Paffions; or those who leave behind them common fenfe and fober reason, in their high flights through the regions of Metaphyfics. Both which follies are exposed in the fourth epiftle, where the popular and philofophical errors concerning | Happiness are spoken of. The figure here is taken from animal life. VER. 15. Laugh where we muft, &c.] Intimating that human follies are so strangely abfurd and ridiculous, that it is not in the power of the most compassionate, on some occafions, to reftrain their mirth: And that human crimes are so I. Say first, of God above, or Man below, What can we reafon, but from what we know? 20 From which to reason, or to which refer? See worlds on worlds compofe one universe, What other planets circle other funs, COMMENTARY. 25 three following in the management of the fecond. So that this whole book conftitutes a complete Essay on Man, written for the best purpose, to vindicate the ways of God. VER. 17. Say firft, of God above, or Man below, &c.] The poet having declared his Subject, his End of writing, and the Quality of his Adverfaries, proceeds (from ý 16 to 23) to inftruct us, from whence he intends to draw his arguments; namely, from the vifible things of God in this fyftem to demonftrate the invifible things of God, his eternal Power and God-head: And nature and end must be drawn; and to this ftation they must be all referred. The confequence is, all our reasonings on his nature and end muft needs be very imperfect. VER. 21. Thro' worlds unnumber'd &c.] Hunc cognofcimus folummodo per Proprietates fuas & Attributa, & per fapientiffimas & optimas rerum ftructuras caufas finales. Newtoni Princ. Schol. gen. fub fin What vary'd Being peoples ev'ry star, May tell why Heav'n has made us as we are. Look'd thro'? or can a part contain the whole? COMMENTARY, 30 why? because we can reafon only from what we know, and as, we know no more of Man than what we fee of his station here; fo we know no more of God than what we fee of his dispensations in this ftation; being able to trace him no further than to the limits of our own fyftem. This naturally leads the poet to exprobrate the miferable Folly and Impiety of pretending to pry into, and call in queftion the profound difpenfations of Providence : Which reproof contains (from 22 to 43) a fublime description of the Omnifcience of God, and the miferable Blindness and Prefumption of Man. NOTES. VER. 30. The frong connections, nice dependencies,] The thought is very noble, and expreffed with great philofophic beauty and exactnefs. The fyftem of the Univerfe is a combination of natural and moral Fitneffes, as the human fyftem is, of body and fpirit. By the ftrong connections, therefore, the Poet alluded to the natural part; and by the nice dependen cies to the moral. For the Efay on Man is not a fyftem of Natu ralism but of natural Religion. Hence it is, that, where he fuppofes diforders may tend to some greater good in the natural world, he fuppofes they may tend likewife to some greater good in the moral, as appears from thefe fublime images in the following lines, If plagues or earthquakes break not Heav'n's defign, Who knows, but he, whofe hand the light'ning forms, Or turns young Amnon loafe to scourge mankind? |