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70

Which fees no more the ftroke, or feels the pain,
Than favour'd Man by touch etherial flain.
The creature had his feast of life before;
Thou too must perish, when thy feast is o'er!
To each unthinking being, Heav'n a friend,
Gives not the useless knowledge of its end:
To Man imparts it; but with fuch a view
As, while he dreads it, makes him hope it too:
The hour conceal'd, and fo remote the fear,
Death still draws nearer, never seeming near.
Great standing miracle! that Heav'n affign'd
Its only thinking thing this turn of mind.

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II. Whether with Reason, or with Inftinct bleft, Know, all enjoy that pow'r which fuits them best;

COMMENTARY.

VER. 79. Whether with Reafon, &c.] But even to this, as a caviller would ftill object, we muft fuppofe him fo to do, and fay, Admit you have fhewn that Nature hath endowed all animals, whether human or brutal, with fuch faculties as admirably fit them to promote the general good: yet, in its care for this, hath not Nature neglected to provide for the private good of the individual? We have caufe to think fhe hath; and we fuppofe, it was on this exclufive confideration that fhe kept back from brutes the gift of Reason (fo neceffary a means of private happiness) because Reason, as we find in the inftance of

NOTES.

VER. 68. Than favour'd Man &c.] Several of the ancients, and many of the Orientals fince, esteemed those

who were ftruck by lightning as facred perfons, and the particular favourites of Heaven. P.

To blifs alike by that direction tend,

And find the means proportion'd to their end.
Say, where full Instinct is th'unerring guide,
What Pope or Council can they need befide?
Reason, however able, cool at best,

Cares not for service, or but serves when prest,
Stays 'till we call, and then not often near;
But honest Instinct comes a volunteer,
Sure never to o'er-shoot, but just to hit;

While ftill too wide or fhort is human Wit;

VARIATIONS.

After 84. in the MS.

While Man, with opening views of various ways
Confounded, by the aid of knowledge strays :
Too weak to chufe, yet chufing ftill in hafte,
One moment gives the pleasure and distaste.

COMMENTARY.

81

85

90

Man, where there is occafion for all the complicated contrivance you have described above, to make the effects of his Paffions counter-work the immediate powers of his Reason, in order to keep him fubfervient to the general fyftem; Reason, we say, naturally tends to draw Beings into a private, independent system. This the poet answers, by fhewing (from 78 to 109) that the happiness of animal and that of human life are widely different: The happiness of human life confifting in the improvement of the mind, can be procured by Reafon only; but the happiness of animal life confifting in the gratifications of sense, is beft promoted by Inftinct. And, with regard to the regular and conftant operation of each, in that, Inftinct hath plainly the advantage; for here God directs immediately; there, only mediately through Man.

Sure by quick Nature happiness to gain,
Which heavier Reafon labours at vain.
This too ferves always, Reason never long;
One must go right, the other may go wrong.
See then the acting and comparing pow'rs
One in their nature, which are two in ours;
And Reason raise c'er Instinct as you can,
In this 'tis God directs, in that 'tis Man.

95

Who taught the nations of the field and wood
To fhun their poison, and to chuse their food? 100
Prescient, the tides or tempests to withstand,
Build on the wave, or arch beneath the fand?
Who made the fpider parallels design,

Sure as De-moivre, without rule or line?
Who bid the ftork, Columbus-like, explore 105
Heav'ns not his own, and worlds unknown before?
Who calls the council, ftates the certain day,
Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way?
III. God, in the nature of each being, founds
Its proper bliss, and sets its proper bounds:

COMMENTARY.

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VER. 109. God, in the nature of each being, &c.] The author now cometh to the main fubject of his epiftle, the proof of Man's SOCIABILITY, from the two general focieties compofed by him; the natural, fubject to paternal authority; and the civil, fubject to that of a magiftrate. This he hath the addrefs to introduce, from what had preceded, in fo eafy and na

But as he fram'd a Whole, the Whole to bless,
On mutual Wants built mutual Happiness:

So from the first, eternal ORDER ran,

And creature link'd to creature, man to man.
Whate'er of life all-quick'ning æther keeps, 115
Or breathes thro' air, or fhoots beneath the deeps,
Or pours profufe on earth, one nature feeds
The vital flame, and fwells the genial feeds.
Not Man alone, but all that roam the wood,
Or wing the sky, or roll along the flood,
Each loves itself, but not itself alone,

Each fex defires alike, 'till two are one.

COMMENTARY.

120

tural a manner, as fheweth him to have the art of giving all the grace to the dryness and severity of Method, as well as wit to the ftrength and depth of Reafon. The philofophic nature of his work requiring he should shew by what means those Societies were introduced, this affords him an opportunity of fliding gracefully and easily from the preliminaries into the main fubject; and fo of giving his work that perfection of method, which we find only in the compofitions of great writers. For having juft before, though to a different purpose, defcribed the power of beftial Inftinct to attain the happiness of the Individual, he goeth on, in fpeaking of Instinct as it is ferviceable 'both to that, and to the Kind (from 108 to 147) to illustrate the original of Society. He fheweth, that though, as he had before obferved, God had founded the proper blifs of each creature in the nature of its own existence; yet these not being independent individuals, but parts of a Whole, God, to blefs that Whole, built mutual happiness on mutual wants: Now, for the fupply of mutual wants, creatures muft neceffarily come together; which is the first ground of Society amongst Men. He then proceeds to that called natural, fubject to paternal authority, and arifing from the union of the two fexes; describes the

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Nor ends the pleasure with the fierce embrace ;
They love themselves, a third time, in their race.
Thus beaft and bird their common charge attend,
The mothers nurse it, and the fires defend;
The young difmifs'd to wander earth or air,
There ftops the Instinct, and there ends the care;
The link diffolves, each feeks a fresh embrace,
Another love fucceeds, another race.

A longer care Man's helpless kind demands ;
That longer care contracts more lasting bands:
Reflection, Reason, still the ties improve,

130

At once extend the int'reft, and the love;
With choice we fix, with fympathy we burn; 135
Each Virtue in each Paffion takes its turn;
And still new needs, new helps, new habits rise,
That graft benevolence on charities.

Still as one brood, and as another rose,

These natʼral love maintain'd, habitual those: 140
The last, scarce ripen'd into perfect Man,
Saw helpless him from whom their life began:

COMMENTARY.

imperfect image of it in brutes; then explains it at large in all its caufes and effects. And laftly fhews, that as is fact, like mere animal fociety, it is founded and preferved by mutual wants, the fupplial of which caufeth mutual happiness; fo is it likewife in right, as a rational Society, by equity, gratitude, and the obfervance of the relation of things in general.

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