VI.What would this Man? Now upward will he foar, And little less than Angel, would be more; Now looking downwards, just as griev'd appears 174 180 185 Each beast, each infect, happy in it's own: NOTES. 190 VER. 174. And little lefs | is a certain axiom in the than Angel, &c.] Thou haft anatomy of creatures, that made him a little lower than in proportion as they are the Angels, and baft crown- formed for ftrength, their ed him with glory and ho- fwiftnefs is leffened; or as nour. Pfalm viii. 9. they are formed for swiftnefs, their ftrength is abated. P. VER. 182. Here with degrees of fwiftness, &c.] It No pow'rs of body or of foul to share, But what his nature and his state can bear, Say what the use, were finer optics giv’n, 195 T' infpect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n? To fmart and agonize at ev'ry pore? Or quick effluvia darting thro' the brain, If nature thunder'd in his op'ning ears, 200 And stunn'd him with the mufic of the fpheres, 210 215 VII. Far as Creation's ample range extends, The scale of fenfual, mental pow'rs afcends: Mark how it mounts, to Man's imperial race, From the green myriads in the peopled grass: What modes of fight betwixt each wide extreme, The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam: Of smell, the headlong lionefs between, And hound fagacious on the tainted green: Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood, To that which warbles thro' the vernal wood: The spider's touch, how exquifitely fine! Feels at each thread, and lives along the line: In the nice bee, what fense so subtly true From pois'nous herbs extracts the healing dew? 220 How Inftinct varies in the grov'ling fwine, Compar'd, half-reas'ning elephant, with thine! 'Twixt that, and Reason, what a nice barrier; For ever fep'rate, yet for ever near! NOTES. VER. 213. The headlong | lioness] The manner of the Lions hunting their prey in the deferts of Africa is this: At their firft going out in the night-time they fet up a loud roar, and then liften to the noise made by the beasts by the ear, and not by the noftril. It is probable the story of the jackal's hunting for the lion, was occafioned by observation of this defect of scent in that terrible animal. P. For ever VER. 224. in their flight, purfuing them Sep'rate, &c.] Near, by the Remembrance and Reflection how ally'd; What thin partitions Senfe from Thought divide: Yet never pass th' infuperable line! NOTES. 225 230 fimilitude of the operations; | fenfible triangle in his mind, Separate, by the immenfe difference in the nature of the powers. VER. 226. What thin partitions, &c.] So thin, that the Atheistic philofophers, as Protagoras, held that thought was only fenfe; and from thence concluded, that every imagination or opinion of every man was true: Πᾶσα φαντασία ἐςὶν ἀληθής. | But the poet determines more philofophically; that they are really and effentially different, how thin foever the partition is by which they are divided. Thus (to illuftrate the truth of this obfervation) when a geometer confiders a triangle, in order to demonftrate the equality of it's three angles to two right ones, he has the picture or image of fome B which is fenfe; yet notwithftanding, he muft needs have the notion or idea of an intellectual triangle likewife, which is thought; for this plain reason, because every image or picture of a triangle muft needs be obtufangular, or rectangular, or acutangular; but that which, in his mind, is the fubject of his propofition is the ratio of a triangle, undetermined to any of these species. On this account it was that Ariftotle faid, Nońuala Tivi diolcu, τῷ μὴ φανλάσματα εἶναι, ἢ ἐδὲ ταῦτα φανάσματα, ἀλλ ̓ ἐκ ἄνευ φανlaopárov. The conceptions of the mind differ fomewhat from fenfible images; they are not fenfible images, and yet not quite free or difengaged from fenfible images. The pow'rs of all fubdu'd by thee alone, 235 Is not thy Reafon all these pow'rs in one? 240 Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd: VARIATIONS. VER. 238. Ed. ift. Ethereal effence, fpirit, fubftance, man. NOTES. VER. 243. Or in the full | full and void here meant, creation leave a void, &c.] | relating not to Matter, but This is only an illustration, to Life. alluding to the Peripatetic plenum and vacuum; the VER. 247. And, if each fyftem in gradation roll] The |