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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
To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears.
Made for his ufe all creatures if he call,
Say what their ufe, had he the pow'rs of all?
Nature to these, without profufion, kind,
The proper organs, proper pow'rs affign'd;
Each seeming want compensated of course,
Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force;
All in exact proportion to the ftate;
Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.

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Each beast, each infect, happy in it's own:
Is Heav'n unkind to Man, and Man alone?
Shall he alone, whom rational we call,
Be pleas'd with nothing, if not blefs'd with all?
The blifs of Man (could Pride that blessing find)
Is not to act or think beyond mankind;

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,
Why has not Man a microscopic eye?
For this plain reason, Man is not a Fly.

Say what the use, were finer optics giv’n,

195

T' infpect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n?
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,

To fmart and agonize at ev'ry pore?

Or quick effluvia darting thro' the brain,
Die of a rofe in aromatic pain?

If nature thunder'd in his op'ning ears,

200

And stunn'd him with the mufic of the fpheres,
How would he wish that Heav'n had left him ftill
The whifp'ring Zephyr, and the purling rill?
Who finds not Providence all good and wife, 205
Alike in what it gives, and what denies ?

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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:
And Middle natures, how they long to join,

Yet never pass th' infuperable line!
Without this juft gradation, could they be
Subjected, these to those, or all to thee?

NOTES.

225

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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

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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,

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Is not thy Reafon all these pow'rs in one?
VIII. See, thro' this air, this ocean, and this earth,
All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high, progreffive life may go!
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
Vaft chain of Being! which from God began,
Natures æthereal, human, angel, man,
Beaft, bird, fifh, infect, what no eye can fee,
No glass can reach; from Infinite to thee,
From thee to Nothing.-On fuperior pow'rs
Were we to prefs, inferior might on ours:
Or in the full creation leave a void

240

Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd:
From Nature's chain whatever link you ftrike, 245
Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
And, if each fyftem in gradation roll
Alike effential to th' amazing Whole,

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

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