5

Let this great truth be present night and day;
But most be present, if we preach or pray.

Look round our World; behold the chain of Love Combining all below and all above.

See plastic Nature working to this end,
The fingle atoms each to other tend,
Attract, attracted to, the next in place
Form'd and impell'd its neighbour to embrace.
See Matter next, with various life endu'd,
Prefs to one centre still, the gen'ral Good.
See dying vegetables life fuftain,
See life diffolving vegetate again :

All forms that perifh other forms supply,
(By turns we catch the vital breath, and die)

NOTES.

have an affluence of health,
which not being ufed, but
abused and ruined by Luxu-
ry, the poet properly calls
a fuperfluity.
VER. 4, impudence of
wealth,] Becaufe wealth
pretends to be wisdom, wit,
learning, honefty, and, in
fhort, all the virtues in their

turns.

VER. 12. Form'd and impell'd, &c.] To make Mat

15

ter fo cohere as to fit it for the ufes intended by its Creator, a proper configu ration of its infenfible parts is as neceffary as that quality fo equally and univerfally conferred upon it, called Attraction. To exprefs the first part of this thought, our Author fays, formed; and to express the latter, impell'd.

Like bubbles on the fea of Matter born,

20:

They rife, they break, and to that fea return.
Nothing is foreign: Parts relate to whole;
One all-extending, all-preferving Soul
Connects each being, greatest with the least ;
Made Beast in aid of Man, and Man of Beaft;
All serv'd, all ferving: nothing stands alone;
The chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown.
Has God, thou fool! work'd folely for thy good,
Thy joy, thy paftime, thy attire, thy food?
Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn,

For him as kindly spread the flow'ry lawn:
Is it for thee the lark afcends and fings ?
Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings.
Is it for thee the linnet pours his throat?
Loves of his own and raptures fwell the note.

NOTES.

VER. 22. One all-extending, all preferving Soul] Which, in the language of Sir Ifaac Newton, is, Deus omnipræfens eft, non per virtutem folam, fed etiam per fubftantiam: nam virtus fine fubftantia fubfiftere non poteft. Newt. Princ fchol. gen. fub fin.

25

30

VER. 23. Greatest with the leaft] As acting more ftrongly and immediately in beafts, whofe inftinct is plainly an external reason ; which made an old schoolman fay, with great elegance, Deus eft anima brøtorum :

In this 'tis God directs--

The bounding fteed you pompously bestride,

Shares with his lord the pleasure and the pride.
Is thine alone the feed that ftrews the plain?
The birds of heav'n fhall vindicate their grain.
Thine the full harvest of the golden year?
Part pays, and justly, the deserving steer :
The hog, that plows not nor obeys thy call,
Lives on the labours of this lord of all.

35

40

Know, Nature's children all divide her care; The fur that warms a monarch, warm'd a bear. 44 While Man exclaims, "See all things for my use !" "See man for mine!" replies a pamper'd goofe And just as fhort of reason He must fall, Who thinks all made for one, not one for all.

VARIATIONS.

After 46. in the former Editions,

What care to tend, to lodge, to cram, to treat him!
All this he knew; but not that 'twas to eat him.
As far as Goose could judge, he reason'd right;
But as to Man, miftook the matter quite.

NOTES.

VER. 45.-See all things for my ufe!] On the contrary, the wife man hath

faid, The Lord hath made all things for HIMSELF. Prov. xvi. 4.

50

Grant that the pow'rful ftill the weak controul;
Be Man the Wit and Tyrant of the whole:
Nature that Tyrant checks; He only knows,
And helps another creature's wants and woes.
Say, will the falcon, ftooping from above,
Smit with her varying plumage, fpare the dove?
Admires the jay the infect's gilded wings?
Or hears the hawk when Philomela fings?
Man cares for all: to birds he gives his woods,
To beafts his pastures, and to fish his floods;
For fome his Int'reft prompts him to provide,
For more his pleasure, yet for more his pride:

55

60

All feed on one vain Patron, and enjoy

Th' extenfive bleffing of his luxury.
That very life his learned hunger craves,

He faves from famine, from the favage faves;
Nay, feafts the animal he dooms his feast,
And, 'till he ends the being, makes it bleft;

NOTES.

VER. 50. Be Man the Wit and Tyrant of the whole] Alluding to the witty fyftem of that Philofopher, which made Animals mere Machines, in

65

fenfible of pain or pleasure :
and fo encouraged Men in
the exercise of that Tyranny
over their fellow-creatures,
confequent on fuch a prin-
ciple.

70

EP. III. Which fees no more the stroke, or feels the pain, Than favour'd Man by touch etherial flain. The creature had his feaft of life before; Thou too muft perifh, when thy feast is o'er ! To each unthinking being, Heav'n a friend, Giyes 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 so remote the fear, Death ftill draws nearer, never seeming near. Great standing miracle! that Heav'n affign'd Its only thinking thing this turn of mind,

75

II. Whether with Reason, or with Instinct bleft, Know, all enjoy that pow'r which fuits them beft; To blifs alike by that direction tend,

And find the means proportion'd to their end.
Say, where full Inftinct is th' unerring guide,
What Pope or Council can they need beside ?
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 diftaste.

NOTES.

81

VER. 68. Than favour'd | ancients, and many of the Maz, &c.] Several of the Orientals fince, efteemed