A

WAKE, MY ST. JOHN! leave all meaner things my

To low ambition, and the pride of Kings. Let us (fince Life can little more fupply Than juft to look about us and to die) Expatiate free o'er all this scene of Man; A mighty maze! but not without a plan; A Wild, where weeds and flow'rs promifcuous shoot Or Garden, tempting with forbidden fruit.

COMMENTARY.

5

THE Opening of this poem, [in fifteen lines] is taken up in 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 Pursuits.

The Exordium relates to the whole work, of which the Efay on Man was only the first book. The 6th, 7th, and 8th lines allude to the fubjects of this Eay, viz. the general Order and Design of Providence; the Conftitution of the human Mind; the origin, ufe, and end of the Paffions and Affections, both felfish and focial; and the wrong pursuits of Power, Pleafure, and Happiness. The 10th, 11th, 12th, &c. have relation to the subjects of the books intended to follow, vix the Characters and Capa

NOTES.

VER. 7, 8. A Wild,-Or Garden,] The Wild relates to the human palions, productive (as he explains in the fecond epiftle) both of good and evil. The Garden, to human reafon, fo often tempting us to trangrefs the bounds God has fet to it, and to wander in fruitless enquiries.

Together let us beat this ample field,
Try what the open, what the covert yield;
The latent tracts, the giddy heights, explore
Of all who blindly creep, or fightless foar;
Eye Nature's walks, fhoot Folly as it flies,

ΙΟ

And catch the Manners living as they rife;

Laugh where we muft, be candid where we can;
But vindicate the ways of God to Man.

COMMENTARY.

15

cities of Men, and the Limits of Science, which once tranfgreffed, ignorance begins, and errors without end fucceed. The 13th and 14th, to the Knowledge of Mankind, and the various Manners of the age.

The Poet tells us next [line 16th] 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

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 sense and sober reason, in their high flights through the regions of Metaphyfics. Both which follies are expofed in the fourth epiftle, where the popular and philofophical errors concerning Happiness are detected. The figure is taken from animal life.

VER. 15. Laugh where we must, &c.] Intimating that human follies are fo ftrangely abfurd, that it is not in the power of the most compassionate, on fome occafions, to retrain their mirth: And that it's crimes are fo flagitious, that the most candid have feldom an opportunity, on this fubject, to exercise their virtue.

I. Say firft, of God above, or Man below, What can we reason, but from what we know? Of Man, what fee we but his station here, From which to reafon, or to which refer?

as

COMMENTARY.

20

is cry, if Man's unhappy, God's unjust ( 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 answers 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 exa&t, map of Man. The first epiftle is employed in the management of the first part of this difpute; and the three following in the difcuffion of the fecond. So that this whole book conftitutes a complete Efay on Man, written for the best purpose, to vindicate the ways of

God.

VER. 17. Say first, of God above, or Man below, &c.] The poet having declared his Subject; his End of writing; and the Quality of bis Adverfaries; proceeds (from 16 to 23.) to instruct us, from whence he intends to draw his arguments; namely, from the visible things of God in this fyftem, to demonstrate the invisible things of God, his eter

NOTES.

VER. 19, 20. Of Man, what fee we but his ftation here, From which to reafon, or to which refer?] The fenfe is, "we fee nothing of Man, but as he ftands at present in his ftation here: From which station, all our reasonings on his nature and end must be drawn ; "and to this station they must all be referred." The confequence is, that our reasonings on his nature and end muft needs be very imperfect.

Thro' worlds unnumber'd tho' the God be known, 'Tis ours to trace him only in our own. He, who thro' vaft immensity can pierce,

See worlds on worlds compofe one universe,

Obferve how fyftem into system runs,

25

What other planets circle other funs,

What vary'd Being peoples ev'ry ftar,

May tell why Heav'n has made us as we are.
But of this frame, the bearings, and the ties,
The strong connections, nice dependencies,

COMMENTARY.

30

nal Power and God-head: And why? because we can reafon only from what we know; and as we know no more of Man than what we see of his ftation here; so we know no more of God than what we fee of his difpenfations 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 4?.) a fublime defcription of the Omnifcience of God, and the miferable Blindness and Prefumption of Man.

NOTE SC

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.

VER. 30. The frong connections, nice dependencies,] The thought is very noble, and expreffed with great beauty, and philofophic exactnefs. The fyftem of the Univerfe is a combination of natural and moral Fitneffes, as the human

Gradations juft, has thy pervading foul

Look'd thro'? or can a part contain the whole?
Is the great chain, that draws all to agree,
And drawn fupports, upheld by God, or thee?
II. Presumptuous Man! the reason wouldst thou
find,

Why form'd fo weak, fo little, and so blind?
First, if thou canft, the harder reafon guess,

Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less?
Afk of thy mother earth, why oaks are made
Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade!

NOTES.

35

40

fyftem is, of body and fpirit. By the firong connections, therefore, the Poet alluded to the natural part; and by the nice dependencies to the moral. For the Elay on Man is not a fyftem of NATURALISM but of NATURAL RELIGION. [See the View of Lord Bolingbroke's Philofophy.] Hence it is, that, where he fuppofes diforders may tend to fome greater good in the natural world, he fuppofes they may tend likewife to fome greater good in the moral, as appears from these sublime images in the following lines,

"If plagues or earthquakes break not Heav'n's defign, Why then a Borgia, or a Catiline?

"Who knows, but he, whofe hand the light'ning forms,
"Who heaves old Ocean, and who wings the ftorms;
"Pours fierce Ambition in a Cæfar's mind,

"Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge Mankind? VER. 35 to 42.] In thefe lines the poet has joined the beauty of argumentation to the fublimity of thought; where the fimilar inftances, propofed for his adverfaries examination, shew as well the abfurdity of their complaints against Order, as the fruitleness of their enquiries into the arcana of the Godhead.