1. The first and chief is a grandeur and sublimity of conception: Come then, my friend! my genius! come along, O master of the Poet, and the song! And while the Muse now stoops, and now ascends, 2. The second, that pathetic enthusiasm, which at the same time melts and enflames : Teach me, like thee, in various nature wise, grave to gay, from lively to severe; 3. A certain elegant formation and ordonance of figures: O! while along the stream of time, thy name When statesmen, heroes, kings, in dust repose, And fifthly, which includes in itself all the rest, a weight and dignity in the composition: Shew'd erring Pride, whatever is, is RIGHT; But this, as we say, is not our province at present. I shall therefore content myself with an observation, which this sublime recapitulation of the general argument, in the the last lines, affords me to conclude with. Which is, of one great beauty that shines through the whole Essay. It is this, that the Poet, whether he speaks of Man as an individual, a member of society, or the subject of happiness, never misseth an opportunity, while he is explaining his state under any of these capacities, to illustrate it, in the most artful manner, by the inforcement of his grand principle, That every thing tends to the good of the whole. From whence his system receives the reciprocal advantage of having that grand theorem realized by facts, and his facts justified on a principle of right or nature. 66 Thus have I endeavoured to analyse and explain the noble reasoning of these four Epistles. Enough, I presume, to convince our Critic's friends that it hath a precision, force, and closeness of connexion, rarely to be met with, even in the most formal treatises of philosophy. Yet in doing this, it is but too evident I have destroyed that grace and energy which animates the original. "So right was Mr. Pope's prediction of the event of such an undertaking, where he says, in his preface, that, he was unable to treat this part of his subject more in detail, without becoming dry and tedious. And now let the Reader believe, if he be so disposéd, what our great Logician insinuates to be his own sentiments, as well as those of his friends: "That certain persons have con"jectured that Mr. Pope did not compose this Essay at once, and in a regular order; but that after he had "wrote several fragments of Poetry, all finished in their "kind; one, for example, on the Parallel between Reason "and Instinct; another, upon Man's groundless Pride; "another, on the Prerogatives of Human Nature; another, "on Religion and Superstition; another, on the Original of Society; and several fragments besides, on Self-love "and the Passions; he tacked these together as he could, " and divided them into four Epistles, as, it is said, was "the fortune of Homer's Rhapsodies*." Yes, I believe full as much of Mr. Pope's Rhapsodies, as I do of Homer's. But if this be the case, that the leaves of these two great Poets were wrote at random, tossed about, and afterwards put in order, like the Cumaan Sibyls; then, what • Commentaire, p. 346. 46 66 we we have till now thought an old lying bravado of the Poets, that they wrote by inspiration, will become a sober truth. For, if chance could not produce them, and human design had no hand in them, what must we conclude, but that they are, what they are so commonly called, divine? However, so honourable an account of rhapsody writing should by all means be encouraged, as matter of consolation to certain modern writers in divinity and politics. But the mischief is, our Logician has given us an unlucky proof in his own case, that all Rhapsodists are not so happy. To be serious: As to Homer, one might hope, by this time, those old exploded fooleries about his rhapsodies would be forgotten. But as to his Translator, it must be owned, he has given cause enough of disgust to. our philosophers and men of reason. Till this time, every Poet, good or bad, stuck fairly to his profession : But Mr. Pope, now the last of the poetic line amongst us, on whom the large patrimony of his whole race is devolved, seems desirous, as is natural in such cases, to ally himself to a more lasting family; and so, after having disported himself at will, in the flowery paths of fancy, and revelled in all the favours of the Muses, boasts of having taken up in time, and courted and espoused truth: That not in fancy's maze he wander'd long, But now, in what light, must we think, will the graver Christian reader regard the calumnies we have here confuted? How sad an idea will this give him of the present spirit of Christian profession, that a work, wrote solely to recommend the charity that religion so strongly inforceth, and breathing nothing but love to God, and universal good-will to Man, should bring upon the Author such a storm of uncharitable bitterness and calumny, and that, from a pretended Advocate of Christianity? A religion the very vitality of which (if we may believe its propagators) is universal benevolence: For the end of the commandment is charity*. Conformably hereunto we may 1 Tim. i. 5. observe, observe, that in their Epistles to the Churches, whatever the occasion was, whatever discipline they instituted, whatever points of faith they explained, whatever heresies they stigmatized, whatever immoralities they condemned, or whatever virtues they recommended, CHARITY was still the thing most constantly enforced, as the very end of all, the bond of perfectness*. The beloved disciple of our Lord, particularly, who may surely be supposed to know his Master's will, hath wrote his Epistle on set purpose to recommend this single virtue: at a crisis too, when, as heresies were springing up apace, a modern controversialist would be apt to think he might have employed his time better. And why (it may be reasonably asked) so very much on charity, in an age when Christians had so few provocations or temptations to violate it? For their faith being yet chaste from the prostitutions of the schools, and their hierarchy yet uncorrupted by the gifts of Constantine, the Church knew neither bigotry nor ambition, the two fatal sources of uncharitable zeal. I will tell you, it was the providence of their prophetic spirit, which presented to them the image of those miserable times foretold by their Master, when iniquity should abound, and the love of many wax cold †. So that if the men of those times should persist in violating this bond of perfectness, after so many repeated admonitions, they might be found altogether withour excuse. can by no means enter into the views of that profound philosopher, who discovered that Jesus and his followers might preach up love and charity, the better to enable a set of men, some centuries afterwards, to tyrannise over those whom the engaging sounds of charity and brotherly love had intrapped into subjection, For I I am aware that certain modern propagators of the faith, aided with a school distinction, will tell you, that it is pure charity which sets them all at work; and that what you call uncharitableness, when they insult the fame, the fortune, or the person of their brother, is indeed the very height of charity, a charity for his soul. This indeed may be the height of the hangman's charity, + Matt. xxiv, 12. * Col. iii. 14. Characteristics, vol. i. p. 87. vol. iii. p. 115. Ed. 1737. who * who waits for your clothes: But it could never be St. Paul's. His was not easily provoked, thought no evil, bore all things, hoped all things, endured all things It was a charity that began in candour, inspired good opinion, and sought the temporal happiness of his brother. I leave it with Mr. De Crousaz to think upon the different effects which excess of zeal in the service of re ligion hath produced in him. For I will, in very charity, believe it to be really that; notwithstanding we every day see the most despicable tools of others impotency, and the vilest slaves to their own ambition, hide their corrupt passions under the self-same cover. This learned gentleman should reflect on what the sober part of the world will think of his conduct. For though the Apostle bids AGED MEN BE SOUND IN FAITH, he adds immediately, and IN CHARITY, IN PATIENCE likewise. But where was his charity in labouring, on the slightest grounds, to represent his brother as propagating Spinozism and immorality? Where was his temper, when he became so furious against him, on the supposition of his espousing a system he had never read, that of Leibnitz; and justifying a doctrine he had never heard of, the pre-established harmony? Where was his patience, when, having conceived this of him, on the mere authority of a most mistaken Translator, he would not stay to inquire whether the Author owned the faithfulness of the version; but published his conceptions, and the strongest accusations upon those conceptions, in volume after volume, to the whole world? Where, if in any of these imaginations so founded, he should be mistaken, he became guilty of a deliberate and repeated act of the highest injustice; the attempting to deprive a virtuous man of his honest reputation. If a If Mr. De Crousas presumes his zeal for the honour of God will excuse his violations of charity towards men, I must tell him, he knows not what spirit he is of. man (says the beloved disciple of our Lord) say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love |