Mem'ry and fore-cast just returns engage, That pointed back to youth, this on to age; While pleasure, gratitude, and hope, combin'd, 145 Still spread the int'reft, and preferv'd the kind. IV. Nor think, in NATURE'S STATE they The state of Nature was the reign of God: COMMENTARY. VER. 147. Nor think, in Nature's ftate they blindly trod ;] But the Atheist and Hobbist, against whom Mr. Pope argueth, deny the principle of Right, or of natural Juftice, before the invention of civil compact; which, they fay, gave Being to it: And accordingly have had the effrontery publicly to declare, that a ftate of Nature was a state of War. This quite fubverteth the NOTES. VER. 152. Man walk'd with | beaft, joint tenant of the fhade;] The poet ftill takes his imagery from Platonic ideas, for the reason given above. Plato had faid from old tradition, that, during the Golden age, and under the reign of Saturn, the primitive language then in ufe was common to man and beafts. Moral philofophers took this in the popular fenfe, and fo invented those fables which give fpeech to the whole brute-creation. The naturalifts understood the tradition to fignify, that, in the first ages, Men used inarticulate founds like beasts to exprefs their wants and fenfations'; and that it was by flow degrees they came to the use of speech. This opinion was afterwards held by Lucretius, Diodorus Sic. and Gregory of Nyff. The fame his table, and the fame his bed; No murder cloath'd him, and no murder fed. All vocal beings hymn'd their equal God : 155 poet's natural Society: Therefore, after his account of that state, he proceedeth to fupport the reality of it by overthrowing the oppugnant principle of no natural Justice; which he doth (from 146 to 169) in fhewing, by a fine description of the state of Innocence, as reprefented in Scripture, that a ftate of Nature was fo far from being without natural Juftice, that it was, at first, the reign of God, where Right and Truth univerfally prevailed. Combining all below, and all above, breaks out into this rapturous "deeps; fire and hail, fnow "and vapour, ftormy wind "fulfilling his word: Moun"tains, and all hills, fruitful trees and all cedars: Beasts " and all cattle, creeping things "and flying fowl: Kings of "the earth, and all people: "princes, and all judges of "the earth. Let them praife, "the name of the Lord; for, "his name alone is excellent, "his glory is above the earth " and heaven." Pfal. cxlviii. The shrine with gore unftain'd, with gold undreft, And Man's prerogative to rule, but fpare. Of half that live the butcher and the tomb; NOTES. VER. 158. Unbrib'd, un bloody, &c.] i. e. The ftate de 160 extreme as to bribe the Gods with human facrifices (fee fcribed, from 261 to 269,267) Tyranny became ne was not yet arrived. For then when Superftition became fo And play'd the God an VER. 159. Heav'n's attribute, &c.] The poet fuppofes the truth of the Scripture ac ceffitated to woo the priest for a favourable answer: engine on his foe. count, that Man was created Lord of this inferior world (Ep. i. 230.) Subjected thefe to thofe, and all to thee. What hath mifled fome to ima- | tradiction, was, I suppose, such gîne him here fallen into a con- paffages as these, Afk for what end the heav'nly bodies shine, &c. And again, Has God, thou fool! work'd folely for thy good, c. But in truth this is fo far from contradicting what is here faid of Man's prerogative, that it greatly confirms it, and what the Scripture tells us concerning it. And because this matter has been mistaken, to the difcredit of the poet's religious fentiments, by readers, whom the conduct of certain licentious writers, treating this fubject in an abufive way, hath rendered jealous and mistrustful, I fhall endeavour to explain it. Scripture fays, that Man was made Lord of All. But this Lord becoming at length intoxicated with Pride, the common' effect of fovereignty, erected himself, like more partial monarchs, into a tyrant. Ard as Tyramy confifts in fuppofing all made for the ufe 165 Who, foe to Nature, hears the gen'ral groan, To COMMENTARY. 170 VER. 169. See him from Nature rifing flow to Art!] Strict method (in which, by this time, the reader finds the poet more converfant than fome were aware of) leads him next to speak of that Society, which fucceeded the Natural, namely the Civil. He first explains (from 169 to 199) the intermediate means which led Mankind from natural to civil Society. These were the invention and improvement of Arts. For while Mankind lived in a mere ftate of Nature, there was no need of any other government than the Paternal; but when Arts were found out and improved, then that more perfect form, under the direction of a Magiftrate, became neceffary. And for these rea NOTES. of one; he took those freedoms | cruelty, he endeavoured to phiwith all, that are confequent lofophize himself into an opinion fuch a principle. He foon on that animals were mere mabegan to confider the whole chines, infenfible of pain or animal creation as his flaves ra- pleasure. Thus Man affected ther than his fubjects; as be- to be the Wit as well as Tying created for no use of their rant of the Whole: and it beown, but for his only; and came one who adhered to the therefore treated them with the Scripture account of Man's doutmost barbarity: And not fo minion, to reprove this abuse content, to add infult to his of it, and to fhew that Heav'n's attribute was Universal Care, And Man's prerogative to rule, but spare. Thus then to Man the voice of Nature spake "Go, from the Creatures thy inftructions take: "Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield; "Learn from the beafts the phyfic of the field; Thy arts of building from the bee receive; 175 "Learn of the mole to plow, the worm to weave; "Learn of the little Nautilus to fail, "Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale. COMMENTARY. fons; firft, to bring those arts, already found, to perfection: And, fecondly, to secure the product of them to their rightful proprietors. The poet, therefore, comes now, as we say, to the invention of Arts; but being always intent on the great end for which he wrote his Effay, namely to mortify that Pride which occafions the impious complaints againft Providence; he speaks of these inventions as only leffons learnt of mere animals guided by inftinct; and thus, at the fame time, gives a new inftance of the wonderful Providence of God, who has contrived to teach mankind in a way, not only proper to humble human arrogance, but to raise our idea of infinite Wisdom to the greatest pitch. This he does in a prosopopeia the most fublime that ever entered into the human imagination: |