Or in the full creation leave a void, Where, one step broken, the great fcale's deftroy'd: NOTES. 250 Let VER. 244. the great fcale's deftroy'd:] All that can be faid of the supposition of a scale of beings gradually defcending from perfection to non-entity, and complete in every rank and degree, is to be found in the third chapter of King's Origin of Evil, and in a note of the Archbishop, marked G, p. 137, of Law's Translation, ending with these emphatical words: "Whatever fyftem God had chofen, all creatures in it could not have been equally perfect; and there could have been but a certain determinate multitude of the most perfect; and, when that was completed, there would have been a station for creatures less perfect, and it would still have been an inftance of goodness to give them a being as well as others." WARTON. VER. 245. From Nature's chain] Almost the words of Marcus Antoninus, 1. v. c. 8.; as alfo v. 265. from the fame. WARTON. VER. 251. Let Earth unbalanc'd] i. e. Being no longer kept within its orbit by the different directions of its progreffive and attractive motions; which, like equal weights in a balance, keep it in an equilibre. WARBURTON. It is obfervable, that these noble lines were added after the first folio edition. It is a pleasing and useful amusement to trace out the alterations that a great and correct writer gradually makes in his works. At first it ran, How inftinct varies! What a hog may want, And Let ruling Angels from their spheres be hurl'd, Heav'n's NOTES. And again; What the advantage if his finer eyes Which lines at prefent ftand thus: How inftinct varies in the grov'ling fwine, Compar'd, half-reas'ning Elephant, with thine! Say what the ufe, were finer optics giv'n, T'inspect a mite, not comprehend the Heav'n. Formerly it flood thus: No felf-confounding faculties to share, No fenfes ftronger than his brain can bear. At prefent ; No pow'rs of body or of foul to share, But what his nature and his ftate can bear. It appeared at first very exceptionably; Expatiate far o'er all this scene of Man, A mighty maze of walks without a plan. Which contradicted his whole system, and it was altered to, WARTON. A mighty maze! but not without a plan! VER. 251. Let Earth unbalanc'd] Ruffhead fays, "There is no reading these lines, without being ftruck with a momentary appre benfion!" Without quite allowing this, we cannot but feel their great beauty and force. Line rifes upon line, with greater effect and nobler imagery, and in the conclufion the Poet has touched the idea with propriety, as well as dignity and sublimity. If he had been more particular, the paffage would have been unworthy the grandeur of the fubject; had he been lefs, it would have been. obfcure. He has at once evinced judgment and poetry. If there be a word or two not quite fuitable, perhaps it is “run,” and "foundations nod." I could have wished such a word as “ rusb’d lawless," or "flam'd lawless through the sky." Let me here observe, that there are many truly great paffages in this Effay. Such is that defcribing Superftition, "When roll'd the thunder, and when rock'd the ground;" which evince the hand of a master, and which are the more striking, as all along the poetical part is kept in fubfervience to the reasoning. Heav'n's whole foundations to their centre nod, 255 All this dread ORDER break-for whom? for thee? Vile worm !—oh Madness! Pride! Impiety! 260 IX. What if the foot, ordain'd the dust to tread, Or hand, to toil, afpir'd to be the head? What if the head, the eye, or ear repin'd To ferve mere engines to the ruling mind? Just as abfurd for any part to claim To be another, in this gen'ral frame: Juft as abfurd, to mourn the tasks or pains, The great directing MIND OF ALL ordains. All are but parts of one ftupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the foul; COMMENTARY. 265 That, VER. 267. All are but parts of one ftupendous whole,] Our Author having thus given a reprefentation of God's work, as one entire whole, where all the parts have a neceffary dependance on, and relation to, each other, and where each particular part works and concurs to the perfection of the Whole; as such a system transcends vulgar ideas; to reconcile it to common conceptions, he fhews (from ver. 266 to 281.), that God is equally and intimately prefent to every fort of fubftance, to every particle of matter, and in every inftant of being; which eases the labouring imagination, and makes us expect no lefs, from fuch a Prefence, than fuch a Difpenfation. WARBURTON. NOTES. VER. 265. Just as abfurd, &c.] See the prosecution and application of this in Ep. iv. РОРЕ. VER. 266. The great directing MIND, &c.] "Veneramur autem et colimus ob dominium. Deus enim fine dominio, providentia, et caufis finalibus, nihil aliud eft quam FATUM et NATURA." Newtoni Princip. Schol. gener. fub finem. WARBURTON. That, chang'd through all, and yet in all the fame; Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame; NOTES. 270 Warms VER. 267. All are but parts] These are lines of a marvellous energy and clofenefs of expreffion. They are exactly like the old Orphic verfes quoted in Ariftotle, De Mundo. Edit. Lugd. folio, 1590, p. 378.; and line 289 as minutely resembles the doctrine of the fublime hymn of Cleanthes the Stoic; not that I imagine Pope or Bolingbroke ever read that hymn, especially the latter, who was ignorant of Greek. WARTON. manner. Ver. 268. Whofe body Nature is, &c.] Mr. de Croufaz remarks, on this line, that "A Spinozift would express himself in this I believe he would; for fo the infamous Toland has done, in his Atheift's Liturgy, called PANTHEISTICON: But fo would St. Paul likewife, who, writing on this fubject, the omniprefence of God in his Providence, and in his Substance, says, in the words of a pantheistical Greek Poet, In him we live, and and have our being; i. e. we are parts of him, his offspring: And the reafon is, becaufe a religious theift and an impious pantheift both profess to believe the omniprefence of God. But would Spinoza, as Mr. Pope does, call God the great directing Mind of all, who hath intentionally created a perfect Univerfe? Or would a Spinozist have told us, move, "The workman from the work diftinct was known?" a line that overturns all Spinozism from its very foundations. But this fublime defeription of the Godhead contains not only the divinity of St. Paul; but, if that will not fatisfy the men he writes againft, the philofophy likewife of Sir Ifaac Newton. The Poet fays, "All are but parts of one ftupendous Whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the foul;" &c. The Philofopher :-" In ipfo continentur et moventur universa, fed abfque mutua paffione. Deus nihil patitur ex corporum moti. bus; illa nullam fentiunt refiftentiam ex omnipræfentia Dei.-Corpore omni et figura corporea deftituitur.-Omnia regit et omnia cognofcit-Cum unaquæque Spatii particula fit femper, et unum. quodque Durationis indivifibile momentum, ubique certe rerum omnium Fabricator ac Dominus non erit nunquam, nufquam." VOL. III. E Mr. Warms in the fun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and bloffoms in the trees, Mr. Pope; NOTES. Lives "Breathes in our foul, informs our mortal part, "As full, as perfect, in vile Man that mourns, "He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all." Sir Ifaac Newton :-" Annon ex phænomenis conftat effe enter incorporeum, viventem, intelligentem, omnipræfentem, qui in fpatio infinito, tanquam fenforio fuo, res ipfas intime cernat, penitufque perfpiciat, totafque intra fe præfens præfentes complectatur." But now, admitting there were an ambiguity in thefe expreffions, fo great that a Spinozist might employ them to exprefs his own particular principles; and fuch a thing might well be, because the Spinozists, in order to hide the impiety of their principle, are wont to express the Omniprefence of God in terms that any religious Theift might employ; in this cafe, I fay, how are we to judge of the Poet's meaning? Surely, by the whole tenor of his argument. Now, take the words in the fenfe of the Spinozifts, and he is made, in the conclufion of his epiftle, to overthrow all he had been advancing throughout the body of it: for Spinozifm is the deftruction of an Univerfe, where every thing tends, by a foreseen contrivance in all its parts, to the perfection of the Whole. But allow him to employ the paffage in the fenfe of St. Paul, That we and all creatures live, and move, and have our being in God; and then it will be feen to be the most logical support of all that had preceded. For the Poet having, as we say, laboured through his epiftle to prove, that every thing in the Universe tends, by a forefeen contrivance, and a prefent direction of all its parts, to the perfection of the Whole; it might be objected, that fuch a difpofition of things implying in God a painful, operofe, and inconceivable extent of Providence, it could not be fuppofed that such care extended to all, but was confined to the more noble parts of the creation. This grofs conception of the First Cause the Poet expofes, by fhewing that God is equally and intimately prefent to every particle of Matter, to every fort of Substance, and in every instant of Being. WARBURTON. |