T'inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n?
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,
To smart and agonize at every pore?
Or quick effluvia darting thro' the brain,
Die of a rose in aromatic pain?

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If nature thunder'd in his op'ning ears,

And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres1,
How would he wish that Heav'n had left him still
The whisp'ring Zephyr, and the purling rill?
Who finds not Providence all good and wise,
Alike in what it gives, and what denies?

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VII. Far as Creation's ample range extends,
The scale of sensual, mental pow'rs ascends:
Mark how it mounts, to Man's imperial race,
From the green myriads in the peopled grass:
What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme,
The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam:
Of smell, the headlong lioness between2,
And hound sagacious on the tainted green:
Of hearing, from the life that fills the Flood,
To that which warbles thro' the vernal wood:
The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line:
In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true
From pois'nous herbs extracts the healing dew?
How Instinct varies in the grov'lling swine,
Compar'd, half-reas'ning elephant, with thine!
'Twixt that, and Reason, what a nice barrier3,
For ever sep'rate, yet for ever near!
Remembrance and Reflection how ally'd;

What thin partitions Sense from Thought divide1:
And Middle natures, how they long to join,
Yet never pass th' insuperable line!

Without this just gradation, could they be
Subjected, these to those, or all to thee?

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The pow'rs of all subdu'd by thee alone,

Is not thy Reason all these pow'rs in one?

VIII. See, thro' this air, this ocean, and this earth,

All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high, progressive life may go!
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!

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stunn'd him with the music of the spheres,] This instance is poetical and even sublime, but misplaced. He is arguing philosophically in a case that required him to employ the real objects of sense only: And what is worse, he speaks of this as a real object. Warburton.

2 the headlong lioness] The manner of the Lions hunting their prey in the deserts of Africa is this: At their first going out in the night-time they set up a loud roar, and then listen to the noise made by the beasts in their flight, pursuing them by the ear, and not by the nostril. It is

Vast chain of Being! which from God began,
Natures ethereal, human, angel, man1,

Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see,
No glass can reach; from Infinite to thee,
From thee to Nothing.-On superior pow'rs2
Were we to press, inferior might on ours:
Or in the full creation leave a void,

Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
And, if each system in gradation_roll

Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd: From Nature's chain whatever link you strike 3,

Alike essential to th' amazing Whole,
The least confusion but in one, not all

That system only, but the Whole must fall.
Let Earth unbalanc'd from her orbit fly,
Planets and Suns run lawless thro' the sky;
Let ruling Angels from their spheres be hurl'd,
Being on Being wreck'd, and world on world;
Heav'n's whole foundations to their centre nod,
And Nature tremble to the throne of God.

All this dread ORDER break-for whom? for thee?

Vile worm!-Oh Madness! Pride! Impiety!

IX. What if the foot, ordain'd the dust to tread 5,

Or hand, to toil, aspir'd to be the head?

What if the head, the eye, or ear repin'd

To serve mere engines to the ruling Mind?
Just as absurd for any part to claim
To be another, in this gen'ral frame:
Just as absurd, to mourn the tasks or pains 6,
The great directing MIND of ALL ordains.

All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul7;
That, chang'd thro' all, and yet in all the same;
Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame;
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees,
Lives thro' all life, extends thro' all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent ;

Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart:
As full, as perfect, in vile Man that mourns,
As the rapt Seraph that adores and burns1:
To him no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.

X. Cease then, nor ORDER Imperfection name:
Our proper bliss depends on what we blame 2.
Know thy own point: This kind, this due degree
Of blindness, weakness, Heav'n bestows on thee.
Submit. In this, or any other sphere,
Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear:
Safe in the hand of one disposing Pow'r,
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour".

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All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;

All Chance, Direction, which thou canst not see;
All Discord, Harmony not understood;
All partial Evil, universal Good:

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And, spite of Pride, in erring Reason's spite,
One truth is clear, WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT 4.

ARGUMENT OF EPISTLE II.

Of the Nature and State of Man with respect to Himself, as an Individual.

I. THE business of Man not to pry into God, but to study himself. His Middle Nature; his Powers and Frailties, v. 1 to 19. The Limits of his Capacity, v. 19, &c. II. The two Principles of Man, Self-love and Reason, both necessary, v. 53, &c. Self-love the stronger, and why, v. 67, &c. Their end the same, v. 81, &c. III. The PASSIONS, and their use, v. 93 to 130. The predominant Passion, and its force, v. 132 to 160. Its Necessity, in directing Men to different purposes, v. 165, &c. Its providential Use, in fixing our Principle, and ascertaining our Virtue, v. 177. IV. Virtue and Vice joined in our mixed Nature; the limits near, yet the things separate and evident: What is the Office of Reason, v. 202 to 216. V. How odious Vice in itself, and how we deceive ourselves into it, v. 217. VI. That, however, the Ends of Providence and general Good are answered in our Passions and Imperfections, v. 238, &c. How usefully these are distributed to all Orders of Men, v. 241. How useful they are to Society, v. 251. And to the Individuals, v. 263. In every state, and every age of life, v. 273, &c.

As the rapt Seraph, &c.] Alluding to the name Seraphim, signifying burners. Warbur

ton.

2 After v. 282, in the MS. 'Reason, to think of God when she pretends, Begins a Censor, an Adorer ends.' Warburton. 3[What Bolingbroke says in the fine passage quoted by Warton (with the pious wish Si sic omnia dixisset') was more briefly, but as finely expressed by the child Goethe (v. ante): 'God knows very well that an immortal soul can receive

no injury from a mortal accident.']

[Warburton thus explains the conclusion deduced from the argument of the Epistle: That Nature being neither a blind chain of Causes and Effects, nor yet the fortuitous result of wandering atoms, but the wonderful Art and Direction of an all-wise, all-good, and free Being; WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT, with regard to the Disposition of God, and its ultimate Tendency; which once granted, all complaints against Providence are at an end.ĺ

I.

K

EPISTLE II.

NOW then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of Mankind is Man1.
Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state,
A Being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowlege for the Sceptic side2,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a God, or Beast;
In doubt his Mind or Body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much :
Chaos of Thought and Passion, all confus'd;
Still by himself abus'd, or disabus'd;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;

Sole judge of Truth, in endless Error hurl'd3:

The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!

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Go, wond'rous creature! mount where Science guides,

Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides;
Instruct the planets in what orbs to run,
Correct old Time, and regulate the Sun";
Go, soar with Plato to th' empyreal sphere,
To the first good, first perfect, and first fair;
Or tread the mazy round his follow'rs trod,
And quitting sense call imitating God;
As Eastern priests in giddy circles run 5,
And turn their heads to imitate the Sun.
Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule-
Then drop into thyself, and be a fool!

Superior beings, when of late they saw
A mortal Man unfold all Nature's law,
Admir'd such wisdom in an earthly shape,
And shew'd a NEWTON as we shew an Ape7.

1 Ver. 2, Ed. 1.

་

'The only science of Mankind is Man.' Warburton. 2 [Sceptics was one of the names assumed by the followers of Pyrrhon, who always considered and never discovered;' whose philosophy therefore was negative; while the Stoics proclaimed the doctrine that the true end of life and the real happiness of man consist in the performance of duty and the pursuit of virtue.]

3 in endless Error hurld.] To hurl signifies, not simply to cast, but to cast backward and forward, and is taken from the rural game called hurling. Warburton. [Scoticè: curling.]

Correct old Time,] This alludes to Sir Isaac Newton's Grecian Chronology, which he reformed on those two sublime conceptions, the difference between the reigns of kings, and the generations of men; and the position of the colures of the equinoxes and solstices at the time of the Argonautic expedition. Warburton.

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5 [Eastern priests, as e.g. the priests of the Sun-God Baal.]

6 Go, teach Eternal Wisdom &c.] These two lines are a conclusion from all that had been said from v. 18. Warburton.

7 as we shew an Ape.] Evidently borrowed from the following passage in the Zodiac of Palingenius, and not, as hath been suggested by Dr Hurd, from Plato. Pope was a reader and publisher [he published a selection in 1740, founded on an earlier anthology of 1684] of the modern poets of Italy who wrote in Latin. The words are Simia Coelicolum risusque jocusque Deorum est Tunc Homo, cum temere ingenio confidit, et audet

Abdita Naturæ scrutari arcanaque Divum.' Warton. This is however an entirely different sense from that in which Pope has used the similitude: in the one case the superior beings admire the wisdom, in the other, they laugh at the folly. Roscoe.

Could he, whose rules the rapid Comet bind,
Describe or fix one movement of his Mind?
Who saw its fires here rise, and there descend,
Explain his own beginning, or his end?
Alas what wonder! Man's superior part
Uncheck'd may rise, and climb from art to art;
But when his own great work is but begun,
What Reason weaves, by Passion is undone.

Trace Science then, with Modesty thy guide;
First strip off all her equipage of Pride;
Deduct what is but Vanity, or Dress,
Or Learning's Luxury, or Idleness1;

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Expunge the whole, or lop th' excrescent parts
Of all our Vices have created Arts 3;

Or tricks to shew the stretch of human brain2,
Mere curious pleasure, or ingenious pain;

Then see how little the remaining sum,

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Self-love, to urge, and Reason, to restrain;

II. Two Principles in human nature reign;

Which serv'd the past, and must the times to come!

Nor this a good, nor that a bad we call,
Each works its end, to move or govern all:
And to their proper operation still,
Ascribe all Good; to their improper, Ill.

Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul;
Reason's comparing balance rules the whole.
Man, but for that, no action could attend,
And but for this, were active to no end:
Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot,
To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot;
Or, meteor-like, flame lawless thro' the void,
Destroying others, by himself destroy'd.

Most strength the moving principle requires;
Active its task, it prompts, impels, inspires.
Sedate and quiet the comparing lies,

Form'd but to check, delib'rate, and advise.
Self-love still stronger, as its objects nigh;
Reason's at distance, and in prospect lie5:
That sees immediate good by present sense;
Reason, the future and the consequence 6.
Thicker than arguments, temptations throng,
At best more watchful this, but that more strong.

1 [i. e. what is done by Learning after a fashion intended to make a show or to save trouble. Learning's Luxury and Idleness both resort to that profuse abuse of words which Mephistopheles recommends to the Scholar in Faust.] 2 [ Tours de force.")

3 [i. e. expunge all this (the equipage of Pride), or lop the excrescent parts which have created arts (Texvac) out of all our vices. The reference is obviously to such arts or sciences as gastronomy, which seek to gratify the carnal demands of human nature.]

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