Some fafer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier ifland in the watry waste,

Where flaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Chriftians thirft for gold.
To Be, contents his natural defire,

He afks no Angel's wing, no Seraph's fire
But thinks, admitted to that equal fky,
His faithful dog fhall bear him company.

;

ESSAY ON MAN, V. 2. p. 43.

THE PROGRESSION OF ANIMAL LIFE. WHAT would this Man? Now upward will he foar,

And, little lefs than Angel, would be more;
Now looking downwards, juft as griev'd appears
To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears.
Made for his ufe all creatures if he call,
Say what their use, had he the pow'rs of all?
Nature to thefe, without profufion, kind,
The proper organs, proper pow'rs affign'd;
Each feeming want compenfated of course,
Here with degrees of fwiftnefs, there of force;
All in exact proportion to the state;
Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.
Each beaft, each infect, happy in its own:
Is Heav'n unkind to Man, and Man alone?
Shall he alone, whom rational we call,

Be pleas'd with nothing, if not bleft with all?

The blifs of Man (could Pride that blessing find) Is not to act or think beyond mankind;

No

No pow'rs of body, or of foul to fhare,
But what his nature and his state can bear.
Why has not Man a microfcopic eye?
For this plain reason, Man is not a Fly.
Say what the use, were finer optics giv'n,
T' inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n f
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,
To fmart and agonize at ev'ry pore?

Or quick effluvia darting through the brain,
Die of a rofe in aromatic pain?

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

And ftunn'd him with the mufic of the spheres, How would he wish that Heav'n had left him ftill The whisp'ring Zephyr, and the purling rill! Who finds not Providence all good and wife, Alike in what it gives, and what denies ?

Far as Creation's ample range extends, The scale of sensual, mental pow'rs afcends: Mark how it mounts to Man's imperial race, From the green myriads in the peopled grass; What modes of fight betwixt each wide extreme, The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam: Of smell, the headlong lioness between, And hound fagacious on the tainted green : Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood, To that which warbles through the vernal wood! The fpider's touch, how exquifitely fine! Feels at each thread, and lives along the line: In the nice bee, what fenfe fo fubtly true From pois'nous herbs extracts the healing dew!

How

How Instinct varies in the grov'ling swine,
Compar'd, half-reas'ning elephant, with thine!
"Twixt that, and Reason, what a nice barrier!
For ever fep'rate, yet for ever near !
Remembrance and Reflection how ally'd;

What thin partitions Sense from Thought divide !
And Middle natures, how they long to join,
Yet never pass th'infuperable line!
Without thefe juft gradations, could they be
Subjected, these to thofe, or all to thee?
The pow'rs of all fubdu'd by thee alone,
Is not thy Reason all these pow'rs in one?

See, thro' this air, this ocean, and this earth, All matter quick, and bursting into birth. Above, how high, progreffive life may go! Around, how wide! how deep extend below! Vaft chain of being! which from God began, Natures æthereal, human, angel, man, Beaft, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see, No glass can reach; from Infinite to thee, From thee to Nothing.-On fuperior pow'rs Were we to press, inferior might on ours; Or in the full Creation leave a void, Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd: From Nature's chain whatever link you ftrike, Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.

IBID. V. 2. P. 47.

UNI

UNIVERSAL ORDER.

ALL are but parts of one ftupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the foul;

That, chang'd thro' all, and yet in all the fame,
Great in the earth, as in th'etherial frame
Warms in the fun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the ftars, and bloffoms in the trees;
Lives through all life, extends through all extent;
Spreads undivided, operates unfpent;
Breathes in our foul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;

As full, as perfect, in vile Man that mourns,
As the wrapt Seraph that adores and burns:
To him no high, no low, no great, no fmall;
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.

Cease then, nor ORDER imperfection name:
Our proper blifs depends on what we blame.
Know thy own point: This kind, this due degree
Of blinduefs, weakness, Heav'n beftows on thee.
Submit-In this, or any other fphere,
Secure to be as bleft as thou canst bear :
Safe in the hand of one difpofing Pow'r,
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.
All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;
All Chance, Direction, which thou canst not fee:
All Discord, Harmony not understood;

All partial Evil, univerfal Good:

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

SELF-KNOWLEDGE.

KNOW then thyself, prefume not God to scan,
The proper ftudy of mankind is Man.
Plac'd on this ifthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wife, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic fide,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or reft;
In doubt to deem himself a God, or Beaft;
In doubt his Mind or Body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reafon fuch,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much :
Chaos of Thought and Paffion, all confus'd;
Still by himself abus'd or disabus'd;

Created half to rife, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of Truth, in endless Error hurl'd:
The glory, jeft, and riddle of the world!

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

Go, measure earth, weigh air, and ftate the tides;
Inftruct the planets in what orbs to run,

Correct old Time, and regulate the Sun;
Go, foar with Plato to th'empyreal sphere,
To the firft good, first perfect, and first fair;
Or tread the mazy round his follow'rs trod,
And, quitting fenfe, call imitating God;
As Eastern priests in giddy circles run,
And turn their heads to imitate the Sun.

Go,