In all the madness of superfluous health, The trim of pride, the impudence of wealth, Let COMMENTARY. But to prevent our refting there, God hath made each need the affiftance of another; and fo "On mutual wants built mutual happiness." It was neceffary to explain the two first lines, the better to fee the pertinency and force of what followeth (from Ver. 2 to 7.) where the Poet warns fuch to take notice of this truth, whofe circumstances placing them in an imaginary station of Independance, and inducing a real habit of infenfibility to mutual wants (from which wants general Happiness results) make them but too apt to overlook the true fyftem of things; viz. the men in full health and opulence. This caution was neceffary with respect to Society; but ftill more neceffary with respect to Religion: Therefore he especially recommends the memory of it as well to the Clergy as Laity, when they preach or pray; because the preacher who doth not confider the firft Caufe under this view, as a Being confulting the good of the whole, muft needs give a very unworthy idea of him; and the fupplicant, who prayeth as one not related to a whole, or indifferent to the happinefs of it, will not only pray in vain, but offend his Maker by neglecting the interests of his difpenfation. NOTES. VER. 3. fuperfluous health,] Immoderate labour and immoderate study are equally the impairers of health: They, whose station fets them above both, must needs have an abundance of it, which not being employed in the common fervice, but wafted in Luxury and Folly, the Poct properly calls a fuperfluity. VER. 4.-impudence of wealth,] Becaufe wealth pretends to be wisdom, wit, learning, honefty, and, in fhort, all the virtues in their turns. Let this great truth be present night and day; 5 But most be present, if we preach or pray. Look round our World; behold the chain of Love Combining all below and all above. See plaftic Nature working to this end, 10 Attract, COMMENTARY. VER. 7. Look round our World, etc.] He now introduceth his fyftem of human Sociability (Ver. 7, 8.) by fhewing it to be the dictate of the Creator; and that Man, in this, did but follow the example of general Nature, which is united in one clofe fyftem of benevolence. VER. 9. See plaftic Nature working to this end,] This he proveth, firft (from Ver. 8 to 13.) on the noble theory of Attraction, NOTES. VER. 3, 4, 5, 6. M. Du Refnel not seeing into the admirable purpofe of the caution, contained in these four lines, hath quite dropped the most material circumstances contained in the last of them; and, what is worse, for the fake of a foolish antithefis, hath destroyed the whole propriety of the thought in the two firft: and fo, between both, hath left his Author neither fenfe nor system. "Dans le fein du bonheur, ou de l'adverfité." Now of all men, thofe in adverfity have leaft need of this caution, as being leaft apt to forget, That God confults the good of the whole, and provides for it by procuring mutual happiness by means of mutual wants; it being feen that fuch who yet retain the smart of any fresh calamity, are moft compaffionate to others labouring under diftreffes, and moft prompt and ready to relieve them. VER. 9. See plaflic Nature, etc.] M. Du Refnel mistook 7 this Attract, attracted to, the next in place Form'd and impell'd its neighbour to embrace. See Matter next, with various life endu'd, Prefs to one centre ftill, the gen'ral Good. See COMMENTARY. traction, from the economy of the material world; where there is a general confpiracy in all the particles of Matter to work for one end; the ufe, beauty, and harmony of the whole mass. VER. 13. See Matter next, etc.] The fecond argument (from Ver. 12 to 27.) is taken from the vegetable and animal world; whose parts ferve mutually for the production, support, and fuftentation of each other. But the obfervation, that God "Connects each being, greateft with the leaft; awaking again the pride of his impious adverfaries, who cannot bear that man fhould be thought to be ferving as well NOTES. as this defcription of the prefer vation of the material Universe, by the quality of attraction, for a defcription of its creation; and fo tranflates it "Voi du fein du Chaos eclater la lumiere, "Chaque atome ebranlé courir pour s'embraffer," etc. This destroys the Poet's fine analogical argument, by which he proves, from the circumftance of mutual attraction in matter, that man, while he feeks Society, and thereby promotes the good of his fpecies, co-operates with God's general difpensation; whereas the circumftance of a creation proves nothing but a Creator. VER. 12. Form'd and impell'd, etc.] To make Matter fo cohere as to fit it for the ufes intended by its Creator, a proper configuration of its infenfible parts, is as neceflary as that See dying vegetables life sustain, See life diffolving vegetate again: All forms that perish other forms supply, COMMENTARY. 15 20 Connects as ferved; he takes this occafion again to humble them (from Vér. 26 to 49) by the fame kind of argument he had fo fuccessfully employed in the firft epiftle, and which the comment on that epiftle hath confidered at large. NOTES. quality fo equally and univerfally conferred upon it, called Attraction. To exprefs the firft part of this thought, our Author fays form'd; and to exprefs the latter, impell'd. VER. 19, 20. Like bubbles, etc.] M. Du Refnel tranflates these two lines thus, "Sort du neant y réntre, et reparoit au jour.' He is here, indeed, confiftently wrong: for having (as we faid) mistaken the Poet's account of the prefervation of Matter for the creation of it, he commits the very fame mistake with regard to the vegetable and animal fyftems; and so talks now, though with the lateft, of the production of things out of nothing. Indeed, by his fpeaking of their returning into. nothing, he has fubjected his Author to M. Du Croufaz's cenfure. Mr. Pope defcends to the moft vulgar prejudices, "when he tells us that each being returns to nothing: the Vulgar think that what disappears is annihilated,” etc. Comm. p. 221. VER. 22. One all-extending, all-preferying Soul] Which, in the language of Sir Ifaac Newton, is, "Deus omnipraefens "eft, non per virtutem folam, fed etiam per fubftantiam : 46 nam Connects each being, greatest with the least ; NOTES. Know, "nam virtus fine fubftantia fubfiftere non poteft." Newt. Princ. Schol. gen. fub fin. VER. 23. Greatest with the leaft ;] As acting more strongly and immediately in beasts, whose inftinct is plainly an exter nal reafon; which made an old fchool-man fay, with great elegance, "Deus eft anima brutorum:" "In this 'tis God directs" |