Where flaves once more their native land behold, He asks no Angel's wing, no Seraph's fire; 110 115 IV. Go, wifer thou! and, in thy scale of fenfe, Weigh thy Opinion against Providence ; Call imperfection what thou fancy'st such, Say, here he gives too little, there too much : Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust, Yet cry, If Man's unhappy, God's unjust; If Man alone ingrofs not Heav'n's high care, Alone made perfect here, immortal there : Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod, Re-judge his juftice, be the GoD of GOD. In Pride, in reas'ning Pride, our error lies; All quit their fphere, and rufh into the skies. Pride ftill is aiming at the bleft abodes, Men would be Angels, Angels would be Gods. Afpiring to be Gods, if Angels fell, Afpiring to be Angels, Men rebel: VARIATIONS. After ver. 108. in the first Edition ; But does he fay the maker is not good, 120 125 And who but wishes to invert the laws Of ORDER, fins against th' Eternal Caufe. 130 135 V. Ask for what end the heav'nly bodies fhine, Earth for whofe ufe? Pride answers, ""Tis for mine: "For me kind Nature wakes her genial pow'r, “Suckles each herb, and spreads out ev'ry flow'r ; "Annual for me, the grape, the rose renew "The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew; "For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings; "For me, health gushes from a thousand springs; "Seas roll to waft me, funs to light me rife; 140 My foot-ftool earth, my canopy the skies." But errs not Nature from this gracious end, From burning funs when livid deaths descend, When earthquakes fwallow, or when tempefts fweep Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep? "No ('tis reply'd) the first Almighty Cause "Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral laws; 145 "Th' exceptions few; fome change fince all began: "And what created perfect?" Why then Man? If the great end be human Happiness, Then Nature deviates; and can Man do lefs? 150 VER. 131. Ask for what end, etc.] If there be any fault in thefe lines, it is not in the general fentiment, but a want of exactness in expreffing it.-It is the highest absurdity to think that Earth is man's foot-ftool, his canopy the Skies, and the beavenly bodies lighted up principally for his ufe; yet not fo, to fuppofe fruits and minerals given for this end. VER. 150. Then Nature deviates, etc.] "While comets "move in very eccentric orbs, in all manner of pofitions, blind As much that end a conftant course requires Of fhow'rs and fun-fhine, as of Man's defires; 159 Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind? From pride, from pride, our very reas'ning springs; Account for moral as for natʼral things: Why charge we Heav'n in thofe, in these acquit ? Better for us, perhaps, it might appear, 165 170 "Fate could never make all the planets move one and the "fame way in orbs concentric; fome inconfiderable irregula"rities excepted, which may have rifen from the mutual ac"tions of comets and planets upon one another, and which "will be apt to increafe, 'till this fyftem wants a reforma❝tion." Sir Ifaac Newton's Optics, Queft. ult. VER. 169. But all fubfifis, etc.] See this fubject extended in E. ii. from ver. 9o. to 112, 155, etc. VI. What would this Man? Now upward will he foar, 180 And little lefs than Angel, would be more ; Is not to act or think beyond mankind; No pow'rs of body, or of foul to fhare, For this plain reafon, man is not a Fly. 185 190 VER. 174. And little less than Angel, etc.] Thou haft made bim a little lower than the Angels, and baft crowned him with glory and boncur. Pfalm viii. 9. VER. 182. Here with degrees of fwiftnefs, etc.] It is a certain axiom in the anatomy of creatures, that, in proportion as they are formed for ftrength, their fwiftnefs is leffened; or as they are formed for fwiftnefs, their ftrength is abated. Say what the use, were finer optics giv❜n, T'infpect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n ? If nature thunder'd in his op'ning ears, And stunn'd him with the mufic of the fpheres, VII. Far as Creation's ample range extends, 195 200 210 VER, 202. Stunn'd him with the mufic of the fpheres,] This inftance is poetical and even fublime, but misplaced. He is arguing philofophically in a cafe that required him to employ the real objects of fenfe only: and, what is worse, he speaks of this as a real object. If NATURE thunder'd, etc. The cafe is different where (in ver. 253.) he speaks of the motion of the heavenly bodies under the fublime Imagery of ruling Angels: For whether there be ruling Angels or no, there is real motion, which was all his argument wanted; but if there be no mufic of the Spheres, there was no real found, which his argument was obliged to find. VER. 213. The Leadlong linefs] The manner of the lions |