Teach me, like thee, in various Nature wife, Oh! while along the ftream of Time thy name 380 Say, fhall my little bark attendant fail, 3. A certain elegant Formation and Ordonnance of Figures: Say, fhall my little bark attendant fail, 4. A fplendid Diction: When statesmen, heroes, kings, in duft repofe, 385 390 5. And fifthly, which includes in itself all the rest, a Weight and Dignity in the Compofition: Shew'd erring Pride, WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT; That REASON, PASSION, anfwer one great aim; 395 VARIATION S. VER. 397. That Virtue only, etc.] In the MS. thus, That just to find a God is all we can, And all the Study of Mankind is Man. THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER. DEO OPT. MAX. FATHER of All! in ev'ry Age, By Saint, by Savage, and by Sage, Thou Great First Caufe, leaft understood; To know but this, that Thou art Good, Yet gave me, in this dark Eftate, And binding Nature faft in Fate, Univerfal Prayer.] It may be proper to obferve, that fome paf fages in the preceding Elay, having been unjuftiy fufpected of a tendency towards Fate and Naturalism, the author compofed this Prayer as the fum of all, to fhew that his fyftem was founded in free will, and terminated in piety: That the firft caufe was as well the Lord and Governor of the Univerfe as the Creator of it; and that, by fubmiffion to his will (the great principle enforced throughout the Effay) was not meant the fuffering ourselves to be carried along by a blind determination, but the refting in a religious acquiefcence, and confidence full of Hope and Immortality. To give all this the greater weight, the Poet chofe for his model the LORD'S PRAYER, which, of all others, best deserves the title prefixed to his Paraphrafe. |