What Confcience dictates to be done, This, teach me more than Hell to shun, What Bleffings thy free Bounty gives, For God is paid when Man receives, 15 20 Yet NOTES. tural world, every thing is as much the refult of established laws in the one as in the other. There is nothing in the whole universe that can properly be called contingent: nothing loofe or fluctuating in any part of Nature; but every motion in the natural, and every determination and action in the moral world, are directed by immutable laws; so that, whilft these laws remain in their force, not the smallest link of the universal chain of causes and effects can be broken, nor any one thing be otherwife than it is." All the moft fubtile and refined arguments that can be urged in a dispute on Fate and Free-will, are introduced, in a converfation on this subject, betwixt the angels Gabriel and Raphael, and Adam, in the fourth act of Dryden's State of Innocence, and stated with a wonderful precifion and perfpicuity. Reafoning, in verfe, was one of Dryden's moft fingular and predominant excellencies; notwithstanding which, he must rank as a poet for his Mufic-ode, not for his Religio Laici. WARTON. VER. 12. the Human Will.] The refult of what Locke advances on this, the most difficult of all subjects, is, that we have a power of doing what we will. If it be the occafion of disorder, it is the cause of order; of all the moral order that appears in the world. Had Liberty been excluded, Virtue had been excluded with it. And if this had been the cafe, the world could have had no charms, no beauties, fufficient to recommend it to Him who made it. In fhort, all other powers and perfections would have been very defective without this, which is truly the life and fpirit of the whole creation.” WARTON. Yet not to Earth's contracted Span When thousand Worlds are round: Let not this weak, unknowing hand If I am right, thy grace impart, If I am wrong, oh teach my heart Save me alike from foolish Pride, At aught thy Wisdom has deny'd, Teach me to feel another's Woe, 25 "Or think Thee LORD ALONE of Man, When thousand Worlds are round;" but the conclufion is a contrast of littleness, "And deal damnation round the land!" 30 35 40 Mean NOTES. VER. 27. deal damnation] There is fomething elevated in the idea and expreffion, Mean though I am, not wholly fo, Through this day's Life or Death! Lot: This day, be Bread and Peace my To thee, whofe Temple is all Space, One Chorus let all Being raise! All Nature's Incense rife! 45 50 NOTES. VER. 39. That Mercy] It has been said that our Poet, in this Prayer, chofe the Lord's Prayer for his model; but there is no resemblance but in this paffage, and in the last stanza but one. M. Le Franc de Pompignan, a celebrated avocat at Montauban, anthor of Dido a tragedy, was feverely cenfured in France for translating this Universal Prayer, as a piece of Deifm; which, having been printed in London, in 4to. by Vaillant, was conveyed to the Chancellor Agueffau, who immediately fent a strong reprimand to M. Le Franc, and he vindicated his orthodoxy in a laboured letter to that learned Chancellor. Voltaire reproached Le Franc with making this translation. His brother, Bishop of Puy au Velei, has called Locke an atheist. WARTON. WARTON feems to have violated his own principles of estimating tne character of genuine poetry, when he praises fo highly the poetry of this Hymn. The two laft ftanzas are fublime; but I fear, if we were to examine the greater part by the Horatian rule, which Warton recommends, that is, altering the rhyme and measure, we should not find the "disjecti membra Poetæ.” This Prayer was tranflated into Latin by J. Sayer. MORAL ESSAYS, IN FOUR EPISTLES TO SEVERAL PERSONS. Est brevitate opus, ut currat fententia, neu se HOR. |