180 Now looking downwards, juft as griev'd appears 175 185 Is Heav'n unkind to Man, and Man alone? COMMENTARY. Shall froward humour of these childish complainers, would be every where found to be either wanting or fuperfluous. But even though endowed with these brutal qualities, Man would not only be no gainer, but a confiderable lofer; as the Poet fhews, in explaining the confequences which would follow from his having his fenfations in that exquifite degree, in which this or the other animal is obferved to poffefs them. WARBURTON. NOTES. VER. 182. Here with degrees of fwiftness, &c.] It is a certain axiom in the anatomy of creatures, that in proportion as they are formed for strength, their swiftness is leffened; or as they are formed for fwiftness, their strength is abated. POPE. VER. 183. All in exact proportion] I cannot forbear thinking, that a little French treatise on Providence, published at Paris, 1728, formed on the principles of Leibnitz, fomewhat moderated, had fallen into the hands both of Bolingbroke and Pope, from the great fimilarity of the reasoning there employed. WARTON. VER. 186. Is Heav'n unkind to Man,] Cudworth, Leibnitz, King, Shaftesbury, Hutchefon, Balguy, have all ftrenuously argued for the prepollency of good to evil in our present system; Shall he alone, whom rational we call, Be pleas'd with nothing, if not bless'd with all? The blifs of Man (could Pride that bleffing find) Is not to act or think beyond mankind; 190 No pow'rs of body or of foul to share, But what his nature and his ftate can bear. Why has not Man a microfcopic eye? For this plain reason, Man is not a Fly. Say what the ufe, were finer optics giv'n, 195 T' inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n? Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o’er, Or quick effluvia darting through the brain, 200 If Nature thunder'd in his op'ning ears, And stunn'd him with the mufic of the fpheres, NOTES. 205 VII. Far but none more forcibly than Balguy from p. 103 to p. 125 of his Divine Benevolence. WARTON. VER. 202. And funn'd him] The argument certainly required an inftance drawn from real found, and not from the imaginary mufic of the spheres. Locke's illuftration of this doctrine is not only proper but poetical: "If our fenfe of hearing were but one thoufand times quicker than it is, how would a perpetual noife distract us; and we should, in the quietest retirement, be less able to fleep or meditate, than in the middle of a fea-fight." In line before 193, the expreffion of microscopic eye is from Locke. WARTON VII. Far as Creation's ample range extends, The scale of fenfual, mental pow'rs afcends: Mark how it mounts, to Man's imperial race, From the green myriads in the peopled grafs : COMMENTARY. 210 What VER. 207. Far as Creation's ample range extends,] He tells us next (from ver. 206 to 233.), that the complying with fuch extravagant defires would not only be useless and pernicious to Man, but would be breaking into the order, and deforming the beauty of God's Creation, in which this animal is fabject to that, and every one to Man; who, by his Reason, enjoys the fum of all their powers. WARBURTON. NOTES. VER. 207. Far as Creation's ample range extends,] It may be doubted, whether our Author has excelled Dryden in the art of reasoning in rhyme, whofe Religio Laici, and Hind and Panther, are in this respect admirable; though the fable of the latter abounds in abfurdities and inconfiftencies. WARTON. VER. 209. Mark how it mounts,] When it is faid that Pope was guilty of fome contradictions and fome inconfiftencies in his reasonings on the beft, let us alfo remember, that fo alfo was his guide and philofophical friend, who, it is to be wifhed, had always expreffed himself as in the following terms, p. 121, v. 5. "Methinks I hear a fincere and devout theist, in the midst of fuch meditations as thefe, cry out, "No; the world was not made for man, nor man only to be happy. The objections urged by atheists and divines against the wifdom and goodness of the Supreme Being, on these arbitrary fuppofitions, deftroy their own foundations. Mankind is expofed, as well as other animals, to many inconveniencies and to various evils, by the conftitution of the world. The world was not, therefore, made for him, nor he to be happy. But he enjoys numberlefs benefits, by the fitnefs of his nature to this conftitution, unafked, unmerited, freely be ftowed. He returns, like other animals, to the duft; yet neither he nor they are willing to leave the ftate wherein they are placed here. The wisdom and the goodness of God are therefore manifeft. I thank thee, O my Creator! that I am placed in a rank, low What modes of fight betwixt each wide extreme, NOTES. Of low in the whole order of being, but the first in that animal system to which I belong: a rank wherein I am made capable of knowing thee, and of difcovering thy will, the perfection of my own nature, and the means of my own happiness. Far be it from me to repine at my prefent ftate, like thofe who deny thee; or like those who own thee, only to cenfure thy works and the difpenfations of thy providence. May I enjoy thankfully the benefits bestowed on me by thy divine liberality! May I suffer the evils, to which I ftand exposed, patiently, nay willingly! None of thy creatures are made to be perfectly happy like thyfelf; nor did thy goodnefs require that they should be fo. Such of them as are more worthy objects of it than thy human creatures, fuperior natures that inhabit other worlds, may be affected in some degree or other by phyfical evils, fince these are effects of the general laws of matter and motion. They must be affected too, in fome degree or other, by moral evil, fince moral evil is the confequence of error, as well as of disorderly appetites and paffions, and since error is the confequence of imperfect understanding. Lefs of this evil may prevail among them. But all that is finite, the most exalted intelligences, must be liable to fome errors. Thou, O God! that Being who is liable to none, and to whom infallibility and impeccability belong, "Duc me, parens celfique dominator poli, "Quocumque placuit. Nulla parendi mora eft, WARTON. VER. 210. From the green myriads] Thefe lines are admirable patterns of forcible diction. The peculiar and discriminating expreffiveness of the epithets ought to be particularly regarded. Perhaps we have no image in the language more lively than that of the last verse. "To live along the line," is equally bold and beautiful. In this part of the epiftle the Poet seems to have remarkably laboured his style, which abounds in various figures, and is much elevated. Pope has practifed the great fecret of Virgil's art, * Sen. Ep. 107. Of smell, the headlong lioness between, And hound fagacious to the tainted green: 215 To that which warbles through the vernal wood? The spider'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? 220 NOTES. Remem art, which was to discover the very fingle epithet that precifely fuited each occafion. If Pope muft yield to other poets in point of fertility of fancy, or harmony of numbers, yet in point of propriety, clofenefs, and elegance of diction, he can yield to none. Very inferior is the tranflation of Abbé du Refnel, of all this fine paffage, to the original, though it is evident he took pains about it. See his four lines on the spider: Contemplez l'araignée en fon réduit obfcur; Que fon toucher eft vif, qu'il eft prompt, qu'il eft fur; Dans chacun de fes fils elle paroit vivante. WARTON. VER. 213. the headlong lioness] The manner of the lions hunting their prey in the defarts of Africa is this: At their first going out in the night-time, they fet up a loud roar, and then liften to the noise made by the beafts in their flight, pursuing them by the ear, and not by the noftril. It is probable the story of the jackall's bunting for the lion, was occafioned by the observation of this defect of fcent in that terrible animal. POPE. VER. 224. For ever fep'rate, &c.] Near, by the fimilitude of the operations; Separate, by the immenfe difference in the nature of WARBURTON. the powers. |