NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. Ver. 41. ESSAY ON MAN. EPISTLE I. P. II. YONDER argent fields above.— Milton's phrafe, in Par. Loft, iii. 460. Not in the neighb'ring moon, as fome have dream'd; Ver. 43. Of fyftems poffible, if 'tis confeft, That Wisdom Infinite must from the best, Then, in the scale of reas'ning life, 'tis plain, There must be, fomewhere, fuch a rank as Man. "Since infinite wifdom not only established the end, but directed "the means, the fyftem of the universe must neceffarily be the beft 66 of all poffible fyftems.”- "It implies no contradiction to fay, "that God made a fyftem of creation infinitely wife, and the best of "all poffible fyftems.”. "It might be determined in the divine "ideas, that there fhould be a gradation of life and intellect "throughout the univerfe. In this cafe it was necessary, that there Should be fome creatures at our pitch of rationality-from the infect up to man.' Bolingbroke, Frag. 43 and 44. Compare below ver. 239 to 241. 66 Again in Fragment 49. " If a gradation of animal beings "appeared neceffary or fit-to the fupreme or divine reafon " and intention-; why fhould not we be the creatures we "" are?" Ver. 51. Refpecting man, whatever wrong we call, May, must be right, as relative to all. "The loweft employments to which legiflators and magiftrates fubject fome of the perfons they govern in political focieties, " confidered 7 "confidered as parts of a general fyftem, wherein the most minute "are neceffary to make the whole complete, compofe an end worthy of them." Bolingbroke, Frag. 49. 66 66 "The feeming imperfection of the parts is neceffary to the real perfection of the whole." Frag. 50. Ver. 53. In human works, tho' labour'd on with pain, A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain: In God's, one fingle can its end produce, "We labour hard, we complicate various means to arrive at one end; and feveral fyftems of conduct are often employed by us to "bring about fome one paultry purpose: but God neither contrives, nor executes like man. His means are fimple, his purposes "various; and the fame fyftem, that answers the greatest, an"fwers the leaft." Bolingbroke, Frag. 43.-Again, in Frag.63. "In the works of men, the most complicated schemes produce, "very hardly and very uncertainly, one fingle effect: in the works "of God, one fingle scheme produces a multitude of different effects, and "anfwers an immenfe variety of purposes." And in Frag. 43. "We ought to confider the world we inhabit 66 no otherwise than as a little wheel in our solar system; nor our "folar fyftem any otherwise than as a little but larger wheel in "the immenfe machine of the universe; and both the one and the "other neceffary, perhaps, to the motion of the whole, and to the "pre-ordained revolutions in it." Ver. 267. All are but parts of one stupendous whole, That (chang'd thro' all, and yet in all the fame; Warms in the fun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the ftars, and bloffoms in the trees, extends thro' all extent, Lives thro' all life, Spreads undivided, operates unfpent. The fentiments of this paffage are not original: but such a pregmant concentration of them into poetic numbers of the most beau tifu! tiful embellishment was not to be achieved but by the powers of our unrivalled artist. A paffage from Clemens Alexandrinus will not be unseasonable here, Strom. ii. fect. 19. ed. Oxon. "The Stoics affert, that Nature, meaning God, extends even to plants, and feeds, and "trees, and ftones," And our Poet is certainly indebted to the following verfes of Mrs, Chandler, on Solitude: Earth's verdant fcenes, the all-furrounding fkies, Employ my wond'ring thoughts, and feaft my eyes; Glide in the stream, and murmur in the rill : All Nature moves obedient to his will: Heav'n fhakes, earth trembles, and the forefts nod, } In this paffage there are some lines after the very best manner of Pope himself. Dryden, in the State of Innocence, where he imi tates fome well-known lines of the fixth Æneid, was probably also in our Poet's recollection: A&t v. Where'er thou art, he is; th' eternal mind Acts thro' all places, is to none confin'd ; And thro' the universal mass does move. These fublime sentiments were derived from the Greek philofophers, and may be found in Cicero, Virgil, Lucan, Apuleius, and many others. Ver. 285. Submit.—In this, or any other sphere, Secure to be as bleft as thou canst bear: Safe in the hand of one difpofing pow'r, Or in the natal, or the mortal hour. "If death translate us, we change our ftate, but we are still the 86 creatures of the fame God. He made us to be happy here; he "may make us happy in another fyftem of being." Bolingbroke, Fragm. 51. And again soon after: "Let the tranquillity "of my mind reft on this immoveable rock, that my future, as "well as my present, state is ordered by an almighty and all-wife "Creator." |