Made for his ufe, all creatures if he call,

Say what their use, had he the pow'rs of all :
Nature to these, without profufion, kind,
The proper organs, proper pow'rs affign'd;
Each feeming want compenfated of course;
Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force;
All in exact proportion to the state;
Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.

Each beaft, each infect, happy in its own;

Is Heav'n unkind to Man, and Man alone;

180

185

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;

No pow'rs of body or of foul to share,

But what his nature and his ftate can bear.

Why has not Man a microscopic eye?

For this plain reafon, man is not a Fly.

190

Say what the ufe, were finer optics giv'n,

195.

Tinfpect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n?
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,

To smart and agonize at ev'ry pore?

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 ftrength, their swiftnefs is leffened; or, as they are formed for swiftnefs, their ftrength is abated. P.

Or quick effluvia darting thro' the brain,
Die of a rofe in aromatic pain?

If Nature thunder'd in his op'ning ears,

200

And stunn'd him with the mufic of the spheres,
How would he wish that Heav'n had left him ftill
The whisp'ring Zephyr, and the purling rill?
Who finds not Providence all good and wife, 205
Alike in what it gives, and what denies ?

VII. Far as Creation's ample range extends, 201 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: 210 What modes of fight betwixt each wide extreme, The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam: Of fmell, the headlong lionefs between, And hound fagacious on the tainted green:

NOTES.

VER. 202. Stunn'd him with the music of the Spheres.] This inftance is poetical, and even fublime, but mifplaced. He is arguing philosophically in a cafe that required him to employ the real objects of fenfe only; and, what is worfe, he speaks of this as a real object. —if NATURE thunder'd, &c. The cafe is different where (in ver. 253.) he fpeaks 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 headlong lioness] The manner of the lions

Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood, 215
To that which warbles thro' the vernal wood?
The spider's touch, how exquifitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line:
In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true
From pois'nous herbs extracts the healing dew? 220
How Inftinct varies in the grov'ling swine,
Compar'd, half-reas'ning elephant, with thine!
'Twixt that, and Reafon, what a nice barrier?
For ever fep'rate, yet for ever near!
Remembrance and Reflexion, how ally'd;

225

hunting their prey in the deserts 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 beasts in their flight, pursuing them by the ear, and not by the noftril. It is probable the ftory of the Jackal's hunting for the lion, was occafioned by observation of this defect of fcent in that terrible animal. P.

VER. 224. for ever fep'rate, &c.] Near, by the fimilitude of the operation; feparate, by the immenfe difference in the nature of the powers.

VER. 226. What thin partitions, &c.] So thin, that the Atheistic philofophers, as Protagoras, held that thought was only fenfe; and from thence concluded, that every imagination or opinion of every man was true: Πᾶσα φαντασία riv annons. But the poet determines more philofophically, that they are really and effentially different, how thin foever the partition is by which they are divided. Thus (to illuftrate the truth of this observation) when a geometer confiders a triangle, in order to demonftrate the equality

230

And Middle natures, how they long to join,
Yet never pass th' infuperable line!
Without this juft gradation, could they be
Subjected, these to those, or all to thee?
The pow'rs of all fubdu'd by thee alone,
Is not thy Reafon all these pow'rs in one?
VIII. See, thro' this air, this ocean, and this earth,
All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high, progreffive life may go !
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
Vaft chain of Being! which from God began,
Nature æthereal, human, angel, man,

VARIATIONS.

VER. 238. Ed. ift.

Ethereal Effence, fpirit, fubftance, man.

NOTES.

235

of its three angles to two right ones, he has the picture or image of fome fenfible triangle in his mind, which is fenfe; yet notwithstanding, he muft needs have the notion or idea of an intellectual triangle in his mind, which is thought; for this plain reafon, because every image or picture of a triangle muft needs be obtufangular, or rectangular, or acutangular: but that which, in his mind, is the fubject of this propofition, is the ratio of a triangle, undetermined to any of these species. On this account it was that Ariftotle faid, Νοήματα τινι διάσει, τῷ μὴ Φαλάσ ματα εἶναι, ἢ ἐδὲ ταῦτα φαλάσματα ἀλλ ̓ ἐκ ἄνευ φαλασμάτων. The conceptions of the Mind differ fomewhat from fenfible images; they are not fenfible images, and yet not quite free or difengaged from fenfible images.

VER. 237. Vaft chain of Being!] Who will not ac

Beast, bird, fish, infect, what no eye can fee,
No glafs can reach; from infinite to thee,
From thee to Nothing. On fuperior pow'rs
Were we to prefs, inferior might on ours:
Or in the full creation leave a void,

240

Where, one flep broken, the great fcale's destroy'd:
From Nature's chain whatever link you ftrike, 245
Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
And, if each fyftem in gradation roll
Alike effential to th' amazing Whole,
The leaft confufion but in one, not all

That fyftem only, but the Whole must fall.
Let Earth unbalanc'd from her orbit fly,
Planets and funs run lawleís thro' the sky;
NOTES.

250

knowledge, therefore, that fo harmonious a connexion in the difpofition of things as is here defcribed, is tranfcendently beautiful? But the Fatalifts suppose fuch an oneWhat then? Is the First Free Agent, is the great Cause of all things, debarred from a contrivance fo exquifite, becaufe fome Men, to fet up their idol, Fate, abfurdly reprefent it as prefiding over fuch a fyftem.

VER. 243. Or in the full creation leave a void, &c.] This is only an illuftration, alluding to the Peripatetic plenum and vacuum; the full and void here meant, relating not to Matter, but to Life.

VER. 247. And if each ffem in gradation roll.] The verb alludes to the motion of the planetary bodies of each fyftem; and to the figures defcribed by that motion.

VER. 251. Let Earth unbalanc'd] i. e. Being no longer kept within its orbit by the different directions of its pro