Quite tired with vision, Reader, Thou, Doubtless with difcontented brow, 710 fellow planets: Look up yonder at Jupiter, Saturn, and the rest of them; are not you as good as they? Why give them the pas fo readily over you? Surely thefe philofophers were very complaifant in thus letting every being in the universe go before them; but let us confider a little seriously how this matter really and truly stands; if I understand the system right, it is, that there is, all through univerfal creation, a gradation of excellence from the lowest and meanest part of creation up to GOD himself; I fay, (and pray mark it) all through creation: and Pope fupposes our globe to have connection, fome how or other, with some other globe or sphere: ""Tis but a part we fee, and not a whole;” meaning, to be fure, that all the spheres, and all creation, were linked together or connected in this general system of GOD and his entire creation. It would, indeed, be abfurd, if you adopt the plan at all, to leave out any created things more than our own known creation. Where then rank, or how, the other our fellow planets for instance, the existence of which we know equally with our own? That, you will tell me, no one can fay; you only fuppofe all creation to be linked together, but of the manner how, it is impoffible even to form a guess; but you have formed a guess fo far as to tell us of a certain gradation, and have named the beings belonging to it, as far as an angel upwards, and the mite, &c. downwards. Let us be fair and above-board: In this idea of gradation of existence, or chain of being, the origin of it has been, and the continuance the fame, the obferved fact in our world of a gradation of existence, and a real one in many respects, as is fhewn in POPE; nay, indeed, in myself, who happened, (not having the original one before me) to fall on other additional examples not less real than his. From hence, I fay, has been formed the idea of going on upwards with it as we fee; but in this it is manifeft, that though univerfal creation is faid to be included in the system, yet that it really has never been thought of by the founders of it. The chain, we are exprefsly told, goes downwards in our world; Yes Thou too, whose congenial fire Doth to Nature's truths afpire, world; nay, it is, in numberless instances, proved nominally to us; and upwards an angel is named as ranking in a state nearest to that of man; here then is a display of the system abfolutely independent of any thing in the vifible creation but our own world and felves; even as if, exactly as if, nothing beside existed in the universe. Hear but the words, they are these: "Vaft chain of being! which from Gon began:* "Beaft, bird, fish, infect, what no eye can fee, "No glass can reach; from Infinite to Thee, "From Thee to nothing." And do not the words prove my affertion, and with it prove-what? not the comprehenfive enlargement furely of this philofophy; and may it not well be retorted on Mr. POPE, 'Tis but a part you fee." 66 See then what a dilemma they are got into; rather see how amazingly contracted are these philofophers! For what do they tell us? why, that there is a chain of being from GOD downwards, and this they prove (as in the above verses) by the instances sfeen in this one fpot of the creation; but at the fame time they tell us, and muft tell us, that all creation, as all coming from GOD, who is at the top of the chain, is comprehended in it; where then (may we not afk) do the other parts of creation come in? Pope fays, that perhaps our world "acts second to some world unknown, &c." Sure this is more like some ignorant, romantic, or vifionary Mifs; or perhaps, his own poor Indian's " untutored mind, "who faw GOD in clouds, or heard him in the wind," than the well-informed manly philo. fopher, whose title is affumed! What! at this time of day, talk of perhaps, and fome world, when we are furrounded by them, and in many particulars are as well acquainted with * May one ask what is fuppofed the Being that is the very next link to GOD! C them Difdainful, piteous, wilt furvey The futile thought,-the manly lay! Oh POPE! mistaken Bard, who more Than humble me, loves to explore objects belonging to it, All the reft of crea them as with our own. In fhort, how comes it that you take your whole idea of this famous chain, after your angel above our world, from and here end the chain in your mite and your nothingness. tion must then, fome how or other, exift between, nay, and before the angel, fince he is named as next above us: at all events, I fay, fince our mites, and beings" that no glass can reach," and our nothingness, close the whole, by Pope's account of the matter, it must follow that this chain, which, when composed of entire creation, a thing acknowledged too in the fyftem; (how to be then managed, we will not take into confideration at present;) I say, that in this chain our world must at all events dangle at the very end of all, and nothing at all hang beyond it. Now (and this it was diverted me) how curious, and how very extraordinary, and how little to be previously expected, that GOD fhould, in his defigned gradation of existence, have happened to fix on this little spot where we live for the precife end of his entire creation! And when I talk of other planets, and of their magnitude or number, look up at the heavens, and tell us how many objects of creation, you see befide, to extend its chain? Confider a moment only the comets belonging to our own comparatively diminutive fyftem; fome of them have, I think, their revolution like us round the fun; i. e. their year, in four or five hundred of our's, and they, in every thing, are to be higher up in the chain of excellence than we: nay, what is more curious methinks, higher up than the angels; aye, they matter, angels (rifum teneatis?)--Spirit.--Do I exaggerate, do I falfify? Surely not. If we are to ask, what is meant by thofe fhades of excellence, one being, Have bounteous giv'n, and stamp'd them thine! And let the philofophic lay, From blame, the happier praise display; Sufpend its own attempts to view, Where modest truth can dare pursue, The road of nature; and beware Of Fancy's lure, and Falfehood's fnare! 66 720 being, or one planet, or comet, over another, fo as to give this gradual and prolixlyrifing excellence, what can be answered to it? Is there any rational reflection that can lead us to fuppofe excellence, and degrees of excellence, in material bodies like our own; and then, confequently, fuch amazing fuperiority of that excellence in fome of those bodies over others to our eyes, and our natural presumption no ways lefs excellent than them? I have faid, look at the heavens, and see what room there is in the number of objects you will fee, for extenfion of this chain of merit or excellence. I now fay, take your glasses and fee; and after that, take your imagination; and, last of all, take your common fenfe, and then metaphorically form a chain; and, like the tail of a paper kite, look at us and our habitation hanging at the very end of the whole. Laugh where we muft, be candid where we can;" but upon my word, in the whole history of this chain, if not fanctified by fuch authority and fuch duration, must one not think it an affront to any understanding to offer these or any other objections to it? As it has been so supported, (and God knows, may, for aught I know, ftill be fo in some minds) I have been not quite forry to expose to view, once for all, and for ever, what is feen above; and which, to discover, required not the smallest ingenuity or difcernment, but only and abfolutely to open one's eyes and look. If" the fludy of mankind is man," let me, however, in conclufion add, here surely is fome food for the contemplation. Certainly Mr. Pope, nor his humble fervant after him, have chofen quite a barren fubject to work upon. C Come then the Poet's welcome lays, From critic-blame, to critic-praife!-- And be VARIETY its friend: And TASTE!* thou attribute divine, Could of thy lights one ray be mine, 730 * It is faid of Taste elsewhere," May not Taste be compared to that exquisite sense of "the Bee, which inftantly discovers, and extracts, the quinteffence of every flower, and difregards all the reft of it?" It is also there faid, "Tafte and Generosity! what words! "do they not in their moft extenfive meaning comprehend almost every power of the “human heart and understanding?" Nay, and if the author had said, not almost, but quite, would he have faid fo wrong: I allude not, however, to the powers that attend some minds, in regard to the capacity of knowledge of particular sciences, (which seems almost like particular infpiration in those men, whether in geometry, mechanics, figures, &c. of which one hears of fo many instances in obscure men who know and feel nothing elfe) but to those of ratiocination, difcernment, and judgment, in all which Taste methinks implies perfection; and of what extent is true generofity, I will not affront that of my reader enough to fuppofe him ignorant. But here another from among thofe old fentences occurs to my mind, as not unanalogous to the two former ones; perhaps, is a kind of corollary to them; it is this, viz. "Virtue pleases as nature, more than as virtue; but "let me add, that virtue is the first beauty of nature." . The term Tafle, in the above lines, caught hold of my imagination: and confiftent with my plan of illuftration, extenfion, &c. of those certain felect fentences elsewhere, that it is feen I allude to, and where, at their very outfet, they declare that "a maxim is "fometimes like the feed of a plant, which the foil it is thrown into must expand into "leavs, |