Grasp the whole worlds of Reason, Life, and Sense,

In one close system of Benevolence :

Happier as kinder, in whate'er degree,

And height of Bliss but height of Charity.

360

God loves from Whole to Parts: But human soul

Must rise from Individual to the Whole.

Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake,
As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake ;

NOTES.

Ver. 360. but height of Charity.] "To prove that the dispensations of Providence in the present state are not unequal, is certainly very desirable; but there is reason to fear, that those who blame divines for admitting an inequality, have not succeeded in the attempt. The philosophers, both ancient and modern, who have endeavoured to justify the ways of God to Man, by proving that happiness does not consist in externals, in order to shew that his dispensations are equal, have yet placed happiness in virtue chiefly as a principle of active benevolence.

"Happier as kinder, in each due degree,
And height of Bliss but height of Charity."

Now there seems to be an inconsistency between these two principles, of which they are not aware.

It may reasonably be asked, what virtue, as a principle of active benevolence, has to bestow? Can it bestow upon others any thing more than externals? If not, it either has not the power of communicating happiness, or happiness is to be communicated in externals. If it has not the power of communicating happiness, it is indeed a mere name; the subject receives nothing; the agent gives nothing. The bliss of charity is founded on a delusion; on the false supposition of a benefit communicated by externals, which externals cannot communicate. If happiness can be communicated by externals, and consequently is dependent upon them, and these externals are unequally distributed, how is the dispensation of Providence with respect to happiness in the present state equal?" Hawksworth on Swift's Works.

Ver. 364. As the small pebble] It is observable that this similitude, which is to be found in Silius Italicus, 1. xiii. v. 24. and also in Du Bartas, and in Shakspeare's Henry VI. and also in

The centre mov'd, a circle straight succeeds, 365
Another still, and still another spreads;

Friend, parent, neighbour, first it will embrace;
His country next; and next all human race;
Wide, and more wide, th' o'erflowings of the mind
Take ev'ry creature in, of ev'ry kind;
i 370
Earth smiles around, with boundless bounty blest,
And heav'n beholds its image in his breast.

Come then, my Friend! my Genius! come along; Oh master of the poet, and the song!

VARIATIONS.

Ver. 373. Come then, my Friend! &c.] In the MS. thus,
And now transported o'er so vast a Plain,

While the wing'd courser flies with all her rein,
While heav'n-ward now her mounting wing she feels,
Now scatter'd fools fly trembling from her heels,
Wilt thou, my ST. JOHN ! keep her course in sight,
Confine her fury, and assist her flight?

NOTES.

Feltham's Resolves, hath been used twice more in the writings of our Poet; in the Temple of Fame, in the four hundred and thirty-sixth line, and in the Dunciad, at the four hundred and fifth. This Essay is not decorated with many comparisons; two, however, ought to be mentioned, on account of their aptness and propriety. The first is, where he compares man to the vine, that gains its strength from the embrace it gives: The second is conceived with peculiar felicity; all Nature does not perhaps afford so fit and close an application. It is observed above, in ver. 313, from whence it is borrowed.

On their own axis as the planets run,

Yet make at once their circle round the sun;

So two consistent motions act the soul;

And one regards itself, and one the whole.

This simile bears a close resemblance to that in the first act of the tragedy of Cato.

Ver. 373. Come then, my Friend! &c.] This noble apostrophe, by which the Poet concludes the Essay in an address to his

And while the Muse now stoops, or now ascends, To Man's low passions, or their glorious ends, 376

NOTES.

friend, will furnish a critic with examples of every one of those five Species of elocution, from which, as from its sources, Longinus deduceth the Sublime.*

1. The first and chief is a grandeur and sublimity of conception:

"Come then, my Friend! my Genius! come along;
Oh Master of the Poet, and the Song!

And while the Muse now stoops, and now ascends,
To Man's low passions, or their glorious ends"-

2. The second, that pathetic enthusiasm, which, at the same time, melts and inflames :

"Teach me, like thee, in various nature wise,
To fall with dignity, with temper rise;
Form'd by thy converse, happily to steer
From grave to gay, from lively to severe;
Correct with spirit, eloquent with ease,
Intent to reason, or polite to please."

3. A certain elegant formation and ordonance of figures:
"Oh! while along the stream of time thy name
Expanded flies, and gathers all its fame,

Say, shall my little bark attendant sail,
Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale?"

4. A splendid diction:

"When statesmen, heroes, kings, in dust repose,
Whose sons shall blush their fathers were thy foes,
Shall then this verse to future age pretend
Thou wert my guide, philosopher, and friend?
That urg'd by thee, I turn'd the tuneful art
From sounds to things, from fancy to the heart;
For Wit's false mirror held up Nature's light;
Shew'd erring Pride, Whatever is, IS RIGHT;"

— πέντε πηγαί τινές εἰσιν τῆς ὑψηγορίας. 1. Πρῶτον μὲν καὶ κράτιστον τὸ περὶ τὰς νοήσεις ἀδρεπήβολον. 2. Δεύτερον δὲ τὸ σφοἱρὸν καὶ ἐνθουσιαστικὸν πάθος. 3. Ποιὰ τῶν σχημάτων πλάσις. 4. Η γενναία φράσις. 5. Πέμπτη δὲ μεγέθους αἰτία, καὶ συγκλείουσα τὰ πρὸ ἑαυτῆς ἅπαντα, ἡ ἐν ἀξιώματι καὶ διάρσει σύνθεσις.

Teach me, like thee, in various nature wise,
To fall with dignity, with temper rise;
Form'd by thy converse, happily to steer
From grave to gay, from lively to severe;
Correct with spirit, elegant with ease,
Intent to reason, or polite to please.

Oh! while along the stream of Time thy name
Expanded flies, and gathers all its fame;

Say, shall my little bark attendant sail,

Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale?

When statesmen, heroes, kings, in dust repose,

380

385

Whose sons shall blush their fathers were thy foes,
Shall then this verse to future age pretend
Thou wert my guide, philosopher, and friend? 390
That urg'd by thee, I turn'd the tuneful art
From sounds to things, from fancy to the heart;

NOTES.

5. And fifthly, which includes in itself all the rest, a weight and dignity in the composition:

"That REASON, PASSION, answer one great AIM;
That true SELF-LOVE and SOCIAL are the same;

That VIRTUE Only makes our BLISS below;

And all our Knowledge is, OURSELVES TO KNOW." W.

I find by a memorandum, written at the time, that it was on the 20th of January 1767, that Lord Bathurst informed me of the fact above mentioned; that he had read the outline of the Essay on Man, the scheme and tenor of its doctrines, in the hand-writing of Bolingbroke, which sketch he greatly com

mended.

Ver. 383. Oh! while along] From the Silva of Statius, c. v. v. 120.

"immensæ veluti connexa Carinæ

Cymba minor, cum sævit hyems-▬▬▬

et eodem volvitur Austro."

Ver. 391. I turn'd the tuneful art] Ought the lovers of true

For Wit's false mirror held Nature's light;

up

Shew'd erring Pride, WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT;

That REASON, PASSION, answer one great aim; 395
That true SELF-LOVE and SOCIAL are the same;
That VIRTUE only makes one Bliss below;
And all our Knowledge is, OURSELVES TO KNOW.

VARIATIONS.

Ver. 397. That Virtue only, &c.] In the MS. thus,

That just to find a God is all we can,

And all the study of Mankind is Man.

NOTES.

genuine poetry to be obliged to his friend, for being instrumental in making Pope forsake works of imagination for the didactic! Which of the two species of composition may be the more useful and instructive, is entirely beside the question; but, in point of poetic genius, the Rape of the Lock, and The Eloisa, as far excel the Essay on Man, and the Moral Epistles, as the Gierusalemme, so unjustly depreciated by Boileau, does all his Satires and his Art of Poetry; and as the second and fourth books of Virgil excel the Georgics. To be able to reason well in verse is not the first nor the most essential talent of a poet, great as its merit may be.

Ver. 398. OURSELVES TO KNOW.] How unfortunate has our learned commentator been, in all the five examples he has produced, of the five species of elocution mentioned by Longinus!

In the first example there is little grandeur and sublimity of conception.

In the second, not one stroke of the pathetic.

In the third, not that formation and use of figures which, in the 16th section, Longinus insists upon.

In the fourth example, nothing that can be called powikǹ kai memoinμévn défis; dictio tropis plena atque facta; i. e. artificio quodam elaborata.

In the fifth and last, the bare enumeration of the subjects treated of in these four epistles cannot be justly given as an example of weight and dignity of composition, which Longinus calls ἡ ἐν ἀξιώματι καὶ διάρσει σύνθεσις ; magnifica elataque compositio.