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Pride ftill is aiming at the bleft abodes,

Men would be Angels, Angels would be Gods. 125
Afpiring to be Gods, if Angels fell,
Afpiring to be Angels, Men rebel :

And who but wishes to invert the laws

Of ORDER, fins aganft th' Eternal Cause. 130 V. Afk for what end the heav'nly bodies shine, Earth for whofe ufe? Pride answers, "Tis for mine: "For me kind Nature wakes her genial pow'r, "Suckles each herb, and fpreads out ev'ry flow'r; "Annual for me, the grape, the rose renew 135 "The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew;

"For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings; "For me, health gushes from a thousand springs ;

NOTES.

VER. 131. Afk for what end the heav'nly bodies fhine, &c.] The ridicule of imagining the greater portions of the material fyftem to be folely for the ufe of man, Philofophy has fufficiently expofed: and Common fenfe, as the poet obferves, inftructs us to know that our fellow-creatures, placed by providence the joint-inhabitants of this globe, are defigned by Providence to be joint-sharers with us of its bleffings.

VER. ib. Afk for what end, &c.] If there be any fault in these lines, it is not in the general fentiment, but a want of exactness in expreffing it. It is the highest

abfurdity to think that Earth is man's footflool, his canopy the fkies, and the heavenly bodies lighted up principally for his ufe; yet not fo, to fuppofe fruits and minerals given, for this end.

"Seas roll to waft me, funs to light me rise;

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My foot-ftool earth, my canopy the skies." 140 But errs not Nature from this gracious end, From burning funs when livid deaths descend, When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep? "No, ('tis reply'd) the first Almighty Caufe 145 "Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral laws;

"Th' exceptions few; fome change fince all began: "And what created perfect ?"-Why then Man? If the great end be human happiness,

Then nature deviates; and can man do less? 150
As much that end a conftant course requires
Of fhow'rs and fun-fhine, as of Man's defires;
As much eternal springs and cloudless skies,
As Men for ever temp'rate, calm, and wife,
If plagues or earthquakes break not heav'n's designs
Why then a Borgia, or a Catiline?

66

NOTES.

156

VER. 150. Then Nature deviates, &c.] While "comets move in very eccentric orbs, in all manner of pofi"tions, blind Fate could never make all the planets "move one and the fame way in orbs concentric; fome "inconfiderable irregularities excepted, which may have "rifen from the mutual actions of comets and planets upon one another, and which will be apt to increase, till "this fyftem wants a reformation." Sir Ifaac Newton's Optics, Quæft. ult.

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VER. 155. If plagues, &c.] What hath milled fome

Who knows but he, whose hand the light'ning forms, Who heaves old Ocean, and who wings the ftorms; Pours fierce Ambition in a Cæfar's mind, 159 Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind?

NOTES.

perfons in this paffage, is their fuppofing the comparison to be between the effects of two things in this fublunary world; when not only the elegancy, but the juftness of it, confists in its being between the effects of a thing in the univerfe at large, and the familiar and known effects of one in this fublunary world. For the pofition inforced in these lines is this, that partial evil tends to the good of the whole.

Refpecting Man, whatever wrong we call, May, must be right, as relative to all. ver. 51. How does the poet inforce it? if you will believe thefe perfons, in illuftrating the effects of partial moral evil in a particular fyftem, by that of partial natural evil in the fame fyftem, and fo he leaves his pofition in the lurch. But the poet reafons at another rate: The way to prove his point, he knew, was to illuftrate the effect of partial moral evil in the universe, by partial natural evil in a particular fyftem. Whether partial moral evil tend to the good of the universe, being a queftion which, by reafon of our ignorance of many parts of that univerfe, we cannot decide, but from known effects; the rules of argument require that it be proved by analogy, i. e. fetting it by, and comparing it with, a thing certain; and it is a thing certain that partial natural evil tends to the good of our particular Syftem.

VER. 157. Who knows but he, &c.] The fublimity with which the great Author of Nature is here characterised, is but the fecond beauty of this fine paffage. The greatest is the making the very difpenfation objected to, the periphrafis of his Title.

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From pride, from pride, our very reas'ning fprings; Account for moral, as for natʼral things:

Why charge we Heav'n in those, in these acquit? In both, to reafon right is to fubmit.

Better for Us, perhaps, it might appear, Were there all harmony, all virtue here;

NOTES.

165

VER. 165. Better for Us, &c.] It might, fays he, perhaps, appear better to us, that there were nothing in this world but peace and virtue.

That never air or ocean felt the wind;

That never paffion discompos'd the mind.

But then confider, that as our natural fyftem is fupported by the ftrife of its elementary particles; fo is our intellectual fyftem by the conflict of our Paffions, which are the elements of human action.

In a word, as without the benefit of tempeftuous winds, both air and ocean would ftagnate, corrupt, and spread univerfal contagion throughout all the ranks of animals that inhabit, or are fupported by them; fo, without the benefit of the Paffions, fuch virtue as was merely the effect of the absence of those Passions would be a lifeless calm, a ftoical Apathy.

Contracted all, retiring to the breast:

But health of mind is Exercise, not Reft. Ep. ii. ver. 103. The efore, inftead of regarding the conflict of the elements, and the paffions of the mind as diforders, you ought to confider them as part of the general order of Providence: And that they are fo, appears from their always preferving the fame unvaried courfe, throughout all ages, from the creation to the present time:

The gen'ral order, fince the Whole began,
Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man.

That never air or ocean felt the wind;

That never paffion difcompos'd the mind,
But ALL fubfifts by elemental ftrife;

And paffions are the elements of Life.

170

The gen'ral ORDER, fince the Whole began,
Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man.

VI. What would this Man! Now upward will he foar,

And little less than Angel, would be more?
Now looking downwards, juft as griev'd appears 175
To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears.

NOTES.

We fee, therefore, it would be doing great injuftice to our author to fufpect that he intended, by this, to give any encouragement to vice. His fyftem, as all his Ethic Epiftles fhew, is this: That the paffions, for the reasons given above, are neceffary to the fupport of Virtue: That, indeed, the Paffions in excess produce Vice, which is, in its own Nature, the greatest of all Evils, and comes into the world from the abuse of Man's free-will; but that God, in his infinite wisdom and goodness, deviously turns the natural bias of its malignity to the advancement of human happiness, and makes it productive of general Good

TH'ETERNAL ART EDUCES GOOD FROM ILL. Ep. ii. ver. 175. VER. 169. But all fubfifts, &c.] See this fubject extended in EP. ii. from ver. go to 112, 155, &c.

VER. 174. And little less than Angel, &c.] Thou haft made him a little lower than the Angels, and haft crowned him with glory and honour, Pfalm viii. 9.

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