Thus States were form'd; the name of King unknown,

'Till common int'reft plac'd the sway in one, 210 'Twas VIRTUE ONLY (or in arts or arms, Diffufing bleffings, or averting harms) The fame which in a Sire the Sons obey'd, A Prince the Father of a People made.

VI. 'Till then, by Nature crown'd, each Patriarch

fate,

King, priest, and parent of his growing state;

NOTES.

215

VER. 209. Thus flates were form'd;] This is faid in confutation of that idle hypothefis which pretends, that God conferred the regal title on the fathers of families; from whence men, when they had inftituted Society, were to fetch their Governors. On the contrary, our author fhews, that a King was unknown, 'till common interest, which led men to institute civil government, led them at the fame time to inftitute a governor. However, that it is true that the fame wisdom or valour, which gained regal obedience from fons to the fire, procured kings a paternal authority, and made them confidered as fathers of their people. Which probably was the original (and, while mistaken, continues to be the chief fupport) of that flavish error: antiquity representing its earlieft monarchs under the idea of a common father, warned. Afterwards indeed they became a kind of fofter-fathers, pipira Aaw, as Homer calls one of them: 'Till at length they began to devour that flock they had been fo long accuftomed to fhear and, as Plutarch fays of Cecrops, ix xensu βασιλέως ἄγριον καὶ δρακονιώδη γενόμενον ΤΥΡΑΝΝΟΝ.

VER.211. 'Twas Virtue only, &c.]Our author hath good authority for this account of the origin of kingfhip. Ari

On him, their second Providence they hung,
Their law his eye, their oricle his tongue.
He from the wond'ring furrow call'd the food,
Taught to command the fire, controul the flood, 220
Draw forth the monsters of th' abyss profound,
Or fetch th' aërial eagle to the ground.
'Till drooping, fick'ning, dying they began
Whom they rever'd as God to mourn as Man:
Then, looking up from fire to fire explor'd
One great first father, and that firft ador'd.
Or plain tradition that this All begun,
Convey'd unbroken faith from fire to fon;

The worker from the work distinct was known,
And fimple Reafon never fought but one:

NOTES.

225

230

A

ftotle affures us, that it was Virtue only, or in art or arms: Καθίσαται βασιλεὺς ἐκ τῶν ἐπιεικῶν καθ ̓ ὑπεροχὴν ἀρετῆς, ἡ πράξεων τῶν ἀπὸ τῆς ἀρεξη, ἡ καθ' ὑπεροχὴν τοιέτε θες.

VER. 219. He from the wond ring furrow, &c.]i. e. He fubdued the intractability of all the four elements, and made them fubfervient to the ufe of Man.

VER. 225. Then, looking up, &c.] The poet here maketh their more ferious attention to Religion to have arifen, not from their gratitude amidst abundance, but for their helpleffness in diftrefs; by fhewing that, during the former ftate, they refted in fecond caufes, the immediate authors of their bleffings, whom they rever'd as God, but that, in the other, they reafoned up to the First:

Then looking up from fire to fire, &c.

Ere Wit oblique had broke that fteddy light,
Man, like his Maker, faw that all was right;
To Virtue, in the paths of Pleasure trod,
And own'd a Father when he own'd a God.

LOVE all the faith, and all th' allegiance then; 235
For Nature knew no right divine in Men,
No ill could fear in God; and understood

A fov'reign being but a fov'reign good.
True faith, true policy united ran,

That was but love of God, and this of Man. 240

Who first taught souls enflav'd, and realms undone, Th' enormous faith of made for one;

many

NOTES.

This, I am afraid, is but too true a representation of hu

man nature.

VER. 231. Ere Wit oblique, &c.] A beautiful allufion to the effects of the prifmatic glafs on the rays of light.

VER. 241. Who first taught fouls, enflav'd, &c.] The poet informs us, agreeably to his exact knowledge of Antiquity, that it was the Politician, and not the Prieft (as our illiterate tribe of Free-thinkers would make us believe) who first corrupted Religion. Secondly, That the Superftition he brought in was not invented by him, as an engine to play upon others (as the dreaming Atheist feigns, who would thus miferably account for the origin of Religion) but was a trap he firft fell into himself.

VER. 242. Th' enormous faith, &c.] In this Aristotle placeth the difference between a King and a Tyrant, that the firft fuppofeth himself made for the People; the other that the People are made for him: Βέλλαι δ' ὁ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ εἶναι φύλαξ, ὅπως οἱ μὲὺ κεκλημένοι τὰς ἐσίας μηθὲν ἄδικον πά ἔχωσιν, ὁ δὲ δῆμον μὴ ὑβρίζηται μηθίων, ἡ δὲ ΤΥΡΑΝΝΙΣ πρὸς

That proud exception to all Nature's laws,

T' invert the world, and counterwork its Cause? Force firft made Conqueft, and that Conqueft, Law: 'Till fuperftition taught the tyrant awe,

146

Then fhar'd the tyranny, then lent it aid,
And Gods of Conqu'rors, Slaves of Subjects made:
She 'midft the lightning's blaze, and thunder's found,
When rock'd the mountains, and when groan'd the
ground,

་་

250 She taught the weak to bend, the proud to pray, To Pow'r unseen, and mightier far than they : She, from the rending earth and bursting skies, Saw Gods defcend, and fiends infernal rife:

NOTES.

ὐδὲν αποβλέπει κοινὸν, εἰ μὴ τῆς ἰδίας ὠφελείας χάριν. Pol. lib. v. cap. 10.

VER. 245. Force first made Conqueft, &c.] All this is agreeable to fact, and fheweth our author's exact knowledge of human nature. For that impotency of mind (as the Latin writers call it) which giveth birth to the enormous crime neceffary to fupport a Tyranny, naturally fubjecteth its owner to all the vain, as well as real, terrors of Confcience: Hence the whole machinery of Superftition,

It is true, the Poet obferves, that afterwards, when the Tyrant's fright was over, he had cunning enough, from the experience of the effect of Superftition upon himfelf, to turn it by the affiftance of the Priest (who for his reward went fharer with him in the Tyranny) as his beft defence against his Subjects. For a Tyrant naturally and reasonably deemeth all his Slaves to be his enemies.

Here fix'd the dreadful, there the bleft, abodes; 255
Fear made her Devils, and weak Hope her Gods;
Gods partial, changeful, paffionate, unjust,
Whose attributes were Rage, Revenge, or Luft;
Such as the fouls of cowards might conceive,
And, form'd like tyrants, tyrants would believe, 260
Zeal then, not charity, became the guide;
And hell was built on spite, and heav'n on pride.
Then facred feem'd th' etherial vault no more!

265

Altars grew marble then, and reek'd with gore:
Then firft the Flamen tafted living food;
Next his grim idol smear'd with human blood;
With heav'n's own thunders fhook the world below,
And play'd the God an engine on his foe.

NOTES.

VER. 257. Gods partial, changeful, &c.] The ancient Pagan Gods are here very exactly defcribed. this fact is a convincing evidence of the truth of that original, which the poet giveth to Superftition; for if thefe phantafms were first raised in the imagination of Tyrants, they must needs have the qualities here affigned to them. For Force being the Tyrant's Virtue, and Luxury his Happiness, the attributes of his God would of course be Revenge and Luft; in a word, the anti type of himself. But there was another, and more fubftantial caufe, of the refemblance between a Tyrant and a Pagan god; and that was the making Gods of Conquerors, as the poet fays, and fo canonizing a tyrant's vices with his perfon.

VER. 262. And heav'n on pride.] This might be very well faid of thofe times, when no one was content to go to heaven without being received there on the footing of a God.