Why doing, fuff'ring, check'd, impell'd; and why This hour a flave, the next a deity. Then fay not Man's imperfect, Heav'n in fault; Say rather, Man's as perfect as he ought: 70 His knowledge measur❜d to his state and place; His time a moment, and a point his space. If to be perfect in a certain sphere, What matter, foon or late, or here or there; The bleft to day is as completely fo, 75 As who began a thousand years ago. 80 III. Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of Fate, All but the page prefcib'd, their present state: From brutes what men, from men what spirits know: Or who could fuffer Being here below? The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to day, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play? Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flow'ry food, And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood. Oh blindness to the future! kindly giv❜n, A That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n: VARIATIONS, After ver. 68. the following lines in the first Ed. If to be perfect in a certain sphere, What matters foon or late, or here or there? As who began ten thousand years ago. 28 Who fees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall, Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd, And now a bubble burst, and now a world. 90 Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions foar; Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore, VARIATION S. After ver. 88. in the MS. No great, no little; 'tis as much decreed NOTES. VER. 87. Who fees with equal eye, &c.] Matth. x. 29. VER. 91. Hope humbly then ;] The Hope of a happy futurity was implanted in the humau breaft by God himself for this very purpose, as an earnest of that Blifs, which always flying from us here, is referved for the good Man hereafter. The reafon why the poet chufes to infift on this proof of a future ftate, in preference to others, is in order to give his fyftem (which is founded in a fublime and improved Platonifm) the greater grace of uniformity. For HOPE was Plato's peculiar argument for a future ftate; and the words here employed the foul uneafy, &c. his peculiar expreffion. The poet in this place, therefore, lays in exprefs terms, that God gave us hope to supply that future blifs, which he at prefent keeps hid from us. In his fecond epifle, ver. 274, he goes ftill further, and fays, this HOPE quits us not even at Death, when every thing mortal drops from us: Hope travels thro', nor quits us when we die. And, in the fourth epiftle he fhews how the fame HOPE is a proof of a future ftate, from the confideration of God's What future blifs he gives not thee to know, VARIATIONS. In the firft Fol. and Quarto, What blifs above he gives not thee to know, NOTES. giving man no appetite in vain, or what he did not intend fhould be fatisfied; He fees why Nature plants in Man alone Hope of known blifs, and Faith in bliss unknown: Are giv'n in vain, but what they seek they find.) It is only for the good man, he tell us, that Hope leads from goal to goal, &c. It would be ftrange indeed then, if it fhould prove a delufion. VER. 93. What future blifs, &c.] It hath been objected, that the Syftem of the best weakens the other natural arguments for a future ftate; because, if the evils which good Men fuffer promote the benefit of the whole, then every thing is here in order; and nothing amifs that wants to be fet right: Nor has the good man any reafon to expect amends, when the evils he fuffered had such a tendency. To this it may be replied, 1. That the poet tells us, (Ep. iv. ver. 361.) That God loves from whole to parts. 2. That the fyftem of the best is fo far from weakening those natural arguments, that it ftrengthens and fupports them. For if thofe evils, to which good men are fubject, be mere Diforders, without tendency to the greater good of the whole; then, though we muft indeed conclude that they will hereafter be fet right, yet this view of things, repre fenting God as fuffering diforders for no other end than to fet them right, gives us a very low idea of the divine wif Hope fprings eternal in the human breast : NOTES. 95 dom. But if thofe evils (according to the fyftem of the beft) contribute to the greater perfection of the whole; fuch a reafon may be then given for their permiffion, as fupports our idea of divine wifdom to the highest religious purposes. Then, as to the good man's hopes of a retribution, thofe ftill remain in their original force: For our idea of God's justice, and how far that juftice is engaged to a retribution, is exactly and invariably the fame on either hypothefis. For though the system of the best suppofes that the evil; thenfelves will be fully compenfated by the good they produce to the whole, yet this is fo far from fuppofing that particulars fhall fuffer for a general good, that it is effential to this fyftem to conclude, that, at the completion of things, when the whole is carried to the state of utmost perfection, particular and univerfal good shall coincide. Such is the world's great harmony, that fprings Which coincidence can never be, without a retribution to good men for the evils they fuffered here below. VER. 97. from home.] The conftruction is, "The "foul being from home (confined and uneafy) expatiates," &c. by which words it was the Poet's purpose to teach, that the prefent life is only a ftate of probation for another, more fuitable to the effence of the foul, and to the free exercise of its qualities. Lo, the poor Indian! whofe untutor'd mind Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind; 100 His foul, proud fcience never taught to stray Yet fimple nature to his hope has giv'n Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heav'n, Some fafer world in depth of woods embraced, 105 Some happier island in the watry waste, Where flaves once more their native land behold, No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold, To Be, contents his natural defire, He afks no Angel's wing, no Seraph's fire; VARIATION S. After ver. 108. in the firft Ed. But does he fay the Maker is not good, NOTES. 110 VER. 99. Lo, the poor Indian! &c.] The poet, as we faid, having bid Man comfort himself with expectation of future happiness, having fhewn him that this HOPE is an earnest of it, and put in one very neceffary caution,' Hope humbly then, with trembling pinions foar ; provoked at thofe mifcreants whom he afterwards (Er. iii. ver. 263.) describes as building Hell on fpite, and Heaven on pride, he upbraids them (fromver. 99 to 112.) with the example of the poor Indian, to whom also nature hath given |