All must be false that thwart this One great End mend. 310 And all of God, that bless Mankind or mend. ; NOTES. : Combatants and no body expecting common fenfe on a fubject where we have no ideas, the defects of dulnefs disappeared, and its advantages (for, advantages it has) were all provided for. The worst is, fuch kind of Writers seldom know when to have done. For writing themselves up into the fame delufion with their Readers, they are apt to venture out into the more open paths of Literature, where their reputation, made out of that stuff, which Lucian calls Exóre inóxo, prefently falls from them, and their nakedness appears. And thus it fared with our two Worthies. The World, which muft have always fomething to amuse it, was now in good time grown weary of its play-things, and catched at a new object that promised them more agreeable entertainment. Tindal, a kind of Bastard-Socrates, had brought our fpeculations from Heaven to Earth: and, under the pretence of advancing the Antiquity of Christianity, laboured to undermine its original. This was a controversy that required another management. Clear fenfe, fevere reafoning, a thorough knowledge of prophane and facred Antiquity, and an intimate acquaintance with human Nature, were the qualities proper for such as engaged in this Subject. A very unpromifing adventure for these metaphyfical nurflings, bred up under the shade of chimeras. Yet they would needs venture out. What they got by it was only to be once well laughed at, and then forgotten. But one odd circumstance deferves to be remembered; tho' they wrote not, we my be fure, in concert, yet each attacked his Adversary at the fame time, fastened upon him in the fame place, and mumbled him with just the fame toothless rage. But the ill fuccefs of ; Man, like the gen'rous vine, supported lives The ftrength he gains is from th'embrace he gives. Yet make at once their circle round the Sun; NOTES. 315 this escape foon brought them to themselves. The one made à fruitless effort to revive the old game, in a dif course on The importance of the doctrine of the Trinity; and the Other has been ever fince, till very lately, rambling in SPACE. This short history, as infignificant as the subjects of it are, may not be altogether unufeful to pofterity. Divines may learn, by thefe examples, to avoid the mischiefs done to Religion and Literature, through the affectation of being wife above what is written, and knowing beyond what can be understood. VER. 307. In faith and hope, &c.] And now abideth faith, hope, and charity, these three; but the greatest of thefe is charity. 1 Cor. xiii. 13. VER. 311. Man, like the gen'rous wine, &c.] Having thus largely confidered Man in his focial capacity, the poet, in order to fix a momentous truth in the mind of his reader, concludes the epiftle in recapitulating the we Principles, which concur to the fupport of this part of his character, namely, SELF LOVE and SOCIAL; and fhewing, that they are only two different motions of the appetite to Good; by which the Author of Nature hath enabled Man to find his own happiness in the happiness of the Whole. This he illuftrates with a thought as fublime as that general harmony he describes: For he hath the art of converting poetical ornaments into philofophic reafoning; and of improving a fimile into an analogical argument: Thus God and Nature link'd the genʼral frame, And bade Self-love and Social be the fame. NOTES. On their own Axis as the Planets run, Thus God and Nature link'd the gen'ral frame, [86] EPISTLE IV. H HAPPINESS! our being's end and aim ! That something ftill which prompts th' eternal figh, For which we bear to live, or dare to die, VARIATIONS, VER. 1. Oh Happiness, &c.] In the MS. thus: Wing'd with strong hope, and borne by full defire; NOTES. EP. IV. The two foregoing epiftles having confidered Man with regard to the Means (that is, in all his relations, whether as an Individual, or a Member of fociety) this laft comes to confider him with regard to the End, that is, Happiness. It opens with an Invocation to Happiness, in the manner of the ancient poets, who, when deftitute of a patrongod, applied to the Mufe, and, if she was engaged, took up with any fimple Virtue next at hand, to inspire and profper their undertakings. This was the ancient Invocation, which few modern poets have had the art to imitate with any degree either of spirit or decorum; but our author hath contrived to make it fubfervient to the method and reasoning of his philofophic compofition. will endeavour to explain fo uncommon a beauty. I Which still so near us, yet beyond us lies O'erlook'd, feen double, by the fool, and wife. NOTES. 5 It is to be observed, that the Pagan deities had each their feveral names and places of abode, with some of which they were fuppofed to be more delighted than others, and confequently to be then moft propitious when invoked by the favourite name and place: Hence we find, the Hymns of Homer, Orpheus, and Callimachus to be chiefly employed in reckoning up the feveral names and places of abode by which the patron God was diftinguished. Our poet hath made thefe two circumstances serve to introduce his fubject. His purpose is to write of Happiness; method therefore requires that he firft define what men mean by Happiness, and this he does in the ornament of a poetic Invocation; in which the several names, that happiness goes by, are enumerated. Oh Happiness! our being's end and aim, Good, Pleasure, Ease, Content! whate'er thy Name. After the Definition, that which follows next, is the propofition, which is, that buman Happiness confifts not in external Advantages, but in Virtue. For the fubject of this epiftle is the detecting the false notions of Happiness, and fettling and explaining the true; and this the poet lays down in the next fixteen lines. Now the enumeration of the feveral fituations in which Happiness is fuppofed to refide, is a fummary of falfe Happiness, placed in Externals: Plant of celeftial feed! if dropt below, Say in what mortal foil thou deign'ft to grow. |