Then shar'd the Tyranny, then lent it aid, 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: Here fix'd the dreadful, there the bleft abodes; 255 Fear made her Devils, and weak Hope her Gods; Gods partial, changeful, paffionate, unjust, Whofe attributes were Rage, Revenge, or Luft; Such as the fouls of cowards might conceive, And, form'd like tyrants, tyrants would believe. Zeal then, not charity, became the guide; 261 And hell was built on spite, and heav'n on pride. NOTES. lities here affigned to them. For Force being the Tyrant's Virtue, and Luxury his Happinefs, the attributes of his God would of course be Revenge and Luft; in a word, the antitype of himself. But there was another, and more substantial cause, of the Refemblance between a Tyrant and a Pagangod; and that was the making Gods of Conquerors, as the Poet fays; and fo canonizing a tyrant's vices with his person. VER. 262.-and heav'n on pride.] This might be very well faid of those times, when no one was content to go to Heaven without being received there on the footing of a God. Then facred feem'd th' etherial vault no more; Altars grew marble then, and reek'd with gore: Then first the Flamen tafted living food; 265 Next his grim idol fmear'd with human blood; With heav'n's own thunders fhook the world below, And play'd the God an engine on his foe. So drives Self-love, thro' just and thro' unjust, To one Man's pow'r, ambition, lucre, luft: 270 The fame Self-love, in all, becomes the cause Of what restrains him, Government and Laws. COMMENTARY. VER. 269. So drives Self-love, &c.] The inference our Author draws from all this (from Ver. 268 to 283.) is, that Self-love driveth through right and wrong; it caufeth the Tyrant to violate the rights of mankind; and it causeth the People to vindicate that violation. For Self-love being common to the whole fpecies, and fetting each individual in pursuit of the fame objects, it became neceffary for cach, if he would fecure his own, to provide for the fafety of another's. And thus Equity and Benevolence arofe from that fame Selflove which had given birth to Avarice and Injustice: "His Safety muft his Liberty reftrain; "All join to guard what each defires to gain." The Poet hath not any where fhewn greater addrefs, in the difpofition of this work, than with regard to the inference before us; which not only giveth a proper and timely fupport to what had been advanced in the fecond epiftle concerning the nature and effects of Self-love, but is a neceffary introduction to what follows, concerning the Reformation of Religion and Society; as we fhall fee presently. For, what one likes if others like as well, All join to guard what each defires to gain. COMMENTARY 285 VER. 283. 'Twas then, the ftudious head, &c.] The Poet hath now described the rife, perfection, and decay of civil Policy and Religion in the more early times. But the defign had been imperfect, had he here dropt his discourse: There was, in after ages, a recovery of thefe from their several corruptions. Accordingly, he hath chofen that happy æra for the conclufion of his Song. But as good and ill Go NOTES. VER. 283. 'Twas then, &c.] The Poet fecmeth here to mean the polite and flourishing age of Greece; and those benefactors to Mankind, which he had principally in view, were SOCRATES and ARISTOTLE; who, of all the pagan world, spoke beft of God, and wrote beft of Government. Taught Pow'r's due ufe to People and to Kings, Taught nor to flack, nor ftrain its tender ftrings, The lefs, or greater, set so justly true, 291 That touching one must strike the other too; Such is the World's great Harmony, that fprings 295 From Order, Union, full Confent of things: COMMENTARY. vernments and Religions fucceed one another without ceafing, he now leaveth facts, and turneth his difcourfe (from Ver. 282 to 295.) to speak of a more lafting reform of mankind, in the Invention of thofe philofophic Principles, by whofe obfervance, a Policy and a Religion may be for ever kept from finking into Tyranny and Superftition : "Twas then, the ftudious head or gen'rous mind, "The Faith and Moral, Nature gave before;" &c. The eafy and juft tranfition into this fubject from the foregoing is admirable. In the foregoing he had defcribed the effects of Self love; and now, with great art, and high probability, he maketh Men's obfervations on thefe effects the occafion of those discoveries which they have made of the true principles of Policy and Religion, defcribed in the present paragraph; and this he evidently hinteth at in that fine tranfition, ""Twas then, the ftudious head," &c. VER. 295. Such is the World's great harmony, &c.] Having thus defcribed the true principles of civil and ecclesiastical Po NOTES. VER. 295. Such is the World's great harmony, &c.] An harmony very different from the pre-established harmony of the ce Where small and great, where weak and mighty made To serve, not fuffer, ftrengthen, not invade; COMMENTARY. ficy, he proceedeth (from Ver. 294 to 303.) to illustrate his account by the fimilar harmony of the the Universe. "Such is the World's great harmony, that fprings "From Order, Union, full Consent of things:" Thus, as in the beginning of this epiftle he fupported the great principle of mutual Love or Affociation in general, by confiderations drawn from the properties of Matter, and the mutual dependance between vegetable and animal life: fo, in the conclufion, he hath inforced the particular principles of Civil and Religious Society, from that univerfal Harmony, which fprings, in part, from those properties and dependencies. NOTES. lebrated Leibnitz, which establisheth a Fatality destructive of all Religion and Morality. Yet hath the learned M. De Croufaz ventured to accufe our Poet of efpoufing that impious whimfy. The pre-established harmony was built upon, and is an outrageous extenfion of a conception of Plato; who, combating the atheistical objections about the origin of Evil, employs this argument in defence of Providence; "That a"mongst an infinite number of poffible worlds in God's idea, "this, which he hath created and brought into being, and "which admits of a mixture of Evil, is the beft. But if the "best, then Evil confequently is partial, comparatively small, "and tendeth to the greater perfection of the whole." Principle is espoused and fupported by Mr. Pope with all the power of reafon and poetry. But neither was Plato a Fatalift, nor is there any fatalism in the argument. As to the truth of the notion, that is another question; and how far it cleareth up the very difficult controverfy about the origin of Evil, is ftill another. That it is a full folution of the difficulty, I cannot think, for reasons too long to be given in this place. Perhaps we shall never have a full folution here: and it may be no great matter though we have not, as we are demonftrably certain of the moral attributes of the Deity. How. This |