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Then fhall Man's pride and dulness compre

hend

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His actions', paffions', being's, use and end; Why doing, fuff'ring, check'd, impell'd; and why This hour a flave, the next a deity.

Then say 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,

As who began a thousand years ago.

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III. Heav'n from all creatures hides the book

of Fate,

All but the page prefcrib'd, their present state:

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?
The bleft to day is as completely fo

As who began ten thousand years ago.

COMMENTARY.

butcher; and from thence takes occafion to obferve, that God is the equal mafter of all his creatures, and provides for the proper happiness of each and every of them.

From brutes what men, from men what fpirits

know:

Or who could fuffer Being here below?

80

The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to day,
Had he thy Reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the laft, 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, 85
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n:
Who fees with equal eye, as God of all,

A hero perish, or a fparrow 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.

VARIATIONS.

After Ver. 88, in the MS.

No great, no little; 'tis as much decreed
That Virgil's Gnat fhould die as Cæfar bleed.

COMMENTARY.

VER. 91. Hope humbly then, &c.] But now an Objector is fuppofed to put in, and fay, "You tell us, indeed, that all things fhall terminate in good; but we see ourselves furrounded with prefent evil; yet you forbid us all enquiry into the manner how we are to be extricated; and, in a word, leave us in a very difconfolate condition." Not fo, replies the

NOTES.

VER. 87. Who fees with equal eye, &c.] Matth. x. 29.

What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that Hope to be thy bleffing now.

VARIATIONS.

In the first Fol. and Quarto,

What blifs above he gives not thee to know,
But gives that Hope to be thy blifs below.

COMMENTARY.

Poet, you may reasonably, if you fo please, receive much comfort from the HOPE of a happy futurity; a Hope implanted in the human 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 reason why the Poet chufes to infift on this proof of a future state, 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 ful uneafy, &c. his peculiar expreffion. The Poet in this place, therefore, fays in exprefs terms, that GOD GAVE US HOPE TO

SUPPLY THAT FUTURE BLISS, WHICH HE AT PRESENT

KFEPS HID FROM US. In his fecond epistle, 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.”

NOTES.

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; becaufe, 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 fuch 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. The fytem of the best is so 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 any tendency to the greater

Hope fprings eternal in the human breast:
Man never Is, but always To be bleft.

COMMENTARY.

95

And, in the fourth epiftle, he fhews, how the fame HOPE is a proof of a future ftate, from the confideration of God's 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 blifs unknown: (Nature, whofe dictates to no other kind

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"Are giv'n in vain, but what they feek they find.)"

It is only for the good man, he tells us, that Hope leads from goal to goal, &c. It would then, be ftrange indeed, if it fhould prove an illufion.

NOTES.

good of the whole; then, though we must, indeed, conclude that they will hereafter be fet right, yet this view of things, representing God as fuffering diforders for no other end than to fet them right, gives us too low an idea of the divine wif dom. But if thofe evils (according to the fyftem of the best) contribute to the greater perfection of the Whole; fuch a reafon may be then given for their permiffion, as fupports our idea of divine wisdom to the highest religious purposes. Then, as to the good man's hopes of a retribution, these still 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 fyftem of the best fupposes that the evils themselves will he fully compenfated by the good they produce to the While, yet this is fo far from fuppofing that Particulars fhall fuffer for a general good, that it is effential to this fyftem, that, at the completion of things, when the Whole is arrived to the state of utmost perfection, particular and universal good shall coincide.

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The foul, uneafy, and confin'd from home,
Refts and expatiates in a life to come.

Lo, the poor

Indian whofe untutor'd mind

Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind; 100

COMMENTARY.

VER. 99. Lo, the poor Indian, &c.] The Poet, as we faid, having bid Man comfort himself with expectation of future happinefs, having fhewn him that this HOPE is an earnest of it, and put in one very necessary caution,

"Hope humbly then, with trembling pinions foar;" provoked at thofe mifcreants whom he afterwards (Ep. iii. Ver. 263.) defcribes as building Hell on fpite, and Heaven on pride, he upbraids them (from Ver. 99 to 113.) with the example of the poor Indian, to whom alfo Nature hath given this common HOPE of Mankind: But tho' his untutored mind had betrayed him into many childish fancies concerning the nature of that future ftate, yet he is fo far from excluding any part of his own fpecies (a vice which could proceed only from the pride of falfe Science) that he humanely admits even his faithful dog to bear him company.

NOTES.

"Such is the World's great harmony, that fprings "From Order, Union, full Confent of things. "Where fmall and great, where weak and mighty, made "To ferve, not suffer, ftrengthen, not invade," &c. Ep. Hi. Ver. 295.

Which coincidence can never be, without a retribution to good men for the evils fuffered here below.

VER. 97.-from home,] The construction 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.

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