His foul, proud Science never taught to stray Far as the folar walk, or milky way; 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 embrac'd, 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 asks no Angel's wing, no Seraph's fire; 110 But thinks, admitted to that equal fky, His faithful dog fhall bear him company. IV. Go, wiser thou! and, in thy scale of sense, Weigh thy Opinion against Providence ; VARIATIONS. After Ver 108. in the firft Ed. But does he say the maker is not good, COMMENTARY. VER. 113. Go, wiser thou, &c.] He proceeds with thefe accufers of providence (from Ver. 112 to 123, and shews NOTES. VER. 110. He afks no Angel's wing, no Seraph's fire;] The French Translator, M. l'Abbé Du Refnel, has turned the line thus, "Il ne defire point cette celefte flame "Qui des purs Seraphins devore, et nourrit l' ame. Call imperfection what thou fancy'st such, 115 COMMENTARY. 120 them, that complaints against the established order of things begin in the highest abjurdity, from mifapplied reafin and power; and end in the highet impiety, in an attempt to degrade the God of heaven, and to affume his place: "Alone made perfect here, immortal there:" NOTES. i. e. The favage does not defire that heavenly flame, which at the jame time that it devours the fouls of pure Seraphims, nour fbs them. On which Mr. de Croufaz (who, by the Affiftance of a tranflation abounding in abfurdities, writ a Commentary on the Ef Jay on Man, in which we find nothing but abfurdities) remarks," Mr. Pope, in exalting the fire of his poetry by an "antithefis, throws occafionally his ridicule on those heavenly fpirits. The Indian, fays the Poet, contents himself "without any thing of that flame, which devours at the fame "time that it nourisheth." Comm. p. 77. But the Poet is clear of this imputation. Nothing can be more grave or fober than his English, on this occafion; nor, I dare fay, to do the Tranflator justice, did he aim to be ridiculous. It is the fober folid Theology of the Sorbonne. Indeed had such a 66 In Pride, in reas'ning Pride, our error lies; And who but wishes to invert the laws COMMENTARY. That is, be made God, who only is perfect, and hath immortality: To which fenfe the lines immediately following confine us; "Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod, VER. 123. In Pride, in reas'ning Pride, our error lies, &c.] From these men, the Poet now turns to his friend; and (from Ver. 122 to 131) remarks that the ground of all this extravagance is Pride; which, more or lefs, infects the whole Species; thews the ill effects of it, in the cafe of the fallen Angels; and obferves, that even wishing to invert the laws of Order, is a lower fpecies of their crime: then brings an instance of one of the effects of Pride, which is the folly of thinking every thing made folely for the ufe of Man; without the least regard to any other of God's creatures: NOTES. writer as Mr. Pope used this School-jargon, we might have fufpected he was not fo ferious as he fhould be.-The Reader, as he goes along, will fee more of this Translator's excellencies. And the conclufion of the Commentary on the fourth Epiftle will fhew why I have been fo careful to preferve them. 54 V. Ask for what end the heav'nly bodies fhine, Earth for whofe ufe? Pride anfwers, "mine: ""Tis for "For me kind Nature wakes her genial pow'r, "Suckles each herb, and spreads out ev'ry flow'r; "Annual for me, the the rofe renew, 135 grape, "The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew; "For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings; "For me, health gushes from a thousand springs; "Seas roll to waft me, funs to light me rife; 66 My foot-ftool earth, my canopy the fkies." 140 COMMENTARY. "Afk for what end the heav'nly bodies fhine," &t. The ridicule of imagining the greater portions of the ma terial fyftem to be folely for the ufe of Man, Philosophy has fufficiently expofed: And Common fenfe, as the Poet obferves inftructs us to conclude, that our fellow-creatures, placed by Providence as the joint-inhabitants of this Globe, are defigned to be joint fharers with us of its bleffings: Has God, thou fool! work'd folely for thy good, "Thy joy thy paftime, thy attire, thy food? "Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn, "For him as kindly fpreads the flow'ry lawn." NOTES. Ep. iii. Ver. 27. VER. 131. Afk for what end, &.] If there be any fault in. thefe lines, it is not in the general fentiment, but in the ill choice of inftances made ufe of in expreffing it. It is the higheft abfurdity to think that Earth is man's foot-ftool, his nopy be Skies, and the heavenly bodies lighted up principally his ufc; yet furely, not fo, to fuppofe fruits and minerals for this end. But errs not Nature from this gracious end, From burning funs when livid deaths descend, When earthquakes fwallow, or when tempefts fweep Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep? "No ('tis reply'd) the firft Almighty Cause 145 "Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral laws; "Th' exceptions few; fome change fince all began: "And what created perfect?"--Why then Man? COMMENTARY. VER. 141. But errs not Nature from this gracious end,] The author comes next to the confirmation of his Thefis, That partial moral Evil is univerfal Good; but introduceth it with. a proper argument, to abate our wonder at the phænomenon of moral Evil; which argument he builds on a concession of his adverfaries. If we afk you, fays he, (from Ver. 140 to 11) whether Nature doth not err from the gracious purpose of its Creator, when plagues, earthquakes, and tempefts unpeople whole regions at a time; you readily answer, No. For that God acts by general, and not by particular laws, and that the courfe of matter and motion must be neceffarily fubject to fome irregularities, because nothing is created perfect. I then ask why you should expect this perfection in Man? If you own that the great end of God (notwithstanding all this deviation) be general happiness, then it is Nature, and not God, that deviates; and do you expect greater conftancy in Man? "Then Nature deviates; and can Man do lefs?" That is, if Nature, or the inanimate fyftem (on which God hath impofed his laws, which it obeys, as a machine obeys the hand of the workman) may in courfe of time deviate from its first direction, as the beft philofophy fhews it may; where is the wonder that Man, who was created a free Agent, and hath it |