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 unfeen, and mightier far than they: She, from the rending earth and bursting skies, Saw Gods defcend, and fiends infernal rife: 254 Here fix'd the dreadful, there the bleft abodes; Fear made her Devils, and weak Hope her Gods; Gods partial, changeful, paffionate, unjust, Whofe attributes were Rage, Revenge, or Luft; NOTES. The ancient Pagan Gods are here very exactly defcribed. This fact is a convincing evidence of the truth of that original, which the poet giveth to Superftition; for if thefe phantafms were firft raised in the imagination of Tyrants, they must needs have the qualities here affigned to them. For Force being the Tyrant's Virtue, and Luxury his Happiness, the attributes of his God would of course be Revenge and Luft; in a word, the anti-type of himself. But there was another, and more substantial cause, of the Refemblance between a Tyrant and a Pagan god; and that was the making Gods of Conquerors, as the poet fays, and fo canonizing a tyrant's vices with his perfon. That thefe gods fhould fuit a people humbled to the ftroke of a mafter, will be no wonder, if we recollect a generous faying of the ancients: That day which fees a Man a fiave, takes away half his Virtue. Such as the fouls of cowards might conceive, And play'd the God an engine on his foe. gore: 265 So drives Self-love, thro' just and thro' unjust, To one Man's pow'r, ambition, lucre, luft: 270 COMMENTARY. VER. 269. So drives Self-love, &c.] The inference our author draws from all this (from & 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 each, if he would fecure his own, to provide for the fafety of another's. And thus Equity and Benevolence arofe from that fame Self-love which had given birth to Avarice and Injuftice: His Safety must his Liberty refrain; All join to guard what each defires to gain. NOTES. 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. The fame Self-love, in all, becomes the cause All join to guard what each defires to gain. COMMENTARY. There is 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 support to what was before advanced, in the fecond epiftle, concerning the nature and effects of Self-love; but is a neceflary introduction to what follows, concerning the Reformation of Religion and Society, as we fhall fee presently. VER. 283. 'Twas then the fludious head, &c.] The poet hath now described the rife, perfection, and decay of civil Policy and NOTES. VER. 283. 'Twas then, &c.] The poet feemeth here to mean the polite and flourishing age of Greece; and thofe benefactors to Mankind, which he had principally in view, were Socrates and Ariftotle; who, of all the pagan world, spoke best of God, and wrote beft of Government, Poet or Patriot, rofe but to restore 285 The Faith and Moral, Nature gave before; That touching one muft ftrike the other too; COMMENTARY. 291 Religion, in the more early times. But the defign had been imperfect, had he here dropt his difcourfe: there was, in after ages, a recovery from their feveral corruptions, Accordingly, he hath chofen that happy ra for the conclufion of his fong. But as good and ill Governments and Religions fucceed one another without ceafing, he now leaveth facts, and turneth his difcourfe [from 282 to 295) to speak of a more lasting reform of mankind, in the Invention of thofe philofophic Principles, by whofe obfervance a Policy and Religion may be for ever kept from finking into Tyranny and Superftition: 'Twas then the ftudious head or gen'rous mind, Poct or Patriot, rofe but to reflore The Faith and Moral, Nature gave before; &c. The cafy 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 Mens obfervations on thefe effects the occafion of those difcoveries which they have made of the true principles of Policy and Religion, defcribed in the prefent paragraph; and this he evidently hinteth at in that fine transition, 'Twas then, the ftudious head, &c. Such is the World's great harmony, that fprings From Order, Union, full Confent of things: 296 VER. 295. Such is the World's great harmony, &c.] Having thus defcribed the true principles of civil and ecclefiaftical Policy, he proceedeth (from 294 to 303) to illuftrate his account by the fimilar harmony of the Univerfe: Such is the World's great harmony, that springs Thus, as in the beginning of this epiftle he supported the great principle of mutual Love or Affociation in general, by confiderations drawn from the properties of Matter, and the mutual dependence 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 springs, in part, from thofe properties and dependencies. NOTES. VER. 295. Such is the World's great harmory, &c.] An harmony very different from the pre-established harmony of the celebrated Leibnitz, which eflablifheth a Fatality destructive of all Religion and Morality. Yet hath the poet been accused 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 the defence of Providence; "That amongft 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 best. "But if the beft, then Evil confequently is partial, compara❝tively finall, and tendeth to the greater perfection of the "whole." This Principle is efpoufed and fupported by Mr. Pope with all the power of reafon and poetry. But neither was Plato a Fatalift, nor is there any fatalifin in the argument. As to the truth of the notion, that is another question; and how far it cleareth up the very difficult controversy about the origin of Evil, is ftill another. That it is a full folution of all diffi |