MAN

ON MA

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 said, having bid Man comfort himself with expectation of future happiness, having fhewn him that this HOPE is an earnest of it, and put in one very neceffary caution,

Hope humbly then, with trembling pinions foar ;

provoked at hofe mifcreants whom he afterwards (Ep. iii. 263) defcribes as building Hell on fpite, and Heaven on pride,

NOTES.

our idea of divine wisdom to the highest religious purposes. Then, as to the good man's hopes of a retribution, thofe ftill 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 fuppofes that the evils themselves will be fully compenfated by the good they produce to the whole, yet this is fo far from fuppofing that particulars fhall fuffer for a general good, that it is effential to this fyftem to conclude, that, at the completion of things, when the whole is arrived to the state of utmost perfection, particular and univerfal good fhall

coincide.

Such is the World's great harmony, that fprings
From Order, Union, full Confent of things.

Where Small and great, where weak and mighty, made
To ferve, not fuffer, ftrengthen, not invade, &c. Ep. iii. † 295.
Which coincidence can never be, without a retribution to
good men for the evils fuffered here below.

VER. 97. from home,] The conftruction is, "The foul being from home (confined and uneafy) expatiates, &c." by which words, it was the poet's purpose to teach, that the pre- fent life is only a ftate of probation for another, more fuitable to the effence of the foul, and to the free exercise of it's qualities.

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 Chriftians thirst for gold.
To Be, contents his natural defire,

He asks no Angel's wing, no Seraph's fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog fhall bear him company.

110

IV. Go, wiser thou! and, in thy scale of sense, Weigh thy Opinion against Providence ;

VARIATIONS,

After 108. in the first Ed.

But does he say the maker is not good,
Till he's exalted to what ftate he wou'd :
Himself alone high Heav'n's peculiar care,
Alone made happy when he will, and where?

COMMENTARY,

he upbraids them (from y 99 to 112) 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 Science) that he humanely admits even his faithful dog to bear him сотрапу.

VER. 113. Go, wifer thou! &c.] He proceeds with thefe acVOL. III.

D

Call imperfection what thou fancy'st such,
Say, here he gives too little, there too much :
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,
Yet cry, If Man's unhappy, God's unjust;
If Man alone ingrofs not Heav'n's high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there:
Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,
Re-judge his justice, be the God of God.
In Pride, in reas'ning Pride, our error lies
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.

COMMENTARY.

;

115

120

cufers of providence (from y 112 to 122) and fhews them, that complaints against the established order of things begin in the highest abfurdity, from mifapplied reafon and power, and end in the highest impiety, in an attempt to degrade the God of heaven, and aflume his place:

Alone made perfect here, immortal there :

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,
Re-judge his juftice, be the God of God.

VER. 123. In Pride, in reas'ning Pride, our error lies ; &c.]

NOTES.

VER. 123. In Pride, &c.] Arnobius has paffed the fame cenfure on thefe very follies, which he fuppofes to arife from the caufe here affigned." Nihil eft quod nos fallat, nihil quod no"bis polliceatur fpes caffas (id quod nobis a quibufdam dicitur "viris immoderata fui opinione fublatis) animas immortales "effe, Deo, rerum ac principi, gradu proximas dignitatis, ge"nitore illo ac patre prolatas, divinas, fapientes, doctas, neque "ulla corporis attrectatione contiguas." Adverfus gentes.

125

Pride still is aiming at the bleft abodes,

Men would be Angels, Angels would be Gods,

Afpiring to be Gods, if Angels fell,

Afpiring to be Angels, Men rebel:

And who but wishes to invert the laws

Of ORDER, fins against th' Eternal Cause.

139

V. Ask for what end the heav'nly bodies fhine, Earth for whofe ufe? Pride anfwers, ""Tis for mine:

COMMENTA R Y.

From these men the poet now turns to his friend, and (from 123 to 130) 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 inftance of one of the effects of Pride, which is the folly of thinking every thing made folely for the ufe of Man; without the leaft regard to any other of God's creatures :

Afk for what end the heav'nly bodies fhine, &c.

The ridicule of imagining the greater portions of the material fyftem to be folely for the ufe of Man, Philofophy has fufficiently expofed And Common sense, as the poet obferves, inftructs us to know that our fellow creatures, placed by Providence the joint-inhabitants of this globe, are defigned by Providence to be joint-sharers with us of its blessings :

Has God, thou fool! work'd folely for thy good,
Thy joy, thy paftime, thy attire, thy food?

NOTES.

VER. 131. Afk for what end, &c.] If there be any fault in thefe lines, it is not in the general fentiment, but a want of exactness in expreffing it.-It is the highest abfurdity to think that Earth is man's foot-flool, his canopy the Skies, and the heavenly bodies lighted up principally for his ufe; yet not so, to fuppofe fruits and minerals given for this end,

"For me kind Nature wakes her genial pow'r,

"Suckles each herb, and spreads out ev'ry flow'r ;

"Annual for

me, the

grape, the rose renew 135

"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 rise;

140

My foot-ftool earth, my canopy the skies.” But errs not Nature from this gracious end, From burning funs when livid deaths descend, When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep?

COMMENTARY.

Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn,

For him as kindly spreads the flow'ry lawn, Ep. iii. 27. 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 conceffion of his adverfaries: If we afk you, fays he (from 140 to 150) 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 anfwer, 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, becaufe nothing is created perfect. I then afk 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 'tis Nature, and not God, that deviates; and do you expect greater conftancy in Man?

Then Nature deviates; and can Man do lefs?