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.

115

120

IV. Go, wifer thou! and, in thy fcale of fenfe, Weigh thy Opinion against Providence ; Call imperfection what thou fancy'ft fuch, Say, here he gives too little, there too much : Destroy all creatures for thy fport 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 juftice, be the GoD of GOD. In Pride, in reas'ning Pride, our error lies; All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies. Pride ftill 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:

VARIATIONS.

After 108. in the firft Edition;

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?

125

And who but wishes to invert the laws

Of ORDER, fins against th' Eternal Caufe.

130

V. Afk for what end the heav'nly bodies fhine, Earth for whofe ufe? Pride anfwers, " "Tis for mine: "For me kind Nature wakes her genial pow'r, "Suckles each herb, and fpreads 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 thoufand treasures brings; "For me, health gufhes from a thousand springs; "Seas roll to waft me, funs to light me rife;

66

140

My foot-ftool earth, my canopy the fkies." But errs not Nature from this gracious end, From burning funs when livid deaths defcend, When earthquakes fwallow, or when tempests sweep Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep? "No ('tis reply'd) the firft Almighty Caufe "A&is not by partial, but by gen'ral laws; "Th' exceptions few ; fome change fince all began: "And what created perfect ?"-Why then Man? If the great end be human Happiness,

145

Then Nature deviates; and can Man do lefs? 150

VER. 131. Ask for what end, etc.] 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-ftool, his canopy the Skies, and the beavenly bodies lighted up principally for his ufe; yet not fo, to fuppofe fruits and minerals given for this end.

VER. 150. Then Nature deviates, etc.] While comets

As much that end a conftant course requires
Of fhow'rs and fun-fhine, as of Man's defires;
As much eternal springs and cloudless skies,
As Men for ever temp'rate, calm and wife.
If plagues or earthquakes break not Heav'n's defign,
Why then a Borgia, or a Catiline ?

156 Who knows but he, whofe hand the light'ning

forms,

Who heaves old Ocean, and who wings the ftorms; Pours fierce Ambition in a Cæfar's mind, 159

Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind ? From pride, from pride, our very reas'ning fprings; Account for moral, as for nat'ral things:

Why charge we Heav'n in thofe, in these acquit?
In both, to reafon right is to submit.

Better for Us, perhaps, it might appear,
Were there all harmony, all virtue here;
That never air or ocean felt the wind;
That never paffion difcompos'd the mind.
But ALL fubfifts by elemental ftrife;
And paffions are the elements of Life.

165

170

move in very eccentric orbs, in all manner of pofitions, blind "Fate could never make all the planets move one and the fame

'

way in orbs concentric; fome inconfiderable irregularities excepted, which may have rifen from the mutual actions of comets and planets upon one another, and which will be apt "to increase, 'till this fyftem wants a reformation." Sir Ifaac Newton's Optics, Queft. ult.

VER. 169. But all fubfifts, etc.] See this fubject extended in Ep. ii. from go to 112, 155, etc.

The gen'ral ORDER, fince the whole began,
Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man.

VI. What would this Man? Now upward will he foar,

And little less than Angel, would be more;
Now looking downwards, just as griev'd appears 175
To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears.
Made for his ufe all creatures if he call,
Say what their use, had he the pow'rs of all;
Nature to thefe, without profufion, kind,
The proper organs, proper pow'rs affign'd;
Each seeming want compenfated of course,
Here with degrees of fwiftnefs, there of force;
All in exact proportion to the state;

180

Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.
Each beast, each infect, happy in its own:
Is Heav'n unkind to Man, and Man alone?

185

Shall he alone, whom rational we call,
Be pleas'd with nothing, if not bless'd with all?
The blifs of Man (could Pride that bleffing find)

Is not to act or think beyond mankind;

190

VER. 174. And little less than Angels, etc.] Thou baft made bim a little lower than the Angels, and baft crowned him with glory and bonour. Pfalm viii. 9.

VER. 182. Here with degrees of fwiftness, etc.] It is a certain axiom in the anatomy of creatures, that, in proportion as they are formed for ftrength, their swiftnefs is leffened; or as they are formed for swiftness, their ftrength is abated.

No pow'rs of body or of foul to share,

But what his nature and his ftate can bear.
Why has not Man a microscopic eye?

For this plain reason, man is not a Fly.
Say what the ufe, were finer optics giv❜n,
T' inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n?
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,
To fmart and agonize at ev'ry pore?
Or quick effluvia darting thro' the brain,
Die of a rofe in aromatic pain?

If nature thunder'd in his op'ning ears,

195

200

And stunn'd him with the mufic of the spheres,
How would he wish that Heav'n had left him still
The whifp'ring Zephyr, and the purling rill?
Who finds not Providence all good and wife, 205
Alike in what it gives, and what denies?

VII. Far as Creation's ample range extends,
The scale of fenfual, mental pow`rs afcends:

VER. 202. Stunn'd him with the mufic of the fpheres,] This inftance is poetical and even fublime, but misplaced. He is arguing philofophically in a cafe that required him to employ the real objects of fenfe only: and, what is worse, he speaks of this as a real object.-If NATURE thunder'd, etc. The cafe is different where (in ✯ 253) he speaks of the motion of the heavenly bodies under the fublime Imagery of ruling Angels: For whether there be ruling Angels or no, there is real motion, which was all his argument wanted; but if there be no mufic of the Spheres, there was no real found, which his argument was obliged to find.