Made for his use, all creatures if he call, Say what their use, had he the pow'rs of all : 180 185 Be pleas'd with nothing, if not bless'd with all? The blifs of Man (could Pride that blessing find) Is not to act or think beyond mankind; 190 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 reafon, man is not a Fly. Say what the ufe, were finer optics giv❜n, 195 T'infpect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n? Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er, To fmart and agonize at ev'ry pore? NOTES. that in pro VER. 182. Here with degrees of fwiftness, &c.] It is a certain axiom in the anatomy of creatures, portion as they are formed for ftrength, their fwiftnefs is Teffened; or, as they are formed for swiftness, their strength is abated. P. Or quick effluvia darting thro' the brain, If Nature thunder'd in his op'ning ears, 200 And stunn'd him with the mufic of the spheres, VII. Far as Creation's ample range extends, NOTES. VER. 202. Stunn'd him with the mufic of the Spheres.] This inftance is poetical, and even fublime, but mifplaced. He is arguing philofophically in a cafe that required him to employ the real objects of fenfe only; and, what is worfe, he speaks of this as a real object. —if NATURE thunder'd, &c. The cafe is different where (in ver. 253.) he fpeaks 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. VER. 213. The headlong lioness] The manner of the lions Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood, 215 Feels at each thread, and lives along the line: 225 What thin partition Senfe from Thought divide? NOTES. hunting their prey in the deferts of Africa is this: At their first going out in the night time they fet up a loud roar, and then liften to the noife made by the beasts in their flight, purfuing them by the ear, and not by the noftril. It is probable the ftory of the Jackal's hunting for the lion, was occafioned by obfervation of this defect of fcent in that terrible animal. P. VER. 224. for ever feprate, &c.] Near, by the fimilitude of the operation; separate, by the immenfe difference in the nature of the powers. VER. 226. What thin partitions, &c.] So thin, that the Atheistic philofophers, as Protagoras, held that thought was only fenfe; and from thence concluded, that every imagination or opinion of every man was true: Πᾶσα φαντασία is annons. But the poet determines more philofophically, that they are really and effentially different, how thin foever the partition is by which they are divided. Thus (to illuftrate the truth of this obfervation) when a geometer confiders a triangle, in order to demonftrate the equality And Middle natures, how they long to join, 230 Is not thy Reason all these pow'rs in one? VARIATIONS. VER. 238. Ed. ift. Ethereal Effence, fpirit, fubftance, man. NOTES. 235 of its three angles to two right ones, he has the picture or image of fome fenfible triangle in his mind, which is fenfe; yet notwithstanding, he muft needs have the notion or idea of an intellectual triangle in his mind, which is thought; for this plain reafon, because every image or picture of a triangle muft needs be obtufangular, or rectangular, or acutangular: but that which, in his mind, is the fubject of this propofition, is the ratio of a triangle, undetermined to any of these species. On this account it was that Ariftotle faid, Νοήματά τινι διοίσει, τὸ μὴ φανάσε ματα εἶναι, ἢ ἐδὲ ταῦτα Φαλάσματα ἀλλ' ἐκ ἄνευ φαιλασμάτων. The conceptions of the Mind differ fomewhat from fenfible images; they are not fenfible images, and yet not quite free or difengaged from fenfible images. VER. 237. Vaft chain of Being!] Who will not ac Beast, bird, fish, infect, what no eye can see, 240 Where, one step broken, the great fcale's deftroy'd: That fyftem only, but the Whole must fall. 250 NOTES. knowledge, therefore, that fo harmonious a connexion in the difpofition of things as is here defcribed, is tranfcen-, dently beautiful? But the Fatalifts fuppofe fuch an one What then? Is the First Free Agent, is the great Caufe of all things, debarred from a contrivance fo exquifite, becaufe fome Men, to fet up their idol, Fate, abfurdly reprefent it as prefiding over fuch a fyftem. VER. 243. Or in the full creation leave a void, &c.] This is only an illuftration, alluding to the Peripatetic plenum and vacuum; the full and void here meant, relating not to Matter, but to Life. VER. 247. And if each fyftem in gradation roll.] The verb alludes to the motion of the planetary bodies of each fyftem; and to the figures defcribed by that motion. VER. 251. Let Earth unbalanc'd] i. e. Being no longer kept within its orbit by the different directions of its pro |