unfkilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve: the cenfure of one of which muft in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. Oh! there be players that I have feen play, and heard others praife, and that highly (not to speak it profanely) that, neither having the accent of Christian, nor the gait of Christian, Pagan, nor man, have fo ftrutted and bellowed, that I have thought fome of Nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well; they imitated humanity fo abominably.
And let thofe that play your clowns, fpeak no more than is fet down for them: for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to fet on fome quantity of barren fpectators to laugh too; though, in the mean time, fome neceffary question of the play be then to be confidered:→→ that's villanous: and fhews a moft pitiful ambition in the fool that ufes it.
THE PRESENT CONDITION OF MAN
VINDICATED.
HEAV'N from all creatures hides the book of fate,
All but the page prefcrib'd, their prefent ftate :
From brutes what men, from men what fpirits know,
Or who could fuffer being here below?
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy reafon, would he'fkip and play?
Pleas'd to the laft, he crops the flowery food,
And licks the hand juft rais'd to fhed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly given,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n;
Who fees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a fparrow fall;
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,
And now a bubble burit, and now a world,
Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions foar;
Wait the great teacher Death: and God adore.
What future blifs, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that Hope to be thy bleffing now.
Hope fprings eternal in the human breast;
Man never IS, but always TO be bleft:
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;
His foul, proud Science never taught to flray
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,
Some happier island in the wat❜ry waste,
Where flaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, nor Christians thirst for gold.
To Be, contents his natural defire,
He afks no Angel's wing, no Seraph's fire:
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog fhall bear him company.
Go, wifer thou! and in thy fcale of fenfe,
Weigh thy opinion against Providence ;
Call imperfection what thou fanciest such,
Say, here he gives too little, there too much :
Destroy all creatures for thy fport or guft,
Yet cry, if Man's unhappy, God's unjust;
If man alone engross not Heaven'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 fphere, and rush into the skies.
Pride still is aiming at the blest 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 the Eternal Cause.
ON THE ORDER OF NATURE,
SEE, thro' this air, this ocean, and this earth,
All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high progreffive life may go !
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
Vaft chain of Being! which from God began,
Nature ethereal, human; Angel, man;
Beaft, bird, fish, infect, what no eye can fee,
No glass can reach; from Infinite to thee,
From thee to Nothing.-On fuperior pow'rs
Were we to prefs, inferior might on ours:
Or in the full creation leave a void,
Where, one step broken, the great fcale's deftroy'd:
From Nature's chain whatever link
you firike,
Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
And, if each fyftem in gradation roll
Alike effential to th' amazing whole,
The leaft confufion but in one, not all
That fyftem only, but the whole must fall.
Let earth, unbalanc'd from her orbit fly,
Planets and Suns, run lawless thro' the sky;
Let ruling Angels from their spheres be hurl'd,
Being on being wreck'd, and world on world;
Heav'ns whole foundations to the centre nod,
And Nature tremble to the throne of God.
All this dread Order break-for whom? for thee?
Vile worm!-Oh Madness! Pride! Impiety!
What if the foot, ordain'd the duft to tread,
Or hand, to toil, afpir'd to be the head?
What if the head, the eye, or ear repin'd
To ferve mere engines to the ruling mind?
Juft as abfurd for any part to claim
To be another, in this gen'ral frame:
Juft as abfurd, to mourn the tasks or pains,
The great directing Mind of All ordains.
All are but parts of one ftupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the foul :-
That, chang'd thro' all, and yet in all the fame,
Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame,
Warms in the fun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the ftars, and bloffoms in the trees,
Lives thro' all life, extends thro' all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent ;
Breathes in our foul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;
As full, as perfect, in vile Man that mourns,
As the rapt Seraph that adores and burns:
To him no high, no low, no great, no fmall:
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.
Cease then, nor Order Imperfection name:
Our proper blifs depends on what we blame.
Know thy own point: this kind, this due degree
Of blindness, weakness, Heav'n beftows on thee.
Submit. In this, or any other fphere,
Secure to be as bleft as thou canst bear :
Safe in the hand of one difpofing Pow'r,
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.
All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;
All Chance, Direction, which thou canst not fee;
All Discord, Harmony not understood;
All partial Evil, univerfal Good:
And, fpite of Pride, in erring Reason's spite,
One truth is clear, WuatoVER IS, IS RIGHT.
THE ORIGIN OF SUPERSTITION AND
WHO first taught fouls enflav'd, and realms undone,
Th' enormous faith of many made for one;
That proud, exception to all Nature's laws,
T' invert the world, and counter-work its cause!
Force firit made conquest, and that Conquest, Law
Till Superftition taught the tyrant awe,
Then fhar'd the Tyranny, then lent it aid,
And Gods of Conq'rors, Slaves of Subjects made:
She 'midft the lightning's blaze, and thunder's found,
When rock'd the mountains, and when groan'd the
ground.
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 fkies,
Saw Gods defcend, and fiends infernal rife:
Here fix'd the dreadful, there the bleft abodes;
Fear nade her devils, and weak Hope her Gods;
Gods partial, changeful, paffionate, unjust,
Whofe attributes were Rage, Revenge, or Luft;
Such as the fouls of cowards might conceive,
And, form'd like tyrants, tyrants would believe.
Zeal then, not charity became the guide;
And hell was built on spite, and heav'n on pride.
Then facred feem'd th' ethereal vault no more;
Altars grew marble then, and reek'd with gore:
Then firft the Flamen tafted living food;
Next his grim idol fmear'd with human blood;
With heav'n's own thunders fhook the world below,
And play'd the God an engine on his foe.
So drives felf-love, thro' juft and thro' unjust,
To one man's pow'r, ambition, lucre, luft:
|