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.

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

170

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.

NOTES.

We fee, therefore, it would be doing great injuftice to our author to fufpect that he intended, by this, to give any encouragement to vice. His fyftem, as all his Ethic Epiftles fhew, is this: That the paffions, for the reasons given above, are neceffary to the fupport of Virtue: That, indeed, the Paffions in excess produce Vice, which is, in its own Nature, the greateft of all Evils, and comes into the world from the abufe of Man's free will; but that God, in his infinite wifdom and goodness, deviously turns the natural bias of its malignity to the advancement of human happinefs, and makes it productive of general Good

TH' ETERNAL ART EDUCES GOOD FROM ILL. Ep. ii. ver. 175. VER. 169. But all fubfifts, &c.] See this fubject extended in EP. ii. from ver. 90 to 112, 155, &c.

VER. 174. And little less than Angel, &c.] Thou haft made him a little lower than the Angels, and haft crowned him with glory and honour, Pfalm viii. 9.

Made for his use, all creatures if he call,

Say what their use, had he the pow'rs of all:
Nature to these, without profufion, kind,
The proper organs, proper pow'rs affign'd;
Each feeming want compenfated of course;
Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force;
All in exact proportion to the ftate;
Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.

Each beast, each insect, happy in its own;
Is Heav'n unkind to Man, and Man alone;
Shall he alone, whom rational we call,

180

185

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;

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.

190

Say what the use, were finer optics giv❜n,

T' infpect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n?

195

Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,

To smart and agonize at ev'ry pore?
NOTES.

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

Or quick effluvia darting thro' the brain,
Die of a rofe in aromatic pain?

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

200

And stunn'd him with the mufic of the fpheres,
How would he wish that Heav'n had left him ftill
The whisp'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:
Mark how it mounts, to Man's imperial race,
From the green myriads in the peopled grafs: 210
What modes of fight betwixt each wide extreme,
The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam:
Of smell, the headlong lionefs between,
And hound fagacious on the tainted green:

NOTES.

VER. 202. Stunn'd him with the music of the Spheres.] This inftance is poetical, and even fublime, but mifplaced. He is arguing philosophically 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, &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
To that which warbles thro' the vernal wood?
The spider's touch, how exquifitely fine!

Feels at each thread, and lives along the line:
In the nice bee, what fenfe fo fubtly true
From pois'nous herbs extracts the healing dew? 220
How Instinct varies in the grov'ling swine,
Compar'd, half-reas'ning elephant, with thine!
'Twixt that, and Reason, what a nice barrier?
For ever fep'rate, yet for ever near!
Remembrance and Reflexion, how ally'd;

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, pursuing them by the ear, and not by the noftril. It is probable the story of the Jackal's hunting for the lion, was occafioned by observation of this defect of fcent in that terrible animal. P.

VER. 224. for ever fep'rate, &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 rivanons. 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,
Yet never pass th' infuperable line!

230

Without this juft gradation, could they be
Subjected, thefe to thofe, or all to thee?
The pow'rs of all fubdu'd by thee alone,
Is not thy Reason all these pow'rs in one?
VIII. 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 æthereal, human, angel, man,

VARIATIONS.

VER. 238. Ed. ft.

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 must needs have the notion or idea of an intellectual triangle in his mind, which is thought; for this plain reafon, becaufe 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 fpecies. On this account it was that Ariftotle faid, Νοήματα τινι διάσει, τὲ μὴ φανάστ ματα εἶναι, ἢ ἐδὲ ταῦτα φαλάσματα ἀλλ' ἐκ ἄνευ φαλασμάτων. 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