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 burst, and now a world.

90

Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions foar; Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore.

No great, no little; 'tis as much decreed

That Virgil's Gnat should die, as Cæfar bleed.

NOTES.

VER. 87. Who Jees with equal eye, &c.] Matth. x. 29. VER. 91. Hope humbly then ;] The Hope of a happy futurity was implanted in the humau breaft by God himself for this very purpose, as an earnest of that Blifs, which always flying from us here, is referved for the good Man hereafter. The reason why the poet chufes to infift on this proof of a future ftate, in preference to others, is in order to give his fyftem (which is founded in a fublime and improved Platonifm) the greater grace of uniformity. For HOPE was Plato's peculiar argument for a future ftate; and the words here employed the foul uneafy, &c. his peculiar expreffion. The poet in this place, therefore, fays in exprefs terms, that God gave us hope to supply that future blifs, which he at prefent keeps hid from us. In his fecond epiftle, ver. 274, he goes ftill further, and fays, this HOPE quits us not even at Death, when every thing mortal drops from us :

Hope travels thro', nor quits us when we die.

And, in the fourth epiftle he fhews how the fame HOPE is a proof of a future ftate, from the confideration of God's

What future bliss he gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy bleffing now.

VARIATIONS.

In the first Fol. and Quarto,

"What blifs above he gives not thee to know,
But gives that Hope to be thy blifs below.

NOTES.

giving man no appetite in vain, or what he did not intend Thould be fatisfied;

He fees why Nature plants in Man alone

Hope of known bliss, and Faith in blifs unknown:
(Nature, whofe dictates to no other kind

Are giv'n in vain, but what they seek they find.) It is only for the good man, he tell us, that Hope leads from goal to goal, &c. It would be ftrange indeed then, if it fhould prove a delufion.

VER. 93. What future bliss, &c.] It hath been objected, that the Syftem of the best weakens the other natural arguments for a future ftate; because, if the evils which good Men fuffer promote the benefit of the whole, then every thing is here in order; and nothing amifs that wants to be fet right: Nor has the good man any reafon to expect amends, when the evils he suffered had such a tendency. To this it may be replied, 1. That the poet tells us, (Ep. iv. ver. 361.) That God loves from whole to parts. 2. That the fyftem of the best is fo far from weakening those natural arguments, that it ftrengthens and fupports them. For if thofe evils, to which good men are fubject, be mere Diforders, without tendency to the greater good of the whole; then, though we must indeed conclude that they will hereafter be fet right, yet this view of things, reprefenting God as fuffering diforders for no other end than to fet them right, gives us a very low idea of the divine wif

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.

NOTES.

95

dom. But if thofe evils (according to the fyftem of the beft) contribute to the greater perfection of the whole; fuch a reafon may be then given for their permiffion, as fupports our idea of divine wisdom to the higheft 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 juftice, 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 beft fupposes that the evils thenfelves 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 carried 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. ver. 295.

Which coincidence can never be, without a retribution to good men for the evils they 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 prefent life is only a ftate of probation. for another, more fuitable to the effence of the foul, and to the free exercife of its qualities.

Lo, the poor Indian! whofe untutor❜d mind

Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind; 100
His foul, proud science never taught to ftray
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 embraced, 105 Some happier ifland 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 afks no Angel's wing, no Seraph's fire;

VARIATIONS.

After ver. 108. in the first Ed.

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

NOTES.

110

VER. 99. Lo, the poor Indian! &c.] The poet, as we faid, 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 those mifcreants whom he afterwards (EP. iii. ver. 263.) describes as building Hell onfpite, and Heaven on pride, he upbraids them (fromver. 99 to 112.) with the example of the poor Indian, to whom also nature hath given

But thinks admitted to that equal sky,

His faithful dog fhall bear him company.

115

IV. Go wiser thou; and in thy scale of sense, Weigh thy Opinion against Providence ; Call imperfection what thou fancy'st such, 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.

NOTES.

120

this common HOPE of Mankind: But though his untutored mind had betrayed him intò many childish fancies concerning the nature of that future ftate, yet he is so far from excluding any part of his own fpecies (a vice which could proceed only from the pride of fcience) that he humanely admits even his faithful dog to bear him company.

VER. 123. In Pride, &c.] Arnobius has paffed the fame cenfure on these very follies, which he fupposes to arise from the cause here affigned.-"Nihil eft quod nos “fallat, nihil quod nobis polliceatur fpes caffas (id quod "nobis à quibufdam dicitur viris immoderata fui opinione "fublatis) animas immortales effe, Deo rerum ac principi, "gradu proximas dignitatis, genitor illo ac patre prola"tas, divinas, fapientes, doctas, neque ulla corporis attre"Etatione contiguas." Adverfus gentes.