In Pride, in reas'ning Pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.
Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes,
Men would be Angels, Angels would be Gods.
Aspiring to be Gods, if Angels fell,

Afpiring to be Angels, Men rebel :
And who but wishes to invert the laws

Of ORDER, fins against th' Eternal Cause.

125

130

V. Afk for what end the heav'nly bodies shine, Earth for whose use? Pride answers, "Tis for mine: "For me kind Nature wakes her genial pow'r, "Suckles each herb, and spreads out ev'ry flow'r;

NOTES.

VER. 123. In Pride, &c.] Arnobius has passed the fame censure on these very follies, which he supposes to arise from the cause here assigned.-Nihil eft quod nos fallat, nihil quod nobis polliceatur fpes cassas (id quod nobis a quibusdam dicitur viris immoderata fui opinione fublatis) animas immortales effe, Deo, rerum ac principi, gradu proximas dignitatis, genitore illo ac patre prolatas, divinas, Sapientes, doctas, neque ulla corporis attrecta

tione contiguas. Adversus

gentes.

VER. 131. Afk for what end, &c.] If there be any fault in these lines, it is not in the general sentiment, but a want of exactness in expressing it. It is the higheft absurdity to think that Earth is man's foot-ftool, his canopy the Skies, and the heavenly bodies lighted up principally for his use; yet not fo, to suppose fruits and minerals given for this end.

"Annual for me, the grape, the rose, renew, 135 "The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew; "For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings; "For me, health gushes from a thousand springs; " Seas roll to waft me, funs to light me rise; "My foot-stool earth, my canopy the skies." 140 But errs not Nature from this gracious end, From burning funs when livid deaths descend, When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep? "No ('tis reply'd) the first Almighty Cause "Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral laws; "Th' exceptions few; some 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 less? 150

As much that end a constant course requires
Of show'rs and fun-shine, 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 design,

154

Why then a Borgia, or a Catiline?

Who knows but he, whose hand the light'ning forms, Who heaves old Ocean, and who wings the storms;

159

Pours fierce Ambition in a Cæfar's mind,
Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind?
From pride, from pride, our very reas'ning springs;
Account for moral, as for nat'ral things:
Why charge we Heav'n in those, in these acquit?
In both, to reason right is to submit.

165

Better for Us, perhaps, it might appear,
Were there all harmony, all virtue here;
That never air or ocean felt the wind;
That never passion discompos'd the mind.
But ALL subsists by elemental strife;
And Passions are the elements of Life.
The gen'ral ORDER, since the whole began,
Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man.

170

NOTES.

3

VER. 169. But ALL fub

extended in Ep. ii. from go to 112, 155, &c. P.

}

174

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 To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears. 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 assign'd;

180

Each seeming want compensated of course,
Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force;

All in exact proportion to the state;

Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.

Each beast, each infect, happy in it's own : 185
Is Heav'n unkind to Man, and Man alone?
Shall he alone, whom rational we call,
Be pleas'd with nothing, if not bless'd with all ?
The bliss of Man (could Pride that blessing find)
Is not to act or think beyond mankind;

NOTES.

190

VER. 174. And little less is a certain axiom in the than Angel, &c.] Thou hast | anatomy of creatures, that made him a little lower than in proportion as they are the Angels, and haft crown- formed for strength, their

ed him with glory and ho

nour. Pfalm viii. 9.

fwiftness is lessened; or as they are formed for swiftness, their strength is a

VER. 182. Here with degrees of swiftness, &c.] It | bated. P.

No pow'rs of body or of foul to share,
But what his nature and his state can bear.

Why has not Man a microscopic eye?
For this plain reason, Man is not a Fly.
Say what the use, were finer optics giv'n,
T' inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n?

195

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 rose in aromatic pain ?

200

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

And stunn'd him with the music 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 ?

NOTES.

VER. 202. Stunn'd him | 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 could not do without.

with the music of the spheres, This instance is poetical and even fublime, but misplaced. He is arguing philosophically in a cafe that required him to employ the real objects of sense only : And, what is worse, he fpeaks of this as a real object. - If NATURE thunder'd, &c. The cafe is different where (in 253)