Where flaves once more their native land behold, He asks no Angel's wing, no Seraph's fire; 115 120 IV. Go, wifer thou! and, in thy fcale of fenfe, Weigh thy Opinion against Providence ; Call imperfection what thou fancy'ft fuch, 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. Pride ftill is aiming at the bleft abodes, Men would be Angels, Angels would be Gods. Afpiring to be Gods, if Angels fell, Afpiring to be Angels, Men rebel: VARIATIONS. After 108. in the firft Edition; But does he say the maker is not good, 125 And who but wishes to invert the laws Of ORDER, fins against th' Eternal Caufe. 130 V. Afk for what end the heav'nly bodies fhine, Earth for whofe ufe? Pride anfwers, " "Tis for mine: "For me kind Nature wakes her genial pow'r, "Suckles each herb, and fpreads out ev'ry flow'r; "Annual for me, the grape, the rose renew 135 "The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew; "For me, the mine a thoufand treasures brings; "For me, health gufhes from a thousand springs; "Seas roll to waft me, funs to light me rife; 66 140 My foot-ftool earth, my canopy the fkies." But errs not Nature from this gracious end, From burning funs when livid deaths defcend, When earthquakes fwallow, or when tempests sweep Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep? "No ('tis reply'd) the firft Almighty Caufe "A&is not by partial, but by gen'ral laws; "Th' exceptions few ; fome 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 lefs? 150 VER. 131. Ask for what end, etc.] If there be any fault in thefe lines, it is not in the general fentiment, but a want of exactness in expreffing it.-It is the highest abfurdity to think that Earth is man's foot-ftool, his canopy the Skies, and the beavenly bodies lighted up principally for his ufe; yet not fo, to fuppofe fruits and minerals given for this end. VER. 150. Then Nature deviates, etc.] While comets As much that end a conftant course requires 156 Who knows but he, whofe hand the light'ning forms, Who heaves old Ocean, and who wings the ftorms; Pours fierce Ambition in a Cæfar's mind, 159 Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind ? From pride, from pride, our very reas'ning fprings; Account for moral, as for nat'ral things: Why charge we Heav'n in thofe, in these acquit? Better for Us, perhaps, it might appear, 165 170 move in very eccentric orbs, in all manner of pofitions, blind "Fate could never make all the planets move one and the fame ' way in orbs concentric; fome inconfiderable irregularities excepted, which may have rifen from the mutual actions of comets and planets upon one another, and which will be apt "to increase, 'till this fyftem wants a reformation." Sir Ifaac Newton's Optics, Queft. ult. VER. 169. But all fubfifts, etc.] See this fubject extended in Ep. ii. from go to 112, 155, etc. The gen'ral ORDER, fince the whole began, VI. What would this Man? Now upward will he foar, And little less than Angel, would be more; 180 Nothing to add, and nothing to abate. 185 Shall he alone, whom rational we call, Is not to act or think beyond mankind; 190 VER. 174. And little less than Angels, etc.] Thou baft made bim a little lower than the Angels, and baft crowned him with glory and bonour. Pfalm viii. 9. VER. 182. Here with degrees of fwiftness, etc.] It is a certain axiom in the anatomy of creatures, that, in proportion as they are formed for ftrength, their swiftnefs is leffened; or as they are formed for swiftness, their ftrength is abated. No pow'rs of body or of foul to share, But what his nature and his ftate can bear. For this plain reason, man is not a Fly. If nature thunder'd in his op'ning ears, 195 200 And stunn'd him with the mufic of the spheres, VII. Far as Creation's ample range extends, VER. 202. Stunn'd him with the mufic of the fpheres,] This inftance is poetical and even fublime, but misplaced. He is arguing philofophically 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, etc. The cafe is different where (in ✯ 253) 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 was obliged to find. |