What Conscience dictates to be done, Or warns me not to do, This, teach me more than Hell to fhun, What Bleffings thy free Bounty gives, Let me not caft away; For God is paid when Man receives, NOTES. 15 20 Yet tural world, every thing is as much the refult of eftablished laws in the one as in the other. There is nothing in the whole universe that can properly be called contingent: nothing loose or fluctuating in any part of Nature; but every motion in the natural, and every determination and action in the moral world, are directed by immutable laws; fo that, whilst these laws remain in their force, not the smallest link of the universal chain of caufes and effects can be broken, nor any one thing be otherwife than it is." All the moft fubtile and refined arguments that can be urged in a difpute on Fate and Free-will, are introduced, in a conversation on this fubject, betwixt the angels Gabriel and Raphael, and Adam, in the fourth act of Dryden's State of Innocence, and stated with a wonderful precifion and perfpicuity. Reafoning, in verfe, was one of Dryden's moft fingular and predominant excellencies; notwithstanding which, he must rank as a poet for his Mufic-ode, not for his Religio Laici. WARTON. VER. 12. the Human Will.] The refult of what Locke advances on this, the most difficult of all subjects, is, that we have a power of doing what we will. If it be the occafion of diforder, it is the cause of order; of all the moral order that appears in the world. Had Liberty been excluded, Virtue had been excluded with it. And if this had been the cafe, the world could have had no charms, no beauties, fufficient to recommend it to Him who made it. In short, all other powers and perfections would have been very defective without this, which is truly the life and fpirit of the whole creation." WARTON. Yet not to Earth's contracted Span Let not this weak, unknowing hand And deal damnation round the land, If I am right, thy grace impart, If I am wrong, oh teach my heart Save me alike from foolish Pride, Or impious Difcontent, At aught thy Wisdom has deny'd, Teach me to feel another's Woe, To hide the Fault I fee; That Mercy I to others show, That Mercy fhow to me. NOTES. VER. 27. deal damnation] There is fomething elevated in the idea and expreffion, "Or think Thee LORD ALONE of Man, When thousand Worlds are round;" but the conclufion is a contraft of littleness, Mean though I am, not wholly fo, Since quicken'd by thy Breath; Oh lead me wherefoe'er I go, Through this day's Life or Death! This day, be Bread and Peace my Lot: 45 Thou know'ft if best bestow'd or not, To thee, whofe Temple is all Space, Whose Altar, Earth, Sea, Skies! One Chorus let all Being raise! All Nature's Incense rife! 50 NOTES. VER. 39. That Mercy] It has been said that our Poet, in this Prayer, chofe the Lord's Prayer for his model; but there is no resemblance but in this paffage, and in the last flanza but one. M. Le Franc de Pompignan, a celebrated avocat at Montauban, anthor of Dido a tragedy, was feverely cenfured in France for translating this Universal Prayer, as a piece of Deism; which, having been printed in London, in 4to. by Vaillant, was conveyed to the Chancellor Agueffau, who immediately fent a strong repri mand to M. Le Franc, and he vindicated his orthodoxy in a laboured letter to that learned Chancellor. Voltaire reproached Le Franc with making this tranflation. His brother, Bishop of Puy au Velei, has called Locke an atheist. WARTON. WARTON feems to have violated his own principles of estimating tne character of genuine poetry, when he praises so highly the poetry of this Hymn. The two laft ftanzas are fublime; but I fear, if we were to examine the greater part by the Horatian rule, which Warton recommends, that is, altering the rhyme and measure, we should not find the "disjecti membra Poetæ." This Prayer was tranflated into Latin by J. Sayer. MORAL ESSAYS. IN FOUR EPISTLES TO SEVERAL PERSONS. Eft brevitate opus, ut currat fententia, neu se HOR. |