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

VARIATIONS.

In the first Fol. and Quarto,

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

COMMENTARY,

ways flying from us here, is reserved for the good Man hereafter. The reason why the poet chuses to infift on this proof of a future state, in preference to others, is in order to give his system (which is founded in a fublime and improved Platonism) the greater grace of uniformity. For HOPE was Plato's peculiar argument for a future state; and the words here employed-The foul uneasy &c. his peculiar expreffion. The poet in this place, therefore, says in express terms, that GOD GAVE US HOPE TO SUPPLY THAT FUTURE BLISS, WHICH HE AT PRESENT KEEPS HID

FROM US. In his second epiftle, $ 274. he goes still further, and says, this HOPE quits us not even at Death, when every thing mortal drops from us:

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

VER. 93. What future bliss, &c.] It hath been objected, that " the System of the best weakens the other natural arguments for a future state; because, if the evils which good Men fuffer, promote the benefit of the whole, then every thing is here in order: and nothing amiss that wants to be fet right: Nor has the good man any reason to expect amends, when the evils he fuffered had fuch a tendency." To this it may be replied, 1. That the Poet tells us (Ep. iv.

361.) that God loves from avhole to parts. 2. The system of the best is so far from weakening those natural arguments, that it ftrengthens and supports them. For if those evils, to which good men are subject, be mere Disorders, without any tendency to the greater good of the whole; then, though we must indeed conclude that they will hereafter

Hope fprings eternal in the human breaft:
Man never Is, but always To be bleft:

COMMENTARY.

95

And, in the fourth epistle, he shews, how the fame HOPE is a proof of a future ftate, from the confideration of God's giving man no appetite in vain, or what he did not intend should be fatisfied;

He fees, why Nature plants in Man alone

८:

Hope of known bliss, and Faith in bliss unknown:

"Nature, whose dictates to no other kind
"Are giv'n in vain, but what they feek they find)

It is only for the good man, he tells us, that Hope leads from goal to goal, &c. It would then, be strange indeed, if it should prove an illufion.

NOTES.

be fet right, yet this view of things, representing God as fuffering diforders for no other end than to fet them right, gives us too low an idea of the divine wisdom. But if those evils (according to the system of the best) contribute to the greater perfection of the Whole; such a reason may be then given for their permission, as supports our idea of divine wifdom to the highest religious purposes. Then, as to the good man's hopes of a retribution, these still remain in their original force: For our idea of God's justice; and how far that justice is engaged to a retribution, is exactly and invariably the fame on either hypothefis. For though the fyftem of the best supposes that the evils themselves will be fully compenfated by the good they produce to the Whole, yet this is fo far from supposing that Particulars shall fuffer for a general good, that it is effential to this system, that, at the completion of things, when the Whole is arrived to the ftate of utmost perfection, particular and univerfal good shall coincide.

The foul, uneasy, and confin'd from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind; 100

COMMENTARY.

VER. 99. Lo, the poor Indian, &c.] The Poet, as we faid, having bid Man comfort himself with expectation of future happiness,-having shewn him that this HOPE is an earnest of it, and put in one very necessary caution,

66

Hope humbly den, with trembling pinions foar; provoked at those miscreants whom he afterwards (Ep iii. $ 263.) describes as building Hell on spite, and Heaven on pride, he upbraids them (from / 99 to 112.) with the example of the poor Indian, to whom also Nature hath given this common HOPE of Mankind: But, tho' his untutored mind had betrayed him into many childish fancies concerning the nature of that future state, yet he is so far from excluding any part of his own species (a vice which could proceed only from the pride of false Science) that he humanely admits even his faithful dog to bear him company.

NOTES.

"Such is the World's great harmony, that springs "From Order, Union, full Consent of things. "Where small and great, where weak and mighty, made "To ferve, not fuffer, strengthen, not invade, &c.

Ep. iii. $ 295. Which coincidence can never be, without a retribution to good men for the evils suffered here below.

VER. 97.-from home,] 'The construction is, -The foul being from home (confined and uneasy) expatiates, &c. By which words, it was the poet's purpose to teach, that the present life is only a state of probation for another, more suitable to the effence of the foul, and to the free exercise of it's qualities.

His foul, proud Science never taught to ftray
Far as the folar walk, or milky way;
Yet simple Nature to his hope has giv'n,
Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heav'n;
Some fafer world in depth of woods embrac'd, 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 asks no Angel's wing, no Seraph's fire;

110

But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,

His faithful dog shall bear him company.

IV. Go, wiser thou ! and, in thy scale of fenfe,

Weigh thy Opinion against Providence;

But does he say 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?

COMMENTARY.

VER. 113. Go, wiser thou, &c.] He proceeds with these accufers of providence (from 112 to 122.) and

NOTES.

VER. 110. He asks no Angel's wing, no Seraph's fire;] The French Tranflator, M. l' Abbé Du Resnel, has turned the line thus,

"Il ne defire point cette celeste flame

Qui des purs Seraphins devore, et nourrit l'ame.

Call imperfection what thou fancy'st such,
Say, here he gives too little, there too much :
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,

Yet cry, If Man's unhappy, God's unjust;
If Man alone ingross not Heav'n's high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there:
Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,
Re judge his justice, be the God of GOD.

COMMENTARY.

115

120

shews them, that complaints against the established order of things begin in the highest abfurdity, from misapplied reason and power; and end in the highest impiety, in an attempt to degrade the God of heaven, and to assume his place:

"Alone made perfect here, immortal there:

NOTES.

i. e. The favage does not defire that heavenly flame, which at the fame time that it devours the fouls of pure Seraphims, nourishes them. On which Mr. De Croufaz (who, by the Afsistance of a translation abounding in absurdities, writ a Commentary on the Essay on Man, in which we find nothing but abfurdities) remarks, "Mr. Pope, in exalting the fire " of his poetry by an antithefis, throws occafionally his "ridicule on those heavenly spirits. The Indian, says the

poet, contents himself without any thing of that flame, which "devours at the same time that it nourisheth." Comm. P. 77. But the poet is clear of this imputation. Nothing can be more grave or fober than his English, on this occafion; nor, I dare say, to do the Tranflator justice, did he aim to be ridiculous. It is the fober folid Theology of the Sorbonne. Indeed had fuch a writer as Mr. Pope VOL. III.

D