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.
Afpiring 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.

COMMENTARY.

125

130

That is, be made God, who only is perfect, and hath immortality: To which sense the lines immediately following confine us;

" Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,
Re-judge his justice, be the God of God.

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VER. 123. In Pride, in reas'ning Pride, our error lies ; &c.] From these men, the Poet now turns to his friend; and (from 123 to 130.) remarks, that the ground of all this extravagance is Pride; which, more or less, infects the whole Species; shews the ill effects of it, in the case of the fallen Angels; and observes, that even wishing to invert the laws of Order, is a lower species of their crime: then brings an instance of one of the effects of Pride, which is the folly of thinking every thing made folely for

NOTES.

used this School-jargon, we might have suspected that he was not so serious as he should be. - The Reader, as he goes along, will fee more of this Translator's excellencies. And the conclusion of the Commentary on the fourth Epiftle will shew why I have been so careful to preferve them,

!

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; " 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, suns to light me rife;

"My foot-stool earth, my canopy the skies." 140

COMMENTARY.

the use of Man: without the least regard to any other of

God's creatures:

"Afk for what end the heav'nly bodies shine, &c.

The ridicule of imagining the greater portions of the material system to be folely for the use of Man, Philofophy has fufficiently exposed: And Common-sense, as the Poet observes, instructs us to conclude, that our fellow-creatures, placed by Providence as the joint-inhabitants of this Globe, are defigned to be joint-sharers with us of its blessings:

"Has God, thou fool! work'd folely for thy good,

Thy joy, thy paftime, thy attire, thy food?

Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn,

For him as kindly spreads the flow'ry lawn.

NOTES.

Ep. iii. $ 27.

VER. 131. Afk for what end, &c.] If there be any fault in these lines, it is not in the general fentiment, but in the ill choice of inftances made use of in expreffing it. It is the highest 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 surely, not so, to suppose fruits and minerals given for this end.

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?

COMMENTARY.

145

VER. 141. But errs not Nature from this gracious end,] The author comes next to the confirmation of his Thesis, That partial moral Evil is universal Good; but introduceth it with a proper argument, to abate our wonder at the phænomenon of moral Evil; which argument he builds on a conceffion of his adversaries: If we ask you, fays he, (from $ 140 to 150.) whether Nature doth not err from the gracious purpose of its Creator, when plagues, earthquakes, and tempests unpeople whole regions at a time; you readily answer, No. For that God acts by general, and not by particular laws, and that the course of matter and motion must be necessarily subject to some irregularities, because nothing is created perfect. I then ask why you should expect this perfection in Man? If you own that the great end of God (notwithstanding all this deviation) be general happiness, then 'tis Nature, and not God, that deviates; and do you expect greater constancy in Man ?

"Then Nature deviates; and can Man do less ? That is, if Nature, or the inanimate system (on which God hath imposed his laws, which obeys as a machine obeys the hand of the workman) may in course of time deviate from its first direction, as the best philosophy shews it may; where is the wonder that Man, who was created a free Agent, and hath it in his power every moment to

If the great end be human Happiness,
Then Nature deviates; and can Man do less ? 150
As much that end a conftant course requires
Of show'rs and sun-shine, as of Man's defires;

As much eternal springs and cloudless skies,

As Men for ever temp'rate, calm, and wife.

COMMENTARY.

trangress the eternal rule of Right, should sometimes go out of Order?

VER. 151. As much that end, &c.] Having thus shewn how moral evil came into the world, namely, by Man's abuse of his own free-will; our Poet comes to the point, the confirmation of his thesis, by shewing how moral evil promotes good; and employs the same conceffions of his adversaries, concerning natural evil, to illustrate it.

1. He shews it tends to the good of the Whole, or Universe (from $ 151 to 164.) and this by analogy. You own, says he, that storms and tempests, clouds, rain, heat, and variety of seasons are necessary (notwithstanding the accidental evil they bring with them) to the health and plenty of this Globe, why then should you suppose there is not the fame use, with regard to the Universe, in a Borgia or a

NOTES.

VER. 150. Then Nature deviates, &c.] " While comets move in very eccentric orbs, in all manner of positions, " blind Fate could never make all the planets move one " and the fame way in orbs concentric; some inconfider"able irregularities excepted, which may have risen from "the mutual actions of comets and planets upon one ano"ther, and which will be apt to increase, 'till this sy"stem wants a reformation." Sir Isaac Newton's Optics, Quæft. ult.

If plagues or earthquakes break not Heav'n's design,

Why then a Borgia, or a Catiline?

156

COMMENTARY.

Catiline? But you say you can fee the one and not the other. You say right: one terminates in this sistem, the other refers to the Whole: which Whole can be comprehended by none but the great Author himself. For, says the Poet in another place,

-" of this Frame, the bearings, and the ties, "The strong connections, nice dependencies, "Gradations juft, has thy pervading foul

"Look'd thro'? or can a part contain the whole?

Own therefore, fays he, that

Ver. 29, & feq.

"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.

NOTES.

VER. 155. If plagues, &c.] What hath misled some persons in this passage, is their fuppofing the comparifon to be between the effects of two things in this fublunary world; when not only the elegancy, but the justness of it, consists in its being between the effects of a thing in the universe at large, and the familiar and known effects of one in this fublunary world. For the position inforced in these lines is this, that partial evil tends to the good of the whole:

"Respecting Man, whatever wrong we call, May, must be right, as relative to all.

66

51.

How does the poet inforce it? if you will believe these Critics, in illuftrating the effects of partial moral evil in a particular system, by that of partial natural evil in the Jame system, and so he leaves his position in the lurch,