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النشر الإلكتروني

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 :
And who but wishes to invert the laws

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Of ORDER, fins against th' Eternal Cause.

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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;

NOTES.

VER. 123. In Pride, &c.] Arnobius has paffed the fame cenfure on these very follies, which he supposes to arife from the cause here affigned.-Nihil eft quod nos fallat, nihil quod nobis polliceatur fpes caffas (id quod nobis a quibufdam dicitur viris immoderata fui opinione fublatis) animas immortales effe, Deo, rerum ac principi, gradu proximas dignitatis, genitore illo ac patre prolatas, divinas, fapientes, dodas, neque ulla corporis attrecta

tione contiguas.
gentes.

Adverfus

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

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"Annual for me, the grape, the rofe, renew, 135 "The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew;

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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;

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My foot-ftool earth, my canopy the skies.” But errs not Nature from this gracious end, From burning funs when livid deaths descend, When earthquakes swallow, or when tempefts 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;

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"Th' exceptions few; fome change fince all began: "And what created perfect?"-Why then Man?

If the great end be human Happiness,

Then Nature deviates; and can Man do lefs? 150

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As much that end a constant course requires

Of show'rs and fun-fhine, as of Man's defires;
As much eternal springs and cloudlefs fkies,
As Men for ever temp'rate, calm, and wife.
If plagues or earthquakes break not Heav'n's design,
Why then a Borgia, or a Catiline?

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Who knows but he, whose 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 springs; Account for moral, as for natʼral things: Why charge we Heav'n in those, in these acquit? In both, to reafon right is to submit.

Better for Us, perhaps, it might appear, Were there all harmony, all virtue here; That never air or ocean felt the wind; That never paffion difcompos'd the mind. But ALL fubfifts by elemental ftrife;

And Paffions are the elements of Life.

The gen'ral ORDER, fince the whole began,
Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man.

NOTES.

VER. 169. But ALL fubfifti, &c.] See this fubject

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Ep. 1. VI.What would this Man? Now upward will he foar, And little less than Angel, would be more; 174 Now looking downwards, juft as griev'd appears To want the ftrength of bulls, the fur of bears. Made for his ufe 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 affign'd; Each feeming want compenfated of course, Here with degrees of fwiftnefs, there of force; All in exact proportion to the state;

Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.

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Each beaft, 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 blefs'd with all?
The blifs of Man (could Pride that blessing find)
Is not to act or think beyond mankind;

NOTES.

VER. 174. And little lefs than Angel, &c.] Thou haft made him a little lower than the Angels, and haft crowned him with glory and honour. Pfalm viii. 9.

VER. 182. Here with degrees of fawiftnefs, &c.] It

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is a certain axiom in the anatomy of creatures, that in proportion as they are formed for ftrength, their fwiftnefs is leffened; or as they are formed for swiftnefs, their ftrength is abated. 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 reafon, Man is not a Fly.

Say what the use, were finer optics giv❜n,

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T' infpect à mite, not comprehend the heav'n?
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all q'er,

To smart and agonize at ev'ry pore?

Or quick effluvia darting thro' the brain,
Die of a rofe in aromatic pain?

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

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And stunn'd him with the mufic 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 with the mufic of the fpheres,] the heavenly bodies under This inftance is poetical and the fublime Imagery of ruleven fublime, but mifplaced. ing Angels: For whether He is arguing philofophical- there be ruling Angels or no, ly in a cafe that required him there is real motion, which to employ the real objects was all his argument wantof fenfe only: And, what is ed; but if there be no mufic worse, he speaks of this as a of the spheres, there was no real object. If NATURE real found, which his arthunder'd, &c. The cafe is gument could not do withdifferent where (in 253) | out.

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