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النشر الإلكتروني

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VII. Far as Creation's ample range extends, The scale of fenfual, mental pow'rs afcends: Mark how it mounts, to Man's imperial race, From the green myriads in the peopled grass: What modes of fight betwixt each wide extreme, The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam : Of fmell, the headlong lionefs between,

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And hound fagacious on the tainted green:
Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood,
To that which warbles thro' the vernal wood:
The spider's touch, how exquifitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line:
In the nice bee, what fense so subtly true
From pois'nous herbs extracts the healing dew? 220
How Inftinct varies in the grov'ling swine,
Compar'd, half-reas'ning elephant, with thine!
'Twixt that, and Reason, what a nice barrier;
For ever fep'rate, yet for ever near!

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VER. 224.

For ever

in their flight, pursuing them Sep'rate, &c.] Near, by the

Remembrance and Reflection how ally'd;

What thin partitions Senfe from Thought divide:
And Middle natures, how they long to join,

Yet never pass th' infuperable line!

Without this juft gradation, could they be
Subjected, these to thofe, or all to thee?

NOTES.

225

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fimilitude of the operations; | fenfible triangle in his mind, Separate, by the immenfe difference in the nature of the powers.

VER. 226. What thin partitions, &c.] So thin, that the Atheistic philofophers, as Protagoras, held that thought was only fenfe; and from thence concluded, that every imagination or opinion of every man was true: Πᾶσα φαντασία ἐςὶν ἀληθής. | But the poet determines more philofophically; that they are really and effentially different, how thin foever the partition is by which they are divided. Thus (to illuftrate the truth of this obfervation) when a geometer confiders a triangle, in order to demonftrate the equality of it's three angles to two right ones, he has the picture or image of fome

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which is fenfe; yet notwithftanding, he muft needs have the notion or idea of an intellectual triangle likewise, which is thought; for this plain reafon, because every image or picture of a triangle muft needs be obtufangular, or rectangular, or acutangular; but that which, in his mind, is the subject of his propofition is the ratio of a triangle, undetermined to any of these species. On this account it was that Ariftotle faid, Nohmala Tivì dioice, rõ μò pavláoμala elvai, ĥ èdè raïτα φαντάσματα, ἀλλ ̓ ἐκ ἄνευ φαγ laruárov. The conceptions of the mind differ fomewhat from fenfible images; they are not fenfible images, and yet not quite free or difengaged from fenfible images.

The pow'rs of all fubdu'd by thee alone,

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Is not thy Reafon all these pow'rs in one?
VIII. See, thro' this air, this ocean, and this earth,
All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high, progreffive life may go!
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
Vaft chain of Being! which from God began,
Natures æthereal, human, angel, man,
Beast, bird, fish, infect, what no eye can see,
No glass can reach; from Infinite to thee,
From thee to Nothing.-On fuperior pow'rs
Were we to press, inferior might on ours:
Or in the full creation leave a void,

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Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd:
From Nature's chain whatever link you ftrike, 245
Tenth or ten thoufandth, breaks the chain alike.
And, if each fyftem in gradation roll
Alike effential to th' amazing Whole,

VARIATIONS.

VER. 238. Ed. ift.

Ethereal effence, fpirit, fubftance, man.

NOTES.

VER. 243. Or in the full | full and void here meant, creation leave a void, &c.] | relating not to Matter, but to Life.

This is only an illuftration, alluding to the Peripatetic plenum and vacuum; the

VER. 247. And, if each fyftem in gradation roll] The

The leaft confufion but in one, not all

250**

That fyftem only, but the Whole must fall.
Let Earth unbalanc'd from her orbit fly,
Planets and Suns run lawless thro' the sky;
Let ruling Angels from their spheres be hurl'd,
Being on Being wreck'd, and world on world;
Heav'n's whole foundations to their centre nod, 255
And Nature trembles to the throne of God.

All this dread ORDER break- for whom? for thee?
Vile worm!-oh Madness! Pride! Impiety!

IX. What if the foot, ordain'd the duft to tread, Or hand, to toil, afpir'd to be the head?

NOTES.

verb alludes to the motion of the planetary bodies of each fyftem; and to the figures described by that motion.

VER. 251. Let Earth unbalanc'd i. e. Being no longer kept within it's orbit by the different directions of it's progreffive and attractive motions; which, like equal weights in a balance, keep it in an equilibre.

VER. 253. Let ruling Angels, &c.] The poet, throughout this poem, with great art ufes an advantage, which his employing a Pla

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tonic principle for the foundation of his Effay had afforded him; and that is the expreffing himself (as here) in Platonic notions; which, luckily for his purpose, are highly poetical, at the fame time that they add a grace to the uniformity of his reafoning.

VER. 259. What if the foot, &c.] This fine illuftration in defence of the System of Nature, is taken from St Paul, who employed it to defend the Syftem of Grace.

What if the head, the eye, or ear repin'd

To serve mere engines to the ruling Mind?
Juft as abfurd for any part to claim

To be another, in this gen'ral frame :
Juft as abfurd, to mourn the tasks or pains,
The great directing MIND of ALL ordains.
All are but parts of one ftupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul ;

NOTES.

VER. 265. Just as abfurd, &c.] See the Profecution and application of this in Ep. iv. P.

VER. 266. The great directing MIND, &c.] Veneramur autem & colimus ob dominium. Deus enim fine dominio, providentia, & caufis finalibus, nihil aliud eft quam FATUM & NATURA. Newtoni Princip. Schol. gener. fub finem.

VER. 268. Whofe body Nature is, &c.] A certain examiner remarks, on this line, that "A Spinozift "would exprefs himself in "this Manner." I believe he would, and fo, we know, would St Paul too, when

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writing on the same subject, namely the omnipresence of God in his Providence, and in his Subftance. In him we live, and move, and have our being; i. e. we are parts of him, his offspring, as the Greek poet, a pantheist quoted by the Apostle, obferves: And the reason is, becaufe a religious theift, and an impious pantheist, both profefs to believe the omniprefence of God. But would Spinoza, as Mr Pope does, call God the great directing Mind of all, who hath intentionally created a perfect Universe? Or would a Spinozift have told us,

The workman from the work diftin&t was known,

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