Reflection, Reason, ftill the ties improve,

At once extend the int'reft, and the love;

With choice we fix, with fympathy we burn: 135
Each Virtue in each Paffion takes its turn;

And still new needs, new helps, new habits rise,
That graft. benevolence on charities.

Still as one brood, and as another rose,

These nat'ral love maintain'd, habitual those: 140
The laft, fcarce ripen'd into perfect Man,
Saw helpless him from whom their life began:
Mem'ry and fore-cast just returns engage,
That pointed back to youth, this on to age;
While pleasure, gratitude, and hope, combin'd, 145
Still spread the int'rest, and preserv'd the kind.
IV. Nor think, in NATURE'S STATE they
blindly trod;

The state of Nature was the reign of God:
Self-love and Social at her birth began,

150

Union the bond of all things, and of Man.
Pride then was not; nor Arts, that Pride to aid;
Man walk'd with beast, joint tenant of the shade;

NOTES.

VER. 152. Man walk'd with beaft, joint tenant of the fhade ;] The poet ftill takes his imagery from Platonic ideas, for the reafon

given above. Plato had faid from old tradition, that, during the Golden age, and under the reign of Saturn, the primitive language then

The fame his table, and the fame his bed;

No murder cloath'd him, and no murder fed.
In the fame temple, the refounding wood,
All vocal beings hymn'd their equal God:

155

The fhrine with gore unftain'd, with gold undrest,
Unbrib'd, unbloody, ftood the blameless priest :
Heav'n's attribute was Universal Care,

And Man's prerogative to rule, but spare.
'Ah! how unlike the man of times to come!
Of half that live the butcher and the tomb;
Who, foe to Nature, hears the gen'ral groan,
Murders their fpecies, and betrays his own.
But juft disease to luxury fucceeds,
And ev'ry death it's own avenger breeds;
The Fury-paffions from that blood began,
And turn'd on Man a fiercer favage, Man.
See him from Nature rifing flow to Art!
To copy Instinct then was Reafon's part;

NOTES.

in ufe was common to man and beafts. Moral philofophers took this in the popular fenfe, and fo invented thofe fables which give fpeech to the whole brutecreation. The Naturalifts understood the tradition to fignify, that, in the first

160

165

170

ages, Men ufed inarticulate founds like beafts to express their wants and fenfations ; and that it was by flow degrees they came to the use of speech. This opinion

was afterwards held by Lucretius, Diodorus Sic. and Gregory of Nyff.

Thus then to Man the voice of Nature spake

"Go, from the Creatures thy instructions take: "Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield; "Learn from the beasts the physic of the field; "Thy arts of building from the bee receive; 175 "Learn of the mole to plow, the worm to weave; "Learn of the little Nautilus to fail,

"Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale. "Here too all forms of social union find, "And hence let Reafon, late, inftruct Mankind:

NOTES.

·VER. 177. Learn of the little Nautilus] Oppian. Halieut. lib. i. defcribes this fish in the following manner:

VER. 173. Learn from | of healing, by their own the birds, &c.] It is a com- practice. mon practice amongst Navigators, when thrown upon a defert coaft, and in want of refreshments, to obferve what fruits have been touched by the Birds and to venture on thefe without further hefitation.

They fwim on the fur"face of the fea, on the "back of their shells, " which exactly resemble "the hulk of a ship; they

66

VER. 174. Learn from the beafts, &c.] See Pliny's" raife two feet like mafts, Nat. Hift. 1. viii. c. 27. " and extend a membrane where feveral inftances are "between, which serves as given of Animals discover. ing the medicinal efficacy of herbs, by their own use of them; and pointing out to fome operations in the art

a fail; the other two "feet they employ as oars " at the fide. They are "usually seen in the Mediterranean." P.

66

"Here fubterranean works and cities see;

181

186

"There towns aerial on the waving tree. "Learn each small People's genius, policies, "The Ant's republic, and the realm of Bees; "How thofe in common all their wealth beftow, "And Anarchy without confufion know; "And these for ever, tho' a Monarch reign, "Their fep'rate cells and properties maintain. "Mark what unvary'd laws preserve each state, "Laws wife as Nature, and as fix'd as Fate. 190 "In vain thy Reason finer webs fhall draw, "Entangle Juftice in her net of Law,

"And right, too rigid, harden into wrong; "Still for the ftrong too weak, the weak too ftrong. "Yet go! and thus o'er all the creatures fway, 195 "Thus let the wifer make the reft obey; "And for those Arts mere Instinct could afford, "Be crown'd as Monarchs, or as Gods ador'd." V. Great Nature spoke; obfervant Men obey'd; Cities were built, Societies were made:

VARIATIONS.

VER. 197. in the firft Editions,

Who for those Arts they learn'd of Brutes before,
As Kings fhall crown them, or as Gods adore.

NOTES.

200

VER. 199. obfervant Men | tiful, as fignifying both obeabey'd;]The epithet is beau-dience to the voice of Na

Here rofe one little ftate; another near

Grew by like means, and join'd, thro' love or fear.
Did here the trees with ruddier burdens bend,
And there the ftreams in purer rills defcend?
What War could ravish, Commerce could bestow,
And he return'd a friend, who came a foe.
Converfe and Love mankind might strongly draw,
When Love was Liberty, and Nature Law.

VARIATIONS.

206

VER. 201. Here rofe one little ftate, &c.] In the MS. thus,

The Neighbours leagu'd to guard their common fpot:
And Love was Nature's dictate, Murder, not.
For want alone each animal contends;

Tygers with Tygers, that remov'd, are friends.
Plain Nature's wants the common mother crown'd,
She pour'd her acorns, herbs, and streams around.
No Treasure then for rapine to invade,

What need to fight for fun-fhine or for fhade?
And half the cause of conteft was remov'd,
When beauty could be kind to all who lov'd.

NOTES.

ture, and attention to the | their native liberty from leffons of the animal creation.

VER. 208. When Love was Liberty,] i. e. When men had no need to guard

their governors by civil pactions; the love which each mafter of a family had for thofe under his care being their beft fecurity.