SECT. IX. Of the ESSAY on MAN. Fit be a true obfervation, that for a poet to write happily and well, he must have seen and felt what he defcribes, and must draw from living models alone; and if modern times, from their luxury and refinement, afford not manners that will bear to be described; it will then follow, that those species of poetry bid fairest to succeed at prefent, which treat of things, not men; which deliver doctrines, not display events. Of this fort is didactic and descriptive poetry. Accordingly the moderns have produced many excellent pieces of this kind. We may mention the Syphilis of Fracaftorius, the Silk-worms and Chefs of Vida, the Ambra of Politian, the Agriculture of Alamanni, the Art of Poetry of Boileau, the Gardens of Rapin, the Cyder of Phillips, the Chafe of Somerville, the Pleasures of Imagination, the Art of pre ferving ferving Health, the Fleece, the Religion of Racine the younger, the elegant Latin poem of Brown on the Immortality of the Soul, the Latin poems of STAY and BosCOVICK, and the philofophical poem before to which, if we may judge from some beautiful fragments, we might have added Gray's didactic poem on Education and Government, had he lived to finish it. And the English Garden of Mr. Mafon must not be omitted. us; THE ESSAY ON MAN is as close a piece of argument, admitting its principles, as perhaps can be found in verfe. POPE informs us in his FIRST preface, " that he chose this epiftolary way of writing, notwithstanding his subject was high, and of dignity, because of its being mixed with argument which of its nature approacheth to profe." He has not wandered into any useless digreffions, has employed no fictions, no tale or story, and has relied chiefly on the poetry of his ftile, for the purpose of interefting his readers. His ftile is con cife cife and figurative, forcible and elegant. He has many metaphors and images, artfully interspersed in the drieft paffages, which stood moft in need of fuch ornainents. Nevertheless there are too many lines, in this performance, plain and profaic. The meaner the subject is of a preceptive poem, the more ftriking appears the art of the poet: It is even of use perhaps to chuse a low fubject. In this refpect Virgil had the advantage over Lucretius; the latter, with all his vigour and fublimity of genius, could hardly fatisfy and come up to the grandeur of his theme. POPE labours under the fame difficulty. If any beauty in this Effay be uncommonly transcendent and peculiar, it is, BREVITY OF DICTION; which, in a few, inftances, and those pardonable, has occafioned obscurity. It is hardly to be imagined how much sense, how much thinking, how much obfervation on human life, is condensed together in a small compafs. He was fo accustomed to confine his thoughts in rhyme, that he tells us, he could express them more shortly this way, than in prose itself. On its first publication, POPE did not own it, and it was given by the public to Lord Paget, Dr. Young, Dr. Defaguliers, and others. Even Swift feems to have been deceived: There is a remarkable paffage in "I confefs I did never one of his letters. imagine you were so deep in morals, or that fo many new and excellent rules could be produced fo advantageously and agreeably in that science, from any one head. I confess in some places I was forced to read twice; I believe I told you before what the Duke of D-- faid to me on that occafion; how a judge here who knows you, told him, that on the first reading those effays, he was much pleased, but found fome lines a little dark: On the second, most of them cleared up, and his pleasure increased: On the third, he had no doubt remaining, and then he admired the whole *" THE fubject of this Efiay is a vindication of providence, in which the poet proposes * Letters, vol. IX. pag. 149. to to prove, that of all poffible fystems, infinite wisdom has formed the best: That in fuch a fyftem, coherence, union, subordination, are neceffary; and if so, that appearances of evil, both moral and natural, are also neceffary and unavoidable; That the feeming defects and blemishes in the universe, confpire to its general beauty; That as all parts in an animal are not eyes, and as in a city, comedy, or picture, all ranks, characters, and colours, are not equal or alike; even so, excesses, and contrary qualities, contribute to the proportion and harmony of the universal system; That it is not strange, that we should not be able to discover perfection and order in every instance; because, in an infinity of things mutually relative, à mind which fees not infinitely, can fee nothing fully. This doctrine was inculcated by Plato and the Stoics, but more amply and particularly by the later Platonifts, and by Antoninus and Simplicius. In illuftrating his subject, POPE has been much more deeply indebted to the Theodiceé of Leibnitz, to Arch bishop |