animal is not a native of America.

The

notion of feeing God in clouds, and hearing him in the wind, cannot be enough applauded.

8. From burning funs when livid deaths defcend, When earthquakes swallow, or when tempefts sweep Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep *.

I quote thefe lines as an example of energy of ftile, and of POPE's manner of compreffing together many images, without confufion, and without fuperfluous epithets. Subftantives and verbs are the finews of language.

9.

If plagues or earthquakes break not heav'n's defign,
Why then a Borgia or a Catiline † ?

"All ills arife from the order of the univerfe, which is abfolutely perfect. Would you wish to disturb fo divine an order, for the fake of your own particular interest? What if the ills I fuffer arife from malice or oppreffion? But the vices and imper

+ Ver. 156.

* Ver. 142.

F 3

fections

fections of men are alfo comprehended in the order of the universe,

If plagues, &c.

Let this be allowed, and my own vices. will be also a part of the fame order."—— Such is the commentary of the academist on these famous lines *,

10.

The general order, fince the whole began,
Is kept in nature, and is kept in man †.

How this opinion is any way reconcileable with the orthodox doctrine of the lapfed condition of man, the chief foundation of the chriftian revelation, it is diffi cult to fay.

11. Why has not man a microscopic eye?

For this plain reason, man is not a fly.

Say what the ufe, were finer optics giv❜n,
T' infpect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n?
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,

To smart and agonize at ev'ry pore ↑

?

"If by the help of fuch microscopical eyes, if I may fo call them, a man could pene

Hume's Effays, quarto, pag. 106.

↑ Ver. 171.

+ Ver. 193.

trate

trate farther than ordinary into the fecret compofition and radical texture of bodies, he would not make any great advantage by the change; if such an acute fight would not ferve to conduct him to the market and exchange, if he could not fee things he was to avoid at a convenient distance, nor diftinguish things he had to do with by thofe fenfible qualities others do *."

12. If nature thunder'd in his opening ears,

And stunn'd him with the mufic of the spheres,
How would he wish that heav'n had left him ftill
The whispering zephyr, and the purling rill +?

It is justly objected, that the argument required an inftance drawn from real found, and not from the imaginary mufic of the fpheres. Locke's illuftration of this doctrine, is not only proper but poetical ‡.

If our fenfe of hearing were but one thousand times quicker than it is, how would a perpetual noise distract us; and wę

* Locke's Effay on Human Understanding, vol. I, pag. 256. + Ver. 201.

+ Effay on Human Understanding, vol. I. pag. 255.

fhould in the quieteft retirement, be lefs

able to fleep or meditate, than in the middle of a fea-fight."

13. From the green myriads in the peopled grafs-
The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam;

Of smell the headlong lionefs between,
And hound fagacious on the tainted green:
The fpider's touch how exquifitely fine,

Feels at each thread, and lives along the line*,

THESE lines are felected as admirable patterns of forcible diction. The peculiar and difcriminating expreffiveness of the epithets diftinguished above by italics will be particularly regarded. Perhaps we have no image in the language, more lively than that of the last verse. "To live along the line" is equally bold and beautiful. In

this part of this Epiftle the poet feems to have remarkably laboured his ftyle, which abounds in various figures, and is much elevated. POPE has practifed the great fecret of Virgil's art, which was to discover the very fingle epithet that precifely fuited each occafion.

14. Without this juft gradation, could they be
Subjected, thefe to those, or all to thee?
The pow'rs of all fubdu'd by thee alone,
Is not thy reafon all these pow'rs in one * ? .

"Such then is the admirable diftribution of nature, her adapting and adjusting not only the ftuff or matter to the shape and form, and even the shape itself and form, to the circumftance, place, element, or region; but also the affections, appetites, fenfations, mutually to each other, as well as the matter, form, action, and all befides; all managed for the beft, with perfect frugality and juft referve: profufe to none, but bountiful to all: never employing in one thing more than enough; but with exact œconomy retrenching the fuperfluous, and adding force to what is principal in every thing. And is not thought and reafon principal in man? Would we have no referve for these? No faving for this part of his engine † ?”

* Ver. 229.

The Moralifts, vol. ii. pag. 199.

15. Above,