How instinct varies in the grov'ling swine, Formerly it stood, No self-confounding faculties to share ; At present, No pow'rs of body or of soul to share, It appeared at first, Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man, We read at present, A mighty maze! but not without a plan. 19. Submit.In this, or any other sphere, * Ver. 285. I cannot nour. I cannot resist the pleasure of illustrating this sentiment in the words of a writer, whose friendship I esteem to be no small happiness and ho"Teach us each to regard himself, but as a part of this great whole; a part which, for its welfare, we are as patiently to resign, as we resign a single limb for the welfare of our whole body. Let our life be a continued scene of acquiescence and of gratitude; of gratitude, for what we enjoy; of acquiescence, in what we suffer; as both can only be referable to that concatenated order of events, which cannot but be best, as being by thee approved and chosen."* 20. All nature is but art, unknown to thee; All chance, direction which thou canst not see; All partial evil, universal good.t This is the doctrine that reigns throughout the lofty hymn of Cleanthes the Stoic, particularly in these beautiful and masculine verses: * Three Treatises by James Harris, Esq. pag. 231, ↑ Ver. 289. Ουδε Ουδε τι γιγνεται έργον επί χθονι σε δίχα Δαίμων, Ουδε κατ' αιθέριον θείον πολον, ὅτ' επι πουλών Πλην όποσα ρεζεσι κακοι σφελερησιν ανοίαις, * Αλλα συ και τα περισσα επίστασαι αρια θείναι, Thus translated by Mr. West: * For nor in earth, nor earth-encircling floods, Is aught perform'd without thy aid divine; Vice is the act of man, by passion tost, And in the shoreless sea of Folly lost; 21. Chaos of thought and passion, all confus'd; * Hymn. apud Hen. Steph. pag. 49. It See to this purpose, a fine passage in Plutarch de Animi Tranquillit. in vol. ii. pag. 473, 404. fol. Francfurti, 1620. Particularly the of Euripides there quoted. passage + Epist. ii. v. 13. It was remarked long ago in the Adventurer,* that these reflections were minutely copied from Pascal, who says, "What a chimera then is man! what a confused chaos! what a subject of contradiction! a professed judge of all things, and yet a feeble worm of the earth! The great depositary and guardian of truth, and yet a mere huddle of uncertainty the glory and the scandal of the universe." 22. Superior beings, when of late they saw The author of the letter on the Marks of imitation, is induced to think, from the sigularity of this sentiment, that the great poet had his eye on Plato, ότι ανθρωπων ὁ σοφωμαίος προς θεον πίθηκος pavεilar. But I am more inclined to think that POPE borrowed it from a passage in the zodiac of Palingenius, which the above-mentioned Adventurer has also quoted, and which POPE, who was a reader of the poets of Palingenius's age, * No. 63. † Ver. 31. age, some of whom he published, was more likely to fall upon, than on this thought of Plato: Simia cœlicolûm risusque jocusque deorum est; 23. Trace science, then, with Modesty thy guide; First strip off all her equipage of pride; Deduct what is but vanity, or dress, Or learning's luxury, or idleness; Or tricks to shew the stretch of human brain, The abuses of learning are enumerated with brevity and elegance, in these few lines. It was a favourite subject with our author; and it is said, he intended to have written four epistles on it, wherein he would have treated of the extent and limits of human reason, of arts and sciences useful and attainable, of the different capacities of different men, of the knowledge of the world, and of wit. Such censures, even of the most unimportant * Ver. 43. There is some obscurity in the last line, occasioned by omitting the relative. 1. |