Chapter 37

[1239]There is another side to the picture. The ends of vice are also raised from vanity, which begets wastefulness, debt, slander, and a multitude of evils.[1240]That is, "heaven can build," the "can" being supplied from "can raise," ver. 245.[1241]Shaftesbury's Moralists: "Is not both conjugal affection and natural affection to parents, love of a common city, community, or country, with the other duties and social parts of life, founded in these very wants?"—Warton.[1242]Men, says Pope, are reconciled to death from growing weary of the "wants, frailties, and passions" of life. "The observation," says Warburton, "is new, and would in any place be extremely beautiful, but has here aninfinitegrace and propriety." This is one of the stock forms of Warburton's adulation. Pope's remark was stale, and from the nature of the case could not be new if, as he asserted, it was generally true, since all men in their declining years could not, through all time, have left unexpressed the feeling which made them all willing to die. What all men think many men will say.[1243]The MS. adds this couplet:What partly pleases, totally will shock;Nor Ross would be Argyle, nor TolandI question much if Toland would be Locke.The Duke of Argyle and General Ross were both soldiers, both politicians, and both Scotchmen. Ross was a member of the House of Commons. Toland introduced metaphysics into his infidel works, and Pope signifies by his couplet that the inferior in a particular department would not desire on the whole to change characters with a superior in the same department.[1244]MS.:The learn'd are blessed such wonders to explore.[1245]Buoyed up by the expectation that he would hit upon the secret of transmuting the baser metals into gold.[1246]MS.:The chemist's happy in his golden views,Payn in his madness, Welsted in his muse.[1247]From La Rochefoucauld, Maxim 36: "Nature seems to have bestowed pride on us, on purpose to save us the pain of knowing our own imperfections."—Warton.[1248]Bolingbroke, Frag. 50: "Hope, that cordial drop, which sweetens every bitter potion, even the last."—Wakefield.MS.:With ev'ry age of man new passions rise,Hope travels through nor quits him when he dies.[1249]The lines, ver. 275-282, first appeared in the edition of 1743. They were evidently suggested by a passage in Garth's Dispensary, Canto v.:Children at toys as men at titles aim,And in effect both covet but the same,This Philip's son proved in revolving years,And first for rattles, then for worlds shed tears.[1250]When Pope used the phrase "a little louder," he was thinking of the "rattle," and forgot the "straw."[1251]The "garters" refer to the badge of the order of the garter. "Scarf," in the sense of a badge of honour, was in Pope's day appropriated to the nobleman's chaplain. "His sister," says Swift, speaking of a clerical time-server in his Essay on the Fates of Clergymen, "procured him a scarf from my lord." Addison in the Spectator, No. 21, compares bishops, deans, and archdeacons to generals; doctors of divinity, prebendaries, and "all that wear scarves" to field-officers; and the rest of the clergy to subalterns. "There has been," he says, "a great exceeding of late years in the second division, several brevets having been granted for the converting of subalterns into scarf-officers, insomuch that within my memory the price of lute-string"—the material of which the scarf was made—"is raised above twopence in a yard." The number of chaplains a nobleman could "qualify" varied with his rank. A duke might nominate six, a baron three. The distinction, when Pope wrote his Essay, was too slight to be fitly classed with orders of knighthood.[1252]The infant's pleasure in trifles may be the kindly work of nature providing for the enjoyments of an age incapable of better things; but the maturer delight in the "scarfs, garters, gold," is not the work of nature, but of folly. The first is a harmless instinct; the other a culpable vanity.—Croly.[1253]Small balls of glass or pearl, or other substance, strung upon a thread, and used by the Romanists to count their prayers; from whence the phrase "to tell beads," or to be at one's "beads," is, to be at prayer.—Johnson.[1254]MS.:At last he sleeps, and all the care is o'er.[1255]MS.: "Till then."[1256]MS.:Observant then, how from defects of mindSpring half the bliss, or rest of humankind!How pride rebuilds what reason can destroy, &c.[1257]MS.:Of certainty by faith, of sense by pride.[1258]MS.:These still repair what wisdom would destroy.[1259]MS.:Through life's long dream new prospects entertain.[1260]MS.:Life's prospects alter ev'ry step we gain,And Nature gives no vanity in vain.[1261]See further of the use of this principle in man, Epist. 3, ver. 121, 124, 133, 143, 199, etc., 269, etc., 316, etc. And Epist. 4, ver. 353 and 363.—Pope.[1262]MS.:Confess one comfort ever will arise.[1263]Bolingbroke, Fragment 53: "God is wise and man a fool."[1264]In several editions in quarto,Learn, Dulness, learn! "The Universal Cause," etc.—Warburton.[1265]The "one end" is the good of the whole.[1266]MS.:Must act by gen'ral not by partial laws.[1267]That is, those who are rich in temporal blessings should remember that the world is not made for them alone.[1268]MS.:Look nature through, and see the chain of love.[1269]Ed. 1.:See lifeless matter moving to one end.—Pope."Plastic," or as Bolingbroke called it, "fashioning nature," was in its etymological and popular sense, the power in nature which gave things their shape or figure. This seems to be the meaning in Pope. The philosophic sense of the phrase was more extensive. The laws of matter may have been made self-acting, or they may be maintained by the direct and constant interposition of God. Cudworth, and some other writers, who held the first of these opinions, called "plastic nature" the inward energy, the operative principle which is as a sort of life to the laws. The "plastic nature" of Cudworth is, in reality, nothing more than the laws of matter, with the proviso that they work by an inherent virtue infused into them by the Creator once for all.[1270]"Embrace" is an inappropriate word. The particles of matter do not clasp. They are not even in contact, but only contiguous.[1271]MS.:Press to one centre of commutual good.As the inorganic, or lifeless matter, of which he had previously spoken, gravitates to a centre, so the "matter" which is "endued with life" also "presses" to a "centre"—"the general good." The comparison of the general good to the centre of gravity is inaccurate. The centre of gravity is a point; the general good is diffused good.[1272]Shaftesbury's Moralists, Part i. Sect. 3: "The vegetables by their death sustain the animals, and animal bodies dissolved enrich the earth, and raise again the vegetable world."—Warton.[1273]Pope is speaking in the context of plants and animals, which are the "they" of ver. 20. He threw ver. 18 into a parenthesis, and said, "wecatch," because the interjected remark relates to men. The power displayed in the transmission of life from parents to progeny is happily illustrated by Fénelon, in his Traité de l'Existence de Dieu: "What should we think of a watchmaker who could make watches which would produce other watches to infinity, insomuch that the two first watches would be sufficient to propagate and perpetuate the species over all the earth? What should we say of an architect who had the art to construct houses which generated fresh houses to replace our dwellings before they began to fall into ruin?"[1274]"Connects," that is, "the greatest with the least." Pope, in his free use of elliptical expressions, having omitted "the," Warburton interprets the phrase according to the strict language, and supposes the meaning to be that the greatness of the Deity is manifested most in the creatures which are least.[1275]Another couplet follows in the MS.:More pow'rful each as needful to the rest,Each in proportion as he blesses blessed.[1276]The passage is indebted to Fenton, in his Epistle to Southerne:Who winged the winds, and gave the streams to flow,And raised the rocks, and spread the lawns below.—Wakefield.MS.:Think'st thou for thee he feeds the wanton fawnAnd not as kindly spreads for him the lawn?Think'st thou for thee the sky-lark mounts and sings?[1277]Apart from the metre the proper order of the words would be, "loves and raptures of his own swell the note."[1278]MS.: "gracefully." The reading Pope substituted is not much better, for the generality of men are not absurd enough to ride "pompously."[1279]This description of the hog as living on the labours of the lord of creation, without ploughing, or obeying his call, gives the idea of some untamed depredator, and not of a domestic animal kept to be eaten. The lord lives on the hog.[1280]MS.: "Sir Gilbert," which meant Sir Gilbert Heathcote, a rich London alderman, who had been lord mayor. The fur was a part of his official robes.[1281]MS.:Know, Nature's children with one care are nursed;What warms a monarch, warmed an ermine first.[1282]After ver. 46 in the former editions:What care to tend, to lodge, to cram, to treat him!All this he knew; but not that 'twas to eat him,As far as goose could judge he reasoned right;But as to man, mistook the matter quite.—Warburton.Cowley, in his Plagues of Egypt, stanza 1:All creatures the Creator said were thine:No creature but might since say, "Man is mine."Gay, Fable 49:The snail looks round on flow'r and tree,And cries, "All these were made for me."—Wakefield.The goose is taken from Peter Charron; but such a familiar and burlesque image is improperly introduced among such solid and serious reflections.—Warton.Pope copied Charron's predecessor, Montaigne, Book ii. Chap. 12: "For why may not a goose say thus, 'The earth serves me to walk upon, the sun to light me. I am the darling of nature. Is it not man that keeps, lodges, and serves me? It is for me that he both sows and grinds.'" "The pampered goose," says Southey, "must have been forgetful of plucking time, as well as ignorant of the rites that are celebrated in all old-fashioned families on St. Michael's Day." The goose's ignorance of his future fate was part of Pope's argument, and he contended that the men who exclaimed, "See all things for my use," were equally blind to the purposes for which they were destined. The illustration is poor both poetically and philosophically.[1283]Bolingbroke, Fragment 43: "The hypothesis that assumes the world made for man is not founded in reason."—Wakefield.[1284]That is, "Let it be granted that man is the intellectual lord;" for "wit" is here used in its extended sense of intellect in general.[1285]MS.:'Tis true the strong the weaker still control,And pow'rful man is master of the whole:Him therefore nature checks; he only knows, etc.[1286]What an exquisite assemblage is here, down to ver. 70, of deep reflection, humane sentiments, and poetic imagery. It is finely observed that compassion is exclusively the property of man alone.—Warton.[1287]That is, varying with her position, and the different angles in which the reflected light strikes upon the eye.—Wakefield.[1288]MS.:Turns he his ear when Philomela sings?Admires her eye the insect's gilded wings?The superior mercy with which Pope accredits men is of an unreflecting description, since he implies that it is regulated by gaiety of colour, and sweetness of song, and not by the capacities of creatures for pleasure and pain. The claim itself is unfounded under the circumstances of his comparison. The falcon and the jay must eat their natural prey or starve, and when hunger or gratification solicits him, man never hesitates to kill the animals which are needful for his support or delicious to his palate. If he had a taste for "insects with gilded wings," the gilding on their wings would not restrain him. Martial, Lib. xiii. Ep. 70, says of the peacock, "You admire him every time he displays his jewelled wings, and can you, hard-hearted man, deliver him to the cruel cook?" and Pope in his celebrated lines on the pheasant had commemorated the impotence of brilliant plumage to touch the compassion of the sportsman. The poet, in this Epistle, forgot that in Epist. i. ver. 117, he had accused man of "destroying all creatures for his sport or gust," which is to place him below the animals. He is undoubtedly without an equal in his destructive propensities, and too often abuses his power over the sentient world.[1289]Pope starts with the intimation that mankind extend their protection to animals from commiseration for their "wants and woes," and ends with declaring that the motive is "interest, pleasure, and pride."[1290]Borrowed from Milton's Samson Agonistes, ver. 549:Wherever fountain or fresh current flowedAgainst the eastern ray, translucent, pureWith touch ethereal of heav'n's fiery rod,I drank.—Wakefield.[1291]Several of the ancients, and many of the Orientals since, esteemed those who were struck by lightning as sacred persons, and the particular favourites of heaven.—Pope.Plutarch mentions that persons struck with lightning were held in honour, which did not accord with the concurrent belief that lightning was the instrument of Jove's vengeance. Superstitions often clash.[1292]"View" is "prospect,"—a vision of future bliss.[1293]Sir W. Temple, Works, vol. iii. p. 539: "Man is a thinking thing, whether he will or no."[1294]Pope repeats in this paragraph the argument he uses Epist. i. ver. 77-98, to prove that death has been beneficently disarmed of its terrors. Unthinking animals cannot be troubled at the prospect, for they have no knowledge, he says, of their end, which is more than we can tell; and thinking beings, according to him, have, in addition to the hope which mingles with their dread, the unfailing belief that death, though always drawing nearer, is never near. Such an irrational delusion in a "thinking thing" is, in Pope's estimation, a "standing miracle." The ostensible miracle is deduced from his exaggeration of the truth. The conviction that death is distant usually yields when appearances are against the supposition. Hale men often rush consciously upon certain destruction; old and sick men have constantly the genuine belief that their end is at hand; and dying men expect each day or hour to be their last. The false expectation of prolonged life does not enter into their minds, and can have nothing to do with their resignation, peace, or joy.[1295]This is the true principle from which Pope immediately departs, and exalts instinct above reason. "Man," says Aristotle, "has sometimes more, sometimes less than the beast;" for they are adapted to different functions, and man excels in his sphere, and beasts in theirs. The sphere of man is the highest, and his faculties are proportionate. He cannot do the work of the bee, but he can do his own work, which is greater.[1296]The roman catholic council, which claims to be infallible. Instinct, says Pope, being infallible does not need the guidance of any other infallible authority. When he speaks of "full instinct," he probably means that instinct is always complete within its own limited domain, for if he intended to put "full instinct" in opposition to the instinct which is defective and misleads, he would contradict ver. 94, in which he states that instinct "must go right."[1297]After ver. 84 in the MS.:While man with op'ning views of various waysConfounded, by the aid of knowledge strays:Too weak to choose, yet choosing still in haste,One moment gives the pleasure and distaste.—Warburton.[1298]In Pope's wide sense of the term, reason adapts means to ends, and distinguishes between truth and falsehood, right and wrong. The faculty operates in part spontaneously, and in part with effort. In an endless number of ordinary circumstances man cannot help observing, comparing, and inferring, and his reason is itself an instinct which "comes a volunteer." The distinction is, that man does not stop with the unconstrained exercise of his powers. He aspires to progress, and laboriously pushes forward, while animals turn round, generation after generation, in the same narrow circle. What Pope supposed was a mark of man's inferiority is just the ground of his superiority. His conquests begin with his difficulties and exertions.[1299]Pope says, ver. 79, that whether blessed with reason or instinct "all enjoy the power that tends to bliss,—all find the means proportioned to the end." He now contradicts himself with regard to reason, and says that, in the effort to determine which of our impulses are beneficial and which injurious, it never hits the mark, but labours in vain after happiness. The wisdom he denies to reason he erroneously ascribes to instinct, which has no superiority in securing an immunity from ill. Through want of foresight, and the limitation of their powers of contrivance, myriads of creatures die of hunger and cold. Those which come off with life suffer frequently from scarcity and inclement seasons. Their defective sagacity makes them a prey to each other and to man, and often when they escape death they receive torturing injuries. The young are exposed to wholesale destruction, and in many instances the parents manifest a grief which if short is at least acute. Creatures of the same species have their intestine enmities, and engage in combats attended by wounds and death. They have their fears, jealousies, and tempers, their alternations of contentment and dissatisfaction, and upon the whole the instinct conferred upon animals seems a less protection from present evils than a moderate use of reason in man. What alleviation there may be to animals in their inevitable trials cannot be known to us, but no one will imagine that they can be supported by sublimer hopes than our own.[1300]This is a mistake. Instinct is often imperfect with reference to its own special ends. Misled by the odour of the African carrion flower, the flesh-flies lay their eggs in it, and the progeny, not being vegetable feeders, are starved. Here the injury is to the offspring. In other cases the erring individuals suffer for their own mistake. Pope, in this Epistle, magnifies instinct, and disparages reason. In Epist. i., ver. 232, he took the opposite side, and said that the reason of man was all the "powers" of animals "in one."[1301]MS.:One in their act to think and to pursue,Sure to will right, and what they will to do.Pope's meaning is, that there is no conflict in animals, as in man, between passion and reason, between desire and judgment, that there is not in the operations of animals, as in man's contrivances, a studied adaptation of means to ends, nor a balancing of method against method, and of end against end, but that animals are endowed with singleness of purpose, know instinctively what to do, and how to do it.[1302]MS.:Reason prefer to instinct if you can.[1303]Addison, Spectator, No. 121; "To me instinct seems the immediate direction of Providence. A modern philosopher delivers the same opinion where he says, God himself is the soul of brutes." Upon the theory that brutes act from the immediate impulse of their Maker, there is a difficulty in explaining the cases of misdirected instinct, as when a jackdaw drops cart-loads of sticks down a chimney, in the vain endeavour to obtain a basis for its nest. Some animals, again, profit by experience, as foxes which improve in cunning, and we must infer that the assistance afforded by the Deity increases with the experience of the animals, though the experience is in nowise concerned in the result. A viciousness of temper, which resembles the evil passions of men, sometimes dominates in brutes, as we may see in horses and dogs, and we cannot ascribe these propensities to the immediate instigation of the Creator, unless we accept Pope's doctrine that God "pours fierce ambition into Cæsar's mind."[1304]"Wood" in all editions, though designated as an erratum by Pope in his small edition of 1736. The mention of "tides" and "waves" in the next couplet should have called attention to a mistake, which seems obvious enough even without any special notice.—Croker.[1305]This instinct is not invariable. Animals eat food poisoned artificially, and sometimes feed greedily upon poisonous natural products. Yew is a poison to cows and horses, and yet with an abundance of wholesome herbage they will sometimes eat the yew.[1306]Every verb and epithet has here a descriptive force. We find more imagery from these lines to the end of the Epistle, than in any other parts of this Essay. The origin of the connections in social life, the account of the state of nature, the rise and effects of superstition and tyranny, and the restoration of true religion and just government, all these ought to be mentioned as passages that deserve high applause, nay, as some of the most exalted pieces of English poetry.—Warton.[1307]The halcyon or king-fisher was reputed by the ancients "to build upon the wave," and the entrance to the floating nest was supposed to be contrived in a manner to admit the bird, and exclude the water of the sea. Either Pope believed the fable, or he thought himself at liberty to illustrate the marvels of instinct by fictitious examples. The couplet was originally thus in the MS.:The cramp-fish, remora what secret charmTo stop the bark, arrest the distant arm?The cramp-fish is the torpedo. "She has the quality," says Montaigne, "not only to benumb all the members that touch her, but even through the nets transmits a heavy dullness into the hands of those that move them; nay, it is further said, that if one pour water upon her, he will feel this numbness mount up the water to the hand, and stupify the feeling through the water." The remora, or sucking-fish, sticks by the disc on the top of its head, to ships and other fishes, and "renders immoveable," says Pliny, "the vessels which no chain could stay, no weighty anchor moor." The mighty prowess ascribed to the remora is imaginary, and the electrical capacity of the torpedo greatly exaggerated. The story of halcyon, cramp-fish, and remora are all in Book ii. chap. 12 of Montaigne's Essays.[1308]The geometric, or garden-spider, makes a web of concentric circles, but the house-spider, which used to have credit for weaving a web of parallel longitudinal lines crossed by parallel transverse lines, observes no such regularity in the construction of her toils.[1309]An eminent mathematician.—Pope.He was born in France in 1667. Driven from his native country in 1685 by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, he settled in London, and died there in 1754. He got his living mainly by teaching mathematics, in which his skill was consummate, and his publications on the subject attest the acuteness and originality of his genius. He was on terms of friendship with Newton.[1310]The poet probably took the hint of this passage from Lord Bacon's De augmentis scientiarum: "Who taught the raven in a drought to throw pebbles into an hollow tree where she espied water, that the water might rise so as she might come to it? Who taught the bee to sail through such a vast sea of air, and to find a way from the field in flower, a great way off to her hive?"—Ruffhead.[1311]MS.:Through air's vast oceans see the storks explore,Columbus-like, a world unknown before.[1312]From Le Spectacle de la Nature of the Abbé Pluche: "Who informed their young that it would be requisite to travel into a foreign country? What particular bird takes the charge upon him of assembling their grand council, and fixing the day of their departure?"[1313]The MS. has the lines which follow:Boast we of arts? a bee can better hitThe squares than Gibbs, the bearings than Sir Kit.To poise his dome a martin has the knack,While bold Bernini lets St. Peter's crack.Gibbs was born about 1674 and died in 1754. He designed St. Martin's church in London, and the Radcliffe library at Oxford. Sir Kit is Sir Christopher Wren. A century after the dome of St. Peter's was erected, Bernini inserted staircases in the hollow piers which support the cupola, and the cracks in the dome were falsely ascribed to his operations. The martins are not more infallible than man, and, unlike man, they do not profit by experience. White of Selborne relates that they built in the window corners of a house in his neighbourhood, where the recess was too shallow to protect their work, which was washed down with every hard rain, and yet year after year they persevered through the summer in their useless drudgery.[1314]Bolingbroke, Fragment 51: "We are designed to be social, not solitary creatures. Mutual wants unite us, and natural benevolence and political order, on which our happiness depends, are founded in them."—Wakefield.[1315]Ether was reputed to be an element finer than air, and to fill the regions beyond our atmosphere. Some of the stoics believed that ether was the animating principle of all things, and Pope adopted the doctrine. Hence he calls ether "all-quickening," and says that "one nature feeds the vital flame" in all the creatures of earth, air, and water.[1316]Bolingbroke, Fragment 51: "As our parents loved themselves in us, so we love ourselves in our children."—Wakefield.Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel:Our fond begetters who would never die,Love but themselves in their posterity.The lines from ver. 115 to ver. 124 are varied in the MS.:Quick with this spirit new-born nature moved,Itself each creature in its species loved;Each sought a pleasure not possessed alone,Each sex desired alike till two were one.This impulse animates; one nature feedsThe vital lamp, and swells the genial seeds:All spread their image with like ardour stung,All love themselves, reflected in their young.Dr. George Campbell remarks, in his Philosophy of Rhetoric, that to talk of creatures loving themselves in their progeny is nonsensical rant. Of many fathers and mothers it would be nearer the truth to say that they love their children almost to the exclusion of themselves. Neither Pope nor Bolingbroke had children, and not having experienced, they misapprehended, the parental feeling.[1317]Pope's division of duties is not the law of creation. In a multiplicity of cases both parents feed, and both defend their young. When the sire is of no use in providing food, as with grass-eating animals, he equally abandons his defending function, and does not even recognise his offspring.[1318]MS.:Till taught to range the wood, or wing the air,There instinct ends its passion and its care.[1319]Locke, Civil Government, book ii. chap. vii. sect. 79: "The conjunction between male and female ought to last so long as is necessary to the support of the young ones. And herein, I think, lies the chief, if not the only reason, why the male and female in mankind are tied to a longer conjunction than other creatures, whose young being able to subsist of themselves before the time of procreation returns again, the conjugal bond dissolves of itself."

[1239]There is another side to the picture. The ends of vice are also raised from vanity, which begets wastefulness, debt, slander, and a multitude of evils.

[1240]That is, "heaven can build," the "can" being supplied from "can raise," ver. 245.

[1241]Shaftesbury's Moralists: "Is not both conjugal affection and natural affection to parents, love of a common city, community, or country, with the other duties and social parts of life, founded in these very wants?"—Warton.

[1242]Men, says Pope, are reconciled to death from growing weary of the "wants, frailties, and passions" of life. "The observation," says Warburton, "is new, and would in any place be extremely beautiful, but has here aninfinitegrace and propriety." This is one of the stock forms of Warburton's adulation. Pope's remark was stale, and from the nature of the case could not be new if, as he asserted, it was generally true, since all men in their declining years could not, through all time, have left unexpressed the feeling which made them all willing to die. What all men think many men will say.

[1243]The MS. adds this couplet:What partly pleases, totally will shock;Nor Ross would be Argyle, nor TolandI question much if Toland would be Locke.The Duke of Argyle and General Ross were both soldiers, both politicians, and both Scotchmen. Ross was a member of the House of Commons. Toland introduced metaphysics into his infidel works, and Pope signifies by his couplet that the inferior in a particular department would not desire on the whole to change characters with a superior in the same department.

[1243]The MS. adds this couplet:

What partly pleases, totally will shock;Nor Ross would be Argyle, nor TolandI question much if Toland would be Locke.

The Duke of Argyle and General Ross were both soldiers, both politicians, and both Scotchmen. Ross was a member of the House of Commons. Toland introduced metaphysics into his infidel works, and Pope signifies by his couplet that the inferior in a particular department would not desire on the whole to change characters with a superior in the same department.

[1244]MS.:The learn'd are blessed such wonders to explore.

[1244]MS.:

The learn'd are blessed such wonders to explore.

[1245]Buoyed up by the expectation that he would hit upon the secret of transmuting the baser metals into gold.

[1246]MS.:The chemist's happy in his golden views,Payn in his madness, Welsted in his muse.

[1246]MS.:

The chemist's happy in his golden views,Payn in his madness, Welsted in his muse.

[1247]From La Rochefoucauld, Maxim 36: "Nature seems to have bestowed pride on us, on purpose to save us the pain of knowing our own imperfections."—Warton.

[1248]Bolingbroke, Frag. 50: "Hope, that cordial drop, which sweetens every bitter potion, even the last."—Wakefield.MS.:With ev'ry age of man new passions rise,Hope travels through nor quits him when he dies.

[1248]Bolingbroke, Frag. 50: "Hope, that cordial drop, which sweetens every bitter potion, even the last."—Wakefield.

MS.:

With ev'ry age of man new passions rise,Hope travels through nor quits him when he dies.

[1249]The lines, ver. 275-282, first appeared in the edition of 1743. They were evidently suggested by a passage in Garth's Dispensary, Canto v.:Children at toys as men at titles aim,And in effect both covet but the same,This Philip's son proved in revolving years,And first for rattles, then for worlds shed tears.

[1249]The lines, ver. 275-282, first appeared in the edition of 1743. They were evidently suggested by a passage in Garth's Dispensary, Canto v.:

Children at toys as men at titles aim,And in effect both covet but the same,This Philip's son proved in revolving years,And first for rattles, then for worlds shed tears.

[1250]When Pope used the phrase "a little louder," he was thinking of the "rattle," and forgot the "straw."

[1251]The "garters" refer to the badge of the order of the garter. "Scarf," in the sense of a badge of honour, was in Pope's day appropriated to the nobleman's chaplain. "His sister," says Swift, speaking of a clerical time-server in his Essay on the Fates of Clergymen, "procured him a scarf from my lord." Addison in the Spectator, No. 21, compares bishops, deans, and archdeacons to generals; doctors of divinity, prebendaries, and "all that wear scarves" to field-officers; and the rest of the clergy to subalterns. "There has been," he says, "a great exceeding of late years in the second division, several brevets having been granted for the converting of subalterns into scarf-officers, insomuch that within my memory the price of lute-string"—the material of which the scarf was made—"is raised above twopence in a yard." The number of chaplains a nobleman could "qualify" varied with his rank. A duke might nominate six, a baron three. The distinction, when Pope wrote his Essay, was too slight to be fitly classed with orders of knighthood.

[1252]The infant's pleasure in trifles may be the kindly work of nature providing for the enjoyments of an age incapable of better things; but the maturer delight in the "scarfs, garters, gold," is not the work of nature, but of folly. The first is a harmless instinct; the other a culpable vanity.—Croly.

[1253]Small balls of glass or pearl, or other substance, strung upon a thread, and used by the Romanists to count their prayers; from whence the phrase "to tell beads," or to be at one's "beads," is, to be at prayer.—Johnson.

[1254]MS.:At last he sleeps, and all the care is o'er.

[1254]MS.:

At last he sleeps, and all the care is o'er.

[1255]MS.: "Till then."

[1256]MS.:Observant then, how from defects of mindSpring half the bliss, or rest of humankind!How pride rebuilds what reason can destroy, &c.

[1256]MS.:

Observant then, how from defects of mindSpring half the bliss, or rest of humankind!How pride rebuilds what reason can destroy, &c.

[1257]MS.:Of certainty by faith, of sense by pride.

[1257]MS.:

Of certainty by faith, of sense by pride.

[1258]MS.:These still repair what wisdom would destroy.

[1258]MS.:

These still repair what wisdom would destroy.

[1259]MS.:Through life's long dream new prospects entertain.

[1259]MS.:

Through life's long dream new prospects entertain.

[1260]MS.:Life's prospects alter ev'ry step we gain,And Nature gives no vanity in vain.

[1260]MS.:

Life's prospects alter ev'ry step we gain,And Nature gives no vanity in vain.

[1261]See further of the use of this principle in man, Epist. 3, ver. 121, 124, 133, 143, 199, etc., 269, etc., 316, etc. And Epist. 4, ver. 353 and 363.—Pope.

[1262]MS.:Confess one comfort ever will arise.

[1262]MS.:

Confess one comfort ever will arise.

[1263]Bolingbroke, Fragment 53: "God is wise and man a fool."

[1264]In several editions in quarto,Learn, Dulness, learn! "The Universal Cause," etc.—Warburton.

[1264]In several editions in quarto,

Learn, Dulness, learn! "The Universal Cause," etc.—Warburton.

[1265]The "one end" is the good of the whole.

[1266]MS.:Must act by gen'ral not by partial laws.

[1266]MS.:

Must act by gen'ral not by partial laws.

[1267]That is, those who are rich in temporal blessings should remember that the world is not made for them alone.

[1268]MS.:Look nature through, and see the chain of love.

[1268]MS.:

Look nature through, and see the chain of love.

[1269]Ed. 1.:See lifeless matter moving to one end.—Pope."Plastic," or as Bolingbroke called it, "fashioning nature," was in its etymological and popular sense, the power in nature which gave things their shape or figure. This seems to be the meaning in Pope. The philosophic sense of the phrase was more extensive. The laws of matter may have been made self-acting, or they may be maintained by the direct and constant interposition of God. Cudworth, and some other writers, who held the first of these opinions, called "plastic nature" the inward energy, the operative principle which is as a sort of life to the laws. The "plastic nature" of Cudworth is, in reality, nothing more than the laws of matter, with the proviso that they work by an inherent virtue infused into them by the Creator once for all.

[1269]Ed. 1.:

See lifeless matter moving to one end.—Pope.

"Plastic," or as Bolingbroke called it, "fashioning nature," was in its etymological and popular sense, the power in nature which gave things their shape or figure. This seems to be the meaning in Pope. The philosophic sense of the phrase was more extensive. The laws of matter may have been made self-acting, or they may be maintained by the direct and constant interposition of God. Cudworth, and some other writers, who held the first of these opinions, called "plastic nature" the inward energy, the operative principle which is as a sort of life to the laws. The "plastic nature" of Cudworth is, in reality, nothing more than the laws of matter, with the proviso that they work by an inherent virtue infused into them by the Creator once for all.

[1270]"Embrace" is an inappropriate word. The particles of matter do not clasp. They are not even in contact, but only contiguous.

[1271]MS.:Press to one centre of commutual good.As the inorganic, or lifeless matter, of which he had previously spoken, gravitates to a centre, so the "matter" which is "endued with life" also "presses" to a "centre"—"the general good." The comparison of the general good to the centre of gravity is inaccurate. The centre of gravity is a point; the general good is diffused good.

[1271]MS.:

Press to one centre of commutual good.

As the inorganic, or lifeless matter, of which he had previously spoken, gravitates to a centre, so the "matter" which is "endued with life" also "presses" to a "centre"—"the general good." The comparison of the general good to the centre of gravity is inaccurate. The centre of gravity is a point; the general good is diffused good.

[1272]Shaftesbury's Moralists, Part i. Sect. 3: "The vegetables by their death sustain the animals, and animal bodies dissolved enrich the earth, and raise again the vegetable world."—Warton.

[1273]Pope is speaking in the context of plants and animals, which are the "they" of ver. 20. He threw ver. 18 into a parenthesis, and said, "wecatch," because the interjected remark relates to men. The power displayed in the transmission of life from parents to progeny is happily illustrated by Fénelon, in his Traité de l'Existence de Dieu: "What should we think of a watchmaker who could make watches which would produce other watches to infinity, insomuch that the two first watches would be sufficient to propagate and perpetuate the species over all the earth? What should we say of an architect who had the art to construct houses which generated fresh houses to replace our dwellings before they began to fall into ruin?"

[1274]"Connects," that is, "the greatest with the least." Pope, in his free use of elliptical expressions, having omitted "the," Warburton interprets the phrase according to the strict language, and supposes the meaning to be that the greatness of the Deity is manifested most in the creatures which are least.

[1275]Another couplet follows in the MS.:More pow'rful each as needful to the rest,Each in proportion as he blesses blessed.

[1275]Another couplet follows in the MS.:

More pow'rful each as needful to the rest,Each in proportion as he blesses blessed.

[1276]The passage is indebted to Fenton, in his Epistle to Southerne:Who winged the winds, and gave the streams to flow,And raised the rocks, and spread the lawns below.—Wakefield.MS.:Think'st thou for thee he feeds the wanton fawnAnd not as kindly spreads for him the lawn?Think'st thou for thee the sky-lark mounts and sings?

[1276]The passage is indebted to Fenton, in his Epistle to Southerne:

Who winged the winds, and gave the streams to flow,And raised the rocks, and spread the lawns below.—Wakefield.

MS.:

Think'st thou for thee he feeds the wanton fawnAnd not as kindly spreads for him the lawn?Think'st thou for thee the sky-lark mounts and sings?

[1277]Apart from the metre the proper order of the words would be, "loves and raptures of his own swell the note."

[1278]MS.: "gracefully." The reading Pope substituted is not much better, for the generality of men are not absurd enough to ride "pompously."

[1279]This description of the hog as living on the labours of the lord of creation, without ploughing, or obeying his call, gives the idea of some untamed depredator, and not of a domestic animal kept to be eaten. The lord lives on the hog.

[1280]MS.: "Sir Gilbert," which meant Sir Gilbert Heathcote, a rich London alderman, who had been lord mayor. The fur was a part of his official robes.

[1281]MS.:Know, Nature's children with one care are nursed;What warms a monarch, warmed an ermine first.

[1281]MS.:

Know, Nature's children with one care are nursed;What warms a monarch, warmed an ermine first.

[1282]After ver. 46 in the former editions:What care to tend, to lodge, to cram, to treat him!All this he knew; but not that 'twas to eat him,As far as goose could judge he reasoned right;But as to man, mistook the matter quite.—Warburton.Cowley, in his Plagues of Egypt, stanza 1:All creatures the Creator said were thine:No creature but might since say, "Man is mine."Gay, Fable 49:The snail looks round on flow'r and tree,And cries, "All these were made for me."—Wakefield.The goose is taken from Peter Charron; but such a familiar and burlesque image is improperly introduced among such solid and serious reflections.—Warton.Pope copied Charron's predecessor, Montaigne, Book ii. Chap. 12: "For why may not a goose say thus, 'The earth serves me to walk upon, the sun to light me. I am the darling of nature. Is it not man that keeps, lodges, and serves me? It is for me that he both sows and grinds.'" "The pampered goose," says Southey, "must have been forgetful of plucking time, as well as ignorant of the rites that are celebrated in all old-fashioned families on St. Michael's Day." The goose's ignorance of his future fate was part of Pope's argument, and he contended that the men who exclaimed, "See all things for my use," were equally blind to the purposes for which they were destined. The illustration is poor both poetically and philosophically.

[1282]After ver. 46 in the former editions:

What care to tend, to lodge, to cram, to treat him!All this he knew; but not that 'twas to eat him,As far as goose could judge he reasoned right;But as to man, mistook the matter quite.—Warburton.

Cowley, in his Plagues of Egypt, stanza 1:

All creatures the Creator said were thine:No creature but might since say, "Man is mine."

Gay, Fable 49:

The snail looks round on flow'r and tree,And cries, "All these were made for me."—Wakefield.

The goose is taken from Peter Charron; but such a familiar and burlesque image is improperly introduced among such solid and serious reflections.—Warton.

Pope copied Charron's predecessor, Montaigne, Book ii. Chap. 12: "For why may not a goose say thus, 'The earth serves me to walk upon, the sun to light me. I am the darling of nature. Is it not man that keeps, lodges, and serves me? It is for me that he both sows and grinds.'" "The pampered goose," says Southey, "must have been forgetful of plucking time, as well as ignorant of the rites that are celebrated in all old-fashioned families on St. Michael's Day." The goose's ignorance of his future fate was part of Pope's argument, and he contended that the men who exclaimed, "See all things for my use," were equally blind to the purposes for which they were destined. The illustration is poor both poetically and philosophically.

[1283]Bolingbroke, Fragment 43: "The hypothesis that assumes the world made for man is not founded in reason."—Wakefield.

[1284]That is, "Let it be granted that man is the intellectual lord;" for "wit" is here used in its extended sense of intellect in general.

[1285]MS.:'Tis true the strong the weaker still control,And pow'rful man is master of the whole:Him therefore nature checks; he only knows, etc.

[1285]MS.:

'Tis true the strong the weaker still control,And pow'rful man is master of the whole:Him therefore nature checks; he only knows, etc.

[1286]What an exquisite assemblage is here, down to ver. 70, of deep reflection, humane sentiments, and poetic imagery. It is finely observed that compassion is exclusively the property of man alone.—Warton.

[1287]That is, varying with her position, and the different angles in which the reflected light strikes upon the eye.—Wakefield.

[1288]MS.:Turns he his ear when Philomela sings?Admires her eye the insect's gilded wings?The superior mercy with which Pope accredits men is of an unreflecting description, since he implies that it is regulated by gaiety of colour, and sweetness of song, and not by the capacities of creatures for pleasure and pain. The claim itself is unfounded under the circumstances of his comparison. The falcon and the jay must eat their natural prey or starve, and when hunger or gratification solicits him, man never hesitates to kill the animals which are needful for his support or delicious to his palate. If he had a taste for "insects with gilded wings," the gilding on their wings would not restrain him. Martial, Lib. xiii. Ep. 70, says of the peacock, "You admire him every time he displays his jewelled wings, and can you, hard-hearted man, deliver him to the cruel cook?" and Pope in his celebrated lines on the pheasant had commemorated the impotence of brilliant plumage to touch the compassion of the sportsman. The poet, in this Epistle, forgot that in Epist. i. ver. 117, he had accused man of "destroying all creatures for his sport or gust," which is to place him below the animals. He is undoubtedly without an equal in his destructive propensities, and too often abuses his power over the sentient world.

[1288]MS.:

Turns he his ear when Philomela sings?Admires her eye the insect's gilded wings?

The superior mercy with which Pope accredits men is of an unreflecting description, since he implies that it is regulated by gaiety of colour, and sweetness of song, and not by the capacities of creatures for pleasure and pain. The claim itself is unfounded under the circumstances of his comparison. The falcon and the jay must eat their natural prey or starve, and when hunger or gratification solicits him, man never hesitates to kill the animals which are needful for his support or delicious to his palate. If he had a taste for "insects with gilded wings," the gilding on their wings would not restrain him. Martial, Lib. xiii. Ep. 70, says of the peacock, "You admire him every time he displays his jewelled wings, and can you, hard-hearted man, deliver him to the cruel cook?" and Pope in his celebrated lines on the pheasant had commemorated the impotence of brilliant plumage to touch the compassion of the sportsman. The poet, in this Epistle, forgot that in Epist. i. ver. 117, he had accused man of "destroying all creatures for his sport or gust," which is to place him below the animals. He is undoubtedly without an equal in his destructive propensities, and too often abuses his power over the sentient world.

[1289]Pope starts with the intimation that mankind extend their protection to animals from commiseration for their "wants and woes," and ends with declaring that the motive is "interest, pleasure, and pride."

[1290]Borrowed from Milton's Samson Agonistes, ver. 549:Wherever fountain or fresh current flowedAgainst the eastern ray, translucent, pureWith touch ethereal of heav'n's fiery rod,I drank.—Wakefield.

[1290]Borrowed from Milton's Samson Agonistes, ver. 549:

Wherever fountain or fresh current flowedAgainst the eastern ray, translucent, pureWith touch ethereal of heav'n's fiery rod,I drank.—Wakefield.

[1291]Several of the ancients, and many of the Orientals since, esteemed those who were struck by lightning as sacred persons, and the particular favourites of heaven.—Pope.Plutarch mentions that persons struck with lightning were held in honour, which did not accord with the concurrent belief that lightning was the instrument of Jove's vengeance. Superstitions often clash.

[1291]Several of the ancients, and many of the Orientals since, esteemed those who were struck by lightning as sacred persons, and the particular favourites of heaven.—Pope.

Plutarch mentions that persons struck with lightning were held in honour, which did not accord with the concurrent belief that lightning was the instrument of Jove's vengeance. Superstitions often clash.

[1292]"View" is "prospect,"—a vision of future bliss.

[1293]Sir W. Temple, Works, vol. iii. p. 539: "Man is a thinking thing, whether he will or no."

[1294]Pope repeats in this paragraph the argument he uses Epist. i. ver. 77-98, to prove that death has been beneficently disarmed of its terrors. Unthinking animals cannot be troubled at the prospect, for they have no knowledge, he says, of their end, which is more than we can tell; and thinking beings, according to him, have, in addition to the hope which mingles with their dread, the unfailing belief that death, though always drawing nearer, is never near. Such an irrational delusion in a "thinking thing" is, in Pope's estimation, a "standing miracle." The ostensible miracle is deduced from his exaggeration of the truth. The conviction that death is distant usually yields when appearances are against the supposition. Hale men often rush consciously upon certain destruction; old and sick men have constantly the genuine belief that their end is at hand; and dying men expect each day or hour to be their last. The false expectation of prolonged life does not enter into their minds, and can have nothing to do with their resignation, peace, or joy.

[1295]This is the true principle from which Pope immediately departs, and exalts instinct above reason. "Man," says Aristotle, "has sometimes more, sometimes less than the beast;" for they are adapted to different functions, and man excels in his sphere, and beasts in theirs. The sphere of man is the highest, and his faculties are proportionate. He cannot do the work of the bee, but he can do his own work, which is greater.

[1296]The roman catholic council, which claims to be infallible. Instinct, says Pope, being infallible does not need the guidance of any other infallible authority. When he speaks of "full instinct," he probably means that instinct is always complete within its own limited domain, for if he intended to put "full instinct" in opposition to the instinct which is defective and misleads, he would contradict ver. 94, in which he states that instinct "must go right."

[1297]After ver. 84 in the MS.:While man with op'ning views of various waysConfounded, by the aid of knowledge strays:Too weak to choose, yet choosing still in haste,One moment gives the pleasure and distaste.—Warburton.

[1297]After ver. 84 in the MS.:

While man with op'ning views of various waysConfounded, by the aid of knowledge strays:Too weak to choose, yet choosing still in haste,One moment gives the pleasure and distaste.—Warburton.

[1298]In Pope's wide sense of the term, reason adapts means to ends, and distinguishes between truth and falsehood, right and wrong. The faculty operates in part spontaneously, and in part with effort. In an endless number of ordinary circumstances man cannot help observing, comparing, and inferring, and his reason is itself an instinct which "comes a volunteer." The distinction is, that man does not stop with the unconstrained exercise of his powers. He aspires to progress, and laboriously pushes forward, while animals turn round, generation after generation, in the same narrow circle. What Pope supposed was a mark of man's inferiority is just the ground of his superiority. His conquests begin with his difficulties and exertions.

[1299]Pope says, ver. 79, that whether blessed with reason or instinct "all enjoy the power that tends to bliss,—all find the means proportioned to the end." He now contradicts himself with regard to reason, and says that, in the effort to determine which of our impulses are beneficial and which injurious, it never hits the mark, but labours in vain after happiness. The wisdom he denies to reason he erroneously ascribes to instinct, which has no superiority in securing an immunity from ill. Through want of foresight, and the limitation of their powers of contrivance, myriads of creatures die of hunger and cold. Those which come off with life suffer frequently from scarcity and inclement seasons. Their defective sagacity makes them a prey to each other and to man, and often when they escape death they receive torturing injuries. The young are exposed to wholesale destruction, and in many instances the parents manifest a grief which if short is at least acute. Creatures of the same species have their intestine enmities, and engage in combats attended by wounds and death. They have their fears, jealousies, and tempers, their alternations of contentment and dissatisfaction, and upon the whole the instinct conferred upon animals seems a less protection from present evils than a moderate use of reason in man. What alleviation there may be to animals in their inevitable trials cannot be known to us, but no one will imagine that they can be supported by sublimer hopes than our own.

[1300]This is a mistake. Instinct is often imperfect with reference to its own special ends. Misled by the odour of the African carrion flower, the flesh-flies lay their eggs in it, and the progeny, not being vegetable feeders, are starved. Here the injury is to the offspring. In other cases the erring individuals suffer for their own mistake. Pope, in this Epistle, magnifies instinct, and disparages reason. In Epist. i., ver. 232, he took the opposite side, and said that the reason of man was all the "powers" of animals "in one."

[1301]MS.:One in their act to think and to pursue,Sure to will right, and what they will to do.Pope's meaning is, that there is no conflict in animals, as in man, between passion and reason, between desire and judgment, that there is not in the operations of animals, as in man's contrivances, a studied adaptation of means to ends, nor a balancing of method against method, and of end against end, but that animals are endowed with singleness of purpose, know instinctively what to do, and how to do it.

[1301]MS.:

One in their act to think and to pursue,Sure to will right, and what they will to do.

Pope's meaning is, that there is no conflict in animals, as in man, between passion and reason, between desire and judgment, that there is not in the operations of animals, as in man's contrivances, a studied adaptation of means to ends, nor a balancing of method against method, and of end against end, but that animals are endowed with singleness of purpose, know instinctively what to do, and how to do it.

[1302]MS.:Reason prefer to instinct if you can.

[1302]MS.:

Reason prefer to instinct if you can.

[1303]Addison, Spectator, No. 121; "To me instinct seems the immediate direction of Providence. A modern philosopher delivers the same opinion where he says, God himself is the soul of brutes." Upon the theory that brutes act from the immediate impulse of their Maker, there is a difficulty in explaining the cases of misdirected instinct, as when a jackdaw drops cart-loads of sticks down a chimney, in the vain endeavour to obtain a basis for its nest. Some animals, again, profit by experience, as foxes which improve in cunning, and we must infer that the assistance afforded by the Deity increases with the experience of the animals, though the experience is in nowise concerned in the result. A viciousness of temper, which resembles the evil passions of men, sometimes dominates in brutes, as we may see in horses and dogs, and we cannot ascribe these propensities to the immediate instigation of the Creator, unless we accept Pope's doctrine that God "pours fierce ambition into Cæsar's mind."

[1304]"Wood" in all editions, though designated as an erratum by Pope in his small edition of 1736. The mention of "tides" and "waves" in the next couplet should have called attention to a mistake, which seems obvious enough even without any special notice.—Croker.

[1305]This instinct is not invariable. Animals eat food poisoned artificially, and sometimes feed greedily upon poisonous natural products. Yew is a poison to cows and horses, and yet with an abundance of wholesome herbage they will sometimes eat the yew.

[1306]Every verb and epithet has here a descriptive force. We find more imagery from these lines to the end of the Epistle, than in any other parts of this Essay. The origin of the connections in social life, the account of the state of nature, the rise and effects of superstition and tyranny, and the restoration of true religion and just government, all these ought to be mentioned as passages that deserve high applause, nay, as some of the most exalted pieces of English poetry.—Warton.

[1307]The halcyon or king-fisher was reputed by the ancients "to build upon the wave," and the entrance to the floating nest was supposed to be contrived in a manner to admit the bird, and exclude the water of the sea. Either Pope believed the fable, or he thought himself at liberty to illustrate the marvels of instinct by fictitious examples. The couplet was originally thus in the MS.:The cramp-fish, remora what secret charmTo stop the bark, arrest the distant arm?The cramp-fish is the torpedo. "She has the quality," says Montaigne, "not only to benumb all the members that touch her, but even through the nets transmits a heavy dullness into the hands of those that move them; nay, it is further said, that if one pour water upon her, he will feel this numbness mount up the water to the hand, and stupify the feeling through the water." The remora, or sucking-fish, sticks by the disc on the top of its head, to ships and other fishes, and "renders immoveable," says Pliny, "the vessels which no chain could stay, no weighty anchor moor." The mighty prowess ascribed to the remora is imaginary, and the electrical capacity of the torpedo greatly exaggerated. The story of halcyon, cramp-fish, and remora are all in Book ii. chap. 12 of Montaigne's Essays.

The cramp-fish, remora what secret charmTo stop the bark, arrest the distant arm?

The cramp-fish is the torpedo. "She has the quality," says Montaigne, "not only to benumb all the members that touch her, but even through the nets transmits a heavy dullness into the hands of those that move them; nay, it is further said, that if one pour water upon her, he will feel this numbness mount up the water to the hand, and stupify the feeling through the water." The remora, or sucking-fish, sticks by the disc on the top of its head, to ships and other fishes, and "renders immoveable," says Pliny, "the vessels which no chain could stay, no weighty anchor moor." The mighty prowess ascribed to the remora is imaginary, and the electrical capacity of the torpedo greatly exaggerated. The story of halcyon, cramp-fish, and remora are all in Book ii. chap. 12 of Montaigne's Essays.

[1308]The geometric, or garden-spider, makes a web of concentric circles, but the house-spider, which used to have credit for weaving a web of parallel longitudinal lines crossed by parallel transverse lines, observes no such regularity in the construction of her toils.

[1309]An eminent mathematician.—Pope.He was born in France in 1667. Driven from his native country in 1685 by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, he settled in London, and died there in 1754. He got his living mainly by teaching mathematics, in which his skill was consummate, and his publications on the subject attest the acuteness and originality of his genius. He was on terms of friendship with Newton.

[1309]An eminent mathematician.—Pope.

He was born in France in 1667. Driven from his native country in 1685 by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, he settled in London, and died there in 1754. He got his living mainly by teaching mathematics, in which his skill was consummate, and his publications on the subject attest the acuteness and originality of his genius. He was on terms of friendship with Newton.

[1310]The poet probably took the hint of this passage from Lord Bacon's De augmentis scientiarum: "Who taught the raven in a drought to throw pebbles into an hollow tree where she espied water, that the water might rise so as she might come to it? Who taught the bee to sail through such a vast sea of air, and to find a way from the field in flower, a great way off to her hive?"—Ruffhead.

[1311]MS.:Through air's vast oceans see the storks explore,Columbus-like, a world unknown before.

[1311]MS.:

Through air's vast oceans see the storks explore,Columbus-like, a world unknown before.

[1312]From Le Spectacle de la Nature of the Abbé Pluche: "Who informed their young that it would be requisite to travel into a foreign country? What particular bird takes the charge upon him of assembling their grand council, and fixing the day of their departure?"

[1313]The MS. has the lines which follow:Boast we of arts? a bee can better hitThe squares than Gibbs, the bearings than Sir Kit.To poise his dome a martin has the knack,While bold Bernini lets St. Peter's crack.Gibbs was born about 1674 and died in 1754. He designed St. Martin's church in London, and the Radcliffe library at Oxford. Sir Kit is Sir Christopher Wren. A century after the dome of St. Peter's was erected, Bernini inserted staircases in the hollow piers which support the cupola, and the cracks in the dome were falsely ascribed to his operations. The martins are not more infallible than man, and, unlike man, they do not profit by experience. White of Selborne relates that they built in the window corners of a house in his neighbourhood, where the recess was too shallow to protect their work, which was washed down with every hard rain, and yet year after year they persevered through the summer in their useless drudgery.

[1313]The MS. has the lines which follow:

Boast we of arts? a bee can better hitThe squares than Gibbs, the bearings than Sir Kit.To poise his dome a martin has the knack,While bold Bernini lets St. Peter's crack.

Gibbs was born about 1674 and died in 1754. He designed St. Martin's church in London, and the Radcliffe library at Oxford. Sir Kit is Sir Christopher Wren. A century after the dome of St. Peter's was erected, Bernini inserted staircases in the hollow piers which support the cupola, and the cracks in the dome were falsely ascribed to his operations. The martins are not more infallible than man, and, unlike man, they do not profit by experience. White of Selborne relates that they built in the window corners of a house in his neighbourhood, where the recess was too shallow to protect their work, which was washed down with every hard rain, and yet year after year they persevered through the summer in their useless drudgery.

[1314]Bolingbroke, Fragment 51: "We are designed to be social, not solitary creatures. Mutual wants unite us, and natural benevolence and political order, on which our happiness depends, are founded in them."—Wakefield.

[1315]Ether was reputed to be an element finer than air, and to fill the regions beyond our atmosphere. Some of the stoics believed that ether was the animating principle of all things, and Pope adopted the doctrine. Hence he calls ether "all-quickening," and says that "one nature feeds the vital flame" in all the creatures of earth, air, and water.

[1316]Bolingbroke, Fragment 51: "As our parents loved themselves in us, so we love ourselves in our children."—Wakefield.Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel:Our fond begetters who would never die,Love but themselves in their posterity.The lines from ver. 115 to ver. 124 are varied in the MS.:Quick with this spirit new-born nature moved,Itself each creature in its species loved;Each sought a pleasure not possessed alone,Each sex desired alike till two were one.This impulse animates; one nature feedsThe vital lamp, and swells the genial seeds:All spread their image with like ardour stung,All love themselves, reflected in their young.Dr. George Campbell remarks, in his Philosophy of Rhetoric, that to talk of creatures loving themselves in their progeny is nonsensical rant. Of many fathers and mothers it would be nearer the truth to say that they love their children almost to the exclusion of themselves. Neither Pope nor Bolingbroke had children, and not having experienced, they misapprehended, the parental feeling.

[1316]Bolingbroke, Fragment 51: "As our parents loved themselves in us, so we love ourselves in our children."—Wakefield.

Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel:

Our fond begetters who would never die,Love but themselves in their posterity.

The lines from ver. 115 to ver. 124 are varied in the MS.:

Quick with this spirit new-born nature moved,Itself each creature in its species loved;Each sought a pleasure not possessed alone,Each sex desired alike till two were one.This impulse animates; one nature feedsThe vital lamp, and swells the genial seeds:All spread their image with like ardour stung,All love themselves, reflected in their young.

Dr. George Campbell remarks, in his Philosophy of Rhetoric, that to talk of creatures loving themselves in their progeny is nonsensical rant. Of many fathers and mothers it would be nearer the truth to say that they love their children almost to the exclusion of themselves. Neither Pope nor Bolingbroke had children, and not having experienced, they misapprehended, the parental feeling.

[1317]Pope's division of duties is not the law of creation. In a multiplicity of cases both parents feed, and both defend their young. When the sire is of no use in providing food, as with grass-eating animals, he equally abandons his defending function, and does not even recognise his offspring.

[1318]MS.:Till taught to range the wood, or wing the air,There instinct ends its passion and its care.

[1318]MS.:

Till taught to range the wood, or wing the air,There instinct ends its passion and its care.

[1319]Locke, Civil Government, book ii. chap. vii. sect. 79: "The conjunction between male and female ought to last so long as is necessary to the support of the young ones. And herein, I think, lies the chief, if not the only reason, why the male and female in mankind are tied to a longer conjunction than other creatures, whose young being able to subsist of themselves before the time of procreation returns again, the conjugal bond dissolves of itself."

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