In human works, tho' labour'd on with pain, A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain; In God's, one fingle can its end produce;

55

Yet ferves to fecond too fome other use,

So Man, who here feems principal alone,
Perhaps acts fecond to fome sphere unknown,
Touches fome wheel, or verges to some goal;
'Tis but a part we fee, and not a whole.
When the proud steed shall know why Man

reftrains

His firey course, or drives him o'er the plains;

COMMENTARY.

60

and thofe of Man; viz. that, in the latter, a thousand movements scarce gain one purpofe; in the former, one movement gains many purposes. So that

-Man, who here feems principal alone,
Perhaps acts fecond to fome fphere unknown.

And acting thus, the appearances of wrong in the partial fyftem, may be right in the univerfal: For

'Tis but a part we see, and not a wholę.

That it must, the whole body of this epiftle is employed to illuftrate and inforce. Thus partial Evil is univerfal Good; and thus Providence is fairly acquitted.

VER. 61. When the proud feed, &c.] From all this he draws a general conclufion (from 60 to 91) that, as what has been faid is fufficient to vindicate the ways of Providence, Man should reft content and fubmiffive, and confefs every thing to be difpofed for the beft; that to think of discovering the manner how God conducts this wonderful fcheme to its completion, is as abfurd`as to imagine that the horfe and ox, shall

-

The bleft to day is as completely fo,

As who began a thousand years ago.

75

III. Heav'n from all creatures hides the book

of Fate,

All but the page prescrib'd, their present state :

From brutes what men, from men what spirits

know:

Or who could fuffer Being here below?

80

The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy Reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the laft, he crops the flow'ry food,
And licks the hand juft rais'd to shed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly giv'n, 85
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n :.
Who fees with equal eye, as God of all,

A hero perifh, or a fparrow fall,

VARIATIONS.

After 88. in the MS.

No great, no little; 'tis as much decreed
That Virgil's Gnat fhould die as Cæfar bleed.

COMMENTARY.

make him neglect or defert his Duty here. This he illuftrates by an inftance in the lamb, which is happy in not knowing the fate that attends it from the butcher; and from thence takes

NOTES.

VER. 87. Who fees with equal eye, &c.] Mat. x. 29.

Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,

And now a bubble burst, and now a world. 90 Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions foar; Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore.

COMMENTARY.

occafion to obferve, that God is the equal mafter of all his creatures, and provides for the proper happiness of each.

VER. 91. Hope humbly then; &c.] But now the objector is fuppofed to put in, and fay, You tell us indeed, that all things will terminate in good; but we see ourselves furrounded with prefent Evil; and yet you forbid us all inquiry into the manner how we are to be extricated; and, in a word, leave us in a difconfolate condition. Not fo, replies the poet, you may very reafonably, if you so please, receive much comfort from the HOPE of a happy futurity; a Hope implanted in the human breaft by God himself for this very purpose, as an earneft of that Blifs, which, always flying from us here, is reserved for the good Man hereafter. The reason why the poet chufes to infift on this proof of a future ftate, in preference to others, is in order to give his fyftem (which is founded in a fublime and improved Platonism) the greater grace of uniformity. For HOPE was Plato's peculiar argument for a future ftate; and the words here employed-the foul uneafy &c. his peculiar expreffion. The poet in this place, therefore, fays in express terms, that God gave us Hope to fupply that future blifs, which he at prefent keeps hid from us. In his fecond epiftle, 274, goes ftill further, and fays, this HOPE quits us not even at Death, when every thing mortal drops from us:

he

Hope travels thro', nor quits us when we die.

And, in the fourth epiftle, he fhews how the fame HOPE is a proof of a future ftate, from the confideration of God's giving man no appetite in vain, or what he did not intend fhould be fatisfied;

He fees, why Nature plants in Man alone

Hope of known blifs, and Faith in blifs unknown:

What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that Hope to be thy bleffing now.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast :

Man never Is, but always To be blest :

VARIATIONS.

In the firft Fol. and Quarto,

What blifs above he gives not thee to know,
But gives that Hope to be thy blifs below.

COMMENTARY.

(Nature, whofe dictates to no other kind

Are giv'n in vain, but what they seek they find)

It is only for the good man, he tells us, that Hope leads from goal to goal, &c. It would be ftrange indeed then if it should prove a delufion.

NOTES.

VER. 93. What future bliss, &c.] It hath been objected, that the System of the best weakens the other natural arguments for a future ftate; because, if the evils which good Men fuffer promote the benefit of the whole, then every thing is here in order; and nothing amiss that wants to be fet right: Nor has the good man any reason to expect amends, when the evils he fuffered had such a tendency. To this it may be replied, 1. That the poet tells us (Ep. iv. 361.) that God loves from whole to parts. 2. That the fyftem of the best is so far from weakening those natural arguments, that it ftrengthens and supports them. For if thofe evils, to which good men are subject, be mere Disorders, without any tendency to the greater good of the whole; then, though we must indeed conclude that they will hereafter be fet right, yet this view of things, representing God as fuffering diforders for no other end than to set them right, gives us a very low idea of the divine wisdom. But if thofe evils (according to the fyftem of the beft) contribute to the greater perfection of the whole; fuch a reafon may be then given for their permiffion, as fupports