Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd, And now a bubble burst, and now a world. Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar; 6 Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor❜d mind Sees God in clouds, or hears Him in the wind; His soul, proud Science never taught to stray Far as the solar-walk, or milky-way; 100 Yet simple nature to his hope has given, Behind the cloud-topp'd hill, an humbler heaven ; 105 No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold. 110 He asks no angel's wings, no seraph's fire; But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, 4 After ver. 88, in the MS. "No great, no little; 'tis as much decreed That Virgil's gnat should die as Cæsar bleed." 5 [Warburton says in the first folio and quarto, these lines were"What bliss above he gives not thee to know, But gives that hope to be thy bliss below." Pope, however, had soon altered them to their present form, for they appear as above in the editions of 1735.] 6 [In all the early editions, "confined at home." Warburton is said to have suggested the change.] 7 After ver. 108, in the first edition : "But does he say the Maker is not good, IV. Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense, 115 Say, here He gives too little, there too much: 120 125 And who but wishes to invert the laws Of Order, sins against the Eternal Cause.8 130 V. Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine Earth for whose use? Pride answers, ""Tis for mine: 135 The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew; For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings; For me, health gushes from a thousand springs; Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise; My footstool earth, my canopy the skies." 140 But errs not Nature from this gracious end, From burning suns when livid deaths descend, When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep 145 "No ('tis replied), the first Almighty Cause Acts not by partial, but by genʼral laws; 8 [Warburton quotes the following illustration ;-"While comets move in very eccentric orbs, in all manner of positions, blind Fate could never make all the planets move one and the same way in orbs concentric; some inconsiderable irregularities excepted, which may have risen from the mutual actions of comets and planets upon one another, and which will be apt to increase till this system wants a reformation."-Sir Isaac Newton's Optics, Quest. ult.] "FROM BURNING SUNS, WHEN LIVID DEATHS DESCEND." The exceptions few: some change since all began: 150 If plagues or earthquakes break not Heaven's design, 155 Who heaves old Ocean, and who wings the storms; 160 From pride, from pride, our very reas'ning springs; Better for us, perhaps, it might appear, 165 170 The general order, since the whole began, Is kept in Nature, and is kept in man. VI. What would this man? Now upward will he soar, And little less than angel, would be more; Now looking downwards, just as grieved appears, 175 To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears. Made for his use all creatures if he call, Say what their use, had he the powers of all? 180 Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force; 9 185 Is Heaven unkind to man, and man alone? Shall he alone, whom rational we call, Be pleased with nothing, if not blest with all? The bliss of man (could pride that blessing find) Is not to act or think beyond mankind; 190 No powers of body or of soul to share, But what his nature and his state can bear. Why has not man a microsopic eye? For this plain reason, man is not a fly. Say what the use, were finer optics given, 195 To inspect a mite, not comprehend the heaven? Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er, To smart and agonize at every pore? Or quick effluvia darting through the brain, Die of a rose in aromatic pain? 200 If Nature thunder'd in his opening ears, And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres, 9 It is a certain axiom in the anatomy of creatures, that, in proportion as they are formed for strength, their swiftness is lessened; or as they are formed for swiftness, their strength is abated. How would he wish that Heaven had left him still 205 VII. Far as creation's ample range extends, 210 10 The manner of the lions hunting their prey in the deserts of Africa is this-At their first going out in the night-time they set up a loud roar, and then listen to the noise made by the beasts in their flight, pursuing them by the ear, and not by the nostril. It is probable that the story of the jackal's hunting for the lion, was occasioned by observation of this defect of scent in that terrible animal. |