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Say, will the falcon, stooping from above,

Smit with her varying plumage, spare the dove?
Admires the jay the infect's gilded wings?

Or hears the hawk when Philomela fings?
Man cares for all: to birds he gives his woods,
To beafts his pastures, and to fish his floods;
For fome his int'rest prompts him to provide,
For more his pleasure, yet for more his pride:

NOTES.

that chain of love,

Combining all below and all above:

55

60

But Nature, even by the very gift of Reason, checks this Tyrant. For Reafon endowing Man with the ability of fetting together the memory of the paft, with his conjectures about the future; and paft misfortunes making him apprehenfive of more to come, this difpofeth him to pity and relieve others in a state of suffering. And the paffion growing habitual, naturally extendeth its effect to all that have a fenfe of fuffering. Now as brutes have neither Man's Realon, nor his inordinate Self love, to draw them from the fyftem of Benevolence: fo they wanted not, and therefore have not, this human fympathy of another's mifery. By which paffion, we fee thofe qualities, in Man, balance one another; and fo retain him in that general Order, in which Providence hath placed its whole creation. But this is not all; Man's intereft, amusement, vanity, and luxury, tie him ftill clofer to the fyftem of benevolence, by obliging him to provide for the fupport of other animals; and though it be, for the moft part, only to devour them with the greater guft, yet this does not abate the proper happiness of the animals fo preferved, to whom Providence hath not imparted the ufelefs knowledge of their end.

All feed on one vain Patron, and enjoy

Th' extensive bleffing of his luxury,

That very life his learned hunger craves,

He faves from famine, from the favage faves;
Nay, feasts the animal he dooms his feast,

65

And, 'till he ends the being, makes it bleft;
Which fees no more the stroke, or feels the pain,
Than favour'd Man by touch etherial flain.
The creature had his feast of life before;
Thou too muft perish, when thy feaft is o'er!
To each unthinking being, Heav'n a friend,
Gives not the useless knowledge of its end:
To Man imparts it; but with fch a view
As, while he dreads it, makes him hope it too:
The hour conceal'd, and fo remote the fear,
Death ftill draws nearer, never seeming near.
Great standing miracle! that Heav'n affign'd
Its only thinking thing this turn of mind.

70

75

II. Whether with Reafon, or with Inftinct bleft, Know, all enjoy that pow'r which suits them beft; 8a To blifs alike by that direction tend,

And find the means proportion'd to their end.

NOTES.

VER. 68. Than favour'd Man, &c.] Several of the ancients, and many of the Orientals fince, efteemed thofe who were struck by lightning as facred perfons, and the particular favourites of Heaven. P.

F

Say, where full Inftinct is th' unerring guide,
What Pope or Council can they need befide?
Reason, however able, cool at beft,

Cares not for fervice or but ferves when preft,
Stays 'till we call, and then not often near;
But honeft Inftinct comes a Volunteer,
Sure never to o'er-shoot, but just to hit;

While ftill too wide or fhort is human Wit;
Sure by quick Nature happiness to gain,
Which heavier Reafon labours at in vain.
This too ferves always, Reason never long;
One must go right, the other may go wrong.
See then the acting and comparing pow'rs
One in their nature, which are two in ours!
And Reafon raife o'er Inftinct as you can,
In this 'tis God directs, in that 'tis Man.

85

go

95

Who taught the nations of the field and wood To fhun their poison, and to chufe their food? 100 Prefcient, the tides or tempefts to withstand, Build on the wave, or arch beneath the fand?

VARIATIONS.

After ver. 84. in the MS.

While Man, with op'ning views of various ways
Confounded, by the aid of knowledge ftrays:
Too weak to chufe, yet chufing still in hafte,
One moment gives the pleasure and diftafte.

Who made the fpider parallels defign,

Sure as De-moivre, without rule or line?

Who bid the ftork, Columbus like, explore

1ος

Heav'ns not his own, and worlds unknown before?
Who calls the council, ftates the certain day,
Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way?
III. God, in the nature of each being, founds
Its proper blifs, and fets it proper bounds:
But as he fram'd a Whole, the Whole to blefs,
On mutual Wants built mutual Happiness:
So from the first, eternal ORDER ran,

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And creature link'd to creature, man to man.
Whate'er of life all quick'ning æther keeps, ig
Or breathes thro' air, or fhoots beneath the deeps,
Or
pours profufe on earth, one nature feeds
The vital fame, and fwells the genial feeds.
Not man alone, but all that roam the wood,
Or wing the sky, or roll along the flood,
Each loves itself, but not itself alone,
Each fex defires alike, 'till two are one.

120

Nor ends the pleasure with the fierce embrace;
They love themselves a third time in their race.
Thus beaft and bird their common charge attend, 125
The mothers nurse it, and the fires defend;
The young difmifs'd to wander earth or air,
There ftops the Inftinct, and there ends the care:

The link diffolves, each seeks a fresh embrace,
Another love fucceeds, another race.

A longer care man's helpless kind demands;
That longer care contracts more lasting bands:
Reflection, Reafon, still the ties improve,

130

At once extend the int'reft, and the love;
With choice we fix, with sympathy we burn; 135
Each virtue in each paffion takes its turn:

And still new needs, new helps, new habits rise,
That graft benevolence on charities.

Still as one brood, and as another rose,

These nat❜ral love maintain'd, habitual thofe: 140
The laft, fcarce ripen'd into perfect Man,
Saw helpless him from whom their life began;
Mem'ry and fore-cast just returns engage,
That pointed back to youth, this on to age,
While pleasure, gratitude, and hope, combin'd, 145
Still fpread the int'reft, and preserv❜d the kind.

[trod;

IV. Nor think, in NATURE'S STATE they blindly The ftate of Nature was the reign of god: Self-love and focial at her birth began, Union the bond of all things, and of Man.

150

Pride then was not; nor Arts, that pride to aid; Man walk'd with beaft, joint tenant of the fhade; NOTES.

VER. 152. Man walk'd with beaft, joint tenant of the fade] The poet ftill takes his imagery from Platonic

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