Here fix'd the dreadful, there the bleft, abodes; 255 NOTES. 265 VER. 257. Gods partial, changeful, &c.] The ancient Pagan Gods are here very exactly defcribed. this fact is a convincing evidence of the truth of that original, which the poet giveth to Superftition; for if these phantafms were firft raised in the imagination of Tyrants, they must needs have the qualities here affigned to them. For Force being the Tyrant's Virtue, and Luxury his Happiness, the attributes of his God would of course be Revenge and Luft; in a word, the anti type of himself. But there was another, and more fubftantial cause, of the resemblance between a Tyrant and a Pagan god; and that was the making Gods of Conquerors, as the poet fays, and fo canonizing a tyrant's vices with his person. VER. 262. And heav'n on pride.] This might be very well faid of thofe times, when no one was content to go to heaven without being received there on the footing of a God. So drives Self-love, thro' juft, and thro' unjust, All join to guard what each defires to gain. Ev'n Kings learnt justice and benevolence : 280 And found the private in the public good. The Faith and Moral, Nature gave before; NOTES. 285 VER. 283. 'Twas then, &c.] The poet feemeth here to mean the polite and flourishing age of Greece; and those benefactors to Mankind, which he had principally in view, were SOCRATES and ARISTOTLE; who, of all the pagan world, fpoke best of God, and wrote beft of Govern ment. 1 Taught Pow'r's due ufe to People and to Kings; That touching one must strike the other too; NOTES. VER. 295. Such is the world's great harmony, &c.] An harmony very different from the pre-established harmony of the celebrated Leibnitz, which fixeth us in a Fatality de ftructive of all Religion and Morality. Yet hath the poet been accufed of efpoufing that impious whimsey. The preftablished harmony was built upon, and is an outrageous extenfion of, a conception of Plato, who, combating the atheistical objections about the origin of Evil, employs this argument in the defence of Providence: "That amongst "an infinite number of poffible worlds in God's idea, "this, which he hath created and brought into being, and "which admits of a mixture of Evil, is the best. But if "the beft, then Evil confequently is partial, compara"tively small, and tendeth to the greater perfection of the "whole." This Principle is efpoufed and fupported by Mr. Pope with all the power of reafon and poetry. But neither was Plato a Fatalift, nor is there any fatalism in the argument. As to the truth of the notion, that is another queftion; and how far it cleareth up the very difficult controversy about the origin of Evil, is ftill another. That it is a full folution of all difficulties, I cannot think, for reafons too long to be given in this place. Perhaps we shall never have a full folution in this world; and it may be no great matter though we have not, as we are demon G 300 Where small and great, where weak and mighty, made NOTES. ftrably certain of the moral attributes of the Deity. However, Mr. Pope may be juftified in receiving and inforcing this Platonic notion, as it hath been adopted by the moft celebrated and orthodox divines both of the ancient and modern church. VER. 303. For Forms of Government let fools conteft ;] The feasonableness of this reproof will appear evident enough to those who know, that mad difputes about Liberty and Prerogative had once well nigh overturned our Conftitution; and that others about Myftery and ChurchAuthority had almost destroyed the very fpirit of our Religion. VER. 303. For Forms of Government, &c.] Thefe fine lines have been strangely misunderstood: the author,against his own exprefs words, against the plain sense of his fystem, has been conceived to mean, That all Governments, and all Religions were, as to their forms and objects, indifferent. But as this wrong judgment proceeded from ignorance of the reason of the reproof, as explained above, that explanation is alone fufficient to rectify the miftake. But the reader will not be displeased to fee the Poet's own apology, as I find it written in the year 1740, in his own hand, in the margin of a book, where he found these two celebrated lines mifapplied; "The author of For modes of Faith let graceless zealots fight; 305 His can't be wrong whose life is in the right: NOTES. "these lines was far from meaning, that no one form of "Government is, in itself, better than another (as, that "mixed or limited Monarchy, for example, is not pre"ferable to absolute) but that no form of Government, "however excellent or preferable, in itself, can be fuffi"cient to make a people happy, unless it be administered "with integrity. On the contrary, the best fort of Government, when the form of it is preferved, and the "adminiftration corrupt, is most dangerous. 26 VER.305. For Modes of Faith, &c.] To fuppofe the Poet to mean, that all Religions are indifferent, is an equally wrong as well as uncharitable fufpicion. Mr. Pope, tho' his fubject, in this Efay on Man, confineth him to Natural religion (his purpose being to vindicate God's natural dif penfations to Mankind against the Atheist) yet giveth frequent intimations of a more fublime difpenfation, and even of the neceffity of it; particularly in his fecond epiftle (ver. 149, &c.) where he confeffeth the weakness and infufficiency of human Reafon. And in his fourth epiftle, where, speaking of the good Man, the favourite of Heaven, he faith, For him alone Hope leads from goal to goal, But Natural Religion never lengthen'd Hope on to Faith; nor did any Religion, but the Chriftian, ever conceive that Faith could fill the Mind with Happiness. Lastly, In this very epiftle, and in this very place, fpeaking of the great Reftorers of the Religion of Nature, he in |