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judging of the fitness or unfitness, perfection or imperfection, juftice or injuftice, of his difpenfations, ver. 109, etc. V. The abfurdity of conceiting himself the final caufe of the creation, or expecting that perfection in the moral world, which is not in the natural, ver. 131, etc. VI. The unreafonableness of his complaints: against Providence, while on the one hand he demands the perfections of the Angels, and on the other the bodily qualifications of the Brutes; though, to poffefs any of the fenfitive faculties in a higher degree, would render him miferable, ver. 173, etc. VII. That throughout the whole vifible world, an univerfal order and gradation in the fenfual and mental faculties is obferved, which caufes a fubordination of creature to creature, and of all creatures to Man. The gradations of sense, inftinct, thought, reflection, reafon; that Reafon alone countervails all the other faculties, ver. 207. VIII. How much farther this order and fubordination of living creatures may extend, above and below us ; were any part of which broken, not that part only, but the whole connected creation, must be destroyed, ver. 233. IX. The extravagance, madness, and pride of fuch a defire, ver. 250. X. The confe quence of all the abfolute fubmiffion due to Provi dence, both as to our present and future state, ver. 281, etc. to the end.

Plate IX.

Vol.II.facing.p.43.

humbly then; with trembling Pinions soar: Wait the great teacher Death and God adore?!

Way on Man Ep.1

A

EPISTLE I.

WAKE, MY ST. JOHN leave all meaner things
To low ambition and the pride of Kings.
Let us (fince Life can little more supply
Than just to look about us, and to die)
Expatiate free o'er all this scene of Man;

A mighty maze! but not without a plan;
A Wild, where weeds and flow'rs promifcuous fhoot:
Or Garden, tempting with forbidden fruit.
Together let us beat this ample field,
Try what the open, what the covert yield!
The latent tracts, the giddy heights explore
Of all who blindly creep, or fightless foar;
Eye Nature's walks, fhoot Folly as it flies,
And catch the Manners living as they rife:
Laugh where we muft, be candid where we can ;
But vindicate the ways of God to Man.

I. Say first, of God above, or Man below,
What can we reason, but from what we know?
Of Man, what fee we but his station here,
From which to reason, or to which refer?

10

15

20

The exordium of this poem relates to the whole work, of which the Effay on Man was only the first book. The 6th, 7th, and 8th lines allude to the fubjects of this Essay, viz. the general Order and Defign of Providence; the Constitution of the human Mind; the origin, ufe, and end of the Paffions and Affections, both selfish and focial; and the wrong purfuits of Power, Pleafure, and Happiness. The 10th, 11th, 12th, etc. have relation to the subjects of the books intended to follow, viz. the Characters and Capacities of Men, and the Limits, of Science, which once tranfgreffed, ignorance begins, and error follows. The 13th and 14th, to the Knowledge of Mankind, and the various Manners of the age.

Thro' worlds unnumber'd tho' the God be known, 'Tis ours to trace him only in our own.

He, who thro' vaft immenfity can pierce,

See worlds on worlds compofe one universe,
Obferve how system into system runs,

What other planets circle other funs,
What vary'd Being peoples ev'ry star,

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May tell why Heav'n has made us as we are.
But of this frame the bearings and the ties,
The ftrong connections, nice dependencies,
Gradations juft, has thy pervading foul
Look'd thro'? or can a part contain the whole?
Is the great chain, that draws all to agree,
And drawn fupports, upheld by God, or thee?

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II. Prefumptuous Man! the reason wouldst thou find,

Why form'd fo weak, fo little, and so blind ♬
First, if thou canft, the harder reafon guefs,
Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no lefs?
Afk of thy mother earth, why oaks are made
Taller and ftronger than the weeds they fhade ?
Or afk of yonder argent fields above,

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Why Jove's Satellites are less than Jove?

Of Systems poffible, if 'tis confeft, That Wisdom infinite must form the beft, Where all muft full or not coherent be,

And all that rifes, rife in due degree;

Then in the scale of reas'ning life, 'tis plain,

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There must be, fomewhere, fuch a rank as Man :
And all the queftion (wrangle e'er fo long)
Is only this, if God has plac'd him wrong?

VER. 21. Thro' worlds unnumber'd, etc.] folummodo per Proprietates fuas et Attributa,

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Hunc cognofcimus et per fapientiffimas

et optimas rerum ftructuras et caufas finales. Newtoni Prin. Schol. gen. fub fin.