described the power of bestial instinct to attain the happiness of the individual, he goes on in speaking of instinct as it is serviceable both to that, and to the kind [from 1. 108 to 148] to illustrate the original of society. He shews, that though, as he had before observed, God had founded the proper bliss of each creature in the nature of its own being, yet these not being independent individuals, but parts of a whole, God, to bless that whole, built mutual happiness on mutual wants: now for the supply of mutual wants, creatures must necessarily come together; which is the first ground of society amongst

men:

Whate'er of life all-quickening æther keeps,

Or breathes through air, or shoots beneath the deeps,
Or pours profuse on earth; one Nature feeds
The vital flame, and swells the genial seeds,
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 sex desires alike, till two are one.

He then proceeds to that called natural, subject to paternal authority, and arising from the union of the two sexes; describes the imperfect image of it in brutes; then explains it at large in all its causes and effects: and, lastly, shews, that as IN FACT, like mere animal society, it is founded and preserved by mutual wants, the supplial of which causes mutual happiness; so is it likewise in RIGHT, as a rational society, by equity, gratitude, and the observance of the relation of things in general:

Reflection, reason, still the ties improve;

At once extend the int'rest, and the love:
With choice we fix, with sympathy we burn,
Each virtue in each passion takes its turn;
And still new needs, new helps, new habits, rise,
That graft benevolence on charities.
Mem'ry and forecast just returns engage,
That pointed back to youth, this on to age;
While pleasure, gratitude, and hope combin'd,
Still spread the int'rest, and preserv'd the kind.

But the Atheist and Hobbist, against whom Mr. Pope

writes,

writes, deny the principle of right, or of natural justice, before the invention of civil compact, which, they say, gave being to it: And accordingly have had the effrontery publicly to declare, that a state of nature was a state of war. This quite subverts the Poet's natural society: Therefore, after his account of that state, he proceeds to support the reality of it, by overthrowing the oppugnant principle of no natural justice; which he does [from 1. 147 to 170] by shewing, in a fine description of the state of innocence, as represented in Scripture, that a state of nature was so far from being without natural justice, that it was, at first, the reign of God, where right and truth universally prevailed :

Nor think, in Nature's state they blindly trod, The state of Nature was the reign of God. Self-love, and social, at her birth began, Union, the bond of all things, and of Man. Pride then was not; nor arts, that pride to aid; Man walk'd with beast, joint tenant of the shade. Now let us hear Mr. De Crousaz, who tells us, he had redoubled his attention upon this Epistle*.-Mr. Pope (says he) speaks with the assurance of an eye-witness of what passed in this first age of the world .-And why should he not, when conducted by his faith in Scripture history? That which he here represents, says he, is much less credible in itself, than that which Moses teacheth ust. Now what must we think of our Logician's faith, who taking it for granted, that Mr. Pope would not borrow of Moses, has here condemned, before he was aware, the credibility of Scripture history? For the account here given of the state of innocence is indeed no

other than that of Moses himself.

He goes on-This religion, common to brutes and men, insinuates to us, that, in those happy times, men had no more religion than brutes †.

This shrewd reflection points at the following lines:

In the same temple, the resounding wood,

All vocal beings hymn'd their equal God.

But does not the Poet speak, in this very place, of Man, as officiating in the priestly office at the altar,

VOL. XI.

* Commentaire, p. 218.
H

+ Ib. p. 240.

and

and offering up his blameless eucharistical sacrifice to Heaven?

The shrine with gore unstain'd, with gold undrest, Unbrib'd, unbloody, stood the blameless priest. As to the line,

All vocal beings hymn'd their equal God,

our Logician should be sent to Scripture for its meaning; who, had he been as conversant with the Psalmist as with Burgersdicius, would have learned to have judged more piously as well as more charitably. The inspired Poet calling to mind (as Mr. Pope did here) the age of innocence, and full of the great ideas of those

-Chains of love, Combining all below, and all above;

which

Draw to one point, and to one centre bring Beast, man, or angel, servant, lord, or king; breaks out into this rapturous and divine apostrophe, to call back the devious Creation to its pristine rectitude; That very state Mr. Pope describes above:-" Praise "the Lord, all ye angels: praise him, all ye hosts. "Praise him, sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars "of light. Let them praise the name of the Lord: for "he commanded, and they were created. Praise the "Lord from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps: Fire "and hail, snow and vapour, stormy wind fulfilling his "word: Mountains and all hills; fruitful trees and all "cedars: Beasts and all cattle, creeping things, and flying fowl: Kings of the earth, and all people; princes, and all judges of the earth: Let them praise "the name of the Lord; for his name alone is excellent, "his glory is above the earth and heaven." Psalm cxlviii.

To return. Strict method (in which, by this time, the reader finds the Poet more conversant than our Logician was aware of) leads him next to speak of that society which succeeded the natural, namely, the civil. But as he does all by easy steps, in the natural progression of ideas, he first explains [from 1. 169 to 200] the intermediate means which led mankind from natural to civil

society.

society. These were the invention and improvement of arts. For while mankind lived in a mere state of nature, unconscious of the arts of life, there was no need of any other government than the paternal; but when arts were found out and improved, then that more perfect form under the direction of a magistrate became necessary. And for these reasons; First, to bring those arts, already found, to perfection; and, Secondly, to secure the product of them to their rightful proprietors. The Poet, therefore, comes now, as we say, to the invention of arts; but being always intent on the great end for which he wrote his Essay, namely, to mortify that pride, which occasions the impious complaints against Providence, he, with the greatest art and contrivance, speaks of these inventions, as only lessons learnt of mere animals guided by instinct; and thus, at the same time, gives a new instance of the wonderful providence of God, who has contrived to teach mankind in a way not only proper to humble human arrogance, but to raise our idea of Infi nite Wisdom to the greatest pitch. All this he does in a prosopopaia the most sublime that ever entered into the human imagination:

See him from Nature rising slow to art!
To copy instinct then was reason's part:
Thus then to Man the voice of Nature spake-
"Go, from the Creatures thy instructions take;
"Thy arts of building from the bee receive,
"Learn of the mole to plow, the worm to weave;
"Learn of the little nautilus to sail,

Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale, &c. "Yet go! and thus o'er all the creatures sway, "Thus let the wiser make the rest obey,

"And for those arts mere instinct could afford, "Be crown'd as monarchs, or as gods ador'd."

The delicacy of the Poet's address; in the first part of the last line, is very remarkable. I observed, that, in this paragraph, he has given an account of those intermediate means that led mankind from natural to civil society, namely, the invention and improvement of arts. Now here, on his conclusion of this account, and entry upon the description of civil society itself, he connects

the two parts the most gracefully that can be conceived, by this true historical circumstance, that it was the invention of those arts, which raised to the magistracy, in this new society, now formed for the perfecting them.

I cannot leave this part without taking notice of the strange turn the Translator has given to these two lines; Thus then to Man the voice of Nature spake"Go, from the Creatures thy instructions take." La Nature indigné alors se fit entendre ;

Va, malheureux mortel, va, lui dit-elle, apprendre Des plus vils animaux.

One would wonder what should make him represent Nature in such a passion at Man, and calling him names, when Mr. Pope supposes her in her best good humour, and Man the most happy in the direction here given. But what led him into this mistake was another full as gross: Mr. Pope having described the state of innocence, which ends at these lines,

Heaven's attribute was universal care,

And Man's prerogative to rule, but spare,

turns from those times to a view of these latter ages, and breaks out into this tender and humane complaint:

Ah, how unlike the Man of times to come!
Of half that live the butcher and the tomb;
Who, foe to Nature, hears the general groan,
Murders their species, and betrays his own, &c.

Unluckily, the Translator took this Man of times to come, for the corrupter of that first age; and so imagined the Poet had introduced Nature only to set things right he then supposed, of course, she was to be very angry, and not finding Mr. Pope had represented her in any great emotion, he was willing to improve upon his original.

To proceed: After all this necessary preparation, the Poet shews [from l. 199 to 211] how civil society followed, and the advantages it produced. But these are best described in his own words:

Great Nature spoke; observant Men obey'd;
Cities were built, societies were made:

Here rose one little state; another near

Grew by like means, and join'd through love, or fear.