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other, and the poem is of confiderable length, the mind will require fome recreation and refreshment by the way; which is to be procured by feasonable moral reflections, pertinent remarks, familiar fimiles and defcriptions naturally introduced, by allufions to ancient hiftories or fables, and by fhort and pleasant digreffions and excurfions into more noble fubjects, fo aptly brought in that they may feem to have a remote relation, and be of a piece with the poem. By thus varying the form of inftruction the poet gives life to his precepts, and awakens and fecures our attention, without permitting us to fee by what means we are thus captivated and his art is the more to be admired, because it is fo concealed as to escape the reader's ob. fervation.

The style too muft maintain a dignity fuitable to the fubject, and every part be drawn in fuch lively colours that the things defcribed may feem as if prefented to the reader's view.

But all this will appear more evident from example; and tho' entire poems of this kind are not within the com. pass of our defign, we fhall endeavour to felect fuch paffages as will be fufficient to illuftrate the rules we have here laid down.

We have already obferved, that according to the ufual divifions there are four kinds of didactic poems, viz. those that refpect our moral duties; our philofophical fpeculations; our bufinefs and pleafures; or that give precepts for poetry and criticism.

On the firft fubject, indeed, we have scarce any thing that deferves the name of poetry, except Mr. Pope's Elay on Man, and his Ethic Epifiles; from these therefore we shall extract some paffages to fhew the method he has taken to render these dry fubjects entertaining.

The first treats of the nature and state of man with refpect to the univerfe; confiders him in the abftra&t, and obferves, that we can judge only with regard to our own fyftem, fince we are ignorant of the relations of other systems and things; that man is not to be deem'd imperfect; but a being perfectly fuited to his place and rank in the creation, agreeable to the general order of things, and conformable to ends and relations to him unknown; that it is partly upon his ignorance of future events, and partly upon the hope of a future ftate, that all his happiness in

the present depends. Which laft is thus beautifully expreffed.

Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of fate,
All but the page prefcrib'd, their present state;
From brutes what men, from men what fpirits know;
Or who could fuffer being here below?

The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to day,
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the laft, he crops the flow'ry food
And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future kindly giv'n,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by heav'n:
Who fees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall ;

Atoms or fyftems into ruin hurl'd,

And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions foar;
Wait the great teacher Death, and God adore.
What future blifs, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy bleffing now.
Hope fprings eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be bleft:
The foul, uneafy, and confin'd, from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

Lo! the poor Indian, whofe untutor❜d mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His foul proud fcience never taught to ftray
Far as the folar walk, or milky way;
Yet fimple nature to his hope has giv'n,
Behind the cloud topt hill, an humbler heav'n,
Some fafer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier ifland in the watry wafte,
Where flaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no chriftians thirst for gold.
To be content's his natural defire,

He afks no angel's wing, no feraph's fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog fhall bear him company.

He then proceeds to prove that the pride of aiming at more knowledge, and pretending to more perfection, is the cause of man's error and mifery; and fhews the impiety of his prefuming to judge of the fitnefs or unfitness,

perfection or imperfection, juftice or injuftice, of the difpenfations of the Almighty. He reprefents the abfurdity of man's conceiting himself the final cause of the creation, or expecting that perfection in the moral world, which is not in the natural. He fhews the unreasonableness of his complaints against Providence, while on the one hand he craves the perfections of angels, and on the other the bodily qualifications of brutes; tho' to poffefs any of the fenfitive faculties in a higher degree, would render him miserable; as he has thus proved.

The blifs of man (could pride that bleffing find)
Is not to act or think beyond mankind;

No pow'rs of body or of foul to fhare,
But what his nature and his ftate can bear.
Why has not man a microscopic eye?
For this plain reason, man is not a fly.
Say what the ufe, were finer optics giv'n,
T'infpect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n?
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,
To smart and agonize at ev'ry pore?
Or quick effluvia darting thro' the brain,
Die of a rofe in aromatic pain?

If nature thunder'd in his op'ning ears,
And ftunn'd him with the mufic of the spheres,
How would he wish that heav'n had left him ftill
The whifp'ring zephyr, and the purling rill?
Who finds not Providence all good and wife,
Alike in what it gives, and what denies ?

He obferves that throughout the whole vifible world, an univerfal order and gradation in the fenfual and mental faculties may be feen, which caufes a fubordination of creature to creature, and of all creatures to man. He then treats of the gradations of sense, instinct, thought, reflection, and reason; and obferves that reafon alone countervails all the other faculties. He enquires how far 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 destroy'd ; and thus beautifully reprefents the extravagance, madnefs, and pride, of man's defiring to be other than what he is.

What if the foot, ordain'd the duft to tread,
Or hand to toil, aspir'd to be the head ?
What if the head, the eye, or ear repin'd
To ferve mere engines to the ruling mind?
Just as abfurd for any part to claim
To be another, in this gen'ral frame:
Juft as abfurd, to mourn the tasks or pains,
The great directing Mind of All ordains.

All are but parts of one ftupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the foul;
That chang'd thro' all, and yet in all the same,
Great in the earth, as in th’`æthereal frame.
Warms in the fun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the ftars,

Lives thro' all life,

and bloffoms in the trees,

extends thro' all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unfpent ;
Breathes in our foul, informs our mortal part,
All full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,
As the rapt feraph that adores and burns:
To him no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.

And this firft epiftle he concludes by fhewing that absolute fubmiffion is due to Providence, both as to our present and future ftate.

Ceafe then, nor order imperfection name:
Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.
Know thy own point: this kind, this due degree
Of blindness, weakness, Heav'n bestows on thee.
Submit. In this, or any other sphere,
Secure to be as bleft as thou canft bear :
Safe in the hand of one difpofing pow'r,
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.
All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;

All Chance, Direction, which thou canst not fee;
All Difcord, Harmony, not understood;

All partial Evil, univerfal Good::

And, fpite of Pride, in erring Reason's spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.

In his fecond epittle he treats of the nature and ftate of man with respect to himself as an individual; and tells us

that the bufinefs of man is not to pry into God, but to ftudy himself. He fpeaks of his middle nature, his powers, frailties, and the limits of his capacities; obferves that the two principles by which he is govern'd, are self-love and reafon, which are both neceffary, but that felf-love is the ftrongeft, and the reason why it is so he has given us in the following lines.

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Two principles in human nature reign; Self love, to urge, and Reason to restrain: Nor this a good, nor that a bad we call, Each works its end, to move or govern all : And to their proper operation ftill,

Afcribe all Good; to their Improper, ill.

Self-love, the fpring of motion, acts the foul;
Reafon's comparing balance rules the whole.
Man, but for that, no action could attend,
And, but for this, were active to no end ;
Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar fpot,
To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot:
Or, meteor-like, flame lawless thro' the void,
Destroying others, by himself deftroy'd.

Moft ftrength the moving principle requires;
Active its task, it prompts, impels, infpires.
Sedate and quiet the comparing lies,

Form'd but to check, delib'rate, and advise.
Self-love ftill ftronger, as its object's nigh;
Reason's at diftance, and in profpect lie:
That fees immediate good by present fenfe;
Reason, the future and the confequence.
Thicker than arguments, temptations throng,
At beft more watchful this, but that more strong.
The action of the ftronger to fufpend,

Reason still use, to reason still attend:
Attention, habit and experience gains,
Each ftrengthens reason, and felf-love reftrains. -
Self-love and reafon to one end aspire,
Pain their averfion, pleasure their defire:
But greedy that its object would devour,
This tafte the honey, and not wound the flow'r :
Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood,
Our greatest evil, or our greatest good.

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