Is this too little for the boundless heart? Extend it, let thy enemies have part: COMMENTARY. 355 vealed, till it arrives to that height which the sacred writers describe as the very summit of Christian perfection; and shews how the progress of human differs from the progress of divine benevolence. That the divine descends from whole to parts; but that the human must rise from individual to universal. His argument for this extended benevolence is, that, as God has made a whole, whose parts have a perfect relation to, and an entire dependency on each other, Man, by extending his benevolence throughout that whole, acts in conformity to the will of his Creator; and therefore this enlargement of his affection becomes a duty. But the Poet hath not only shewn his piety in this observation, but the utmost art and address likewise in the disposition of it. The Essay on Man opens with exposing the murmurs and impious conclusions of foolish men against the present constitution of things: as it proceeds, it occasionally detects all those false principles and opinions, which led them to conclude thus perversely. Having now done all that was necessary in speculation, the author turns to practice; and ends his Essay with the recommendation of an acknowledged virtue, CHARITY; which, if exercised in that extent which conformity to the will of God requireth, would effectually prevent all complaints against the present order of Nature: such complaints being made with a total disregard to every thing but their own private system, and seeking remedy in the disorder, and at the expense of all the rest. This observation, "Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake," is important. Rochefoucault, Esprit, and their coarse and wordy disciple Mandeville, had observed, that self-love was the origin of all those virtues which mankind most admire; and therefore foolishly supposed it was the end likewise: and so taught that the highest pretences to disinterestedness were only the more artful disguises of self-love. But our author, who says somewhere or other, "Of human nature, wit its worst may write ; We all revere it in our own despite," MS. saw, as well as they, and every body else, that the passions began in self-love; yet he understood human nature better than to imagine that they ended there. He knew that reason and religion could Grasp the whole worlds of reason, life, and sense, 360 God loves from whole to parts; but human soul Must rise from individual to the whole. Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake, As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake; COMMENTARY. could convert selfishness into its very opposite; and therefore teacheth that "Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake:" and thus hath vindicated the dignity of human nature, and the philosophic truth of the Christian doctrine. NOTES. Ver. 364. As the small pebble] It is observable that this similitude, which is to be found in Silius Italicus, 1. xiii. v. 24. and also in Du Bartas, and in Shakespear's Henry VI., and also in Feltham's Resolves, hath been used twice more in the writings of our Poet; in the Temple of Fame, in the four hundred and thirtysixth line, and in the second book of the Dunciad, at the four hundred and fifth. This Essay is not decorated with many comparisons; two, however, ought to be mentioned, on account of their aptness and propriety. The first is, where he compares man to the vine, that gains its strength from the embrace it gives. The second is conceived with peculiar felicity; all Nature does not perhaps afford so fit and close an application. It is observed above, in Ep. iii. ver. 313, from whence it is borrowed: "On their own axis as the planets run, Yet.make at once their circle round the sun : So two consistent motions act the soul; And one regards itself, and one the whole." This simile bears a close resemblance to that in the first act of the tragedy of Cato. Warton. Dr. Warton has not observed, that Pope took the simile of the Lake, from Chaucer, whose "House of Fame" he had imitated. The simile is : The centre mov'd, a circle straight succeeds, 365 Come then, my Friend! my Genius! come along; Oh master of the poet, and the song! NOTES. "Takith hede nowe By experience, for if that thou A lityl roundil as a circle, Para'venture as brode as covircle; And right anon thou shallte se wele, That circle cause another whele ; And that the thirde, and so forthe, brother, Eviry circle causing other, Moch brodir than himselfin was: And thus from roundil to compas Tyl that it be so far ygo, That it at both brinkis be," &c. Book ii. v. 280. Bowles. VARIATIONS. Ver. 373. Come then, my Friend! &c.] In the MS. thus: While the wing'd courser flies with all her rein, Warburton. And while the Muse now stoops, or now ascends, Oh! while along the stream of time thy name 380 385 Say, shall my little bark attendant sail, NOTES. Ver. 391. I turn'd the tuneful art] Ought the lovers of true genuine poetry to be obliged to his friend, for being instrumental in making Pope forsake works of imagination for the didactic? Which of the two species of composition may be the more useful and instructive, is entirely beside the question; but, in point of poetic genius, the Rape of the Lock, and the Eloisa, as far excel the Essay on Man, and the Moral Epistles, as the Gierusalemme, so unjustly depreciated by Boileau, does all his Satires and his Art of Poetry; and as the second and fourth books of Virgil excel the Georgics. To be able to reason well in verse, is not the first, nor the most essential talent of a poet, great as its merit may be. Warton. It is impossible to assent to these remarks which confine poetic genius to certain subjects, that are supposed more capable of dis playing For wit's false mirror held up Nature's light; COMMENTARY. Ver. 394. Shew'd erring pride, WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT;] The Poet's address to his friend, which concludeth this Epistle so nobly, and endeth with a recapitulation of the general argument, affords me the following observation, with which I shall conclude these remarks. There is one great beauty that shines through the whole Essay. The Poet, whether he speaks of Man as an individual, a member of Society, or the subject of Happiness, never misseth an opportunity, while he is explaining his state under any of these capacities, to illustrate it in the most artful manner by the enforcement of his grand principle, That every thing tendeth to the good of the whole; from whence his system gaineth the reciprocal advantage of having that grand theorem realized by facts; and his facts justified on a principle of right or nature. NOTES. THUS playing it than others, and absurdly consider the same writer as possessed of a different degree of genius according to the subject on which he employs himself. Genius consists in giving to every subject the illustration it requires; to a light and airy subject the ornaments of fancy; to an impassioned subject the impulse of feeling; to a didactic, grave, or argumentative subject, the force of conviction; but the decorations of poetry are incident to them all, and in proportion as these are employed, any one of them may be rendered more poetical than another. The Essay on Man is not intended to delight the imagination, or to excite our passions, but to influence the judgment and to touch the heart, and the means adopted for that purpose display as much genius as is exhibited for other purposes in other parts of the author's works. In sublimity of conception, grandeur and energy of expression, beauty of imagery, and propriety of illustration, the Essay on Man is, perhaps, not exceeded by any other production of the author, however poetical the subject may be supposed to be, and is itself an irrefragable proof that the poetry consists not in the subject, (for what could have been conceived more dry and unpoetical than such an essay?) but on the genius with which it is treated. |