EPISTLE I. AWAKE, my ST. JOHN! leave all meaner things Let us (fince Life can little more supply Than just to look about us and to die) COMMENTARY. Expatiate THE opening of this Poem [in fifteen lines] is taken up in giving an account of the fubject; which, agreeably to the title, is an ESSAY on MAN, or a Philofophical Inquiry into his Nature. and End, his Paffions and Purfuits. The exordium relates to the whole work, of which the Effay on Man was only the first book. The fixth, seventh, and eighth lines allude to the fubjects of this Elay, viz. the general Order and Defign of Providence; the Conftitution of the Human Mind; the Origin, Ufe, and End of the Paffions and Affections, both selfish and focial; and the wrong Pursuits of Happiness in Power, Pleafure, &c. The tenth, eleventh, twelfth, &c. have relation to the fubjects of the books intended to follow, viz. the Characters and Capacities of Men, and the Limits of Science, which once transgreffed, ignorance begins, and errors without end fucceed. The thirteenth and fourteenth, to the Knowledge of Mankind, and the various Manners of the Age. NOTES. The VER. 1. Awake, my ST. JOHN !] Henry St. John, fon of Sir Henry St. John, Baronet, of Lydiard Tregofe in Wiltshire, by Mary, fecond daughter and heirefs of Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick, was born in 1678. He was educated first at Eton School, from thence he went to Christ Church, Oxford, where, as through life, he was distinguished both by talents and exceffes. Of Expatiate free o'er all this fcene of Man; A mighty maze! but not without a plan; COMMENTARY. 5 A wild, The Poet tells us next (line 16th] with what defign he wrote, viz. "To vindicate the ways of God to Man." The men he writes against, he frequently informs us, are such as weigh their opinion against Providence (ver. 114.), fuch as cry, If Man's unhappy, God's unjuft (ver. 118.), or fuch as fall into the notion, that Vice and Virtue there is none at all (Ep. ii. ver. 212.). This occafions the Poet to divide his vindication of the ways of God into two parts. In the first of which he gives direct answers to those objections which libertine men, on a view of the disorders arifing from the perversity of the human will, have intended against Providence and in the fecond, he obviates all thofe objections, by a true delineation of human nature; or a general, but exact, map of Man. The first epiftle is employed in the management of the first part of this difpute; and the three following in the discusfion of the fecond. So that this whole book conftitutes a complete Essay on Man, written for the best purpose, to vindicate the ways of God. WARBURTON. NOTES. His Of his political career more will be faid in another place. talents were fhewy and brilliant, if not solid; though he certainly wifhed to be confidered in the light of a great genius, born for great conjunctures! His predominant ambition, or, as Pope would fay, "his ruling paffion," was to unite the characters of a man of business and of pleasure. By the favour of Mr. Coxe, I have seen a collection of his letters, belonging to the Egremont family. His letters to Sir William Wyndham, from Paris, are sensible, unaffected, and eloquent, with fome plausible accounts of his virtues and philofophy in his exile; at the fame time he correfponds with Charles Wyndham, his fon, a youth (afterwards Earl of Egremont), encouraging him in his earliest schemes of pleasure, and promoting an intrigue with a favourite actress; on which fubject, though fixty years old at the time, he evidently writes con amore. He married the niece of Madame de Maintenon, after the death of his firft wife. Of 10 A Wild, where weeds and flow'rs promifcuous fhoot, NOTES. Laugh Of his Philofophy, in which he was the preceptor of Pope, we may fay with Burke, "Who now reads Bolingbroke? Who ever read him through ?" But this Poem will continue to charm, from the mufic of its verfe, the splendour of its diction, and the beauty of its illuftrations, when the Philosophy that gave rise to it, like the coarse manure that fed the flowers, is perceived and remembered no more. VER. 6. A mighty maze! but NOT without a plan ;] In the first edition, it was "a mighty maze, without a plan." It is fingular that Mr. Gray fell into something like the same contradiction. In the first edition of his Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, it was printed, “What cat's a foe to fish?" when the strongest proof of it was this very ode. It was altered to "What cat's averse to fifh?" but it is bad enough still. I mention this to shew that the most correct writers are subject to these inadvertencies, 66 quas aut incuria fudit, aut humana parum cavet natura.” VER. 12. Of all who blindly creep, &c.] i. e. Those who only follow the blind guidance of their paffions; or those who leave behind them common sense and sober reason, in their high flights through the regions of Metaphyfics. Both which follies are exposed in the fourth epiftle, where the popular and philosophical errors concerning Happiness are detected. The figure is taken from animal life. WARBURTON. VER. 13. Eye Nature's walks,] These metaphors, drawn from the field sports of setting and shooting, seem much below the dignity of the fubject, and an unnatural mixture of the ludicrous and ferious. WARTON. Laugh where we must, be candid where we can; I. Say firft, of God above, or Man below, COMMENTARY. 15 Of VER. 17. Say firft, of God above, or Man below, &c.] The Poet having declared his fubject; his end of writing; and the quality of his adverfaries; proceeds (from ver. 16 to 23.) to instruct us, from whence he intends to draw his arguments; namely, from the visible things of God in this fyftem, to demonstrate the invisible things of God, his eternal Power and Godhead. And why? Because we can reafon only from what we know; and as we know no more of Man than what we fee of his ftation here, so we know no more of God than what we see of his dispensations in this station; being able to trace him no further than to the limits of our own fyftem. This naturally leads the Poet to exprobate the miserable folly NOTES. They are the more fo, as Pope is not content with barely touching the metaphor of shooting en passant, but pursues it with fo much minutenefs. Let us "beat this ample field"—"try what the covert yields,""eye" Nature's walks,-"Shoot" Folly. I need not mention the want of exactness, into which this illustration has betrayed him, when he talks of "eying a walk," &c. VER. 15. Laugh where we muft, &c.] Intimating, that human follies are fo ftrangely abfurd, that it is not in the power of the moft compaffionate, on fome occafions, to reftrain their mirth: and that its crimes are so flagitious, that the moft candid have feldom an opportunity, on this fubject, to exercise their virtue. WARBURTON. VER. 15. Laugh where we must,]"La fottife (fays old Montaigne) eft une mauvaise qualité; mais ne la pouvoir supporter, & s'en dépiter & rouger, comme il m'advient, c'eft une autre forte de maladie, qui ne doit gueres à la fottife en importunité." VER. 16. But vindicate the ways of God to Man] "And juftify the ways of God to Man." WARTON. Milton. Of Man, what fee we but his station here, From which to reason, or to which refer? He, who through vaft immenfity can pierce, COMMENTARY. 20 25 What folly and impiety of pretending to pry into, and call in question, the profound difpenfations of Providence: which reproof contains (from ver. 22 to 43.) a fublime defcription of the Omniscience of God, and the miserable blindness and prefumption of Man. NOTES. WARBURTON. VER. 19, 20. Of Man, what fee we but his ftation here, The sense is, “we see nothing of Man but as he stands at present in his station here: From which ftation, all our reafonings on his nature and end must be drawn; and to this station they must all be referred." The confequence is, that our reafonings on his nature and end must needs be very imperfect. WARBURTON. VER. 23. He, who through vaft immenfity, &c.] If the imagery in the preceding page gave a moment's depreffion to the Poet's fong, how amply does he here make amends! Let me not, however, be thought to imply, that a poem of this kind fhould be always (to fay fo)" on the firetch; but that an illustration, if not at all dignified, or in correfpondence with the theme, fhould not be pursued fo minutely, that the mind muft perforce obferve its meanness. VER. 26. What other planets] What muft the great Sage have felt, when the idea of "other planets circling other funs," and the magnificent conceptions of the UNIVERSE, as wonderful in detail as awful and fublime in its general view, first opened on his conviction! |