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Plate X.

Vol.III. facing p.35

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efit Passion every Age supply.

See
Hope travels through nor quits us when we du

Efay on Mani

EPIST LE III.

ERE then we reft: "The Univerfal Cause

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"Acts to one end, but acts by various laws." In all the madness of fuperfluous health,

The trim of pride, the impudence of wealth,
Let this great truth be prefent night and day;
But moft be prefent, if we preach or pray.

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Look round our World; behold the chain of Love Combining all below and all above.

See plaftic Nature working to this end,
The fingle atoms each to other tend,
Attract, attracted to, the next in place
Form'd and impell'd its neighbour to embrace.

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WE are now come to the third epiftle of the Effay on Man, It having been fhewn, in explaining the origin, use, and end of the Paffions, in the second epiftle, that Man hath social as well; as felfish paffions, that doctrine naturally introduceth the third, which treats of Man as a SOCIAL animal; and connects it with the fecond, which confidered him as an INDIVIDUAL.

VER. 12. Form'd and impell'd, etc.] To make Matter fo cohere as to fit it for the ufes intended by its Creator, a proper configuration of its infenfible parts, is as necessary as that quality

VARIATIONS.

VER. 1. in feveral Edit, in 4to.

Learn, Dulness, learn!" The Universal Caufe, etc.

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See Matter next, with various life endu'd,

Prefs to one centre ftill, the gen'ral Good.
See dying vegetables life fustain,

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See life diffolving vegetate again :
All forms that perish other forms supply,
(By turns we catch the vital breath, and die)
Like bubbles on the fea of Matter born,
They rife, they break, and to that fea return.
Nothing is foreign; Parts relate to whole;
One all-extending, all-preferving Soul
Connects each being, greatest with the leaft;
Made Beast in aid of Man, and Man of Beast;
All ferv'd, all serving: nothing ftands alone;
The chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown.
Has God, thou fool! work'd folely for thy good,
Thy joy, thy paftime, thy attire, thy food?

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fo equally and univerfally conferred upon it, called Attraction, To express the first part of this thought, our Author fays form'd; and to exprefs the latter, impell'd.

VER. 22. One all-extending, all-preferving Soul] Which, in the language of Sir Ifaac Newton, is, "Deus omnipræfens eft, non per virtutem folam, fed etiam per fubftantiam: nam "virtus fine substantia fubfiftere non poteft." Newt. Princ. fcbol. gen. fub fin.

VIR. 23. Greatest with the leaft ;] As acting more ftrongly and immediately in beafts, whose inftinct is plainly an external reason; which made an old school-man fay, with great elegance, "Deus eft anima brutorum:"

In this 'tis God directs

Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn,

For him as kindly fpread the flow'ry lawn:
Is it for thee the lark afcends and fings?
Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings.
Is it for thee the linnet pours his throat?
Loves of his own and raptures fwell the note.
The bounding steed you pompously bestride,
Shares with his lord the pleasure and the pride.
Is thine alone the feed that ftrews the plain?
The birds of heav'n fhall vindicate their grain.
Thine the full harvest of the golden year?
Part pays, and juftly, the deferving fteer:
The hog, that plows not nor obeys thy call,
Lives on the labours of this lord of all.

Know, Nature's children fhall divide her care; The fur that warms a monarch, warm'd a bear. While Man exclaims, "See all things for

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my use!" "See man for mine?" replies a pamper'd goofe: And just as short of reason He must fall,

Who thinks all made for one, not one for all.

VER. 45. See all things for my ufe !] On the contrary, the wife man hath said, The Lord hath made all things for himself, Prov. xvi. 4.

VARIATIONS.

After 46. in the former Editions,

What care to tend, to lodge, to cram, to treat him!

All this he knew; but not that 'twas to eat him,
As far as Goose could judge, he reason'd right;
But as to Man, mistook the matter quite.

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Grant that the pow'rful ftill the weak controul; Be Man the Wit and Tyrant of the whole : Nature that Tyrant checks; He only knows, And helps, another creature's wants and woes. Say, will the falcon, flooping from above, Smit with her varying plumage, fpare the dove! Admires the jay the infect's gilded wings? Or hears the hawk when Philomela fings? Man cares for all: to birds he gives his woods, To beafts his pastures and to fish his floods; For fome his int'reft prompts him to provide, For more his pleasure, yet for more his pride: 60 All feed on one vain Patron, and enjoy Th' extenfive bleffing of his luxury,

That very life his learned hunger craves,

He faves from famine, from the favage faves;
Nay, feafts the animal he dooms his feaft,
And, 'till he ends the being, makes it bleft;
Which fees no more the ftroke, or feels the pain,
Than favour'd Man by touch etherial flain.
The creature had his feaft of life before;
Thou too muft perish, when thy feast is o'er!

To each unthinking being, Heav'n a friend,
Gives not the useless knowledge of its end:

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VER. 68. Than favour'd Man, etc.] Several of the ancients, and many of the Orientals fince, eftcemed those who were ftruck by lightning as facred perions, and the particular favourites of Deaven,

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