Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage,
And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age:
Pleas'd with this bauble still, as that before; 281
Till tired, he sleeps, and life's poor play is o'er.
Meanwhile opinion gilds with varying rays
Those painted clouds that beautify our days:
Each want of happiness by hope supplied;
And each vacuity of sense by pride:
These build as fast as knowledge can destroy;
In folly's cup still laughs the bubble, joy ;
One prospect lost, another still we gain;
And not a vanity is given in vain ;

Ev'n mean self-love becomes, by force divine,
The scale to measure others' wants by thine..
See! and confess, one comfort still must rise;
'Tis this, though man's a fool, yet God is wise.

285

290

reference to the usage of the Papal religion, which includes a service called a rosary and crown. This consists in repeating, a certain number of times, the Lord's prayer, and the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary, "that she would bear a son," &c., and that they may know when it is accomplished, they have the proper number of beads upon a string, and as often as they repeat it through, slip a bead to the other end of the string, till all have changed ends, when it is done.

291-292. Even mean self-love becomes the scale This, perhaps, the poet would consider as the sanction of our Saviour's golden rule. Our self-love leads us to desire good treatment from others, and may therefore influence us to practise the same unto them. By thine-thine is a pro. supplving the place of an obj. and pro., viz. thy wants

EPISTLE III.

HERE then we rest; "The universal cause
"Acts to one end, but acts by various laws."
In all the madness of superfluous health,
The train of pride, the impudence of wealth,
Let this great truth be present night and day;
But most be present, if we preach or pray.

5

I. Look round our world; behold the chain of love

Combining all below and all above.

See plastic nature working to this end,
The single atoms each to other tend,
Attract, attracted to, the next in place
Form'd and impell'd its neighbor to embrace.
See matter next, with various life endued,
Press to one centre still, the general good.
See dying vegetables life sustain,
See life dissolving, vegetate again:

All forms that perish, other forms supply,
(By turns we catch the vital breath, and die,)

10

EPISTLE III.

5. Let this great truth, &c. What is this great truth? The sentence marked with a quotation, answers.

10. See the single atoms, each tend toward the other. Each, or every one, is a distributive expression for a number taken singly, and in opposition with atoms.

11. See them attract-attracted to is a part. from the complex verb to aucract to.

14 Good, in the end of the line, is in

app.

with centre,

Like bubbles, on the sea of matter borne,

20

25

30

They rise, they break, and to that sea return.
Nothing is foreign; parts relate to whole;
One all-extending, all-preserving soul
Connects each being, greatest with the least;
Made beast in aid of man, and man of beast;
All serv'd, all serving: nothing stands alone;
The chain holds on, and where it ends unknown.
Has God, thou fool! work'd solely for thy good,
Thy joy, thy pastime, thy attire, thy food?
Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn,
For him as kindly spreads the flowery lawn:
Is it for thee the lark ascends and sings?
Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings.
Is it for thee the linnet pours his throat?
Loves of his own, and raptures swell the note.
The bounding steed you pompously bestride,
Shares with his lord the pleasure and the pride.
Is thine alone the seed that strews the plain?
The birds of heaven shall vindicate their grain.
Thine the full harvest of the golden year?
Part pays, and justly, the deserving steer:
The hog, that ploughs not, nor obeys thy call,
Lives on the labors of this lord of all.

35

40

27. Has God worked, &c. Work is here made a regufar verb, which is seldom the case, except in the sea-phrase, "he worked his passage." So in some of Pope's other writings, we find catched instead of caught.

29-30. He who, &c. spreads.

40. Part pays-a part of the products of the year must be expended in support of the ox, by whose labors they were increased.

Know, nature's children all divide her care;

The fur that warms a monarch warmed a bear.

While man exclaims, "See all things for my use!"

"See man for mine!" replies a pamper'd goose; And just as short of reason he must fall,

Who thinks all made for one, not one for all.
Grant that the powerful still the weak control;
Be man the wit and tyrant of the whole :
Nature that tyrant checks; he only knows,
And helps another creature's wants or woes.
Say, will the falcon, stooping from above,
Smit with her varying plumage, spare the dove?
Admires the jay the insect's gilded wings?
Or hears the hawk when Philomela sings?
Man cares for all: to birds he gives his woods,
To beasts his pastures, and to fish his floods:
For some, his interest prompts him to provide,
For more his pleasure, yet for more his pride:
All feed on one vain patron, and enjoy

50

55

61

Th' extensive blessings of his luxury.
That very life his learned hunger craves,

He saves from famine, from the savage saves;
Nay, feasts the animal he dooms his feast,
And, till he ends the being, makes it blest :

49. Grant man to be, &c.

65

53-6. The falcon, jay, and hawk regard not the colors, brilliancy, or musical powers of those creatures which they devour. They have but one object, which is, to satisfy hunger.

Which sees no more the stroke, or feels the pain,
Than favor'd man by touch ethereal slain.
The creature had his feast of life before;
Thou too must perish, when thy feast is o'er!
To each unthinking being, Heaven, a friend,
Gives not the useless knowledge of its end:
To man imparts it; but with such a view
As, while he dreads it, makes him hope it too:
The hour conceal'd, and so remote the fear,
Death still draws nearer, never seeming near.
Great standing miracle! that heaven assign'd
Its only thinking thing this turn of mind.

69

75

II. Whether with reason, or with instinct blest, Know, all enjoy that power which suits them best; To bliss alike by that direction tend,

81

And find the means proportion'd to their end.
Say, where full instinct is th' unerring guide,

What pope or council can they need beside?
Reason, however able, cool at best,

Cares not for service, or but serves when prest,
Stays till we call, and then not often near;
But honest instinct comes a volunteer,

85

68. Favor'd man-It has been the opinion of many, both ancient and modern, that those who were struck by lightning, were sacred personages, and particular favorites of heaven; because they were relieved from the terrors and pains of a natural death.

77. Exclamatory sentences, like this, seem to have an independent sense in the third person, as in the second, when an address is made,-Great standing miracle; that heaven did assign to its only thinking thing (or man) this turn of mind.