Sure never to o ershoot, but just to hit, While still too wide or short is human wit; Who taught the nations of the field and wood 90 95 Sure as De Moivre, without rule or line? 105 Heavens not his own, and worlds unknown before? *Who calls the council, states the certain day? Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way? III. God, in the nature of each being, founds Its proper bliss, and sets its proper bounds: And creature link'd to creature, man to man. 110 97. And raise reason o'er instinct as you can raise it. Raise is, by hypothesis, in the imp. mode. 101. Who gave them foresight to withstand? prescient is an adj. agreeing with them understood. Whate'er of life all-quick'ning ether keeps, 115 Or breathes through air, or shoots beneath the deeps, 120 Or pours profuse on earth, one nature feeds A longer care, man's helpless kind demands; At once extend the int'rest and the love. 130 115-118. One nature feeds the vital flame, and swells the genial seeds of everything of life, which all quickening either keeps or breathes, or shoots, or pours, &c., the verbs being connected, in each case, by or. This construction may, however, be doubted, and we are inclined to adopt the following: Let or be taken for either as or whether, it will read thus-One nature feeds, &c., of whatever, &c. all quick'ning either keeps (or sustains) either as (or whether) it breathes, or shoots, or pours (i. e. puts forth) profusely, &c. 130. Another love succeeds, another race succeeds. With choice we fix, with sympathy we burn; 136 141 Still as one brood, and as another rose, 150 The state of nature was the reign of God · 142. Saw him helpless from whom the life began. 152. Joint tenant is in apposition with man. 155 160 The shrine with gore unstain'd, with gold undrest, And every death its own avenger breeds; 165 170 Thus then to man the voice of nature spake"Go, from the creatures thy instructions take: Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield; 157. The shrine was, &c. Unstained and undrest are participal adj's., having lost their original nature of pure parts. by being joined with the privative un. The privative always works this chance, when it makes the part with which it is joined, imply, that the state or act, which the part taken by itself, would express, never existed, or was never done. Thus, un-drest here means, that it never had been drest, &c. Undrest, when derived from the verb to undress, to divest of clothes, is a part. 160. To rule supplies a nom. after was understood, and spare is connected with it. 161. Ah! how unlike was he to the man of times to come. Butcher and tomb connected are in apposition with man. Man kills and devours for food, half that live. 167. The fury-passions-fury is a sub. used as an adj. 168. Man, in the end of the line, is in apposition with savage. 175 Learn from the beasts the physic of the field; Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale. And hence let reason, late, instruct mankind: And these for ever, though a monarch reign, And right, too rigid, harden into wrong; 181 186 190 Still for the strong too weak, the weak too strong. Yet go! and thus o'er all the creatures sway, Thus let the wiser make the rest obey: 196 And for those arts mere instinct could afford, 192. In vain entangle justice, &c. 193. And harden right, made too rigid, into wrong. 198. Monarchs.-See note to ver. 87, Epis. I. |