Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell, And who but wishes to invert the laws Of order, sins against the Eternal Cause. 130 V. Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine, Earth for whose use? Pride answers, ""Tis for mine; 135 "For me, kind nature wakes her genial power, "Suckles each herb and spreads out ev'ry flow'r. "Annual for me, the grape, the rose, renew "The juice nectarius, and the balmy dew; "For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings; "For me, health gushes from a thousand springs; "Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise; 140 My footstool earth, my canopy the skies." But errs not nature from this gracious end, From burning suns when livid deaths descend, When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep? No, 'tis replied, the first Almighty Cause "Acts not by partial, but by general laws; 145 "The exceptions few; some change since all begun : 129. He who, &c. sins. When but can be changed into only, without injuring the sense, it is an adverb. 141. But does not nature err from this gracious end? viz: the blessings enumerated above. ?created "And what created perfect?" Why then man Of showers and sunshine, as of man's desires; 162 Better for us, perhaps, it might appear, Were there all harmony, all virtue here; Borgia Ceasar. The son of as 165 151-153. That end as much requires eternal springs, &c., as it requires that men should be forever temperate, &c. 156. Catiline and Borgia were two of the most abandoned and bloody demagogues, that ever lived. 158. Who knows but he, whose hand, &c., pours? 159--160. Julius Cæsar is here meant. Alexander the Great was vainly styled the son of Jupiter Ammon: hence he is called young Ammon. 166. If all were harmony there, (i. e. in the operations of nature,) and all virtue here, (i. e. in the actions of men.) But all subsists by elemental strife; And passions are the elements of life. The general order, since the world began, 170 VI. What would this man? Now upward will he soar, 174 180 And, little less than angel, would be more? 185 173. What would this man do or have; or what wishes this man. When the interrogative is not directly the nom. to the verb, there being no other nom. case, it is either the nom. after the verb, governed by it, or by a prep. expressed or understood. 179-181. Nature, being kind without profusion, assigned the proper organs, &c., and compensated each seeming want. 184. To add and to abate seem to imply a passive signi fication-Nothing to be added and nothing to be abated. Is not to act or think beyond mankind; For this plain reason, man is not a fly. 190 195 T' inspect a mite, not comprehend the heaven? To smart and agonize at every pore? Or quick effluvia darting through the brain, If nature thundered in his opening ears, 200 And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres, 190. Not to act or think beyond mankind is a substantive phrase used as a nom. after is, and to share no powers, is connected with it. 193-204. These lines have very often been misunderstood, and turned out of their true meaning. The poet adverts to the five senses, in order; asking first, Why man has not a microscopic eye, i. e. an eye formed to see the smallest objects, as are those of flies? and then answers, because man is not a fly. On the principle of optics, if we could see much more minutely, we could not take in so large a space of the heavens at one view; as a fly cannot see the whole of one side of a building upon which he may light. What would be the use, if finer touch were given, if this keener sensation cause or make us smart and agonize at every pore. Smell is supposed to be occasioned by some effluvia passing through the brain; and what the use, were this sense so quick, or the effect of these passing effluvia so powerful, as to make us die of the smell of a rose in aromatic pain? Alike in what it gives, and what denies? From the green myriads in the peopled grass: 210 ue What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme, that ^ In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true 215 211. How many modes or degrees of sight are there between the dimness of the mole's, and the sharpness of the lynx's? What may be made a com. rel. or a demonstrative pronoun. 213. The lion is said to be defective in the sense of smell, so much so as not to pursue his prey by scent, as de the hounds. 215. The life that fills the flood-fishes, which are in a degree destitute of hearing. 217. It (i. e. the spider's touch) feels. 222. The elephant is here addressed, and called halfreasoning, on account of his superior sagacity, compared with other animals. 223. "Twixt that and reason, i. e. 'twixt the instinct of the elephant and reason |