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The value of Pope's Essay on Man, as a text-book for parsing, in our Schools and Academies, is sufficiently manifest from its universal use and the approbation of the hest judges. It is, however, to be regretted, that in many instances, the meaning of the poet is altogether misapprehended, and an improper construction given to his language. With a view to the correction of this evil, the present edition, with explanatory notes, is prepared ; and should it be found, in any degree, conducive to a more correct method of instruction, the object of the writer will be accompusnea.

Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1824, 'by Mr Daniel Clarke, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Maine.

ESSAY ON MAN.

N. B. The abbreviations commonly made use of in Dictionaries are also used in the notes to this work. The words in italics have some immediate relation to each other, or are the principal subjects of the note.

EPISTLE I.

7.
AWAKE, my St. John ! leave all meaner things
To low ambition and the pride of kings.
Let us (since life can little more supply

Hinnan
Than just to look about us and to die)

NOTES
Explanatory of the Grammatical construction, fic.

EPISTLE I.

LINE 1. The subject of these epistles is Ethics, or Morals. The poet, after proposing his plan, begins by a reference to the narrow sphere of our knowledge, and the only foundation of all true reasoning; and proceeds to consider the habits, the propensities, and powers of man, his object of pursuit, his discoveries and improvements of every kind. They were addressed to Henry St. John, by the title of Lord Bolingbroke, the friend and patron of Pope, at that time. The peculiarity of the name might prevent the line from being understood by persons not ac. quainted with his history. The scholar is here reminded that he should ever seek to comprehend the full scope of the poet's reasoning, by a due attention to what were probably the thoughts passing in his mind when writing the lines before him.

4. Than and as are sometimes followed by verbs in the inf. m. which are used in a potential sense ; thus since life

Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man ; nós it A mighty maze! but not without a plan; A wild, where weeds and flowers promiscuous

shoot,
Or garden, tempting with forbidden fruit;
Together let us beat this ample field,
Try what the open, what the covert yield;

10
The latent tracts, the giddy heights, explore
Of all who blindly creep, or sightless soar;
Eye nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies,
And catch the manners living as they rise;

Laugh where we must, be candid where we can, fit us But vindicate the ways of God to man.

16 I. Say, first, of God above, or man below, Farm What can we reason, but from what we know ?

Of man, what see we but his station here,
From which to reason, or to which refer?

20 Through worlds unnumber'd though the God be

known,
'Tis ours to trace him only in our own.

utatim

can little more supply, than that we may look, &c. Some. times, also, a verb in the inf. m. stands as the object, on which an action terminates, like a noun in the obj. case ; so, to look, may be connected with the substantive phrase, little more, by the conj. thun.

10. Open and covert are adj. supplying the place of their nouns (perhaps parts) understood; a usage common in poetry.

18. From what can we reason, &c. 21. Though the God be known through worlds, &c. A preposition always shows relation between the word which it governs and some other - a verb, noun, or an adjective.