Chaos of Thought and Paffion, all confus'd;
Stil' by himfelf abus'd, or difabus'd;

Created half to rife, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of Truth, in endless Error hurl'd:
The glory, jeft, and riddle of the world!

VARIATIONS.

After ver. 18. in the MS.

For more perfection than this ftate can bear
In vain we figh, Heav'n made us as we are.
As wifely fure a modeft Ape might aim
To be like Man, whofe faculties and frame
He fees, he feels, as you or I to be
An Angel thing we neither know nor fee.
Obferve how near he edges on our race:
What human tricks! how rifible of face!
It must be fo- why elfe have I the fenfe
Of more than monkey charms and excellence?
Why elfe to walk on two so oft effay'd?
And why this ardent longing for a maid?
So Pug might plead, and call his Gods unkind,
Till fet on end and married to his mind.

Go, reas'ning thing! affume the Doctor's chair,
As Plato deep, as Seneca fevere.

NOTES.

15

be the arbitrary decree of infinite wifdom and goodness, which impofed a barrier to the extravagances of its giddy lawless creature, always inclined to purfue truths of lefs importance too far, to the neglect of thofe more neceffary for his improvement in his station here.

Go, wondrous creature! mount where Science

guides,

Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides; 20

Inftruct the planets in what orbs to run,

Correct old Time, and regulate the Sun:
Go, foar with Plato, to th' empyreal sphere,
To the first good, first perfect, and first fair;
Or tread the mazy round his follow'rs trod,
And quitting fense call imitating God;
As Eastern priests in giddy circles run,
And turn their heads to imitate the fun.

VARIATION S.

Fix moral fitness, and to God give rule,
Then drop into thyself, &c.

VER.1. Ed. 4th and 5th.

Shew by what rules the wand'ring planets ftray,
Correct old Time, and teach the Sun his way.

NOTES.

25

VER. 20. Go measure earth, &c.] Alluding to the noble and useful project of our modern Mathematicians, to meafure a degree at the equator and polar circle, in order to determine the true figure of the earth; of great importance to aftronomy and navigation.

VER. 22. Correct old Time,] This alludes to Sir Ifaac Newton's Grecian Chronology, which he reformed on those two fublime conceptions, the difference between the reigns of kings, and the generations of men; and the pofition of the colures of the equinoxes and folftices at the time of the Argonautic expedition.

1

Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule
Then drop into thyfelf, and be a fool!

Superior beings, when of late they saw
A mortal Man unfold all Nature's law,
Admir'd fuch wisdom in an earthly shape,
And fhew'd a NEWTON as we fhew an Ape.

NOTES.

30

VER. 29, 30. Go, teach Eternal Wisdom, &c.] These two lines are a conclufion from all that had been faid from ver. 18, to this effect: Go now, vain Man, elated with thy acquirements in real fcience, and imaginary intimacy with God; go, and run into all the extravagancies I have exploded in the first epiftle, where thou pretendeft to teach Providence how to govern; then drop into the obscurities of thy own nature, and thereby manifeft thy ignorance and folly.

VER. 31. Superior beings, &c.] In these lines he speaks to this effect: But to make you fully fenfible of the difficulty of this ftudy, I fhall inftance in the great Newton himfelf; whom, when fuperior beings, not long fince, faw capable of unfolding the whole law of Nature, they were in doubt whether the owner of fuch prodigious fagacity should not be reckoned of their own order; just as men, when they fee the furprizing marks of Reason in an Ape, are almoft tempted to rank him with their own kind. And yet this wondrous Man could go no further in the knowledge of himfelf than the generality of his fpecies. In which we fee it was not Mr. Pope's intention to bring any of the Ape's qualities, but its fagacity, into the comparison. But why the Ape's, it may be faid, rather than the fagacity of fome more decent animal, particularly the half-reafoning elephant, as the poet calls it; which, as well on account of this its fuperiority, as for its having no ridiculous fide, like the Ape, on which it could

Could he, whofe rules the rapid Comet bind, 35 Defcribe or fix one movement of his mind?

VARIATION S.

VER. 35. Ed. 1ft.

Could he, who taught each Planet where to roll,
Describe or fix one movement of the Soul?
Who mark'd their points to rife or to defcend,
Explain his own beginning or his end?

NOTES.

be viewed, feems better to have deferved this honour? I reply, Because, as none but a fhape resembling human, accompanied with great fagacity, could occafion the doubt of that animal's relation to Man, the Ape only having that refemblance, no other animal was fitted for the comparifon. And on this ground of relation the whole beauty of the thought depends; Newton and thofe fuperior fpirits being equally framed for immortality, though of different orders. And here let me take notice of a new species of the Sublime, of which our poet may be justly faid to be the maker; fo new, that we have yet no name for it, though of a nature distinct from every other poetical excellence. The two great perfections of works of genius are WIT and SUBLIMITY. Many writers have been witty, feveral have been fublime, and fome few have even poffeffed both these qualities feparately; but none that I know of, befides our Poet, hath had the art to incorporate them; of which he hath given many examples, both in this Effay and his other poems, one of the nobleft being the paffage in queftion. This feems to be the last effort of the imagination, to poetical perfection; and in this compounded exellence the Wit receives a dignity from the Sublime, and the Sublime a Splendor from the Wit; which, in their ftate of feparate exiftence, they both wanted.

Who faw its fires here rife, and there defcend,
Explain his own beginning, or his end?

Alas what wonder! Man's fuperior part

Uncheck'd may rife, and climb from art to art: 40
But when his own great work is but begun,
What Reason weaves, by Paffion is undone.
Trace Science then, with Modesty thy guide;
First trip off all her equipage of pride;
Deduct what is but Vanity, or Dress,
Or Learning's Luxury, or Idleness;

NOTES.

45

VER. 37. Who Saw its fires here rife, &c.] Sir Ifaac Newton, in calculating the velocity of a comet's motion, and the course it defcribes, when it becomes visible in its defcent to, and afcent from, the Sun, conjectured, with the highest appearance of truth, that comets revolve perpetually round the Sun, in ellipfes vaftly eccentrical, and very nearly approaching to parabolas. In which he was greatly confirmed, in obferving, between two Comets, a coincidence in their perihelions, and a perfect agreement in their velocities.

VER. 45.-Vanity, or Dress,] These are the first parts of what the Poet, in the preceding line, calls the fcholar's equipage of pride. By Vanity, is meant that luxuriancy of thought and expreffion in which a writer indulges himfelf, to fhew the fruitfulnefs of his fancy of invention. By drefs is to be understood a lower degree of that practice, in amplification of thought and ornamental expreffion, to give force to what the writer would convey: but even this, the poet, in a severe search after truth, condemns; and with great judgment. Conciseness of thought and fimplicity of expreffion, being as well the beft infiru