That, Virtue's ends from Vanity can raife, Heav'n forming each on other to depend, A master, or a fervant, or a friend, Bids each on other for affiftance call, Till one Man's weakness grows the strength of all. The common int'reft, or endear the tie. 245 250 Το COMMENTARY. VER. 249. Heav'n forming each on other to depend,] I. Hitherto the Poet hath been employed in difcourfing of the use of the Paffions, with regard to Society at large; and in freeing his doctrine from objections: This is the first general divifion of the subject of this Epiftle. II. He comes now to shew (from ver. 248 to 261.) the use of these Paffions, with regard to the more confined circle of our friends, relations, and acquaintance: and this is the fecond general divifion. WARBURTON. NOTES. VER. 253. Wants, frailties, paffions, clofer fill ally The common int'refl, &c.] As thefe lines have been misunderstood, I fhall give the reader their plain and obvious meaning. To these frailties (fays he) we owe all the endearments of private life; yet, when we come to that age, which generally difpofes men to think more feriously of the true value of things, and confequently of their provifion for a future ftate, the confideration, that the grounds of thofe joys, loves, and friendships, are wants, frailties, and paffions, proves the best expedient to wean us from the world; a difengagement fo friendly to that provifion we are now making for another state. The obfervation is new, and would in any place be extremely beautiful, but has here an infinite grace and propriety, as it fo well confirms, by an inftance of great moment, the general Thefis, That God makes Ill, at every step, productive of Good. WARBURTON, To thefe we owe true friendship, love fincere, Whate'er the Paffion, knowledge, fame, or pelf, Not one will change his neighbour with himself. 255 260 VER. 261. Whate'er the Paffion, &c.] III. The Poet having thus fhewn the use of the Paffions in Society, and in Domeftic life, comes, in the last place (from ver. 260 to the end), to shew their ufe to the Individual, even in their illufions; the imaginary happiness they prefent, helping to make the real miferies of life lefs infupportable: And this is his third general divifion : OPINION gilds with varying rays Thofe painted clouds that beautify our days," &c. "One prospect loft, another ftill we gain; And not a VANITY is giv❜n in vain.” Which muft needs vaftly raise our idea of God's goodness; who hath not only provided more than a counterbalance of real happiness to human miferies, but hath even, in his infinite compaffion, bestowed on those who were fo foolish as not to have made this provifion, an imaginary happiness; that they may not be quite overborne with the load of human miferies. This is the Poet's great and noble thought; as ftrong and folid as it is new and ingenious: It teaches, that these illufions are the faults and follies of Men, which they wilfully fall into; and thereby deprive themfelves of much happiness, and expose themselves to equal mifery : but that ftill, God (according to his univerfal way of working) graciously turns these faults and follies fo far to the advantage of his miferable creatures, as to become, for a time, the folace and fupport of their diftreffes: 66 Tho' Man's a fool, yet God is wife." WARBURTOX. The learn'd is happy nature to explore, The fool is happy that he knows no more; NOTES. The VER. 261. Whate'er the Paffion, &c.] It was an objection conftantly urged by the ancient Epicureans, that Man could not be the creature of a benevolent Being, as he was formed in a flate fo helpless and infirm. Montague took it, and urged it alfo. They never confidered or perceived that this very infirmity and helpleffnefs were the cause and cement of fociety; that if men had been perfect and self-sufficient, and had stood in no need of each other's affiftance, there would have been no occafion for the invention of the arts, and no opportunity for the exertion of the affections. The lines, therefore, in which Lucretius propofes this objection, are as unphilofophical and inconclufive, as they are highly pathetic. and poetical: "Tum porrò puer, ut fævis projectus ab undis Navita, nudus humi jacet, infans, indigus omni Lib. 5. ver. 223. There is a paffage in the Moralifts, which I cannot forbear thinking Pope had in his eye, and which I must not therefore omit, as it ferves to illuftrate and confirm fo many parts of the Effay on Man. I fhall therefore give it at length, without apology: "The young of most other kinds are inftantly helpful to themfelves, fenfible, vigorous, know how to fhun danger, and feek their good a human infant is of all the most weak, helpless, and infirm. And wherefore fhould it not have been fo ordered? Where is the lofs in fuch a fpecies? Or what is Man the worfe for that defect, amidst such large supplies? Does not this defect engage him the more ftrongly to fociety, and force him to own that he is purposely, and not by accident, made rational and fociable; and can no otherwife increase or fubfift than in that focial intercourse and community which is his natural state? Is not both conjugal affection, and natural affection to parents, duty to The rich is happy in the plenty giv❜n, The poor contents him with the care of Heav'n. The fot a hero, lunatic a king; 265 The starving chemist in his golden views 270 See NOTES. to magiftrates, love of a common city, community, or country, with the other duties and focial parts of life, deduced from hence, and founded in these very wants? What can be happier than fuch a deficiency, as it is the occafion of so much good? What better, than a want fo abundantly made up, and answered by fo many enjoyments? Now, if there are still to be found among mankind, fuch as even, in the midst of these wants, feem not ashamed to affect a right of independency, and deny themselves to be by nature fociable; where would their fhame have been had Nature otherwise supplied their wants? What duty or obligation had been ever thought of? What refpect or reverence of parents, magiftrates, their country, or their kind? Would not their full and self-sufficient ftate more ftrongly have determined them to throw off nature, and deny the ends and Author of their creation?" WARTON. VER. 264. The fool is happy, &c.] So when fome navigators arrived on the coaft of Africa, the Natives, full of their own ideal fuperiority, inquired of the Strangers, whether there was fuch a thing as the Sun in their country? "Behold," faid the inhabitants to Briffon, "that luminary, which is unknown in thy country. Thou art not enlightened, as we are, by that heavenly body, which regulates our days and our fafts."-Difcoveries and Settlements of Europeans in North and Weft Africa. Edinburgh printed, 1799. VER. 270. the poet in his Mufe.] The Author having faid, that no one could change his own profeffion or views for thofe of another, intended to carry his obfervation still further, and shew that men were unwilling to exchange their own acquirements even for See fome strange comfort ev'ry state attend, And pride bestow'd on all, a common friend: See fome fit paffion ev'ry age fupply, Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die. Behold the child, by nature's kindly law, Pleas'd with a rattle, tickled with a straw: Some livelier play-thing gives his youth delight, Scarfs, garters, gold, amufe his riper stage, 275 And beads and pray'r-books are the toys of age: 280 NOTES. Pleas'd for those of the fame kind, confeffedly larger, and infinitely more eminent, in another. To this end he wrote, "What partly pleases, totally will fhock: I queftion much, if Toland would be Locke." But wanting another proper inftance of this truth, he referved the lines above for fome following edition of this Effay; which he did not live to give. WARBURTON. VER. 271. See fome strange comfort] How exquifite is this stanza of an unfinished Ode of Gray? "Still where rofy Pleasure leads, Behind the fteps that Mifery treads, The hues of Bliss more brightly glow, The strength and harmony of life.” WARTON. VER. 272. And pride] From La Rochefoucault, whose words are: "Nature, who fo wifely has fitted the organs of our body to make us happy, seems likewise to have bestowed pride on us, on purpose, as it were, to fave us the pain of knowing our own imperfections." Maxim 36. WARTON. VER. 280. And beads and pray'r-books are the toys of age :] A Satire on what is called, in Popery, the Opus operatum. As this |