mortal, that I feem even to feel it within me, as it were by intuition Atter fuch a declaration, and after writing fo fervent and elevated a piece of devotion, as. the univerfal

Ouvrage je fus témoin il y a douze ans, à Londres, des derniers fentimens de ce modeste & vertueux Docteur.” Œuvres de Racine, tom. i. P. 233

The manner in which Ramfay endeavours to explain the doctrine of the Effay is as follows. "POPE is far from afferting that the prefent ftate of man is his primitive state, (but fee above, pag. 70) and is conformable to order. His defign is to fhew that, fince the Fall, all is proportioned with weight, measure, and harmony, to the condition of a de graded being, who suffers, and who deferves to fuffer, and who cannot be restored but by fufferings; that phyfical evils are defigned to cure moral evil; that the paffions and the crimes of the most abandoned men are confined, directed," and governed by infinite wisdom, in fuch a manner, as to make order emerge out of confufion, light out of darkness, and 'to call out innumerable advantages from the tranfitory inconveniences of this life; that this fo gracious Providence conducts all things to its own ends, without ever hurting the liberty of intelligent beings, and without either caufing or approving the effects of their deliberate malice; that Alf is ordained in the physical order, as All is free in the moral that these two orders are connected closely without fatality, and are not subject to that neceffity which renders us virtuous without merit, and vicious without crime; that, we fee at prefent but a fingle wheel of the magnificent machine of the univerfe; but a fmall link of the great chain; and but an infignificant part of that immenfe plan which will one day be unfolded. Then will God fully juftify all the incomprehenfible proceedings of his wisdom and goodness ;

ind

univerfal prayer, would it not be injustice to accufe our author of libertinism and irreligion? Especially, as I am told he had inferted an addrefs to Jefus Christ, in the Effay

and will vindicate himself, as Milton fpeaks, from the rash judgment of mortals,”

Lettre De M. De Ramsay, A Pontoife le 28 April, 1742.

It will be proper to fubjoin Bolingbroke's own account of this flay, given in a letter to Swift, August 2, 1731.

"Does POPE talk to you of the noble work, which, at my inftigation, he has begun in fuch a manner, that he must be convinced, by this time, I judged better of his talents than he did.-The first epistle, which confiders man, and the habitation of man, relatively to the whole fyftem of univerfal being.-The fecond, which confiders him in his own habitation, in himself, and relatively to his own particular fyftem.-And the third, which shews how an universal cause works to one end, but works by various laws: how man, and beaft, and vegetable, are linked in a mutual dependency: parts neceffary to each other, and neceffary to the Whole how human focieties were formed; from what fpring,true religion and true policy are derived; how God has made our greatest interests and our plainest duty indivisibly the fame. These three epiftles, I fay, are finished. The fourth he is now intent upon. It is a noble subject : he pleads the caufe of God. I ufe Seneca's expreffion against that famous charge which atheists in all ages have brought, the fuppofed unequal difpenfations of Providence; a charge which I cannot heartily forgive your divines for admitting. You admit it indeed for an extreme good purpose, and you build on this admission the necessity of a future state of rewards and punishments; but if you fhould find, that this

future.

Effay on Man, which he omitted at the inftance of Bishop Berkley, because the Christian difpenfation did not come within the compass of his plan. Not that fo pious and worthy a prelate could imagine, that this Platonic fcheme, of OPTIMISM, or the BEST, fufficiently accounts for the introduction of moral and physical evil into the world; which in truth nothing but revelation can explain, and nothing but a future ftate can compensate

future ftate will not account for God's juftice in the prefent ftate, which you give up, in oppofition to the atheift; would it not have been better to defend God's juslice in this world, against thefe daring men, by irrefragable reafons, and to have rested the other point on revelation? I do not like conceffions made against demonstration, repair or supply them how you will. The epifles I have mentioned will compofe a firft book; the plan of the fecond is fettled. You will not understand by what I have faid, that POPE will go fo deep into the argument, or carry it fo far as I have hinted.

The Effay on Man was elegantly, but unfaithfully, tranflated into French verfe by M. Du Refnel. It was more accurately rendered into French profe by M. De Silhouete. Which translation has been often printed; at Paris 1736; at London 1741, in Quarto; at the Hague 1742. He has fubjoined a defence of the doctrines of the Effay from Warburton's Letters: and has added a translation also, with a large commentary, of the four facceeding epiftles of POPE. Marmontel,

Marmontel, in his Poetique Françoife, has paffed a fevere fentence on the obscurity and inconclusiveness of Pope's reafoning. Vol. ii. p. 536.

In the very laft edition of bishop Law's tranflation of the Origin of Evil, p. 17, is the following remarkable passage: " I had now the fatisfaction of seeing that those very principles which had been maintained by archbishop King, were adopted by Mr. Pope, in his Effay on Man; this I used to recollect, and fometimes relate, with pleasure, conceiving that such an account did no less honour to the Poet, than to our Philofopher; but was foon måde to understand that any thing of that kind was taken highly amifs, by one (i.. Bishop Warburton) who had once held the doctrine of that fame Essay to be rank atheism, but afterwards turned a warm advocate for it, and thought proper to deny the account abovementioned, with heavy menaces against those who prefumed to infinuate that Porr borrowed any thing from any man whatsoever.”

SECT.

Of the Moral ESSAYS in five EPISTLES to feveral Perfans.

TH

HE patrons and admirers of French literature, ufually extol those authors of that nation who have treated of life and manners: and five of them particularly are esteemed to be unrivalled; namely, MonTAIGNE, CHARRON, LA ROCHFOUCAULT, LA BRUYERE, and PASCAL. Thefe are fuppofed to have penetrated deeply into the moft fecret receffes of the human heart, and to have difcovered the various vices and vanities that lurk in it. I know not why the English should in this respect yield to their polite neighbours, more than in any other. BACON in his Effays and Advancement of Learning, HOBBES and HUME in their Treatifes, PRIOR in his elegant and witty Alma, RICHARDSON in his Clariffa, and FIELDING in his Tom Jones, (comic

writers