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SECT. IX.

Of the ESSAY on MAN.

F it be a true obfervation, that for a

IF

poet to write happily and well, he must have feen and felt what he describes, and muft draw from living models alone; and if modern times, from their luxury and refinement, afford not manners that will bear to be defcribed; it will then follow, that thofe fpecies of poetry bid fairest to succeed at prefent, which treat of things, not men; which deliver doctrines, not display events. Of this fort is didactic and defcriptive poetry. Accordingly the moderns have produced many excellent pieces of this kind. We may mention the Syphilis of Fracaftorius, the Silk-worms and Chefs of Vida, the Ambra of Politian, the Agriculture of Alamanni, the Art of Poetry of Boileau, the Gardens of Rapin, the Cyder of Phillips, the Chafe of Somerville, the Pleasures of Imagination, the Art of pre

ferving

poem

ferving Health, the Fleece, the Religion of Racine the younger, the elegant Latin of Brown on the Immortality of the Soul, the Latin poems of STAY and BosCOVICK, and the philosophical poem before us; to which, if we may judge from fome beautiful fragments, we might have added Gray's didactic poem on Education and Government, had he lived to finish it. And the English Garden of Mr. Mafon must not be omitted.

THE ESSAY ON MAN is as close a piece of argument, admitting its principles, as perhaps can be found in verse. POPE informs us in his FIRST preface, " that he chofe this epiftolary way of writing, notwithstanding his subject was high, and of dignity, because of its being mixed with argument which of its nature approacheth to profe." He has not wandered into any useless digressions, has employed no fictions, no tale or story, and has relied chiefly on the poetry of his ftile, for the purpose of interefting his readers. His ftile is con

cife

cife and figurative, forcible and elegant. He has many metaphors and images, artfully interfperfed in the driest passages, which stood most in need of such ornaments. Nevertheless there are too many lines, in this performance, plain and profaic. The meaner the fubject is of a preceptive poem, the more ftriking appears the art of the poet: It is even of use perhaps to chufe a low fubject. In this respect Virgil had the advantage over Lucretius; the latter, with all his vigour and fublimity of genius, could hardly fatisfy and come up to the grandeur of his theme. POPE labours under the fame difficulty. If any beauty in this Effay be uncommonly tranfcendent and peculiar, it is, BREVITY OF DICTION; which, in a few inftances, and thofe pardonable, has occafioned obfcurity. It is hardly to be imagined how much sense, how much thinking, how much obfervation on human life, is condensed together in a small compass. He was so accustomed to confine his thoughts in rhyme, that he tells us, he could express them

I

more

.

more shortly this way, than in profe-itself. On its first publication, POPE did not own it, and it was given by the public to Lord Paget, Dr. Young, Dr. Defaguliers, ind others. Even Swift feems to have been deceived: There is a remarkable paffage in one of his letters. "I confefs I did never imagine you were fo deep in morals, or that fo many new and excellent rules could be produced fo advantageously and agreeably in that science, from any one head:{ confefs in fome places I was forced to read twice; I believe I told you before what the Duke of D faid to me on that occkfion; how a judge here who knows you, told him, that on the firft-reading-thofe effays, he was much pleased, but found fome lines a little dark: On the fecond, moft of them cleared up, and his pleasure increafed On the third, he had no doubt remaining, and then He admited the whore

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THE fubject of this. Effay is a vindication of providence;din which the port prgpoles

• Letters, vol. IX. pag. 140.

to

to-prove, that of all poffible fyftems, infinite wisdom has formed the best: That in fuch a-fyftem, coherence, union, fubordination, are neceffary; and if so, that appearances of evil, both moral and natural, are also neceffary and unavoidable ; That the feeming defects and blemishes in the univerfe, confpire to its general beauty; That as all parts in an animal are not eyes, and as in a city, comedy, or picture, all ranks, characters, and colours, are not equal or alike; even fo, exceffes, and contrary qualities, contribute to the proportion and harmony of the universal system; That it is not strange, that we should not be able to discover perfection and order in every instance; because, in an infinity of things mutually relative, a mind which fees not infinitely, can fee nothing fully. This doctrine was inculcated by Plato and the Stoics, but more amply and particularly by the later Platonifts, and by Antoninus and Simplicius. In illuftrating his fubject, POPE has been much more deeply indebted to the Theodiceé of Leibnitz, to Arch

bishop

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