5. The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to day,

Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the laft, he crops the flowery food,
And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood *.

The tenderness of this ftriking image, and particularly the circumftance in the last line, has an artful effect in alleviating the dryness in the argumentative parts of the Effay, and interesting the reader.

6. The foul uneasy, and confin'd from home, Refts and expatiates in a life to come f.

IN former editions it used to be printed at home; but this expreffion feeming to exclude a future existence, it was altered to from home, not only with great injury to the harmony of the line, but perhaps alfo, to the reasoning of the context.

7. Lo the poor Indian! whofe untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His foul proud fcience never taught to stray,
Far as the folar walk or milky way;

Yet fimple nature to his hope has giv'n,

Behind the cloud-topp'd hill an humbler heav'n :

*Ver. 81.

+ Ver. 97.

Some

Some fafer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier ifland in the watry waste,

Where flaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Chriftians thirst for gold.
TO BE contents his natural defire,

He asks no angel's wing, no feraph's fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog fhall bear him company.

POPE has indulged himself in but few digreffions in this piece; this is one of the most poetical. Representations of undisguised nature and artless innocence always amuse and delight. The fimple notions which uncivilized nations entertain of a future ftate, are many of them beautifully romantic, and fome of the best fubjects for poetry. It has been questioned whether the circumftance of the dog, although ftriking at the first view, is introduced with propriety, as it is known that the animal is not a native of America. The notion of seeing God in clouds, and hearing him in the wind, cannot be enough applauded.

VOL. II.

* Ver. 99.

S

8. From

8. From burning funs when livid deaths descend,

When earthquakes fwallow, or when tempefts fweep
Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep. *

I quote thefe lines as an example of energy of ftile, and of POPE's manner of compreffing together many images, without confufion, and without fuperfluous epithets. Subftantives and verbs are the finews of language.

9.

If plagues or earthquakes break not heav'ns defign,
Why then a Borgia or a Catiline? +

"ALL ills arife from the order of the univerfe,
which is abfolutely perfect. Would you wish
to diftrust so divine an order, for the fake of
your own particular intereft? What if the ills
I fuffer arife from malice or oppreffion? But
the vices and imperfections of men are also
comprehended in the order of the universe.
If plagues &c.

Let this be allowed, and my own vices will be also a part of the fame order.' Such is

the commentary of the academift on these famous lines ‡.

+ Ver. 156.

* Ver. 142.
Hume's Effays, quarto, pag. 106.

10. The

10. The general order, fince the whole began, Is kept in nature, and is kept in man

How this opinion is reconcileable with the orthodox doctrine of the lapsed condition of man, I have not yet been informed.

11. Why has not man a microscopic eye?
For this plain reason, man is not a fly.
Say what the use, were finer optics giv'n,
T' infpect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n?
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er

To smart and agonize at ev'ry pore? †

"If by the help of fuch microscopical eyes, if I may fo call them, a man could penetrate farther than ordinary into the secret compofition and radical texture of bodies, he would not make any great advantage by the change; if fuch an acute fight would not serve to conduct him to the market and exchange, if he could not fee things he was to avoid at a convenient distance, nor diftinguish things he had to do with by those fenfible qualities others do." ‡

Ver. 171.

+ Ver. 193.

+ Locke's Effay on Human Understanding, vol. I. pag. 256.

12. If nature thunder'd in his opening ears,

And stunn'd him with the mufic of the spheres,
How would he wish that heav'n had left him still
The whispering zephyr, and the purling rill? *

doctrine, is not

"If our fenfe of

It is justly objected, that the argument required an inftance drawn from real found, and not from the imaginary mufic of the spheres. Locke's illuftration of this only proper but poetical †. hearing were but one thousand times quicker than it is, how would a perpetual noise distract us; and we should in the quieteft retirement, be less able to fleep or meditate, than in the middle of a fea-fight."

13. From the green myriads in the peopled grafs— The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam;

Of fmell the headlong lionefs between,

And hound fagacious on the tainted green:
The spider's touch how exquifitely fine,

Feels at each thread, and lives along the line. §

THESE lines are felected as admirable patterns of forcible diction. The peculiar and

* Ver. 201.

+ Effay on Human Understanding, vol. I. pag. 255.

§ Ver. 210.

discriminating