There is fomething in these lines inexpreffibly plaintive and affecting. They come home to every man's bofom: and while we admire them as beautiful, we figh to own them juft. Neverthelefs, I will be free to remark, that their effect is in fome measure weakened, by the levity of the illuftration in the two laft lines. It must be confeffed that it is fprightly, but it draws the mind too fuddenly from grave to gay, which cannot be endured without violence and disguft. The poet obferves, that though reason cannot overthrow the ruling paffion, it is nevertheless her office to rectify it, and fometimes to engraft our ruling virtue upon it : "See anger, zeal and fortitude supply; "Ev'n av'rice, prudence; floth, philosophy." In the last place, he fhews the use of the pasfions in alleviating the real miseries of life, by prefenting us with fome vifionary happiness which deludes us through every age. "Mean-while Opinion gilds with varying rays "Those painted clouds that beautify our days; "Each want of Happiness, by Hope fupply'd, "And each vacuity of sense by Pride: "Thefe build as faft as knowledge can deftroy; "In folly's cup ftill laughs the bubble, joy." With what apt and beautiful imagery has the poet here painted the sweet illufions of life! The figure, in the two first lines especially, is happily happily conceived, and fo admirably sustained, that our eyes, for a moment, are dazzled with the deceitful splendor of a gaudy evanescent fcene. In the third epiftle, the nature and state of man is confidered with respect to fociety. Here the author, in a strain of harmonious and fublime poetry, fhews the close connection between each being in the universe, all ferved, and serving-- "Has God, thou fool! work'd folely for thy "good, "Thy joy, thy paftime, thy attire, thy food? "Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn, "For him as kindly spread the flow'ry lawn: "Is it for thee the lark afcends and fings? Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings. "Is it for thee the linnet pours his throat? "Loves of his own and raptures fwell the note. "The bounding fteed you pompously beftride, "Shares with his lord the pleasure and the "pride. "Is thine alone the feed that ftrews the plain? "The birds of Heav'n fhall vindicate their grain. "Thine the full harveft of the golden year? & Part pays, and juftly, the deferving fteer: "The hog, that plows not, nor obeys thy call, "Lives on the labours of this Lord of all.". The author then fhews the difference between the happiness of animal and of human life. The one confifting in the improvement of the mind, is to be procured by reafon only; the other, confifting in the gratification of sense, is best promoted by inftinct, which, with regard to its regular and conftant operation, has the advan¬ tage over reason " And Reafon raise o'er Inftinct as you can, "In this 'tis God directs, in that 'tis Man." The inftances by which the author exemplifies this divine direction, are happily felected, and expreffed with great harmony and dignity. "Who taught the nations of the field and "wood "To fhun their poison, and to chuse their food? "Prescient, the tides or tempefts to withstand, "Build on the wave, or arch beneath the "fand? "Who made the fpider parallels defign, "Sure as De-moivre, without rule or line? "Who bid the ftork, Columbus-like, explore "Heav'ns not his own, and worlds unknown "before? "Who calls the council, states the certain day, "Who forms the phalanx, and who points the The *The poet probably took the hint of this beautiful paffage from Lord Bacon's de augmentis fcientiarum.-" Who taught the raven in a drought to throw pebbles into an "hollow tree where the efpied water, that the water might "rife fo as fhe might come to it? Who taught the bee to "fail through fuch a vaft fea of air, and to find a way from the The poet, having defcribed the power of inftinct in promoting the happiness of the Individual and of the Kind, he proceeds to fhew, that all these being parts of a whole, God The Whole to bless, "On mutual Wants built mutual Happiness." This leads him to illuftrate the original of fociety, both natural and civil. In oppofition to Hobbs, he represents the state of nature as a ftate of peace and innocence, of which he gives the following beautiful defcription. "Self-love and Social at her birth began, "Union the bond of all things, and of Man. "Pride then was not; nor Arts, that Pride to "aid; "Man walk'd with beaft, joint-tenant of the "fhade; "The fame his table, and the fame his bed; Unbrib'd, unbloody, ftood the blameless "Heav'n's attribute was Univerfal Care, "the field in flower, a great way off to her hive? Who "taught the Ant to bite every grain of corn that the burieth "th her hill, left it fhould take root and grow?" "Ah! "Ah! how unlike the man of times to come! "Of half that live the butcher and the tomb; "Who, foe to Nature, hears the gen❜ral groan, "Murders their fpecies, and betrays his own. "But just disease to luxury fucceeds, "And ev'ry death its own avenger breeds ; "The Fury-paffions from that blood began, "And turn'd on Man a fiercer favage, Man." What various beauties are comprized in these lines! With what an amiable fimplicity is man's natural ftate described! With what tender fympathy the author bewails the degeneracy which fucceeded! With what indignant rebuke he marks the bloody havock caused by luxury! And with what physical propriety, he traces the rife of the furious paffions from the indulgence of a fanguinary appetite! The order of the fubject next leads the poet to explain the origin of civil fociety. He defcribes man rifing gradually from nature to art, and obferves, that in fuch progrefs, it was the part of reafon to copy from instinct, which he illuftrates by a moft excellent and fublime profopopoeia. "Thus then to Man the voice of Nature fpake"---Go, from the Creatures thy inftructions "take: "Learn from the birds what food the thickets " yield; "Learn from the beafts the physic of the field; "Thy |