ALEXANDER POPE. 1688-1744. ESSAY ON MAN. Awake, my St. John! leave all meaner things Epistle i. Line 1. Together let us beat this ample field, Epistle i. Line 9. Eye Nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies, Epistle i. Line 13. Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate. Epistle i. Line 77. Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food, And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood. Epistle i. Line 83. Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall, Atoms or systems into ruin hurled, And now a bubble burst, and now a world. Epistle i. Line 87. 1 See Milton, Paradise Lost, Book i. Line 26. [Essay on Man continued. Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Epistle i. Line 95. But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, Epistle i. Line 111. In pride, in reasoning pride, our error lies; All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies. Pride still is aiming at the blessed abodes, Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Epistle i. Line 123. Die of a rose in aromatic pain. Epistle i. Line 200. The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine! 1 Much like a subtle spider which doth sit, Sir John Davies (1570-1626), The Immortality of the Soul. And their own web from their own entrails spin; Dryden, Mariage à la Mode, Act ii. Sc. I. Essay on Man continued.] Remembrance and reflection how allied! What thin partitions sense from thought divide!1 Epistle i. Line 225. All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul. Epistle i. Line 267. Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns, All nature is but art, unknown to thee; All chance, direction, which thou canst not see; All discord, harmony not understood; All partial evil, universal good; And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite, Epistle i. Line 289. 1 Compare Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel, Part i. Line 163. "Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiæ fuit." Seneca, De Tranquillitate Animi, xvii. 1o, quotes this from Aristotle, who gives as one of his Problemata (χχχ. 1), Διὰ τί πάντες ὅσοι περιττοὶ γεγόνασιν άνδρες ἢ κατὰ φιλοσοφίαν ἢ πολιτικὴν ἢ ποίησιν ἢ τέχνας φαίνονται μελαγχολικοὶ ὄντες. ? Whatever is, is in its causes just. Dryden, Edipus, Act iii. Sc. 1. [Essay on Man continued. Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.1 Epistle ii. Line 1. Chaos of thought and passion, all confus'd; Epistle ii. Line 13. Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot, Epistle ii. Line 63. On life's vast ocean diversely we sail, Epistle ii. Line 107. And hence one master-passion in the breast, The young disease, that must subdue at length, 1 La vraye science et le vray étude de l'homme c'est l'homme. - Charron, De la Sagesse, Lib. i. Ch. i. 2 Quelle chimère est-ce donc que l'homme ! quelle nou. veauté, quel chaos, quel sujet de contradiction! Juge de toutes choses, imbécile ver de terre, dépositaire du vrai, amas d'incertitude, gloire et rebut de l'univers. - Pascal, Systèmes des Philosophes, xxv. Essay on Man continued.] Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,1 Virtuous and vicious every man must be, Behold the child, by Nature's kindly law, Pleas'd with a rattle, tickled with a straw: Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight, A little louder, but as empty quite ; Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage, And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age, Pleas'd with this bauble still, as that before, Till tir'd he sleeps, and life's poor play is o'er. Epistle ii. Line 275. Learn of the little nautilus to sail, Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale. Epistle iii. Line 177. Th' enormous faith of many made for one. Epistle iii. Line 242. For forms of government let fools contest; 1 See Dryden, The Hind and Panther, Line 33. 2 |