Relate, who first, who last resign'd to rest; Whose heads she partly, whose completely blest; What charms could Faction, what Ambition lull, The venal quiet, and entrance the dull; Till drown'd was sense, and shame, and right, and wrong O sing, and hush the nations with thy song! In vain, in vain! The all-composing hour And Virg. Æneid. vii. REMARKS. "Et meministis enim, Divæ, et memorare potestis : Ad nos vix tenuis famæ perlabitur aura." 625 630 But our poet had yet another reason for putting this task upon the Muse, that, all besides being asleep, she only could relate what passed. SCRIBLERUS. P. W. Ver. 624. The venal quiet, &c.] It were a problem worthy the solution of Aristarchus himself (and perhaps not of less importance than some of those so long disputed amongst Homer's Scholiasts, as, in which hand Venus was wounded, and what Jupiter whispered in the ear of Juno,) to inform us, which required the greatest effort of our Goddess's power, to entrance the dull, or to quiet the venal. For though the venal may be more unruly than the dull, yet, on the other hand, it demands a much greater expense of her virtue to entrance than barely to quiet. SCRIBL. W. Ver. 629. She comes! she comes! &c.] Here the Muse, like Jove's Eagle, after a sudden stoop at ignoble game, soareth again to the skies. As prophecy hath ever been one of the chief provinces of poesy, our poet here foretels from what we feel, what IMITATIONS. Ver. 621. Relate, who first, who last resign'd to rest ; Whose heads she partly, whose completely blest ;] "Quem telo primum, quem postremum, aspera Virgo, we Dejicis? aut quot humi morientia corpora fundis?" Virg. W.t Before her, Fancy's gilded clouds decay, REMARKS. 635 640 we are to fear; and in the style of Apollo's prophets, hath used the future tense for the preterit; since what he says shall be, is already to be seen, in the writings of some even of our most adored authors, in Divinity, Philosophy, Physics, Metaphysics, &c. who are too good indeed to be named in such company. P. W. Ver. 629. the sable throne behold] The sable thrones of Night and Chaos, here represented as advancing to extinguish the light of the Sciences, in the first place blot out the colours of Fancy and damp W. the fire of Wit, before they proceed to their greater work. Ver. 641. Truth to her old cavern fled,] Alluding to the saying of Democritus, that Truth lay at the bottom of a deep well, from whence he had drawn her; though Butler replied, archly enough, He first put her in, before he drew her out. W. Ver. 643 Philosophy, that lean'd on Heav'n] Philosophy has IMITATIONS. Ver. 637. As Argus' eyes, &c.] "Et quamvis sopor est oculorum parte receptus, at Parte tamen vigilat Vidit Cyllenius omnes Succubuisse oculos," &c. Ovid. Met. ii. P.t Physic of Metaphysic begs defence, And Metaphysic calls for aid on Sense! REMARKS. 645 at length brought things to that pass, as to have it esteemed unphilosophical to rest in the first cause; as if its business were an endless indagation of cause after cause, without ever coming to the First. So that to avoid this unlearned disgrace, some of the propagators of our best philosophy have had recourse to the contrivance here hinted at. For this philosophy, which is founded on the principle of Gravitation, first considered that property in matter as something extrinsical to it, and impressed by God upon it; which fairly and modestly coming up to the first Cause, was pushing natural inquiries as far as they should go. But this stopping, though at the extent of our ideas, and on the maxim of the great founder of this Philosophy, Bacon, who says, Circa ultimates rerum frustranea est inquisitio, was mistaken by foreign philosophers as recurring to the occult qualities of the Peripatetics; whose sense is thus delivered by a great poet, whom, indeed, it more became than a philosopher : "Sed gravitas etiam crescat, dum corpora centro Pellai juvenis Doctor conjecerat olim In Physica studium." Anti-Lucr. To avoid which imaginary discredit to the new theory, it was thought proper to seek for the cause of gravitation in a certain subtile matter or elastic fluid, which pervaded all body. By this means, instead of really advancing in natural inquiries, we were brought back again, by this ingenious expedient, to an unsatisfactory second cause: "Philosophy, that lean'd on Heaven before, Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more." For it might still, by the same kind of objection, be asked, what was the cause of that elasticity? See this folly censured, ver. 475. and confuted in the words of an excellent philosopher: BAXTER'S Appendix to his Inquiry into the nature of the human soul, p. 194. W. Ver. 645, 646. Physic of Metaphysic, &c.-And Metaphysic calls, Sc.] Certain writers, as Malbranche, Norris, and Berkeley, have thought it of importance, in order to secure the existence of the See Mystery to Mathematics fly! In vain! they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die. And unawares Morality expires. REMARKS. 650 the soul, to bring in question the reality of body; which they have attempted to do by a very refined metaphysical reasoning; while others of the same party, in order to persuade us of the necessity of a Revelation which promises immortality, have been as anxious to prove that those qualities which are commonly supposed to belong only to an immaterial Being, are but the result from certain dispositions of the particles of matter, and consequently that the soul is naturally mortal. Thus, between their different reasonings, these good men have left us neither Soul nor Body; nor the Sciences of Physics and Metaphysics the least support, by making them depend upon, and go a begging to, one another. W. Ver. 647. See Mystery to Mathematics fly!] A sort of men, who make human reason the adequate measure of all truth, having pretended that whatsoever is not fully comprehended by it, is contrary to it. Certain defenders of religion, who would not be outdone in a paradox, have gone as far in the opposite folly, and attempted to shew that the mysteries of religion may be mathematically demonstrated; as the authors of Philosophic, or Astronomic Principles of Religion, natural and revealed; who have much prided themselves on reflecting a fantastic light upon religion from the frigid subtilty of school moonshine. W. Ver. 649. Religion blushing veils her sacred fires,] Blushing as well at the memory of the past overflow of dulness, when the barbarous learning of so many ages was wholly employed in corrupting the simplicity, and defiling the purity of religion, as at the view of these her false supports in the present; of which it would be endless to recount the particulars. However, amidst the extinction of all other lights, she is said only to withdraw hers; as hers alone in its own nature is unextinguishable and eternal. W. Ver. 650. And unawares Morality expires.] It appears from hence that our poet was of very different sentiments from the author of the Characteristics, who has written a formal treatise on Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine; REMARKS. on Virtue, to prove it not only real but durable, without the support of religion. The word unawares alludes to the confidence of those men, who suppose that morality would flourish best without it; and consequently to the surprise such would be in (if any such there are) who indeed love virtue, and yet do all they can to root out the religion of their country. W. Ver. 656. And universal darkness buries all.] The conclusion is evidently suggested by Shakespear's "And darkness be the burier of the dead." So ends, according to Pope, all knowledge, virtue, art, eloquence, public spirit, and private worth, "Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine.” I remember an obscure satire upon the follies of France, in which are these curious lines, 66 Unhappy land, where Truth's kick'd out of doors, Where ALL the men are rogues, and women, whores!" The author had the same ideas as Pope, but certainly not so much poetry. Can it be thought that this period was enlightened by Young, Thomson, Glover, &c. and many whose characters reflected equal lustre on religion, morals, and philosophy? But such is satire, when it is not guided by truth. Bowles. It is scarcely necessary to say that the opinions expressed by Mr. Bowles in the foregoing note, are founded on an entire misconception of the nature of the poem, and the intention of the poet, who never meant to apply, actually, the universal darkness to the times in which he lived, but hypothetically, as what would be the result of the successful efforts of the Goddess of Dulness. His object is not to depreciate, to lament over, and to degrade, but to forewarn, to stimulate, and to preserve; and if in some passages, both in the poem and notes, he ridicules the idea of there being great geniuses in divinity, politics, &c., (a notion which every age is liable to entertain, and the rudest not the least); his object |