| Ver. 49. | Expunge the whole, or lop th' excrescent parts |
| Of all our vices have created arts; |
i.e. Those parts of Natural Philosophy, Logic, Rhetoric, Poetry, &c., which administer to luxury, deceit, ambition, effeminacy, &c.
Ver. 74. Reason, the future, &c.] i.e. by experience, reason collects the future; and by argumentation, the consequence.
Ver. 109. Nor God alone, &c.
The translator turns it thus:
Dieu lui-même, Dieu sort de son profond repos.
And so, makes an epicurean God, of the Governor of the universe. M. de Crousaz does not spare this expression of God's coming out of his profound repose. "It is," says he, "excessively poetical, and presents us with ideas which we ought not to dwell upon," &c. and then, as usual, blames the author for the blunder of his translator. Comm. p. 158.
Ver. 109. Nor God alone, &c.] These words are only a simple affirmation in the poetic dress of a similitude, to this purpose: "Good is not only produced by the subdual of the passions, but by the turbulent exercise of them,"—a truth conveyed under the most sublime imagery that poetry could conceive or paint. For the author is here only showing the providential issue of the passions, and how, by God's gracious disposition, they are turned away from their natural destructive bias, to promote the happiness of mankind. As to the method in which they are to be treated by man, in whom they are found, all that he contends for, in favour of them, is only this, that they should not be quite rooted up and destroyed, as the stoics, and their followers, in all religions, foolishly attempted. For the rest, he constantly repeats this advice,
The action of the stronger to suspend,
Reason still use, to reason still attend.
Ver. 133. As man, perhaps, &c.] "Antipater Sidonius Poeta omnibus annis uno die natali tantum corripiebatur febre, et eo consumptus est satis longâ senectâ." Plin. 1. vii. N. H. This Antipater was in the times of Crassus, and is celebrated for the quickness of his parts by Cicero.