Ver. 110. Lent heav'n a parent, &c.] This last instance of the poet's illustration of the ways of Providence, the reader sees has a peculiar elegance, where a tribute of piety to a parent is paid in return of thanks to, and made subservient of his vindication of, the great Giver and Father of all things. The mother of the author, a person of great piety and charity, died the year this poem was finished, viz. 1733.
Ver. 121. Think we, like some weak prince, &c.] Agreeable hereunto, Holy Scripture, in its account of things under the common Providence of heaven, never represents miracles as wrought for the sake of him who is the object of them, but in order to give credit to some of God's extraordinary dispensations to mankind.
Ver. 123. Shall burning Etna, &c.] Alluding to the fate of those two great naturalists, Empedocles and Pliny, who both perished by too near an approach to Etna and Vesuvius, while they were exploring the cause of their eruptions.
Ver. 142. After ver. 142 in some editions:
Give each a system, all must be at strife;
What different systems for a man and wife!
The joke, though lively, was ill placed, and therefore struck out of the text.
Ver. 177. Go, like the Indian, &c.] Alluding to the example of the Indian, in Epist. i. ver. 99, which shows, that that example was not given to discredit any rational hopes of future happiness, but only to reprove the folly of separating them from charity, as when
Zeal, not charity, became the guide,
And hell was built on spite, and heav'n on pride.
Ver. 219. Heroes are much the same, &c.] This character might have been drawn with greater force; and deserved the poet's care. But Milton supplies what is here wanting.
They err who count it glorious to subdue
By conquest far and wide, to over-run
Large countries, and in field great battles win,
Great cities by assault. What do these worthies,
But rob and spoil, burn, slaughter, and enslave
Peaceable nations, neighb'ring or remote,
Made captive, yet deserving freedom more
Than those their conqu'rors; who leave behind
Nothing but ruin wheresoe'er they rove,
And all the flourishing works of peace destroy?
Then swell with pride, and must be titled gods;
Till conqu'ror death discovers them scarce men,
Rolling in brutish vices and deformed,
Violent or shameful death their due reward.—Par. Reg. b. iii.