Learn to live well, that thou may'st die so too:
To live and die is all we have to do:
the latter of which verses our poet has inserted without alteration in his Prologue to the Satires, ver. 262.—Wakefield.
[965] This exordium relates to the whole work, first in general, then in particular. The 6th, 7th, and 8th lines allude to the subjects of this book,—the general order and design of Providence; the constitution of the human mind, whose passions cultivated are virtues, neglected vices; the temptations of misapplied self-love, and wrong pursuits of power, pleasure, and false happiness.—Pope.
"The whole work" was to have been in four books, and the phrase "this book" means the four published Epistles of the Essay on Man, which were to form the first book of the full design.
[966] In the first edition,
A mighty maze of walks without a plan.
This Pope altered because, says Johnson, "if there was no plan it was vain to describe or to trace the maze."
[967] The 6th verse alludes to the subject of this first Epistle—the state of man here and hereafter, disposed by Providence, though to him unknown.—Pope.
[968] Alludes to the subject of the second Epistle,—the passions, their good or evil.—Pope.
[969] Alludes to the subject of the fourth Epistle,—of man's various pursuits of happiness or pleasure.—Pope.