On this the Commentator^ " That place of honour^
" which the Poet has refused to Man ift another part of
^* his Epistle, he gives . him . here,^ because it serves to
" embeliish and perfect tlie gradation. At, every step
Mr. Pope forgets one of those ])riDcipal and most
essential rulf s, which Mr. Dcs Cartes lays down in his
" method] that is, exactly to review what one asserts, so
that no part be found to be gratis dictum, nor tlie '
whole repugnant to itself f^" This we are to under-
stand, as said, J»aAfx7i)c5?. But I shall beg leave io
observe, tliat our logician • here gives his lessons very
impertinently. For, that Mr. Pope, in calling the i^ace
ej Man imperial, hath bestowed no title on him in this
'place, which he had denied him elsewhere. He, with
♦ Commentaire, p. 99. f Ibid. p. loS.
^eat



MR. VOVE'S ESSAY ON MAN- s.i

great piety and prudence, supposes what the Scripttire
tells us ta be true, that Man was created lord of this
inferior world ; he supposes it, I say, in these lines of
this very Epistle:

Without this just gradation could they be
Subjected these to those, and all to thee?
The powers of all subdued by thee atone,
Is not thy reason all those powers in one ?

1. 221, 8s seq.
He eapressly asserts it in the third Epistle :

Heaven s attribute was universal care,

AnAMans prerogative torule^ but spare. 1. i6o.
And this, in the very place where he gives the description
of man in paradise.
