Mean though I am, not wholly so, Through this day's life or death! This day, be bread and peace my lot: 45 Thou know'st if best bestow'd or not, To thee, whose Temple is all space, Whose altar, earth, sea, skies, One chorus let all Being raise! All Nature's incense rise! NOTES. 50 Prayer, chose the Lord's Prayer for his model; but there is no resemblance but in this passage, and in the last stanza but one. M. Le Franc de Pompignan, a celebrated avocat at Montauban, author of Dido, a tragedy, was severely censured in France for translating this Universal Prayer, as a piece of Deism; which, having been printed in London, in 4to. by Vaillant, was conveyed to the Chancellor Aguesseau, who immediately sent a strong reprimand to M. Le Franc, and he vindicated his orthodoxy in fa laboured letter to that learned Chancellor. Voltaire reproached Le Franc with making this translation. His brother, Bishop of Puy au Velei, has called Locke an atheist. Warton. MORAL ESSAYS, IN FOUR EPISTLES: TO SEVERAL PERSONS. Est brevitate opus, ut currat sententia, neu se Hor. The ESSAY ON MAN was intended to be comprised in four books: The First of which, the author has given us under that title, in four epistles: The Second was to have consisted of the same number: 1. Of the extent and limits of human reason. 2. Of those arts and sciences, and the parts of them, which are useful, and therefore attainable; together with those which are unuseful, and therefore unattainable. 3. Of the nature, ends, use, and application of the different capacities of men. 4. Of the use of learning; of the science of the world; and of wit; concluding with a satire against the misapplication of them; illustrated by pictures, characters, and examples. The Third book regarded civil regimen, or the science of politics; in which the several forms of a Republic were to be examined and explained; together with the several modes of religious worship, so far forth as they affect society; between which the author always supposed there was the closest connexion and the most interesting relation. So that this part would have treated of Civil and Religious Society in their full extent. The Fourth and last book concerned private ethics, or practical morality; considered in all the circumstances, orders, professions, and stations of human life. The scheme of all this had been maturely digested; and communicated to Lord Bolingbroke, Dr. Swift, and one or two more; and was intended for the only work of his riper years: but was, partly through ill health, partly through discouragements from the depravity of the times, and partly on prudential and other considerations, interrupted, postponed, and, lastly, in a manner laid aside. But as this was the author's favourite work, which more exactly reflected the image of his own strong and capacious mind, and as we can have but a very imperfect idea of it from the disjecta membra Poeta, which now remain; it may not be amiss to be a little more particular concerning each of these projected books. The FIRST, as it treats of man in the abstract, and considers him in general, under every one of his relations, becomes the |