3 That woman is a worm, we find E'er since our grandame's evil; She first conversed with her own kind, That ancient worm, the Devil.

4 The learn'd themselves we book-worms name, The blockhead is a slow-worm; The nymph whose tail is all on flame, Is aptly term'd a glow-worm:

5 The fops are painted butterflies, That flutter for a day; First from a worm they take their rise, And in a worm decay.

6 The flatterer an earwig grows; Thus worms suit all conditions; Misers are muck-worms, silk-worms beaux. And death-watches, physicians.

7 That statesmen have the worm, is seen By all their winding play; Their conscience is a worm within, That gnaws them night and day.

8 Ah, Moore! thy skill were well employ'd, And greater gain would rise, If thou couldst make the courtier void The worm that never dies!

9 O learned friend of Abchurch Lane, Who sett'st our entrails free! Vain is thy art, thy powder vain, Since worms shall eat even thee.

10 Our fate thou only canst adjourn Some few short years—no more; Even Button's Wits to worms shall turn, Who maggots were before.



TO MR C.,[80] ST JAMES'S PLACE.

1 Few words are best; I wish you well: Bethel, I'm told, will soon be here; Some morning walks along the Mall, And evening friends, will end the year.

2 If in this interval, between The falling leaf and coming frost, You please to see, on Twit'nam green, Your friend, your poet, and your host:

3 For three whole days you here may rest From office business, news, and strife; And (what most folks would think a jest) Want nothing else except your wife.

* * * * *

EPITAPHS.

I. ON CHARLES EARL OF DORSET, IN THE CHURCH OF WITHYAM, IN SUSSEX.

'His saltem accumulem donis, et fungar inani Munere!'

VIRG.

Dorset, the grace of courts, the Muses' pride, Patron of arts, and judge of nature, died. The scourge of pride, though sanctified or great, Of fops in learning, and of knaves in state: Yet soft his nature, though severe his lay, His anger moral, and his wisdom gay. Bless'd satirist! who touch'd the mean so true, As show'd vice had his hate and pity too. Blest courtier! who could king and country please, Yet sacred keep his friendships, and his ease. Blest peer! his great forefathers' every grace Reflecting, and reflected in his race; Where other Buckhursts, other Dorsets shine, And patriots still, or poets, deck the line.

II. ON SIR WILLIAM TRUMBULL.[81]

A pleasing form; a firm, yet cautious mind; Sincere, though prudent; constant, yet resign'd: Honour unchanged, a principle profess'd, Fix'd to one side, but moderate to the rest: An honest courtier, yet a patriot too; Just to his prince, and to his country true: Fill'd with the sense of age, the fire of youth, A scorn of wrangling, yet a zeal for truth; A generous faith, from superstition free: A love to peace, and hate of tyranny; Such this man was; who now, from earth removed, At length enjoys that liberty he loved.



III. ON THE HON. SIMON HARCOURT, ONLY SON OF THE LORD CHANCELLOR HARCOURT, AT THE CHURCH OF STANTON HARCOURT, IN OXFORDSHIRE, 1720.

To this sad shrine, whoe'er thou art, draw near; Here lies the friend most loved, the son most dear: Who ne'er knew joy, but friendship might divide, Or gave his father grief but when he died.

How vain is reason, eloquence how weak! If Pope must tell what Harcourt cannot speak. Oh, let thy once-loved friend inscribe thy stone, And, with a father's sorrows, mix his own!

IV. ON JAMES CRAGGS, ESQ. IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

JACOBUS CRAGGS REGI MAGNAE BRITANNIA A SECRETIS ET CONSILIIS SANCTIORIBUS, PRINCIPIS PARITER AC POPULI AMOR ET DELICIAE: VIXIT TITULIS ET INVIDIA MAJOR ANNOS, HEU PAUCOS, XXXV. OB. FEB. XVI. MDCCXX.

Statesman, yet friend to Truth! of soul sincere, In action faithful, and in honour clear! Who broke no promise, served no private end, Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend; Ennobled by himself, by all approved, Praised, wept, and honour'd by the Muse he loved.

V. INTENDED FOR MR ROWE, IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

Thy relics, Rowe, to this fair urn we trust, And sacred place by Dryden's awful dust: Beneath a rude and nameless stone he lies, To which thy tomb shall guide inquiring eyes. Peace to thy gentle shade, and endless rest! Blest in thy genius, in thy love, too, blest! One grateful woman to thy fame supplies What a whole thankless land to his denies.

VI. ON MRS CORBET, WHO DIED OF A CANCER IN HER BREAST.

Here rests a woman, good without pretence, Blest with plain reason, and with sober sense: No conquests she, but o'er herself, desired, No arts essay'd, but not to be admired. Passion and pride were to her soul unknown, Convinced that virtue only is our own. So unaffected, so composed a mind; So firm, yet soft; so strong, yet so refined; Heaven, as its purest gold, by tortures tried; The saint sustain'd it, but the woman died.

VII. ON THE MONUMENT OF THE HONOURABLE EGBERT DIGBY, AND HIS SISTER MARY.

ERECTED BY THEIR FATHER THE LORD DIGBY, IN THE CHURCH OF SHERBORNE, IN DORSETSHIRE, 1727.

Go! fair example of untainted youth, Of modest wisdom, and pacific truth: Composed in sufferings, and in joy sedate, Good without noise, without pretension great. Just of thy word, in every thought sincere, Who knew no wish but what the world might hear: Of softest manners, unaffected mind, Lover of peace, and friend of human kind: Go live! for Heaven's eternal year is thine,[82] Go, and exalt thy moral to divine.

And thou, bless'd maid! attendant on his doom, Pensive hast follow'd to the silent tomb, Steer'd the same course to the same quiet shore, Not parted long, and now to part no more! Go then, where only bliss sincere is known! Go, where to love and to enjoy are one!

Yet take these tears, Mortality's relief, And till we share your joys, forgive our grief: These little rites, a stone, a verse receive; 'Tis all a father, all a friend can give!

VIII. ON SIR GODFREY KNELLER, IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 1723.

Kneller, by Heaven, and not a master, taught, Whose art was Nature, and whose pictures Thought; Now for two ages having snatch'd from Fate Whate'er was beauteous, or whate'er was great, Lies crown'd with princes' honours, poets' lays, Due to his merit, and brave thirst of praise.

Living, great Nature fear'd he might outvie Her works; and, dying, fears herself may die.

IX. ON GENERAL HENRY WITHERS, IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 1729.

Here, Withers, rest! thou bravest, gentlest mind, Thy country's friend, but more of human kind. Oh, born to arms! oh, worth in youth approved! Oh, soft humanity, in age beloved! For thee the hardy veteran drops a tear, And the gay courtier feels the sigh sincere. Withers, adieu! yet not with thee remove Thy martial spirit, or thy social love! Amidst corruption, luxury, and rage, Still leave some ancient virtues to our age: Nor let us say (those English glories gone) The last true Briton lies beneath this stone.

X. ON MR ELIJAH FENTON,[83] AT EASTHAMSTEAD, IN BERKS, 1730.

This modest stone, what few vain marbles can, May truly say, Here lies an honest man: A poet, blest beyond the poet's fate, Whom Heaven kept sacred from the proud and great: Foe to loud praise, and friend to learned ease, Content with science in the vale of peace. Calmly he look'd on either life, and here Saw nothing to regret, or there to fear; From Nature's temperate feast rose satisfied, Thank'd Heaven that he had lived, and that he died.

XI. ON MR GAY, IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 1732.

Of manners gentle, of affections mild; In wit, a man; simplicity, a child: With native humour tempering virtuous rage, Form'd to delight at once and lash the age: Above temptation in a low estate, And uncorrupted, even among the great: A safe companion, and an easy friend, Unblamed through life, lamented in thy end. These are thy honours! not that here thy bust Is mix'd with heroes, or with kings thy dust; But that the worthy and the good shall say, Striking their pensive bosoms—Here lies Gay.

XII. INTENDED FOR SIR ISAAC NEWTON, IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

ISAACUS NEWTONUS: QUEM IMMORTALEM TESTANTUR TEMPUS, NATURA, COELUM: MORTALEM HOC MARMOR FATETUR.

Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night God said, Let Newton be! and all was light.

XIII. ON DR FRANCIS ATTERBURY,[84] BISHOP OF ROCHESTER, WHO DIED IN EXILE AT PARIS, 1732.

SHE.

Yes, we have lived—one pang, and then we part! May Heaven, dear father! now have all thy heart. Yet ah! how once we loved, remember still, Till you are dust like me.

HE. Dear shade! I will: Then mix this dust with thine—O spotless ghost! O more than fortune, friends, or country lost! Is there on earth one care, one wish beside? Yes—Save my country, Heaven! —He said, and died.

XIV. ON EDMUND DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, WHO DIED IN THE NINETEENTH YEAR OF HIS AGE, 1735.

If modest youth, with cool reflection crown'd, And every opening virtue blooming round, Could save a parent's justest pride from fate, Or add one patriot to a sinking state; This weeping marble had not ask'd thy tear, Or sadly told how many hopes lie here! The living virtue now had shone approved, The senate heard him, and his country loved. Yet softer honours, and less noisy fame Attend the shade of gentle Buckingham: In whom a race, for courage famed and art, Ends in the milder merit of the heart; And chiefs or sages long to Britain given, Pays the last tribute of a saint to Heaven.

XV. FOR ONE WHO WOULD NOT BE BURIED IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

Heroes and kings! your distance keep: In peace let one poor poet sleep, Who never flatter'd folks like you: Let Horace blush, and Virgil too.

XVI. ANOTHER, ON THE SAME.

Under this marble, or under this sill, Or under this turf, or e'en what they will; Whatever an heir, or a friend in his stead, Or any good creature shall lay o'er my head, Lies one who ne'er cared, and still cares not a pin What they said, or may say, of the mortal within: But who, living and dying, serene still and free, Trusts in God, that as well as he was, he shall be.

XVII. ON TWO LOVERS STRUCK DEAD BY LIGHTNING.[85]

When Eastern lovers feed the funeral fire, On the same pile the faithful pair expire. Here pitying Heaven that virtue mutual found, And blasted both, that it might neither wound. Hearts so sincere, the Almighty saw well pleased, Sent his own lightning, and the victims seized.

[Lord Harcourt, on whose property the unfortunate pair lived, was apprehensive that the country people would not understand the above, and Pope wrote the subjoined]:—

NEAR THIS PLACE LIE THE BODIES OF JOHN HEWET AND SARAH DREW, AN INDUSTRIOUS YOUNG MAN, AND VIRTUOUS MAIDEN OF THIS PARISH; WHO, BEING AT HARVEST-WORK (WITH SEVERAL OTHERS), WERE IN ONE INSTANT KILLED BY LIGHTNING, THE LAST DAY OF JULY 1718.

Think not, by rigorous judgment seized, A pair so faithful could expire; Victims so pure Heaven saw well pleased, And snatch'd them in celestial fire.

Live well, and fear no sudden fate; When God calls virtue to the grave, Alike 'tis justice soon or late, Mercy alike to kill or save.

Virtue unmoved can hear the call, And face the flash that melts the ball.



AN ESSAY ON MAN:

IN FOUR EPISTLES TO HENRY ST JOHN, LORD BOLINGBROKE.

THE DESIGN.

Having proposed to write some pieces on human life and manners, such as (to use my Lord Bacon's expression) come home to men's business and bosoms, I thought it more satisfactory to begin with considering man in the abstract, his nature and his state; since, to prove any moral duty, to enforce any moral precept, or to examine the perfection or imperfection of any creature whatsoever, it is necessary first to know what condition and relation it is placed in, and what is the proper end and purpose of its being.

The science of human nature is, like all other sciences, reduced to a few clear points: there are not many certain truths in this world. It is therefore in the anatomy of the mind as in that of the body; more good will accrue to mankind by attending to the large, open, and perceptible parts, than by studying too much such finer nerves and vessels, the conformations and uses of which will for ever escape our observation. The disputes are all upon these last, and, I will venture to say, they have less sharpened the wits than the hearts of men against each other, and have diminished the practice, more than advanced the theory, of morality. If I could flatter myself that this essay has any merit, it is in steering betwixt the extremes of doctrines seemingly opposite, in passing over terms utterly unintelligible, and in forming a temperate yet not inconsistent, and a short yet not imperfect system of ethics.

This I might have done in prose; but I chose verse, and even rhyme, for two reasons. The one will appear obvious; that principles, maxims, or precepts so written, both strike the reader more strongly at first, and are more easily retained by him afterwards: the other may seem odd, but is true; I found I could express them more shortly this way than in prose itself; and nothing is more certain, than that much of the force as well as grace of arguments or instructions, depends on their conciseness. I was unable to treat this part of my subject more in detail, without becoming dry and tedious; or more poetically, without sacrificing perspicuity to ornament, without wandering from the precision, or breaking the chain of reasoning: If any man can unite all these without diminution of any of them, I freely confess he will compass a thing above my capacity.

What is now published, is only to be considered as a general map of Man, marking out no more than the greater parts, their extent, their limits, and their connexion, but leaving the particular to be more fully delineated in the charts which are to follow. Consequently, these epistles in their progress (if I have health and leisure to make any progress) will be less dry, and more susceptible of poetical ornament. I am here only opening the fountains, and clearing the passage. To deduce the rivers, to follow them in their course, and to observe their effects, may be a task more agreeable.

EPISTLE I.

ARGUMENT

OF THE NATURE AND STATE OF MAN WITH RESPECT TO THE UNIVERSE.

Of man in the abstract.—

I. That we can judge only with regard to our own system, being ignorant of the relations of systems and things, ver. 17, &c. II. That Man is not to be deemed imperfect, but a being suited to his place and rank in the creation, agreeable to the general order of things, and conformable to ends and relations to him unknown, ver. 35, &c. III. That it is partly upon his ignorance of future events, and partly upon the hope of a future state, that all his happiness in the present depends, ver. 77, &c. IV. The pride of aiming at more knowledge, and pretending to more perfection, the cause of Man's error and misery. The impiety of putting himself in the place of God, and judging of the fitness or unfitness, perfection or imperfection, justice or injustice of his dispensations, ver. 109, &c. V. The absurdity of conceiting himself the final cause of the creation, or expecting that perfection in the moral world, which is not in the natural, ver. 131, &c. VI. The unreasonableness of his complaints against Providence, while on the one hand he demands the perfections of the angels, and on the other the bodily qualifications of the brutes; though to possess any of the sensitive faculties in a higher degree, would render him miserable, ver. 173, &c. VII. That throughout the whole visible world, an universal order and gradation in the sensual and mental faculties is observed, which causes a subordination of creature to creature, and of all creatures to Man. The gradations of sense, instinct, thought, reflection, reason; that reason alone countervails all the other faculties, ver. 207. VIII. How much further this order and subordination of living creatures may extend, above and below us; were any part of which broken, not that part only, but the whole connected creation must be destroyed, ver. 233. IX. The extravagance, madness, and pride of such a desire, ver. 259. X. The consequence of all, the absolute submission due to Providence, both as to our present and future state, ver. 281, &c. to the end.

AWAKE, my St John! leave all meaner things To low ambition, and the pride of kings. Let us (since life can little more supply Than just to look about us and to die) Expatiate free o'er all this scene of Man; A mighty maze! but not without a plan; A wild, where weeds and flowers promiscuous shoot; Or garden, tempting with forbidden fruit. Together let us beat this ample field, Try what the open, what the covert yield; 10 The latent tracts, the giddy heights, explore Of all who blindly creep, or sightless soar; Eye Nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies, And catch the manners living as they rise; Laugh where we must, be candid where we can; But vindicate the ways of God to Man.[86]

I. Say first, of God above, or Man below, What can we reason, but from what we know? Of Man, what see we but his station here, From which to reason, or to which refer? 20 Through worlds unnumber'd, though the God be known, 'Tis ours to trace him only in our own. He who through vast immensity can pierce, See worlds on worlds compose one universe, Observe how system into system runs, What other planets circle other suns, What varied being peoples every star, May tell why Heaven has made us as we are. But of this frame the bearings, and the ties, The strong connexions, nice dependencies, 30 Gradations just, has thy pervading soul Look'd through? or can a part contain the whole?

Is the great chain, that draws all to agree, And drawn, supports, upheld by God, or thee?

II. Presumptuous Man! the reason wouldst thou find, Why form'd so weak, so little, and so blind? First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess, Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less? Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks are made Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade? 40 Or ask of yonder argent fields above, Why Jove's satellites are less than Jove?

Of systems possible, if 'tis confess'd That Wisdom infinite must form the best, Where all must full or not coherent be, And all that rises, rise in due degree; Then, in the scale of reasoning life, 'tis plain, There must be, somewhere, such a rank as Man: And all the question (wrangle e'er so long) Is only this, if God has placed him wrong? 50

Respecting Man, whatever wrong we call, May, must be right, as relative to all. In human works, though labour'd on with pain, A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain; In God's, one single can its end produce; Yet serves to second, too, some other use. So Man, who here seems principal alone, Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown, Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal; 'Tis but a part we see, and not a whole. 60

When the proud steed shall know why Man restrains His fiery course, or drives him o'er the plains; When the dull ox, why now he breaks the clod, Is now a victim, and now Egypt's god:[87] Then shall man's pride and dulness comprehend His actions', passions', being's use and end; Why doing, suffering, check'd, impell'd; and why This hour a slave, the next a deity.

Then say not Man's imperfect, Heaven in fault; Say rather, Man's as perfect as he ought: 70 His knowledge measured to his state and place; His time a moment, and a point his space. If to be perfect in a certain sphere, What matter, soon or late, or here or there? The blest to-day is as completely so, As who began a thousand years ago.

III. Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate, All but the page prescribed, their present state: From brutes what men, from men what spirits know: Or who could suffer being here below? 80 The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play? Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food, And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood. Oh blindness to the future! kindly given, That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heaven: Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall, Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd, And now a bubble burst, and now a world. 90

Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar; Wait the great teacher, Death; and God adore. What future bliss, He gives not thee to know, But gives that hope to be thy blessing now. Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never Is, but always To be blest: The soul, uneasy and confined from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind; 100 His soul, proud science never taught to stray Far as the solar walk, or milky-way; Yet simple nature to his hope has given, Behind the cloud-topp'd hill, an humbler heaven; Some safer world in depth of woods embraced, Some happier island in the watery waste, Where slaves once more their native land behold, No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold. To be, contents his natural desire, He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire; 110 But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, His faithful dog shall bear him company.

IV. Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense, Weigh thy opinion against Providence; Call imperfection what thou fanciest such, Say, here he gives too little, there too much: Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust, Yet cry, If Man's unhappy, God's unjust: If Man alone engross not Heaven's high care, Alone made perfect here, immortal there: 120 Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod, Re-judge his justice, be the God of God. In pride, in reasoning pride, our error lies; All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies. Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes, Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell, Aspiring to be angels, men rebel: And who but wishes to invert the laws Of ORDER, sins against the Eternal Cause. 130

V. Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine, Earth for whose use? Pride answers, ''Tis for mine: For me kind Nature wakes her genial power, Suckles each herb, and spreads out every flower; Annual for me the grape, the rose renew, The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew; For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings; For me, health gushes from a thousand springs; Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise; My footstool earth, my canopy the skies.' 140

But errs not Nature from this gracious end, From burning suns when livid deaths descend, When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep? 'No' 'tis replied, 'the first Almighty Cause Acts not by partial, but by general laws; Th' exceptions few; some change, since all began: And what created perfect?'—Why then Man? If the great end be human happiness, Then Nature deviates; and can Man do less? 150 As much that end a constant course requires Of showers and sunshine, as of Man's desires; As much eternal springs and cloudless skies, As men for ever temperate, calm, and wise. If plagues or earthquakes break not Heaven's design, Why then a Borgia, or a Catiline? Who knows but He, whose hand the lightning forms, Who heaves old Ocean, and who wings the storms, Pours fierce ambition in a Caesar's mind, Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind? 150 From pride, from pride, our very reasoning springs; Account for moral, as for natural things: Why charge we Heaven in those, in these acquit? In both, to reason right, is to submit.

Better for us, perhaps, it might appear, Were there all harmony, all virtue here; That never air or ocean felt the wind, That never passion discomposed the mind. But all subsists by elemental strife; And passions are the elements of life. 170 The general order, since the whole began, Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man.

VI. What would this Man? Now upward will he soar, And, little less than angel, would be more; Now looking downwards, just as grieved appears To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears. Made for his use all creatures if he call, Say, what their use, had he the powers of all? Nature to these, without profusion, kind, The proper organs, proper powers assign'd; 180 Each seeming want compensated, of course, Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force; All in exact proportion to the state; Nothing to add, and nothing to abate. Each beast, each insect, happy in its own: Is Heaven unkind to Man, and Man alone? Shall he alone, whom rational we call, Be pleased with nothing, if not bless'd with all?

The bliss of Man (could pride that blessing find) Is not to act or think beyond mankind; 190 No powers of body or of soul to share, But what his nature and his state can bear. Why has not Man a microscopic eye? For this plain reason, Man is not a fly. Say, what the use, were finer optics given, T'inspect a mite, not comprehend the heaven? Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er, To smart and agonise at every pore? Or, quick effluvia darting through the brain, Die of a rose in aromatic pain? 200 If nature thunder'd in his opening ears, And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres, How would he wish that Heaven had left him still The whispering zephyr, and the purling rill? Who finds not Providence all good and wise, Alike in what it gives, and what denies?

VII. Far as Creation's ample range extends, The scale of sensual, mental powers ascends: Mark how it mounts, to Man's imperial race, From the green myriads in the peopled grass: 210 What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme, The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam! Of smell, the headlong lioness between, And hound sagacious on the tainted green: Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood, To that which warbles through the vernal wood: The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine! Feels at each thread, and lives along the line: In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true From poisonous herbs extracts the healing dew! 220 How instinct varies in the grovelling swine, Compared, half-reasoning elephant, with thine! 'Twixt that and reason, what a nice barrier: For ever separate, yet for ever near! Remembrance and reflection how allied; What thin partitions[88] sense from thought divide: And middle natures, how they long to join, Yet never pass th' insuperable line! Without this just gradation, could they be Subjected, these to those, or all to thee? 230 The powers of all subdued by thee alone, Is not thy reason all these powers in one?

VIII. See, through this air, this ocean, and this earth, All matter quick, and bursting into birth: Above, how high progressive life may go! Around, how wide! how deep extend below! Vast chain of being! which from God began, Natures ethereal, human, angel, man, Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see, No glass can reach; from Infinite to Thee, 240 From Thee to Nothing.—On superior powers Were we to press, inferior might on ours: Or in the full creation leave a void, Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd: From Nature's chain whatever link you strike, Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.

And, if each system in gradation roll Alike essential to th' amazing whole, The least confusion but in one, not all That system only, but the whole must fall. 250 Let earth, unbalanced, from her orbit fly, Planets and suns run lawless through the sky; Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurl'd, Being on being wreck'd, and world on world; Heaven's whole foundations to their centre nod, And Nature trembles to the throne of God. All this dread order break—for whom? for thee? Vile worm!—oh madness! pride! impiety!

IX. What if the foot, ordain'd the dust to tread, Or hand, to toil, aspired to be the head 260 What if the head, the eye, or ear repined To serve mere engines to the ruling mind? Just as absurd for any part to claim To be another, in this general frame; Just as absurd, to mourn the tasks or pains, The great directing Mind of All ordains.

All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul; That, changed through all, and yet in all the same; Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame: 270 Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees, Lives through all life, extends through all extent. Spreads undivided, operates unspent; Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part, As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart; As full, as perfect, in vile Man that mourns, As the rapt Seraph that adores and burns: To Him no high, no low, no great, no small; He fills, He bounds, connects, and equals all. 280

X. Cease then, nor Order imperfection name: Our proper bliss depends on what we blame. Know thy own point: this kind, this due degree Of blindness, weakness, Heaven bestows on thee. Submit—in this, or any other sphere, Secure to be as bless'd as thou canst bear: Safe in the hand of one disposing Power, Or in the natal, or the mortal hour. All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee; All chance, direction, which thou canst not see; 290 All discord, harmony not understood; All partial evil, universal good: And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite, One truth is clear, WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT.

* * * * *

VARIATIONS.

In former editions, VER 64—

Now wears a garland, an Egyptian god.

Altered as above for the reason given in the note.

After VER. 68 the following lines in first edit.—

If to be perfect in a certain sphere, What matters, soon or late, or here or there? The blest to-day is as completely so As who began ten thousand years ago.

After VER. 88 in the MS.—

No great, no little; 'tis as much decreed That Virgil's gnat should die as Caesar bleed.

In the first folio and quarto:—

What bliss above He gives not thee to know, But gives that hope to be thy bliss below.

After VER. 108 in the first edition:—

But does he say the Maker is not good, Till he's exalted to what state he would: Himself alone high Heaven's peculiar care, Alone made happy when he will, and where?

VER. 238, first edition—

Ethereal essence, spirit, substance, man.

After VER. 282 in the MS.—

Reason, to think of God when she pretends, Begins a censor, an adorer ends.

EPISTLE II.

ARGUMENT.

OF THE NATURE AND STATE OF MAN WITH RESPECT TO HIMSELF AS AN INDIVIDUAL.

I. The business of Man not to pry into God, but to study himself. His middle nature; his powers and frailties, ver. 1 to 19. The limits of his capacity, ver. 19, &c. II. The two principles of Man, self-love and reason, both necessary, ver. 53, &c. Self-love the stronger, and why, ver. 67, &c. Their end the same, ver. 81, &c. III. The passions, and their use, ver. 93-130. The predominant passion, and its force, ver. 132-160. Its necessity, in directing men to different purposes, ver. 165, &c. Its providential use, in fixing our principle, and ascertaining our virtue, ver. 177. IV. Virtue and vice joined in our mixed nature; the limits near, yet the things separate and evident: What is the office of reason, ver. 202-216. V. How odious vice in itself, and how we deceive ourselves into it, ver. 217. VI. That, however, the ends of Providence and general good are answered in our passions and imperfections, ver. 238, &c. How usefully these are distributed to all orders of men, ver. 241. How useful they are to society, ver. 251. And to the individuals, ver. 263. In every state, and every age of life, ver. 273, &c.

I. KNOW then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is Man. Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise, and rudely great: With too much knowledge for the sceptic side, With too much weakness for the stoic's pride, He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest; In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast; In doubt his mind or body to prefer; Born but to die, and reasoning but to err; 10 Alike in ignorance, his reason such, Whether he thinks too little, or too much: Chaos of thought and passion, all confused; Still by himself abused, or disabused; Created half to rise, and half to fall; Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all; Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd: The glory, jest, and riddle of the world![89]

Go, wondrous creature! mount where science guides, Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides; 20 Instruct the planets in what orbs to run, Correct old Time, and regulate the sun; Go, soar with Plato to the empyreal sphere, To the first Good, first Perfect, and first Fair; Or tread the mazy round his followers trod, And quitting sense call imitating God; As eastern priests in giddy circles run, And turn their heads to imitate the sun. Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule— Then drop into thyself, and be a fool! 30

Superior beings, when of late they saw A mortal man unfold all Nature's law, Admired such wisdom in an earthly shape, And show'd a Newton as we show an ape.

Could he, whose rules the rapid comet bind, Describe or fix one movement of his mind? Who saw its fires here rise, and there descend, Explain his own beginning, or his end? Alas, what wonder! Man's superior part Uncheck'd may rise, and climb from art to art; 40 But when his own great work is but begun, What reason weaves, by passion is undone.

Trace Science, then, with modesty thy guide; First strip off all her equipage of pride; Deduct what is but vanity, or dress, Or learning's luxury, or idleness; Or tricks to show the stretch of human brain. Mere curious pleasure, or ingenious pain; Expunge the whole, or lop th' excrescent parts Of all our vices have created arts; 50 Then see how little the remaining sum, Which served the past, and must the times to come!

II. Two principles in human nature reign— Self-love, to urge, and reason, to restrain; Nor this a good, nor that a bad we call, Each works its end, to move or govern all: And to their proper operation still, Ascribe all good; to their improper, ill.

Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul; Reason's comparing balance rules the whole. 60 Man, but for that, no action could attend, And, but for this, were active to no end: Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot, To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot; Or, meteor-like, flame lawless through the void, Destroying others, by himself destroy'd.

Most strength the moving principle requires; Active its task, it prompts, impels, inspires. Sedate and quiet the comparing lies, Form'd but to check, deliberate, and advise. 70 Self-love, still stronger, as its objects nigh; Reason's at distance, and in prospect lie: That sees immediate good by present sense; Reason, the future and the consequence. Thicker than arguments, temptations throng, At best more watchful this, but that more strong. The action of the stronger to suspend Reason still use, to reason still attend. Attention, habit and experience gains; Each strengthens reason, and self-love restrains. 80

Let subtle schoolmen teach these friends to fight, More studious to divide than to unite; And grace and virtue, sense and reason split, With all the rash dexterity of wit. Wits, just like fools, at war about a name, Have full as oft no meaning, or the same. Self-love and reason to one end aspire, Pain their aversion, pleasure their desire; But greedy that its object would devour, This taste the honey, and not wound the flower: 90 Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood, Our greatest evil, or our greatest good.

III. Modes of self-love the passions we may call: 'Tis real good, or seeming, moves them all: But since not every good we can divide, And reason bids us for our own provide; Passions, though selfish, if their means be fair, List under reason, and deserve her care; Those, that imparted, court a nobler aim, Exalt their kind, and take some virtue's name. 100

In lazy apathy let Stoics boast Their virtue fix'd; 'tis fix'd as in a frost; Contracted all, retiring to the breast; But strength of mind is exercise, not rest: The rising tempest puts in act the soul, Parts it may ravage, but preserves the whole. On life's vast ocean diversely we sail, Reason the card, but passion is the gale; Nor God alone in the still calm we find, He mounts the storm, and walks upon the wind. 110

Passions, like elements, though born to fight, Yet, mix'd and soften'd, in his work unite: These 'tis enough to temper and employ; But what composes Man, can Man destroy? Suffice that reason keep to Nature's road; Subject, compound them, follow her and God. Love, Hope, and Joy, fair Pleasure's smiling train, Hate, Fear, and Grief, the family of Pain, These mix'd with art, and to due bounds confined, Make and maintain the balance of the mind: 120 The lights and shades, whose well-accorded strife Gives all the strength and colour of our life.

Pleasures are ever in our hands or eyes; And when, in act, they cease, in prospect, rise: Present to grasp, and future still to find, The whole employ of body and of mind. All spread their charms, but charm not all alike; On different senses different objects strike; Hence different passions more or less inflame, As strong or weak, the organs of the frame; 130 And hence one master passion in the breast, Like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest. As Man, perhaps, the moment of his breath, Receives the lurking principle of death; The young disease, that must subdue at length, Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength: So, cast and mingled with his very frame, The mind's disease, its ruling passion came; Each vital humour which should feed the whole, Soon flows to this, in body and in soul: 140 Whatever warms the heart, or fills the head, As the mind opens, and its functions spread, Imagination plies her dangerous art, And pours it all upon the peccant part.

Nature its mother, habit is its nurse; Wit, spirit, faculties, but make it worse; Reason itself but gives it edge and power; As Heaven's blest beam turns vinegar more sour.

We, wretched subjects, though to lawful sway, In this weak queen, some favourite still obey: 150 Ah! if she lend not arms, as well as rules, What can she more than tell us we are fools? Teach us to mourn our nature, not to mend, A sharp accuser, but a helpless friend! Or from a judge turn pleader, to persuade The choice we make, or justify it made; Proud of an easy conquest all along, She but removes weak passions for the strong: So, when small humours gather to a gout, The doctor fancies he has driven them out. 160

Yes, Nature's road must ever be preferr'd; Reason is here no guide, but still a guard: 'Tis hers to rectify, not overthrow, And treat this passion more as friend than foe: A mightier power the strong direction sends, And several men impels to several ends: Like varying winds, by other passions tost, This drives them constant to a certain coast. Let power or knowledge, gold or glory, please, Or (oft more strong than all) the love of ease; 170 Through life 'tis follow'd, even at life's expense; The merchant's toil, the sage's indolence, The monk's humility, the hero's pride, All, all alike, find reason on their side.

Th' eternal Art educing good from ill, Grafts on this passion our best principle: 'Tis thus the mercury of Man is fix'd, Strong grows the virtue with his nature mix'd; The dross cements what else were too refined And in one interest body acts with mind. 180

As fruits, ungrateful to the planter's care, On savage stocks inserted, learn to bear; The surest virtues thus from passions shoot, Wild nature's vigour working at the root. What crops of wit and honesty appear From spleen, from obstinacy, hate, or fear! See anger, zeal and fortitude supply; Even avarice, prudence; sloth, philosophy; Lust, through some certain strainers well refined, Is gentle love, and charms all womankind; 190 Envy, to which th' ignoble mind's a slave, Is emulation in the learn'd or brave; Nor virtue, male or female, can we name,

But what will grow on pride, or grow on shame. Thus Nature gives us (let it check our pride) The virtue nearest to our vice allied: Reason the bias turns to good from ill, And Nero reigns a Titus, if he will. The fiery soul abhorr'd in Catiline, In Decius charms, in Curtius is divine: 200 The same ambition can destroy or save, And makes a patriot, as it makes a knave.

IV. This light and darkness in our chaos join'd What shall divide? the God within the mind.

Extremes in Nature equal ends produce, In man they join to some mysterious use; Though each by turns the other's bound invade, As, in some well-wrought picture, light and shade, And oft so mix, the difference is too nice Where ends the virtue, or begins the vice. 210

Fools! who from hence into the notion fall, That vice or virtue there is none at all. If white and black blend, soften, and unite A thousand ways, is there no black or white? Ask your own heart, and nothing is so plain; 'Tis to mistake them, costs the time and pain.

V. Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As, to be hated, needs but to be seen; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace. 220 But where th' extreme of vice, was ne'er agreed: Ask where's the north? at York, 'tis on the Tweed; In Scotland, at the Orcades; and there, At Greenland, Zembla, or the Lord knows where. No creature owns it in the first degree, But thinks his neighbour further gone than he; Even those who dwell beneath its very zone, Or never feel the rage, or never own; What happier natures shrink at with affright, The hard inhabitant contends is right. 230

Virtuous and vicious every man must be, Few in th' extreme, but all in the degree; The rogue and fool by fits is fair and wise; And even the best, by fits, what they despise. 'Tis but by parts we follow good or ill; For, vice or virtue, self directs it still; Each individual seeks a several goal; But Heaven's great view is one, and that the whole. That counterworks each folly and caprice; That disappoints th' effect of every vice; 240 That, happy frailties to all ranks applied; Shame to the virgin, to the matron pride, Fear to the statesman, rashness to the chief, To kings presumption, and to crowds belief: That, virtue's ends from vanity can raise, Which seeks no interest, no reward but praise; And build on wants, and on defects of mind, The joy, the peace, the glory of mankind.

Heaven forming each on other to depend, A master, or a servant, or a friend, 250 Bids each on other for assistance call, Till one man's weakness grows the strength of all. Wants, frailties, passions, closer still ally The common interest, or endear the tie. To these we owe true friendship, love sincere, Each home-felt joy that life inherits here; Yet from the same we learn, in its decline, Those joys, those loves, those interests to resign; Taught half by reason, half by mere decay, To welcome death, and calmly pass away. 260 Whate'er the passion, knowledge, fame, or pelf, Not one will change his neighbour with himself. The learn'd is happy Nature to explore; The fool is happy that he knows no more; The rich is happy in the plenty given, The poor contents him with the care of Heaven. See the blind beggar dance, the cripple sing, The sot a hero, lunatic a king; The starving chemist in his golden views Supremely bless'd, the poet in his Muse. 270 See some strange comfort every state attend, And pride bestow'd on all, a common friend; See some fit passion every age supply, Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die.

Behold the child, by Nature's kindly law, Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw: Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight, A little louder, but as empty quite: Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage, And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age: 280 Pleased with this bauble still, as that before; Till, tired, he sleeps, and life's poor play is o'er.

Meanwhile opinion gilds with varying rays Those painted clouds that beautify our days; Each want of happiness by hope supplied, And each vacuity of sense by pride: These build as fast as knowledge can destroy; In Folly's cup still laughs the bubble, joy; One prospect lost, another still we gain; And not a vanity is given in vain; 290 Even mean self-love becomes, by force divine, The scale to measure others' wants by thine. See! and confess, one comfort still must rise, 'Tis this, Though Man's a fool, yet God is wise.

* * * * *

VARIATIONS.

VER. 2, first edition—

The only science of mankind is Man.

After VER. 18, in the MS.—

For more perfection than this state can bear, In vain we sigh, 'Heaven made us as we are.' As wisely, sure, a modest ape might aim To be like Man, whose faculties and frame He sees, he feels, as you or I to be An angel thing we neither know nor see. Observe how near he edges on our race; What human tricks! how risible of face! 'It must be so—why else have I the sense Of more than monkey charms and excellence? Why else to walk on two so oft essay'd? And why this ardent longing for a maid?' So pug might plead, and call his gods unkind, Till set on end and married to his mind. Go, reasoning thing! assume the doctor's chair, As Plato deep, as Seneca severe: Fix moral fitness, and to God give rule, Then drop into thyself, &c.

VER. 21, edition fourth and fifth—

Show by what rules the wandering planets stray, Correct old Time, and teach the sun his way.

VER. 35, first edition—

Could He, who taught each planet where to roll, Describe or fix one movement of the soul? Who mark'd their points to rise or to descend, Explain his own beginning or his end?

After VER. 86, in the MS.—

Of good and evil gods what frighted fools, Of good and evil reason puzzled schools, Deceived, deceiving, taught, &c.

After VER. 108, in the MS.—

A tedious voyage! where how useless lies The compass, if no powerful gusts arise?

After VER. 112, in the MS.—

The soft reward the virtuous, or invite; The fierce, the vicious punish or affright.

After VER. 194, in the MS.—

How oft, with passion, Virtue points her charms! Then shines the hero, then the patriot warms. Peleus' great son, or Brutus, who had known, Had Lucrece been a whore, or Helen none! But virtues opposite to make agree, That, Reason! is thy task; and worthy thee. Hard task, cries Bibulus, and reason weak: Make it a point, dear Marquess! or a pique. Once, for a whim, persuade yourself to pay A debt to reason, like a debt at play. For right or wrong have mortals suffer'd more? B—— for his prince, or —— for his whore? Whose self-denials nature most control? His, who would save a sixpence, or his soul? Web for his health, a Chartreux for his sin, Contend they not which soonest shall grow thin? What we resolve, we can: but here's the fault, We ne'er resolve to do the thing we ought.

After VER. 220, in the first edition, followed these—

A cheat! a whore! who starts not at the name, In all the Inns of Court or Drury Lane?

After VER. 226, in the MS.—

The colonel swears the agent is a dog, The scrivener vows th' attorney is a rogue. Against the thief th' attorney loud inveighs, For whose ten pound the county twenty pays. The thief damns judges, and the knaves of state; And dying, mourns small villains hang'd by great.

EPISTLE III.

ARGUMENT.

OF THE NATURE AND STATE OF MAN WITH RESPECT TO SOCIETY.

I. The whole universe one system of society, ver. 7, &c. Nothing made wholly for itself, nor yet wholly for another, ver. 27. The happiness of animals mutual, ver. 49. II. Reason or instinct operate alike to the good of each individual, ver. 79. Reason or instinct operate also to society, in all animals, ver. 109. III. How far society carried by instinct, ver. 115. How much farther by reason, ver. 128. IV. Of that which is called the state of nature, 144. Reason instructed by instinct in the invention of arts, ver. 166, and in the forms of society, ver. 176. V. Origin of political societies, ver. 196. Origin of monarchy, ver. 207. Patriarchal government, ver. 212. VI. Origin of true religion and government, from the same principle—of love, ver. 231, &c. Origin of superstition and tyranny, from the same principle—of fear, ver. 237, &c. The influence of self-love operating to the social and public good, ver. 266. Restoration of true religion and government on their first principle, ver. 285. Mixed government, ver. 288. Various forms of each, and the true end of all, ver. 300, &c.

Here then we rest: 'The Universal Cause Acts to one end, but acts by various laws.' In all the madness of superfluous health, The trim of pride, the impudence of wealth, Let this great truth be present night and day; But most be present, if we preach or pray.

I. Look round our world; behold the chain of love Combining all below and all above. See plastic Nature working to this end, The single atoms each to other tend, 10 Attract, attracted to, the next in place Form'd and impell'd its neighbour to embrace. See matter next, with various life endued, Press to one centre still, the general Good. See dying vegetables life sustain, See life dissolving vegetate again: All forms that perish other forms supply, (By turns we catch the vital breath, and die) Like bubbles on the sea of Matter born, They rise, they break, and to that sea return. 20 Nothing is foreign: parts relate to whole; One all-extending, all-preserving Soul Connects each being, greatest with the least; Made beast in aid of man, and man of beast; All served, all serving: nothing stands alone; The chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown.

Has God, thou fool! work'd solely for thy good, Thy joy, thy pastime, thy attire, thy food? Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn, For him as kindly spread the flowery lawn: 30 Is it for thee the lark ascends and sings? Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings. Is it for thee the linnet pours his throat? Loves of his own, and raptures swell the note. The bounding steed you pompously bestride, Shares with his lord the pleasure and the pride. Is thine alone the seed that strews the plain? The birds of heaven shall vindicate their grain. Thine the full harvest of the golden year? Part pays, and justly, the deserving steer: 40 The hog, that ploughs not, nor obeys thy call, Lives on the labours of this lord of all.

Know, Nature's children all divide her care; The fur that warms a monarch, warm'd a bear. While Man exclaims, 'See all things for my use!' 'See man for mine!' replies a pamper'd goose: And just as short of reason he must fall, Who thinks all made for one, not one for all.

Grant that the powerful still the weak control; Be Man the wit and tyrant of the whole: 50 Nature that tyrant checks; he only knows, And helps, another creature's wants and woes. Say, will the falcon, stooping from above, Smit with her varying plumage, spare the dove? Admires the jay the insect's gilded wings? Or hears the hawk when Philomela sings? Man cares for all: to birds he gives his woods, To beasts his pastures, and to fish his floods; For some his interest prompts him to provide, For more his pleasure, yet for more his pride: 60 All feed on one vain patron, and enjoy Th' extensive blessing of his luxury. That very life his learned hunger craves, He saves from famine, from the savage saves; Nay, feasts the animal he dooms his feast. And, till he ends the being, makes it blest; Which sees no more the stroke, or feels the pain, Than favour'd Man by touch ethereal slain. The creature had his feast of life before; Thou too must perish, when thy feast is o'er! 70

To each unthinking being, Heaven, a friend, Gives not the useless knowledge of its end: To Man imparts it; but with such a view As, while he dreads it, makes him hope it too: The hour conceal'd, and so remote the fear, Death still draws nearer, never seeming near. Great standing miracle! that Heaven assign'd Its only thinking thing this turn of mind.

II. Whether with reason or with instinct blest, Know, all enjoy that power which suits them best; 80 To bliss alike by that direction tend, And find the means proportion'd to their end. Say, where full instinct is th' unerring guide, What pope or council can they need beside? Reason, however able, cool at best, Cares not for service, or but serves when press'd, Stays till we call, and then not often near; But honest instinct comes a volunteer, Sure never to o'ershoot, but just to hit; While still too wide or short is human wit; 90 Sure by quick nature happiness to gain, Which heavier reason labours at in vain. This, too serves always, reason never long; One must go right, the other may go wrong. See then the acting and comparing powers One in their nature, which are two in ours; And reason raise o'er instinct as you can, In this 'tis God directs, in that 'tis Man.

Who taught the nations of the field and wood To shun their poison, and to choose their food? 100 Prescient, the tides or tempests to withstand, Build on the wave, or arch beneath the sand? Who made the spider parallels design, Sure as De Moivre, without rule or line? Who bid the stork, Columbus-like, explore Heavens not his own, and worlds unknown before? Who calls the council, states the certain day, Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way?

III. God, in the nature of each being, founds Its proper bliss, and sets its proper bounds: 110 But as he framed a whole, the whole to bless, On mutual wants built mutual happiness: So from the first, eternal Order ran, And creature link'd to creature, man to man. Whate'er of life all-quickening ether keeps, Or breathes through air, or shoots beneath the deeps, Or pours profuse on earth, one nature feeds The vital flame, and swells the genial seeds. Not Man alone, but all that roam the wood, Or wing the sky, or roll along the flood, 120 Each loves itself, but not itself alone, Each sex desires alike, till two are one. Nor ends the pleasure with the fierce embrace; They love themselves, a third time, in their race. Thus beast and bird their common charge attend, The mothers nurse it, and the sires defend; The young dismiss'd to wander earth or air, There stops the instinct, and there ends the care; The link dissolves, each seeks a fresh embrace, Another love succeeds, another race. 130 A longer care Man's helpless kind demands; That longer care contracts more lasting bands: Reflection, reason, still the ties improve, At once extend the interest, and the love; With choice we fix, with sympathy we burn; Each virtue in each passion takes its turn; And still new needs, new helps, new habits rise, That graft benevolence on charities. Still as one brood, and as another rose, These natural love maintain'd, habitual those: 140 The last, scarce ripen'd into perfect man, Saw helpless him from whom their life began: Memory and forecast just returns engage, That pointed back to youth, this on to age; While pleasure, gratitude, and hope, combined, Still spread the interest, and preserved the kind.

IV. Nor think, in Nature's state they blindly trod; The state of Nature was the reign of God: Self-love and social at her birth began, Union the bond of all things, and of Man. 150 Pride then was not; nor arts, that pride to aid; Man walk'd with beast, joint tenant of the shade; The same his table, and the same his bed; No murder clothed him, and no murder fed. In the same temple, the resounding wood, All vocal beings hymn'd their equal God: The shrine with gore unstain'd, with gold undress'd, Unbribed, unbloody, stood the blameless priest: Heaven's attribute was universal care, And Man's prerogative to rule, but spare. 160 Ah! how unlike the Man of times to come! Of half that live the butcher and the tomb; Who, foe to Nature, hears the general groan, Murders their species, and betrays his own. But just disease to luxury succeeds, And every death its own avenger breeds; The fury-passions from that blood began, And turn'd on Man, a fiercer savage, Man.

See him from Nature rising slow to Art! To copy instinct then was reason's part; 170 Thus then to Man the voice of Nature spake— 'Go, from the creatures thy instructions take: Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield; Learn from the beasts the physic of the field; Thy arts of building from the bee receive; Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave; Learn of the little nautilus to sail, Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale. Here, too, all forms of social union find, And hence let reason, late, instruct mankind: 180 Here subterranean works and cities see; There towns aerial on the waving tree. Learn each small people's genius, policies, The ants' republic, and the realm of bees; How those in common all their wealth bestow, And anarchy without confusion know; And these for ever, though a monarch reign, Their separate cells and properties maintain. Mark what unvaried laws preserve each state, Laws wise as Nature, and as fix'd as Fate. 190 In vain thy reason finer webs shall draw, Entangle Justice in her net of lay, And right, too rigid, harden into wrong; Still for the strong too weak, the weak too strong. Yet go! and thus o'er all the creatures sway, Thus let the wiser make the rest obey; And for those arts mere instinct could afford, Be crown'd as monarchs, or as gods adored.'

V. Great Nature spoke; observant men obey'd; Cities were built, societies were made: 200 Here rose one little state; another near Grew by like means, and join'd, through love or fear. Did here the trees with ruddier burdens bend, And there the streams in purer rills descend? What war could ravish, commerce could bestow; And he return'd a friend, who came a foe. Converse and love mankind might strongly draw, When love was liberty, and Nature law. Thus states were form'd, the name of king unknown, Till common interest placed the sway in one. 210 'Twas virtue only (or in arts or arms, Diffusing blessings or averting harms), The same which in a sire the sons obey'd, A prince the father of a people made.

VI. Till then, by Nature crown'd, each patriarch sat, King, priest, and parent of his growing state; On him, their second Providence, they hung, Their law his eye, their oracle his tongue. He from the wondering furrow call'd the food, Taught to command the fire, control the flood, 220 Draw forth the monsters of the abyss profound, Or fetch the aerial eagle to the ground. Till drooping, sickening, dying they began Whom they revered as god to mourn as man: Then, looking up from sire to sire, explored One great first Father, and that first adored. Or plain tradition that this All begun, Convey'd unbroken faith from sire to son; The worker from the work distinct was known, And simple reason never sought but one: 230 Ere wit oblique had broke that steady light, Man, like his Maker, saw that all was right; To virtue, in the paths of pleasure, trod, And own'd a Father when he own'd a God. Love all the faith, and all the allegiance then; For nature knew no right divine in men, No ill could fear in God; and understood A sovereign Being, but a sovereign good. True faith, true policy, united ran, That was but love of God, and this of Man. 240

Who first taught souls enslaved, and realms undone, The enormous faith of many made for one; That proud exception to all Nature's laws, To invert the world, and counterwork its cause? Force first made conquest, and that conquest, law; 'Till Superstition taught the tyrant awe, Then shared the tyranny, then lent it aid, And gods of conquerors, slaves of subjects made: She, midst the lightning's blaze, and thunder's sound, When rock'd the mountains, and when groan'd the ground, 250 She taught the weak to bend, the proud to pray, To Power unseen, and mightier far than they: She, from the rending earth and bursting skies, Saw gods descend, and fiends infernal rise: Here fix'd the dreadful, there the blest abodes; Fear made her devils, and weak hope her gods; Gods partial, changeful, passionate, unjust, Whose attributes were rage, revenge, or lust; Such as the souls of cowards might conceive, And, form'd like tyrants, tyrants would believe. 260 Zeal then, not charity, became the guide; And hell was built on spite, and heaven on pride. Then sacred seem'd the ethereal vault no more; Altars grew marble then, and reek'd with gore: Then first the Flamen tasted living food; Next his grim idol smear'd with human blood; With Heaven's own thunders shook the world below, And play'd the god an engine on his foe.

So drives self-love, through just and through unjust, To one man's power, ambition, lucre, lust: 270 The same self-love, in all, becomes the cause Of what restrains him, government and laws. For, what one likes, if others like as well, What serves one will, when many wills rebel? How shall he keep what, sleeping or awake, A weaker may surprise, a stronger take? His safety must his liberty restrain: All join to guard what each desires to gain. Forced into virtue thus by self-defence, Even kings learn'd justice and benevolence; 280 Self-love forsook the path it first pursued, And found the private in the public good.

'Twas then the studious head or generous mind, Follower of God, or friend of human kind, Poet or patriot, rose but to restore The faith and moral Nature gave before; Relumed her ancient light, not kindled new; If not God's image, yet his shadow drew; Taught power's due use to people and to kings, Taught not to slack, nor strain its tender strings, 290 The less, or greater, set so justly true, That touching one must strike the other too; Till jarring interests of themselves create The according music of a well-mix'd state. Such is the world's great harmony, that springs From order, union, full consent of things: Where small and great, where weak and mighty, made To serve, not suffer; strengthen, not invade; More powerful each as needful to the rest, And in proportion as it blesses, bless'd; 300 Draw to one point, and to one centre bring Beast, man, or angel, servant, lord, or king.

For forms of government let fools contest; Whate'er is best administer'd is best: For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight; His can't be wrong whose life is in the right: In faith and hope the world will disagree, But all mankind's concern is charity: All must be false that thwart this one great end; And all of God that bless mankind, or mend. 310

Man, like the generous vine, supported lives; The strength he gains is from the embrace he gives. On their own axis as the planets run, Yet make at once their circle round the sun; So two consistent motions act the soul, And one regards itself, and one the whole.

Thus God and Nature link'd the general frame, And bade self-love and social be the same.

VARIATIONS.

VER. 1, in several quarto editions—

Learn, Dulness, learn! 'the Universal Cause,' &c.

After VER. 46, in the former editions—

What care to tend, to lodge, to cram, to treat him! All this he knew; but not that 'twas to eat him. As far as goose could judge, he reason'd right; But as to Man, mistook the matter quite.

After VER. 84, in the MS.—

While Man, with opening views of various ways Confounded, by the aid of knowledge strays: Too weak to choose, yet choosing still in haste, One moment gives the pleasure and distaste.

VER. 197, in the first edition—

Who for those arts they learn'd of brutes before, As kings shall crown them, or as gods adore.

VER. 201, in the MSS. thus—

The neighbours leagued to guard their common spot: And love was Nature's dictate, murder, not. For want alone each animal contends, Tigers with tigers, that removed, are friends. Plain Nature's wants the common mother crown'd, She pour'd her acorns, herbs, and streams around. No treasure then for rapine to invade, What need to fight for sunshine or for shade! And half the cause of content was removed, When beauty could be kind to all who loved.

EPISTLE IV.

ARGUMENT.

OF THE NATURE AND STATE OF MAN WITH RESPECT TO HAPPINESS.

I. False notions of happiness, philosophical and popular, answered from ver. 19 to ver. 27. II. It is the end of all men, and attainable by all, ver. 29. God intends happiness to be equal; and to be so, it must be social, since all particular happiness depends on general, and since he governs by general, not particular laws, ver. 35. As it is necessary for order, and the peace and welfare of society, that external goods should be unequal, happiness is not made to consist in these, ver. 51. But, notwithstanding that inequality, the balance of happiness among mankind is kept even by Providence, by the two passions of hope and fear, ver. 70. III. What the happiness of individuals is, as far as is consistent with the constitution of this world; and that the good man has here the advantage, ver. 77. The error of imputing to virtue what are only the calamities of nature, or of fortune, ver. 94. IV. The folly of expecting that God should alter his general laws in favour of particulars, ver. 121. V. That we are not judges who are good; but that, whoever they are, they must be happiest, ver. 131, &c. VI. That external goods are not the proper rewards, but often inconsistent with, or destructive of virtue, ver. 167. That even these can make no man happy without virtue: instanced in riches ver. 185; honours, ver. 193; nobility, ver. 205; greatness, ver. 217; fame, ver. 237; superior talents, ver. 259, &c. With pictures of human infelicity in men possessed of them all, ver. 269, &c. VII. That virtue only constitutes a happiness, whose object is universal, and whose prospect eternal, ver. 309, &c. That the perfection of virtue and happiness consists in a conformity to the order of Providence here, and a resignation to it here and hereafter, ver. 326, &c.

O Happiness! our being's end and aim! Good, Pleasure, Ease, Content! whate'er thy name: That something still which prompts th' eternal sigh, For which we bear to live, or dare to die, Which still so near us, yet beyond us lies, O'erlook'd, seen double, by the fool, and wise. Plant of celestial seed! if dropp'd below, Say, in what mortal soil thou deign'st to grow? Fair opening to some court's propitious shine, Or deep with diamonds in the flaming mine? 10 Twined with the wreaths Parnassian laurels yield, Or reap'd in iron harvests of the field? Where grows?—where grows it not? If vain our toil, We ought to blame the culture, not the soil: Fix'd to no spot is happiness sincere, Tis nowhere to be found, or everywhere; 'Tis never to be bought, but always free, And, fled from monarchs, St John! dwells with thee.

I. Ask of the learn'd the way? the learn'd are blind; This bids to serve, and that to shun mankind; 20 Some place the bliss in action, some in ease, Those call it Pleasure, and Contentment these; Some, sunk to beasts, find pleasure end in pain; Some, swell'd to gods, confess even virtue vain; Or, indolent, to each extreme they fall, To trust in every thing, or doubt of all.

Who thus define it, say they more or less Than this, that happiness is happiness?

II. Take Nature's path, and mad Opinion's leave; All states can reach it, and all heads conceive; 30 Obvious her goods, in no extreme they dwell; There needs but thinking right, and meaning well; And, mourn our various portions as we please, Equal is common sense, and common ease.

Remember, Man, 'The Universal Cause Acts not by partial, but by general laws;' And makes what happiness we justly call Subsist, not in the good of one, but all. There's not a blessing individuals find, But some way leans and hearkens to the kind: 40 No bandit fierce, no tyrant mad with pride, No cavern'd hermit, rests self-satisfied: Who most to shun or hate mankind pretend, Seek an admirer, or would fix a friend: Abstract what others feel, what others think, All pleasures sicken, and all glories sink: Each has his share; and who would more obtain, Shall find, the pleasure pays not half the pain.

Order is Heaven's first law; and, this confess'd, Some are, and must be, greater than the rest, 50 More rich, more wise; but who infers from hence That such are happier, shocks all common sense. Heaven to mankind impartial we confess, If all are equal in their happiness: But mutual wants this happiness increase; All Nature's difference keeps all Nature's peace. Condition, circumstance, is not the thing; Bliss is the same in subject or in king, In who obtain defence, or who defend, In him who is, or him who finds a friend: 60 Heaven breathes through every member of the whole One common blessing, as one common soul. But Fortune's gifts if each alike possess'd, And each were equal, must not all contest? If then to all Men happiness was meant, God in externals could not place content.

Fortune her gifts may variously dispose, And these be happy call'd, unhappy those; But Heaven's just balance equal will appear, While those are placed in hope, and these in fear: 70 Not present good or ill, the joy or curse, But future views of better, or of worse.

O sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise, By mountains piled on mountains, to the skies? Heaven still with laughter the vain toil surveys, And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.

III. Know, all the good that individuals find, Or God and Nature meant to mere mankind, Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense, Lie in three words—Health, Peace, and Competence, 80 But health consists with temperance alone; And peace, O Virtue! peace is all thy own. The good or bad the gifts of Fortune gain; But these less taste them, as they worse obtain. Say, in pursuit of profit or delight, Who risk the most, that take wrong means, or right? Of vice or virtue, whether bless'd or cursed, Which meets contempt, or which compassion first? Count all th' advantage prosperous vice attains, 'Tis but what virtue flies from and disdains: 90 And grant the bad what happiness they would, One they must want, which is, to pass for good.

Oh, blind to truth, and God's whole scheme below, Who fancy bliss to vice, to virtue woe! Who sees and follows that great scheme the best, Best knows the blessing, and will most be bless'd. But fools, the good alone unhappy call, For ills or accidents that chance to all. See Falkland dies, the virtuous and the just! See godlike Turenne prostrate on the dust! 100 See Sidney bleeds amid the martial strife! Was this their virtue, or contempt of life? Say, was it virtue, more though Heaven ne'er gave, Lamented Digby! sunk thee to the grave? Tell me, if virtue made the son expire, Why, full of days and honour, lives the sire? Why drew Marseilles' good bishop[90] purer breath, When Nature sicken'd, and each gale was death? Or why so long (in life if long can be) Lent Heaven a parent to the poor and me? 110

What makes all physical or moral ill? There deviates Nature, and here wanders Will. God sends not ill, if rightly understood; Or partial ill is universal good, Or change admits, or Nature lets it fall; Short, and but rare, till Man improved it all. We just as wisely might of Heaven complain That righteous Abel was destroy'd by Cain, As that the virtuous son is ill at ease When his lewd father gave the dire disease. 120

IV. Think we, like some weak prince, th' Eternal Cause, Prone for his favourites to reverse his laws? Shall burning AEtna, if a sage requires, Forget to thunder, and recall her fires? On air or sea new motions be impress'd, O blameless Bethel![91] to relieve thy breast? When the loose mountain trembles from on high, Shall gravitation cease, if you go by? Or some old temple, nodding to its fall, For Chartres'[92] head reserve the hanging wall? 130

V. But still this world (so fitted for the knave) Contents us not. A better shall we have? A kingdom of the just then let it be: But first consider how those just agree. The good must merit God's peculiar care; But who but God can tell us who they are? One thinks on Calvin Heaven's own spirit fell; Another deems him instrument of hell; If Calvin feel Heaven's blessing, or its rod, This cries there is, and that, there is no God. 140 What shocks one part will edify the rest, Nor with one system can they all be bless'd. The very best will variously incline, And what rewards your virtue, punish mine. Whatever is, is right.—This world, 'tis true, Was made for Caesar—but for Titus too: And which more bless'd? who chain'd his country, say, Or he whose virtue sigh'd to lose a day?

'But sometimes virtue starves, while vice is fed.' What then? Is the reward of virtue bread? 150 That, vice may merit, 'tis the price of toil; The knave deserves it, when he tills the soil, The knave deserves it, when he tempts the main, Where Folly fights for kings, or dives for gain. The good man may be weak, be indolent; Nor is his claim to plenty, but content. But grant him riches, your demand is o'er? 'No—shall the good want health, the good want power?' Add health, and power, and every earthly thing, 'Why bounded power? why private? why no king?' 160 Nay, why external for internal given? Why is not man a god, and earth a heaven? Who ask and reason thus, will scarce conceive God gives enough, while he has more to give: Immense the power, immense were the demand; Say, at what part of nature will they stand?

VI. What nothing earthly gives, or can destroy, The soul's calm sunshine, and the heartfelt joy, Is virtue's prize: a better would you fix? Then give humility a coach and six, 170 Justice a conqueror's sword, or truth a gown, Or public spirit its great cure, a crown. Weak, foolish man! will Heaven reward us there With the same trash mad mortals wish for here? The boy and man an individual makes, Yet sigh'st thou now for apples and for cakes? Go, like the Indian, in another life Expect thy dog, thy bottle, and thy wife; As well as dream such trifles are assign'd, As toys and empires, for a godlike mind. 180 Rewards, that either would to virtue bring No joy, or be destructive of the thing; How oft by these at sixty are undone The virtues of a saint at twenty-one! To whom can riches give repute, or trust, Content, or pleasure, but the good and just? Judges and senates have been bought for gold, Esteem and love were never to be sold. O fool! to think God hates the worthy mind, The lover and the love of human kind, 190 Whose life is healthful, and whose conscience clear, Because he wants a thousand pounds a year.

Honour and shame from no condition rise; Act well your part; there all the honour lies. Fortune in men has some small difference made— One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade; The cobbler apron'd, and the parson gown'd, The friar hooded, and the monarch crown'd. 'What differ more' (you cry) 'than crown and cowl?' I'll tell you, friend!—a wise man and a fool. 200 You'll find, if once the monarch acts the monk, Or, cobbler-like, the parson will be drunk, Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow; The rest is all but leather or prunella.

Stuck o'er with titles, and hung round with strings, That thou may'st be by kings, or whores of kings, Boast the pure blood of an illustrious race, In quiet flow from Lucrece to Lucrece: But by your fathers' worth if yours you rate, Count me those only who were good and great. 210 Go! if your ancient but ignoble blood Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood, Go! and pretend your family is young; Nor own, your fathers have been fools so long. What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards? Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.

Look next on greatness; say where greatness lies? 'Where, but among the heroes and the wise?' Heroes are much the same, the point's agreed, From Macedonia's madman to the Swede; 220 The whole strange purpose of their lives, to find Or make an enemy of all mankind! Not one looks backward, onward still he goes, Yet ne'er looks forward further than his nose. No less alike the politic and wise; All sly slow things, with circumspective eyes: Men in their loose unguarded hours they take, Not that themselves are wise, but others weak. But grant that those can conquer, these can cheat; 'Tis phrase absurd to call a villain great: 230 Who wickedly is wise, or madly brave, Is but the more a fool, the more a knave. Who noble ends by noble means obtains, Or failing, smiles in exile or in chains, Like good Aurelius let him reign, or bleed Like Socrates, that man is great indeed.

What's fame? A fancied life in others' breath, A thing beyond us, even before our death. Just what you hear, you have; and what's unknown The same (my Lord) if Tully's, or your own. 240 All that we feel of it begins and ends In the small circle of our foes or friends; To all beside as much an empty shade An Eugene living, as a Caesar dead; Alike or when, or where, they shone, or shine, Or on the Rubicon, or on the Rhine. A wit's a feather, and a chief a rod; An honest man's the noblest work of God. Fame but from death a villain's name can save, As justice tears his body from the grave, 250 When what t' oblivion better were resign'd, Is hung on high, to poison half mankind. All fame is foreign, but of true desert; Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart: One self-approving hour whole years out-weighs Of stupid starers, and of loud huzzas; And more true joy Marcellus exiled feels, Than Caesar with a senate at his heels.

In parts superior what advantage lies? Tell (for you can) what is it to be wise? 260 'Tis but to know how little can be known; To see all others' faults, and feel our own: Condemn'd in business or in arts to drudge, Without a second, or without a judge. Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land? All fear, none aid you, and few understand. Painful pre-eminence! yourself to view Above life's weakness, and its comforts too.

Bring then these blessings to a strict account; Make fair deductions; see to what they mount: 270 How much of other each is sure to cost; How each for other oft is wholly lost; How inconsistent greater goods with these; How sometimes life is risk'd, and always ease: Think, and if still the things thy envy call, Say, wouldst thou be the man to whom they fall? To sigh for ribands if thou art so silly, Mark how they grace Lord Umbra, or Sir Billy: Is yellow dirt the passion of thy life? Look but on Gripus, or on Gripus' wife: 280 If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined, The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind: Or, ravish'd with the whistling of a name, See Cromwell,[93] damn'd to everlasting fame! If all, united, thy ambition call, From ancient story learn to scorn them all. There, in the rich, the honour'd, famed, and great, See the false scale of happiness complete! In hearts of kings, or arms of queens who lay, How happy! those to ruin, these betray. 290 Mark by what wretched steps their glory grows, From dirt and sea-weed as proud Venice rose; In each how guilt and greatness equal ran, And all that raised the hero, sunk the man: Now Europe's laurels on their brows behold, But stain'd with blood, or ill exchanged for gold: Then see them broke with toils, or sunk in ease, Or infamous for plunder'd provinces. Oh wealth ill-fated! which no act of fame E'er taught to shine, or sanctified from shame! 300 What greater bliss attends their close of life? Some greedy minion, or imperious wife. The trophied arches, storied halls invade, And haunt their slumbers in the pompous shade. Alas! not dazzled with their noontide ray, Compute the morn and evening to the day; The whole amount of that enormous fame, A tale that blends their glory with their shame!

VII. Know then this truth (enough for man to know) 'Virtue alone is happiness below.' 310 The only point where human bliss stands still, And tastes the good without the fall to ill; Where only merit constant pay receives, Is bless'd in what it takes, and what it gives; The joy unequall'd, if its end it gain, And if it lose, attended with no pain: Without satiety, though e'er so bless'd, And but more relish'd as the more distress'd: The broadest mirth unfeeling Folly wears, Less pleasing far than Virtue's very tears: 320 Good, from each object, from each place acquired, For ever exercised, yet never tired; Never elated, while one man's oppress'd; Never dejected, while another's bless'd; And where no wants, no wishes can remain, Since but to wish more virtue, is to gain.

See the sole bliss Heaven could on all bestow! Which who but feels can taste, but thinks can know: Yet poor with fortune, and with learning blind, The bad must miss; the good, untaught, will find; 330 Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, But looks through Nature up to Nature's God; Pursues that chain which links th' immense design, Joins Heaven and Earth, and mortal and divine; Sees, that no being any bliss can know, But touches some above, and some below; Learns, from this union of the rising whole, The first, last purpose of the human soul; And knows where faith, law, morals, all began, All end, in love of God, and love of Man. 340

For him alone Hope leads from goal to goal, And opens still, and opens on his soul; Till lengthen'd on to Faith, and unconfined, It pours the bliss that fills up all the mind. He sees why Nature plants in Man alone Hope of known bliss, and faith in bliss unknown: (Nature, whose dictates to no other kind Are given in vain, but what they seek they find) Wise is her present; she connects in this His greatest virtue with his greatest bliss; 350 At once his own bright prospect to be bless'd, And strongest motive to assist the rest.

Self-love thus push'd to social, to divine, Gives thee to make thy neighbour's blessing thine. Is this too little for the boundless heart? Extend it, let thy enemies have part; Grasp the whole worlds of Reason, Life, and Sense, In one close system of Benevolence: Happier as kinder, in whate'er degree, And height of bliss but height of charity. 360

God loves from whole to parts: but human soul Must rise from individual to the whole. Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake, As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake; The centre moved, a circle straight succeeds, Another still, and still another spreads; Friend, parent, neighbour, first it will embrace; His country next; and next all human race; Wide and more wide, th' o'erflowings of the mind Take every creature in, of every kind; 370 Earth smiles around, with boundless bounty bless'd, And Heaven beholds its image in his breast.

Come then, my friend, my genius! come along; O master of the poet, and the song! And while the Muse now stoops, or now ascends, To Man's low passions, or their glorious ends, Teach me, like thee, in various Nature wise, To fall with dignity, with temper rise; Form'd by thy converse, happily to steer From grave to gay, from lively to severe; 380 Correct with spirit, eloquent with ease, Intent to reason, or polite to please. Oh! while along the stream of Time thy name Expanded flies, and gathers all its fame, Say, shall my little bark attendant sail, Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale? When statesmen, heroes, kings, in dust repose, Whose sons shall blush their fathers were thy foes, Shall then this verse to future age pretend Thou wert my guide, philosopher, and friend? 390 That, urged by thee, I turn'd the tuneful art. From sounds to things, from fancy to the heart; For Wit's false mirror held up Nature's light; Show'd erring pride, Whatever is, is right; That Reason, Passion, answer one great aim; That true Self-love and Social are the same; That Virtue only makes our bliss below; And all our knowledge is, Ourselves to know.

* * * * *

VARIATIONS.

VER. 1, in the MS. thus—

O Happiness! to which we all aspire, Wing'd with strong hope, and borne by full desire; That ease, for which in want, in wealth we sigh; That ease, for which we labour and we die

After VER. 52, in the MS.—

Say not, 'Heaven's here profuse, there poorly saves, And for one monarch makes a thousand slaves,' You'll find, when causes and their ends are known, 'Twas for the thousand Heaven has made that one.

After VER. 66. in the MS.—

'Tis peace of mind alone is at a stay; The rest mad Fortune gives or takes away. All other bliss by accident's debarr'd; But virtue's in the instant a reward: In hardest trials operates the best, And more is relish'd as the more distress'd.

After VER. 92, in the MS.—

Let sober moralists correct their speech, No bad man's happy: he is great or rich.

After VER. 116, in the MS.—

Of every evil, since the world began, The real source is not in God, but man.

After VER. 142, in some editions—

Give each a system, all must be at strife; What different systems for a man and wife?

After VER. 172, in the MS.—

Say, what rewards this idle world imparts, Or fit for searching heads or honest hearts.

VER. 207, in the MS. thus—

The richest blood, right-honourably old, Down from Lucretia to Lucretia roll'd, May swell thy heart, and gallop in thy breast, Without one dash of usher or of priest: Thy pride as much despise all other pride As Christ-church once all colleges beside.

After VER. 316, in the MS.—

Even while it seems unequal to dispose, And chequers all the good man's joys with woes, 'Tis but to teach him to support each state, With patience this, with moderation that; And raise his base on that one solid joy, Which conscience gives, and nothing can destroy.

VER. 373, in the MS. thus—

And now transported o'er so vast a plain, While the wing'd courser flies with all her rein, While heavenward now her mounting wing she feels, Now scatter'd fools fly trembling from her heels, Wilt thou, my St John! keep her course in sight, Confine her fury, and assist her flight?

VER. 397, in the MS. thus—

That just to find a God is all we can, And all the study of mankind is Man.



EPISTLE TO DR ARBUTHNOT;

OR, PROLOGUE TO THE SATIRES.

ADVERTISEMENT.

This paper is a sort of bill of complaint, begun many years since, and drawn up by snatches, as the several occasions offered. I had no thoughts of publishing it, till it pleased some persons of rank and fortune (the authors of 'Verses to the Imitator of Horace,' and of an 'Epistle to a Doctor of Divinity from a Nobleman at Hampton Court') to attack, in a very extraordinary manner, not only my writings (of which, being public, the public is judge) but my person, morals, and family, whereof, to those who know me not, a truer information may be requisite. Being divided between the necessity to say something of myself, and my own laziness to undertake so awkward a task, I thought it the shortest way to put the last hand to this epistle. If it have anything pleasing, it will be that by which I am most desirous to please, the truth and the sentiment; and if anything offensive, it will be only to those I am least sorry to offend, the vicious or the ungenerous.