Hear this and tremble! all who would be great,
Yet know not what attends that dang'rous wretched state.
Is private life from all these evils free?
Vice of all kinds, rage, envy there we fee,
Deceit, that Friendship's mask infidious wears,
Quarrels, and feuds, and law's intangling fnares.
But there are pleasures still in human life,
Domestic ease, a tender loving wife,

Children, whofe dawning fmiles your heart engage,
The grace and comfort of foft-stealing age.
If happiness exifts, 'tis furely here-

But are these joys exempt from care and fear?
Need I the miseries of that ftate declare,
When different paffions draw the wedded pair?
Or fay how hard those paffions to discern,
Ere the die's caft, and 'tis too late to learn?
Who can infure, that what is right, and good,
These children fhall pursue? or if they shou'd,
Death comes, when leaft you fear fo black a day,
And all your blooming hopes are snatch'd away.

We fay not, that these ills from Virtue flow:
Did her wife precepts rule the world, we know
The golden ages would again begin,

But 'tis our lot in this to fuffer, and to fin.

Obferving this, fome fages have decreed
That all things from two caufes must proceed;
Two principles with equal pow'r endu'd,
This wholly evil, that fupremely good.

From this arise the miferies we endure,
Whilft that adminifters a friendly cure;
Hence life is chequer'd still with bliss, and woe,
Hence tares with golden crops promiscuous grow,
And poisonous ferpents make their dread repose
Beneath the covert of the fragrant rose.
Can fuch a system fatisfy the mind,
Are both these Gods in equal pow'r conjoin'd,
Or one fuperior? Equal if you fay,
Chaos returns, fince neither will obey.
Is one fuperior? good, or ill muft reign,
Eternal joy, or everlasting pain.
Whiche'er is conquer'd must entirely yield,
And the victorious God enjoy the field.
Hence with these fictions of the Magi's brain!
Hence ouzy Nile, with all her monstrous train!
Or comes the Stoic nearer to the right?
He holds, that whatsoever yields delight,
Wealth, fame, externals all, are useless things;
Himself half starving happier far than kings..

'Tis fine indeed to be fo wond'rous wife!

By the fame reas'ning too he pain denies;

Roast him, or flay him, break him on the wheel,
Retract he will not, though he can't but feel:
Pain's not an ill, he utters with a groan;

What then? an inconvenience 'tis, he'll own.
What, vigour, health, and beauty? are these good?
No: they may be accepted, not pursued:
Abfurd to fquabble thus about a name,

Quibbling with diff'rent words, that mean the same.
Stoic, were you not fram'd of flesh and blood,
You might be bleft without external good;
But know, be felf-fufficient as you can,

You are not spirit quite, but frail, and mortal man.
But fince these fages, fo abfurdly wife,

Vainly pretend enjoyments to despise,

Because externals, and in Fortune's pow'r,

Now mine, now thine, the bleffings of an hour;

Why value then, that strength of mind, they boast,
As often varying, and as quickly loft?

A head-ach hurts it, or a rainy day,

And a flow fever wipes it quite away.

See 'one whofe councils, one whofe conqu❜ring hand Once fav'd Britannia's almost finking land:

Lord Somers.

b Duke of Marlborough.

Examples

1

Examples of the mind's extenfive pow'r,
Examples too how quickly fades that flow'r.
'Him let me add, whom late we saw excel
In each politer kind of writing well;
Whether he ftrove our follies to expose
In eafy verse, or droll and hum'rous profe;
Few years, alas compel his throne to quit
This mighty monarch o'er the realms of wit,
See felf-furviving he's an ideot grown!5

A melancholy proof our parts are not our own..
Thy tenets, Stoic, yet we may forgive,
If in a future ftate we cease to live. d
For here the virtuous fuffer much, 'tis plain;
If pain is evil, this muft God arraign;
And on this principle confefs we must,

Pain can no evil be, or God must be unjust.

Blind man! whose reason fuch strait bounds confine,

That ere it touches truth's extremeft line,
It stops amaz'd, and quits the great design.
Own you not, Stoic, God is just and true?
Dare to proceed; secure this path pursue :
'Twill foon conduct you far beyond the tomb,
To future juftice, and a life to come.jo

05

This

This path you fay is hid in endless night,
'Tis felf-conceit alone obftructs your fight,
You stop, ere half your destin'd course is run,
And triumph, when the conqueft is not won;
By this the Sophifts were of old misled:

See what a monftrous race from one mistake is bred!

Hear then my argument: confefs we must,

A God there is, fupremely wife and just :
If fo, however things affect our fight,

As fings our bard, whatever is, is right.
But is it right, what here fo oft appears,
That vice should triumph, virtue sink in tears?
The inference then, that clofes this debate,
Is, that there must exist a future state.

The wife extending their enquiries wide
See how both states are by connection ty'd;
Fools view but part, and not the whole furvey,
'So crowd existence all into a day.

Hence are they led to hope, but hope in vain,
That Justice never will refume her reign;
On this vain hope adulterers, thieves rely,
And to this altar vile affaffins fly.

"But rules not God by general laws divine?

"Man's vice, or virtues change not the defign."

What