What shocks one part will edify the reft;
Nor with one fyftem can they all be bleft.
The very best will variously incline,
And what rewards your virtue punish mine.
Whatever is is right.-This world, 'tis true,
Was made for Cæfar-but for Titus too:
And which more blefs'd? who chain'd his country, fay, Or he whose virtue sigh'd to lose a day ?
"But fometimes virtue ftarves while vice is fed." What then? is the reward of virtue bread ? That vice may merit; 'tis the price of toil; The knave deferves it when he tills the foil, The knaves 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? [pow'r?" "No-fhall the good want health, the good want Add health and pow'r, and ev'ry earthly thing; "Why bounded pow'r? why private? why no king?" Nay, why external for internal giv'n?
Why is not man a god, and earth a heav'n ?
Who afk and reason thus will fcarce conceive
God gives enough while he has more to give:
Immenfe the pow'r, immense were the demand: *165
Say at what part of Nature will they stand?
What nothing earthly gives or can destroy,
The foul's calm funshine and the heart-felt joy,
Is virtue's prize. A better would you fix?
Then give Humility a coach and fix,
Justice a conq'ror's fword, or Truth a gown,
Or Public Spirit its great cure, a crown.
Weak, foolish Man! will Heav'n reward us there
With the fame trash mad mortals wish for here?
The Boy and Man an individual makes,
Yet figh'ft 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 fuch trifles are affign'd,
As toys and empires, for a godlike mind:
Rewards that either would to virtue bring
No joy, or be destructive of the thing.
How oft' by these at fixty are undone
The virtues of a faint at twenty-one!
To whom can riches give repute or truft,
Content or pleasure, but the good and just!
Judges and fenates have been bought for gold;
Efteem and love were never to be fold.
Oh! fool, to think God hates the worthy mind,
The lover and the love of humankind,
Whole life is healthful, and whofe confcience clear,
Because he wants a thousand pounds a-year!
Honour and shame from no condition rife;
A&t well your part, there all the honour lies.
Fortune in Men has fome fmall diff 'rence made; 195
One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade;
The cobler apron'd, and the parfon gown'd,
The friar hooded, and the monarch crown'd.
"What differ more (you cry'd) than crown and cowl ?”
I'll tell you, friend,-a wife man and a fool.
You'll find if once the monarch acts the monk,
Or, cobler-like, the parfon will be drunk,
Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow;
The reft is all but leather or prunella.
Stuck o'er with titles, and hung round with ftrings, That thou mayit be by kings, or whores of kings, 206 Boaft the pure blood of an illuftrious race,
In quiet flow from Lucrece to Lucrece:
But by your father's worth if your's you rate,
Count me thofe only who were good and great.
Go! if your ancient but ignoble blood
Has crept thro' fcoundrels ever fince the flood,
Go! and pretend your family is young,
Nor own your fathers have been fools fo long.
What can ennoble fots, or flaves, or cowards?
Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.
Look 'next on Greatnefs; fay where greatness lies? "Where, but among the heroes and the wife?” Heroes are much the fame, the point's agreed, From Macedonia's madman to the Swede; Y
The whole ftrange purpose of their lives to find
Or make an enemy of all mankind!
Not one looks backward, onward ftill he goes,
Yet ne'er looks forward further than his nofe.
No lefs alike the politic and wife;
All fly flow things with circumfpective eyes:
Men in their loofe unguarded hours they take;
Not that themfelves are wife, but others weak.
But grant that thofe can conquer, thefe can cheat,
'Tis phrafe abfurd to call a villain great :
Who wickedly is wife, or madly brave,
Is but the more a fool, the more a knave.
Who noble ends by noble means obtains,
Or failing, fmiles in exile or in chains,
Like good Aurelius let him reign, or bleed
Like Socrates; that man is great indeed.
What's Fame? a fancy'd life in others' breath; .
A thing beyond us e'en before our death:
Juft what you hear you have; and what's unknown,
The fame (my Lord) if Tully's or your own.
All that we feel of it begins and ends
In the small circle of our foes or friends:
To all befide as much an empty fhade
An Eugene living as a Cæfar dead:
Alike, or when, or where they fhone or shine,
Or on the Rubicon or on the Rhine.
A wit's a feather, and a chief a rod;
An honeft Man's the nobleft work of God.
Fame but from death a villain's name can fave,
As Juftice tears his body from the grave;
When what t'oblivion better were refign'd
Is hung on high to poifon half mankind.
All fame is foreign but of true defert;
Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart:
One felf-approving hour whole years outweighs
Of ftupid ftarers and of loud huzzas ;
And more true joy Marcellus exil'd feels
Than Caefar with a fenate at his heels.
In parts fuperior what advantage lies? Tell (for you can) what is it to be wife?
"Tis but to know how little can be known,
To fee all others' faults, and feel our own;
Condemn'd in bus'nefs or in arts to drudge,
Without a fecond, or without a judge,
Truths would you teach, or fave a finking land? 265
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 bleffings to a strict account;
Make fair deductions; fee to what they 'mount;
How much of other each is fure to coft;
How each for other oft' is wholly loft;
How inconfiftent greater goods with these;
How fometimes life is rifk'd, and always cafe:
Think, and if ftill the things thy envy call,
Say, wouldst thou be the Man to whom they fall?
To figh for ribands if thou art fo filly,
Mark how they grace Lord Umbra or Sir Billy.
Is yellow dirt the paffion of thy life?
Look but on Gripus or on Gripus' wife.
If parts allure thee, think how Bacon fhin'd,
The wifeft, brighteft, meaneft, of mankind;
Or, ravish'd with the whiftling of a name,
See Cromwell damn'd to everlasting fame!
If all united thy ambition call,
From ancient ftory learn to fcorn them all;
There in the rich, the honour'd, fam'd, and great,
See the falfe fcale of happiness complete!
In hearts of kings or arms of queens who lay,
How happy! thofe to ruin, thele betray.
Mark by what wretched fteps their glory grows,
From dirt and feaweed, as proud Venus rofe;
In each how guilt and greatness equal ran,
And all that raife the hero funk the Man;
Now Europe's laurels on their brows behold,
But ftain'd with blood, or ill exchang'd for gold;
Then fee them broke with toils, or funk in ease,
Or infamous for plunder'd provinces.
Oh, wealth ill fated! which no act of fame
E'er taught to shine, or sanctify'd from shame!
What greater blifs attends their close of life?
Some greedy minion, or imperious wife,
The trophy'd arche's story'd halls invade,
And haunt their flumbers in the pompous fhade.
Alas! not dazzled with their noontide ray,
Compute the morn and ev'ning to the day;
The whole amount of that enormous fame,
A tale that blends their glory with their shame!
Know then this truth, (enough for man to know,)
❝ Virtue alone is happiness below:"
The only point where human bliss stands still,
And tastes the good without the fall to ill;
Where only Merit conftant pay receives,
Is blefs'd in what it takes and what it gives;
The joy unequall'd if its end it gain,
And if it lofe attended with no pain:
Without fatiety, tho' e'er fo blefs'd,
And but more relish'd as the more diftrefs'd:
The broadeft mirth unfeeling Folly-wears,
Lefs pleafing far than Virtue's very tears:
Good from each object, from each place, acquir'd,
For ever exercis'd, yet never tir'd;
Never elated while one man's opprefs'd;
Never dejected while another's blefs'd;
And where no wants no wishes can remain,
Since but to wish more virtue is to gain.
See the fole blifs Heav'n could on all bestow!
Which who but feels can taste, but thinks can know:
Yet poor with fortune, and with learning blind,
The bad muft mifs, the good untaught will find; 330
Slave to no fect, who takes no private road,
But looks thro' Nature up to Nature's God;
Pursues that chain which links th' immense design,
Joins heav'n and earth, and mortal and divine;
Sees that no being any bliss can know,
But touches fome above and fome below;
Learns from the union of the rifing whole,
The firft, laft, purpose of the human foul;
And knows where faith, law, morals, all began,
All end in love of God and love of Man.
|