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:
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 no lawful sway,
In this weak queen some favourite still obey;
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.
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 toss'd,
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;
Through life 'tis follow'd e'en 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.

The 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.

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;
E'en avarice, prudence; sloth, philosophy;
Lust, through some certain strainers well refined,
Is gentle love, and charms all womankind;
Envy, to which the 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:
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.

140

210

Extremes in nature equal ends produce,
In man they join to some mysterious use;
Though each by turns the other's bounds 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.
Fools! who from hence into the notion fall,
That vice and 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,
150 As, to be hated, needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
But where the 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 :
E'en those who dwell beneath its very zone,
160 Or never feel the rage, or never own;
What happier natures shrink at with affright,
The hard inhabitant contends is right.

Virtuous and vicious every man must be,
Few in the extreme, but all in the degree;
The rogue and fool by fits is fair and wise;
And e'en 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;

220

230

240

170 But Heaven's great view, is one, and that the whole.
That counterworks each folly and caprice;
That disappoints the effect of every vice;
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,
180 The joy, the peace, the glory of mankind.

Heaven forming each on other to depend,
A master, or a servant, or a friend,
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,

190 Those joys, those loves, those interests, to resign.
Taught half by reason, half by mere decay,
To welcome death, and calmly pass away.
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,

200 The sot a hero, lunatic a king;

The starving chemist in his golden views
Supremely bless'd; the poet in his muse.
See some strange comfort every state attend,
And pride bestow'd on all, a common friend:

250

260

270

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 play-thing gives his youth delight,
A little louder, but as empty quite :
Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage,

Like bubbles on the sea of matter borne,
They rise, they break, and to that sea return.
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;

And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age: 280 The chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown.

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;

E'en mean self-love becomes, by fore 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.

ARGUMENT OF EPISTLE III.

Of the Nature and State of Man with respect to
Society.

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 has kindly spread the flowery lawn:
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,
290 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:
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.

I. The whole universe one system of society, ver 7, &c. Nothing made wholly for itself, nor yet wholly for Grant that the powerful still the weak control; another, ver. 27. The happiness of animals mutual, ver. 49. II. Reason or instinct operate alike to the Be man the wit and tyrant of the whole: good of each individual, ver. 79. Reason or instinct Nature that tyrant checks: he only knows, operate also to society in all animals, ver. 109. III. And helps another creature's wants and woes. How far society carried by instinct, ver. 115. How Say, will the falcon, stooping from above much farther by reason, ver. 128. IV. Of that which Smit with her varying plumage, spare the dove? is called the state of nature, ver. 144. Reason in Admires the jay the insect's gilded wings? structed by instinct in the invention of arts, ver. 166, and in the forms of society, ver. 176. V. Origin of Or hears the hawk when Philomela sings? political societies, ver. 196. Origin of monarchy, ver. Man cares for all: to birds he gives his woods, 207. Patriarchal government, ver. 212. VI. Origin of To beasts his pastures, and to fish his floods: true religion and government, from the same principle For some his interest prompts him to provide, of love, ver. 231, &c. Origin of superstition and For more his pleasure, yet for more his pride: tyranny, from the same principle of fear, ver. 237. &c. And feed on one vain patron, and enjoy The influence of self-love operating to the social and The extensive blessing of his luxury. public good, ver 266. Restoration of true religion and That very life his learned hunger craves, government, on their first principle, ver. 285. Mixed government, ver. 288. Various forms of each, and the He saves from famine, from the savage saves; Nay, feasts the animal he dooms his feast, And, till he ends the being, makes it bless'd: Which sees no more the stroke, or feels the pain, Than favour'd inan by touch ethereal slain. The creature had his feast of life before; Thou too must perish, when thy feast is o'er! 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:

true end of all, ver. 200, &c.

EPISTLE III.

.

HERE then we rest: The universal cause
Acts to one end, but acts by various laws.'
In all the madness of superfluous health,
The train 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 The hour conceal'd, and so remote the fear,

Combining all below and all above.

See plastic Nature working to this end,
The single atoms each to other tend,
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,)

Death still draws nearer, never seeming near. 10 Great standing miracle! that Heaven assign'd Its only thinking thing this turn of mind.

II. Whether with reason or with instinct bless'd
Know, all enjoy that power which suits them best;
To bliss alike by that direction tend,
And find the means proportion'd to their end.
Say, where full instinct is the 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,

20

30

40

50

70

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;
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.

160

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.
90 Unbribed, unbloody, stood the blameless priest :
Heaven's attribute was universal care,
And man's prerogative, to rule, but spare.
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,
100 And turn'd on man a fiercer savage, man.

Who taught the nations of the field and wood
To shun their poison, and to choose their food?
Prescient, the tides or tempest 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 culls 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:
But as he fram'd a whole the whole to bless,
On mutual wants built mutual happiness;
So from the first eternal order ran,

See him from nature rising slow to art:
To copy instinct then was reason's part.
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,

110 Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale.
Here too all forms of social union find,
And hence let reason, late, instruct mankind:
Here subterranean works and cities see;
There towns aërial on the waving tree.
Learn each small people's genius, policies,
The ant's 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,
120 Their separate cells and properties maintain.
Mark what unvaried laws preserve each state,
Laws wise as nature, and as fix'd as fate.
In vain thy reason finer webs shall draw,
Entangle justice in her net of law,

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 decps,
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,
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.

170

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,
130 Be crown'd as monarchs, or as gods adored.'

180

190

200

V. Great nature spoke; observant man obey'd;
Cities were built, societies were made:
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 justly draw,

140 When love was liberty, and nature law.

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 deeds, 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 :
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 preserve 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.
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.

VI. Till then, by nature crown'd each patriarch sate,
King, priest, and parent, of his growing state:
On him, their second Providence, they hung,
150 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 aürial eagle to the ground.

Taught power's due use to people and to kings,
Taught nor 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
230 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:
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;
240 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 thwarts 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.

And, form'd like tyrants, tyrants would believe. 260 I. False notions of happiness, philosophical and popu

EPISTLE IV.

ESSAY ON MAN.

On Happiness! our being's end and aim!
Good, pleasure, ease, content! whate'er thy name:
That something still which prompts the 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?
Twined with the wreaths Parnassian laurels yield,
Or reap'd in iron harvests of the field?

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,
10 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

Where grows? where grows it not? If vain our toil, But health consists with temperance alone;

We ought to blame the culture, not the soil:

Fix'd to no spot is happiness sincere,

Tis no where to be found, or every where ;
'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 e'en 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?

30

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 the advantage prosperous vice attains,
"Tis but what virtue flies from and disdains:
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!

90

100

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!
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 purer breath,
40 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?
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,

II. Take nature's path, and mad opinions leave;
All states can reach it, and all heads conceive:
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 :
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,
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:

50

Or change admits, or nature lets it fall,
Short, and but rare, till man improved it all.

110

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.
Think we, like some weak prince, the Eternal Cause
Prone for his favourites to reverse his laws!

IV. Shall burning Ætna, if a sage requires,
Forget to thunder, and recall her fires!
On air or sea new motions be impress'd,
Oh blameless Bethel! to relieve thy breast?
When the loose mountain trembles from on high,
60 Shall gravitation cease if you go by?
Or some old temple, nodding to its fall,
For Chartres' head reserve the hanging wall?
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.

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.

120

130