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:
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.
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 damn'd to everlasting fame!
If all, united, thy ambition call,

270

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 some above, and some below:
Learns from the union of the rising whole
The first, last purpose of the human soul;
And knows where faith, law, morals, all began, 310
All end in love of God and love of man.

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,
280 Hope of known bliss, and faith in bliss unknown:
(Nature, whose dictates to no other kind

290

360

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 world 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.
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,
300 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, the 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.

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.
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.
O wealth ill-fated! which no act of fame
L'er taught to shine, or sanctified from shame!
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 noon-tide 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!
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 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:

310

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.

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;
Correct with spirit, eloquent with ease,
Intent to reason, or polite to please.
O! while along the stream of time thy name
Expanded flies, and gathers all its fame,
Say, shall my little bark attendant sail,

320 Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale?

380

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;
330 That virtue only makes our bliss below;

See the role 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;
Slave to no sect, who takes no private road,
Bat looks through nature up to nature's God;

And all our knowledge, is ourselves to know.

It may be proper to observe, that some passages in the preceding Essay having been unjustly suspected of a tendency towards fate and naturalism, the author composed this prayer as the sum of all, to show that his system was founded in free-will, and terminated in piety: that the First Cause was as well the Lord and Governor of the universe as the Creator of it; and that, by submission to his will (the great principle enforced throughout the Essay) was not meant the suffering ourselves to be carried along by a blind determination, but a resting in a religious acquiescence, and confidence full of hope and immortality. To give all this the greater weight, the poet chose for his model the Lord's Prayer, which, of all others, best deserves the title prefixed to this paraphrase.

idea of it from the disjecta membra poete that now remain, it may not be amiss to be a little more particular concerning each of these projected books.

The first, as it treats of man in the abstract, and considers him in general under every of his relations, becomes the foundation, and furnishes out the subjects, of the three following; so that

The second book was to take up again the first and second epistles of the first book, and treat of man in his intellectual capacity at large, as has been explained above. Of this, only a small part of the conclusion (which, as we said, was to have contained a satire against the misapplication of wit and learning) may be found in the fourth book of the Dunciad, and up and down, occasionally, in the other three.

to ver. 168. III. It only remains to find (if we can) his ruling passion: That will certainly influence all the rest, and can reconcile the seeming or real inconsistency of all his actions, ver. 175. Instanced in the extraordinary character of Clodio, ver. 179. A caution against mistaking second qualities for first, which will destroy all possibility of the knowledge of mankind, ver. 210. Examples of the strength of the ruling passion, and its continuation to the last breath, ver. 222, &c.

EPISTLE I.

I. YES, you despise the man to books confined,
Who from his study rails at human kind,
Though what he learns he speaks, and may advance
Some general maxims, or be right by chance.

The third book, in like manner, was to re-assume The coxcomb bird, so talkative and grave, the subject of the third epistle of the first, which That from his cage cries cuckold, whore, and knave, treats of man in his social, political, and religious ca- Though many a passenger he rightly call, pacity. But this part the poet afterwards conceived You hold him no philosopher at all. might be best executed in an epic poem; as the action would make it more animated, and the fable less invidious in which all the great principles of true and false governments and religions should be chiefly delivered in feigned examples.

The fourth and last book was to pursue the subjeet of the fourth epistle of the first, and to treat of ethics, or practical morality; and would have consisted of many members; of which the four following epistles were detached portions; the first two, on the characters of men and women, being the introductory part of this concluding book.

MORAL ESSAYS.

EPISTLE I.

TO SIR RICHARD TEMPLE, LORD COBHAM.

ARGUMENT.

Of the Knowledge and Characters of Men.

And yet the fate of all extremes is such,
Men may be read, as well as books, too much.
To observations which ourselves we make,
We grow more partial for the observer's sake:
To written wisdom, as another's, less;
Maxims are drawn from notions, these from guess.
There's some peculiar in each leaf and grain,
Some unmark'd fibre, or some varying vein:
Shall only man be taken in the gross ?
Grant but as many sorts of minds as moss.

That each from others differs, first confess;
Next, that he varies from himself no less;
Add nature's, custom's, reason's, passion's strife,
And all opinion's colours cast on life.

Our depths who fathoms, or our shallows finds,
Quick whirls, and shifting eddies of our minds?
On human actions reason though you can,

Like following life through creatures you dissect,
You lose it in the moment you detect.

10

20

20

30

I. That it is not sufficient for this knowledge to con- Yet more; the difference is as great between sider man in the abstract: books will not serve the The optics seeing, as the objects seen. purpose, nor yet our own experience singly, ver. 1 All manners take a tincture from our own; General maxims, unless they be formed upon both. Or some discolour'd through our passions shown; will be but notional, ver. 10. Some peculiarity in Or fancy's beam enlarges, multiplies, every man, characteristic to himself, yet varying from himself, ver. 15. Difficulties arising from our own Contracts, inverts, and gives ten thousand dyes. passions, fancies, faculties, &c. ver. 31. The shortNor will life's stream for observation stay; ness of life to observe in, and the uncertainty of the It hurries all too fast to mark their way: principles of action in men to observe by, ver. 37, &c. In vain sedate reflections we would make, Our own principle of action often hid from ourselves. When half our knowledge we must snatch, not take, ver. 41. Some few characters plain, but in general Oft, in the passions' wild rotation toss'd, confounded, dissembled, or inconsistent, ver. 51. The Our spring of action to ourselves is lost: same man utterly different in different places and Tired, not determined, to the last we yield, seasons. ver. C2. Unimaginable weaknesses in the

greatest, ver. 70, &c. Nothing constant and certain And what comes then is master of the field. but God and nature, ver. 95. No judging of the mo- As the last image of that troubled heap, tives from the actions: the same actions proceeding When sense subsides and fancy sports in sleep, from contrary motives, and the same motives in- (Though past the recollection of the thought,) fluencing contrary actions, ver. 100. II. Yet, to form Becomes the stuff of which our dream is wrought: characters, we can only take the strongest actions of Something as dim to our internal view, a man's life, and try to make them agree. The utter Is thus, perhaps, the cause of most we do. uncertainty of this, from nature itself, and from policy, ver. 120. Character given according to the rank of men of the world, ver. 135. And some reason for it, ver. 140. Education alters the nature, or at least character, of many, ver. 149. Actions, passions, opinions, manners, humours, or principles, all sub. ject to change. No judging by nature, from ver. 158. P

True, some are open, and to all men known;
Others, so very close, they 're hid from none;
(So darkness strikes the sense no less than light :)
Thus gracious Chandos is beloved at sight;
And every child hates Shylock, though his soul,
Still sits at squat, and peeps not from its hole.

41

50

Must then at once (the character to save)
The plain rough hero turn a crafty knave?
Alas! in truth the man but changed his mind,
60 Perhaps was sick, in love, or had not dined.
Ask why from Britain Cæsar would retreat?
Cæsar himself might whisper, he was beat.
Why risk the world's great empire for a punk?
Cæsar perhaps might answer, he was drunk
But, sage historians! 'tis your task to prove
One action, conduct; one, heroic love.

At half mankind when generous Manly raves,
All know 'tis virtue, for he thinks them knaves:
When universal homage Umbra pays,
All see 'tis vice, an itch of vulgar praise.
When flattery glares, all hate it in a queen,
While one there is who charms us with his spleen.
But these plain characters we rarely find;
Though strong the bent, yet quick the turns of mind:
Or puzzling contraries confound the whole;
Or affectations quite reverse the soul.
The dull flat falsehood serves for policy;
And in the cunning, truth itself's a lie :
Unthought-of frailties cheat us in the wise;
The fool lies hid in inconsistencies.

See the same man, in vigour, in the gout;
Alone, in company; in place, or out;
Early at business, and at hazard late;
Mad at a fox-chase, wise at a debate;
Drunk at a borough, civil at a ball;
Friendly at Hackney, faithless at Whitehall.
Catius is ever moral, ever grave,

Thinks who endures a knave, is next a knave,
Save just at dinner-then prefers, no doubt,
A rogue with venison to a saint without.

'Tis from high life high characters are drawn,
A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn;
A judge is just, a chancellor juster still;

70 A gownman learn'd, a bishop what you will;
Wise, if a minister; but, if a king,

130

Born where Heaven's influence scarce can penetrate.
In life's low vale, the soil the virtues like;
There please as beauties, here as wonders strike.
Though the same sun with all-diffusive rays
Blush in the rose, and in the diamond blaze,

80 We prize the stronger effort of his power,
And justly set the gem above the flower.

'Tis education forms the common mind:
Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined.
Boastful and rough, your first son is a 'squire;
The next a tradesman, meek, and much a liar:
Tom struts a soldier, open, bold, and brave:
| Will sneaks a scrivener, an exceeding knave.
Is he a churchman? then he's fond of power:
A quaker? sly: a presbyterian ? sour:
90 A smart free-thinker? all things in an hour.

Who would not praise Patricio's high desert,
His hand unstain'd, his uncorrupted heart,
His comprehensive head, all interests weigh'd,
All Europe saved, yet Britain not betray'd?
He thanks you not, his pride is in piquet,
Newmarket-fame, and judgment at a bet.
What made (say, Montagne, or more sage Charron.)
Otho a warrior, Cromwell a buffoon?
A perjured prince a leaden saint revere,
A godless regent tremble at a star?
The throne a bigot keep, a genius quit,
Faithless through piety, and duped through wit?
Europe a woman, child, or dotard rule,
And just her wisest monarch made a fool?

Know, God and nature only are the same;
In man, the judgment shoots at flying game:
A bird of passage! gone as soon as found,
Now in the moon, perhaps now under ground.

II. In vain the sage, with retrospective eye,

Ask men's opinions: Scoto now shall tell
How trade increases, and the world goes well:
Strike off his pension, by the setting sun,
And Britain, if not Europe, is undone.

That gay free-thinker, a fine talker once,
What turns him now a stupid silent dunce?
Some good, or spirit, he has lately found;
Or chanced to meet a minister that frown d.
Judge we by nature? habit can efface,

Would from the apparent what, conclude the why; 100 Interest o'ercome, or policy take place:

Infer the motive from the deed, and show,
That what we chanced, was what we meant to do.
Behold, if fortune or a mistress frowns,

Some plunge in business, others shave their crowns:
To ease the soul of one oppressive weight,
This quits an empire, that embroils a state:
The same adust complexion has impell'd
Charles to the convent, Philip to the field.

150

160

170

By actions? those uncertainty divides:
By passions? these dissimulation hides:
Opinions? they still take a wider range :
Find, if you can, in what you cannot change.
Manners with fortunes, humours turn with climes
Tenets with books, and principles with times.
III. Search then the ruling passion: There, alone
The wild are constant, and the cunning known;
The fool consistent, and the false sincere ;
110 Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here.
This clew once found unravels all the rest,
The prospect clears, and Wharton stands confess'd.
Wharton! the scorn and wonder of our days,
Whose ruling passion was the lust of praise;
Born with whate'er could win it from the wise,
Women and fools must like him, or he dies:
Though wondering senates hung on all he spoke,
The club must hail him master of the joke.
Shall parts so various aim at nothing new?
120 IIe'll shine a Tully and a Wilmot too;

Not always actions show the man; we find
Who does a kindness, is not therefore kind:
Perhaps prosperity becalm'd his breast,
Perhaps the wind just shifted from the east:
Not therefore humble he who seeks retreat,
Pride guides his steps, and bids him shun the great:
Who combats bravely is not therefore brave,
He dreads a death-bed like the meanest slave:
Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise,
His pride in reasoning, not in acting, lies.

But grant that actions best discover man:
Take the most strong, and sort them as you can:
The few that glare, each character must mark,
You balance not the many in the dark.
What will you do with such as disagree?
Suppress them, or miscall them policy?

180

One would not, sure, be frightful when one's dead-Or dress'd in smiles of sweet Cecilia shine, And-Betty-give this cheek a little red.'

251 With simpering angels, palms, and harps divine: Whether the charmer sinner it, or saint it,