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:

'What differ more, you cry, 'than crown and cowl?"
I'll tell you, friend! a wise man and a fool.
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.

200

If Calvin feel Heaven's blessing, or its rod,

This cries, there is, and that, there is no God. 140 The rest is all but leather or prunella.

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 Cæsar-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?

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. 2.
Go! if your ancient, but ignoble blood
Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood,
Go! and pretend your family is young;

VI. 'But sometimes virtue starves while vice is Nor own your fathers have been fools so long.

fed.'

What then? Is the reward of virtue bread?
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?'

And health and power and every earthly thing

What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards?

150 Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.

'Why bounded power? why private? why no king? 160 Men in their loose unguarded hours they take,

Nay, why external for internal given ?

170

230

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:
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, e'en before our death.
Just what you hear you have; and what's unknown,
The same (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 beside as much an empty shade
As Eugene living, as a Cæsar dead;
Alike or when or where they shone or shine,
Or on the Rubicon, or on the Rhine.
180 A wit's a feather, and a chief a rod;

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?
What nothing earthly gives or can destroy,
The soul's calm sun-shine, and the heart-felt joy,
Is virtue's prize: a better would you fix?
Then give humility a coach and six,
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 god-like mind.
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.
Oh fool! to think God hates the worthy mind,
The lover and the love of human-kind,
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

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;
When what to 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 outweighs
Of stupid starers, and of loud huzzas;

190 And more true joy Marcellus exiled feels,
Than Cæsar with a senate at his heels.

In parts superior what advantage lies?
Tell (for you can) what is it to be wise?
'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 understard

240

250

260

1

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,

Painful pre-eminence! yourself to view

Above life's weakness, and its comforts too.

Bring then these blessings to a strict account:

How much of other each is sure to cost;

Make fair deductions; see to what they 'mount: 270 But touches some above, and some below:

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,

Learns from the union of the rising whole
The first, last purpose of the human soul;
And knows where faith, law, morals, all began, 340
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
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;
At once his own bright prospect to be bless'd;
And strongest motive to assist the rest.

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.

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?

290 Extend it, let thy enemies have part;

350

O wealth ill-fated! which no act of fame

E'er taught to shine, or sanctified from shame! 300 Another still, and still another spreads;

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;

310

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:
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.

320 Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale?

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;
Slave to no sect, who takes no private road,
Bur looks through nature up to nature's God;

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;
And all our knowledge, is ourselves to know.

Expanded flies, and gathers all its fame,
Say, shall my little bark attendant sail,

idea of it from the disjecta membra poetæ 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 contain

to ver. 168. III. It only remains to find (if we ca. his ruling passion: That will certainly influence ah 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.

ed a satire against the misapplication of wit and I. YES, you despise the man to books confined, learning) may be found in the fourth book of the Who from his study rails at human kind, Dunciad, and up and down, occasionally, in the other Though what he learns he speaks, and may advance three.

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 ac

And yet the fate of all extremes is such,

tion would make it more animated, and the fable less Men may be read, as well as books, too much. 10 invidious: in which all the great principles of true To observations which ourselves we make, and false governments and religions should be chiefly We grow more partial for the observer's sake: delivered in feigned examples.

To written wisdom, as another's, less;

The fourth and last book was to pursue the sub- Maxims are drawn from notions, these from guess. ject of the fourth epistle of the first, and to treat of There's some peculiar in each leaf and grain, ethics, or practical morality; and would have con- Some unmark'd fibre, or some varying vein: sisted of many members; of which the four follow- Shall only man be taken in the gross ? ing 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 CОВНАМ.

ARGUMENT.

Of the Knowledge and Characters of Men.

I. That it is not sufficient for this knowledge to con

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,
It may be reason, but it is not man:
His principle of action once explore,
That instant 'tis his principle no more.
Like following life through creatures you dissect,

You lose it in the moment you detect.

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.

20

30

passions, fancies, faculties, &c. ver. 31. The short- Nor 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. 62. Unimaginable weaknesses in the And what comes then is master of the field. greatest, ver. 70, &c. Nothing constant and certain

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 True, some are open, and to all men known; policy, ver. 120. Character given according to the rank of men of the world, ver. 135. And some reason Others, so very close, they 're hid from none; for it, ver. 140. Education alters the nature, or at (So darkness strikes the sense no less than light :) least character, of many, ver. 149. Actions, passions, Thus gracious Chandos is beloved at sight; opinions, manners, humours, or principles, all sub- And every child hates Shylock, though his soul, ject to change. No judging by nature, from ver. 158. Still sits at squat, and peeps not from its hole.

41

50

P

60

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.

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.

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,
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.

"Tis from high life high characters are drawn,

130

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,
More wise, more learn'd, more just, more every

thing.

140

Court virtues bear, like gems, the highest rate,
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 :

What made (say, Montagne, or more sage Charron.) Will sneaks a scrivener, an exceeding knave.

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.

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.
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.

II. In vain the sage, with retrospective eye,
Would from the apparent what, conclude the why; 100
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.
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,

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.

150

160

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,

180

Pride guides his steps, and bids him shun the great: Whose ruling passion was the lust of praise;

Take the most strong, and sort them as you can: 120 He'll shine a Tully and a Wilmot too;