20

Afk of the Learn'd the way? The Learn'd are blind: This bids to ferve, and that to fhun mankind; Some place the blifs in action, fome in ease, Thofe call it Pleasure, and Contentment thefe ; Some funk to Beafts, find Pleasure end in Pain; Some fwell'd to Gods, confess ev'n Virtue vain ; Or indolent, to each extreme they fall,

To truft in ev'ry thing, or doubt of all.

Who thus define it, fay they more or less Than this, that Happiness is Happiness?

25

за

Take Nature's path, and mad Opinion's leave; All ftates 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 Senfe, and Common Ease.

Remember, Man," the Univerfal Caufe "Acts not by partial, but by gen❜ral laws;" And makes what Happiness we justly call Subfift not in the good of one, but all.

35

VER. 21. Some place the blifs in action,—Some funk to Beafis, etc.] 1. Thofe who place Happiness, or the fummum bonum, in Pleafure, Hov, fuch as the Cyrenaic fect, called on that account the Hedonic. 2. Thofe who place it in a certain tranquillity or calmness of mind which they call Evymía, fuch as the Democritic fect. 3. The Epicurean. 4. The Stoic. 5. The Protagorean, which held that Man was πάντων χρημάτων μέτρον, the meafure of all things; for that all things which appear to him are, and thofe things which appear not to any man are not; fo that every imagination or opinion of every man was true. 6. The Sceptic: Whofe abfolute Doubt is with great judgment faid to be the effect of Indolence, as well as the abfolute truft of the Protagorean : For the fame dread of labour attending the fearch of truth, which makes the Protagorean prefume it to be always at hand, makes the Sceptic conclude it is never to be found. The only difference is, that the laziness of the one is defponding, and the laziness of the other fanguine; yet both can give it a good name, and call it Happinefs.

i

VER. 23. Some funk to Beafts, etc.] Thefe four lines added in the laft Edition, as neceffary to complete the fummary of the falfe purfuits after happiness among the Greek philofophers.

There's not a blessing Individuals find,

But fome way leans and hearkens to the kind;
No Bandit fierce, no Tyrant mad with pride,
No cavern'd Hermit, refts felf-fatisfy'd :
Who most to shun or hate Mankind pretend,
Seek an admirer, or would fix a friend :
Abstract what others feel, what others think,
All pleafures ficken, and all glories fink:
Each has his fhare; and who would more obtain,
Shall find, the pleasure pays not half the pain.

ORDER is Heav'n's firft Law; and this confeft, Some are, and must be, greater than the rest, More rich, more wife; but who infers from hence That fuch are happier, fhocks all common fenfe. Heav'n to Mankind impartial we confefs,

If all are equal in their Happinefs;

But mutual wants this Happinefs increase;

All Nature's diff'rence keeps all Nature's peace.
Condition, circumftance is not the thing;
Blifs is the fame in fubject or in king.

In who obtain defence, or who defend,
In him who is, or him who finds a friend':
Heav'n breathes thro' ev'ry member of the whole
One common bleffing, as one common foul.
But Fortune's gifts if each alike poffeft,
And each were equal, muft not all conteft?
If then to all Men Happiness was meant,
God in Externals could not place Content.

VARIATIONS.

After ver. 52. in the MS.

Say not, "Heav'n's here profufe, there poorly faves
"And for one Monarch makes a thousand flaves."
You'll find, when Caufes and their ends are known
'Twas for the thoufand Heav'n has made that one,

After ver. 66. in the MS.

'Tis peace of mind alone is at a stay:

The reft mad Fortune gives or takes away.

40

45

50

Fortune her gifts may variously dispose,

And these be happy call'd, unhappy thofe ;
But Heav'n's juft balance equal will appear,

While thofe are plac'd in Hope, and these in Fear: 70
Not prefent good or ill, the joy or curfe,
But future views of better, or of worse.

75

Oh fons of earth! attempt ye ftill to rife, By mountains pil'd on mountains, to the skies? Heav'n ftill with laughter the vain toil furveys, And buries madmen in the heaps they raife. Know, all the good that individuals find, Or God and Nature meant to mere Mankind, Reafon's whole pleafure, all the joys of Senfe, Lie in three words, Health, Peace, and Competence. But Health confifts with Temperance alone; And Peace, oh Virtue! Peace is all thy own. The good or bad the gifts of Fortune gain; But thefe lefs tafte them, as they worfe obtain. Say, in pursuit of profit or delight,

81

85

Who risk the most, that take wrong means or right?
Of Vice or Virtue, whether bleft or curft,
Which meets contempt, or which compassion first ?
Count all th' advantage prosp'rous Vice attains,
'Tis but what Virtue flies from and difdains:
And grant the bad what happiness they wou'd,
One they must want, which is, to pafs for good.
Oh blind to truth, and God's whole scheme below,
Who fancy Blifs to Vice, to Virtue Woe!

99

VARIATION S..

All other blifs by accident's debar'd;
But Virtue's, in the inftant, a reward;
In hardest trials operates the best,
And more is relifh'd as the more diftreft.

After ver. 92. în the MS.

Let fober Moralifts correct their fpeech,
No bad man's happy; he is great, or rich.

Who fees and follows that great scheme the beft, 95
Best knows the bleffing, and will most be bleft.
But fools, the Good alone, unhappy call,

For ills or accidents that chance to all.
See FALKLAND dies, the virtuous and the juft!
See godlike TURENNE proftrate on the duft!
See SIDNEY bleeds amid the martial ftrife!
Was this their Virtue, or contempt of Life?
Say, was it Virtue, more tho' Heav'n ne'er gave,
Lamented DIGBY! funk 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 bifhop purer breath,
When Nature ficken'd, and each gale was death?
Or why fo long (in life if long can be)
Lent Heav'n a parent to the poor and me?

What makes all phyfical or moral ill?
There deviates Nature, and here wanders Will.
God fends not ill; if rightly understood,
Or partial Ill is univerfal Good,

100

105

110

VER. 100. See godlike Turenne] This epithet has a peculiar juftnefs; the great man to whom it is applied not being diftinguished, from other generals, for any of his fuperior qualities fo much as for his providential care of those whom he led to war;` which was fo uncommon, that his chief purpose in taking on himfelf the command of armies, feems to have been the Preservation of Mankind. In this godlike care he was more diftinguishably employed throughout the whole courfe of that famous campaign in which he loft his life.

VER. 110. Lent Heav'n a parent, etc.] This laft inftance of the poet's illuftration of the ways of Providence, the reader fees, has a peculiar elegance; where a tribute of piety to a parent is paid in a return of thanks to, and made fubfervient to his vindication of the Great Giver and Father of all things. The Mother of the Author, a perfon of great piety and charity, died the year this poem was finished, viz. 1733.

Or Change admits, or Nature lets it fall,
Short, and but rare, till Man improv'd it all.
We juft as wifely might of Heav'n complain
That righteous Abel was deftroy'd by Cain,
As that the virtuous fon is fill at ease

115

120

When his lewd father gave the dire disease.
Think we, like fome weak Prince, th' Eternal Caufe
Prone for his fav'rites to reverse his laws?

Shall burning Etna, if a fage requires,

Forget to thunder, and recall her fires?

On air or fea new motions be impreft,

Oh blameless Bethel! to relieve thy breaft?

When the loofe mountain trembles from on high,
Shall gravitation ceafe, if you go by ?

123

Or fome old temple, nodding to its fall,

For Chartres' head referve the hanging wall?

130

But ftill this world (fo fitted for the knave)

Contents us not. A better fhall we have?

A kingdom of the juft then let it be:
But firit confider how thofe Juft agree.

The good must merit God's peculiar care;

135

But who, but God, can tell us who they are?

One thinks on Calvin Heav'n's own Spirit fell;
Another deems him inftrument of hell;
If Calvin feel Heav'n's bleffing, or its rod,
This cries there is, and that, there is no God.

140

VER 1236 Shall burning Etna, etc.] Alluding to the fate of thofe two great Naturalifts, Empedocles and Pliny, who both peifhed by too near an approach to Atna and Vefuvius, while they were exploring the caufe of their eruptions.

VARIATIONS.

After ver. 116. in the MS.

Of ev'ry evil, fince the world began,

The real fource is not in God, but men