What shocks one part will edify the rest,
Nor with one system can they all be blest.
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;

16

And which more bleft? who chain'd his country, fay, Or he whofe Virtue figh'd to lose a day?

150

"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, The knave deferves it,

155

when he tills the foil. 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-fhall the good want Health, the good want "" Pow'r?"

Add Health and Pow'r, and ev'ry earthly thing, "Why bounded Pow'r? why private

king?"

Nay, why external for internal giv'n?

why no

160

Why is not man a God, and Earth a Heav'n
Who afk and reafon thus, will fearce conceive
God gives enough, while he has more to give;
Immense 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 fun-fhine, and the heart-felt joy,

VARIATION S.

After ver. 142. in fome Editions,

Give each a System, all must be at strife;

What diff'rent Systems for a man and wife?

The joke, though lively, was ill placed, and therefore ftruck out

of the text.

170

175

180

Is Virtue's prize: A better would you fix?
Then give Humility a coach and fix,
Juftice a Conqu'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'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 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 Juft?
Judges and Senates 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 human kind,
Whofe life is healthful, and whofe confcience clear,
Because he wants a thousand pounds a year.

185

190

VER. 177. Go, like the Indian, etc.] Alluding to the example of the Indian, in Epift. i. ver. 99. and fhewing, that that example was not given to difcredit any rational hopes of future happiness, but only to reprove the folly of feparating them from charity: as when

-Zeal, not Charity, became the guide,

And hell was built on spite, and heav'n on pride.

VARIATION S.

After ver. 172. in the MS.

Say, what rewards this idle world imparts,
Or fit for fearching heads or honest hearts.

;

Honour and fhame 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 frier hooded, and the monarch crown'd. "What differ more (you cry) 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. 204 Stuck o'er with titles and hung round with ftrings, That thou may't be by kings, or whores of kings, Boaft the pure blood of an illuftrious race,

In quiet flow from Lucrece to Lucrece :

But by your fathers' 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' scoundrels ever fince the flood,

200

210

VER. 193. Honour and fame from no Condition rife;—A&t well your part, there all the bonour lies.] What power then has Fortune over the Man? None at all; for as her favours can confer neither worth nor wisdom; fo neither can her difpleasure cure him of any of his follies. On his Garb indeed the hath fome little influence; but his heart ftill remains the fame.

Fortune in Men has fome fmall diff'rence made,

One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade.

But this difference extends no further than to the habit; the pride of heart is the fame both in the flaunter and flutterer, as it is the poet's intention to infinuate by the ufe of those terms.

VARIATIONS.

VER. 207. Boaft the pure blood, etc.] in the MS. thus,

The richest blood, right-honourably old,

Down from Lucretia to Lucretia roll'd,
May fwell thy heart and gallop in thy breaft,
Without one dafh of ufher or of priest:
Thy pride as much despise all other pride,
As Christ-Church once all colleges befide.

Go! and pretend your family is young;

Nor own your fathers have been fools fo long.

What can ennoble fots, or flaves, or cowards? 215 Alas! not all the blood of all the HowARDS.

220

225

Look next on Greatnefs; fay where Greatnefs 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; The whole ftrange purpofe 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 themselves are wife, but others weak. But grant that those can conquer, these can cheat; "Tis phrase 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.

230

235

What's Fame a fancy'd life in others breath,

A thing beyond us, ev'n before our death.

Just 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

240

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 fhine,
Or on the Rubicon, or on the Rhine.

245

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,

250

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 out-weighs 255
Of stupid ftarers, and of loud huzzas;

And more true joy Marcellus exil'd feels,
Than Cæfar 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:

260

Truths would you teach, or fave a finking land? 265 All fear, none aid you, and few understand.

Painful preheminence! yourself to view

Above life's weakness, and its comforts too.

Bring then these bleffings to a ftri&t account;

Make fair deductions; fee to what they mount:

270

How much of other each is fure to cost;

How each for other oft is wholly loft;
How inconfiftent greater goods with thefe;

How fometimes life is rifqu'd, and always ease:
Think, and if ftill the things thy envy call,
Say, wouldst thou be the Man to whom they fall?
To figh for ribbands 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.

275