What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards ? Or ravish'd with the whistling of a name, See Cromwell, damn'd to everlasting fame! From ancient story, learn to scorn them all. Where, but among the heroes and the wise?" There, in the rich, the honour'd, fam'd, and grčat, Heroes are much the same, the point's agreed, See the false scale of happinesscomplete ! From Macedonia's madman to the Swede; 220 In hearts of kings, or arms of queens who lay, The whole strange purpose of their lives, to find,' How happy! those to ruin, these betray. 290 Or make, an enemy of all mankind! Mark by what wretched steps their glory grows, Not one looks bakward, onward still he goes, From dirt and sea-weed as proud Venice rose; Yet ne'er looks forward further than his nose. In each how guilt and greatness equal ran, No less alike the politic an:I wise: And all that rais'd the hero, sunk the man: All sly slow things, with circunspective eyes : Now Europe's laurels on their brows behold, Men in their luose unguarded hours they take, But staind with blood, or ill exchang'd for gold : Not that themselves are wise, but others weak. Then see them broke with toils, or sunk in ease, But grant that those can conqner, these can cheat; | Or infamous for plunderd provinces. 'Ti phrase absurd to call a villain great: 2300! wealth ill-fated; which no act of fame Who wickedly is wise, or madly brave, E'er taught to shine, or sanctify'd from shame! 300 Is but the more a fool, the more a knave. What greater bliss attends their close of life? Who noble ends by noble means obtains, Some greedy minion, or imperious wife, Or failing, smiles in exile or in chains, The trophy'd arches, story'd halls invade, Like zool Aurelius let him reign, or bleed And haunt their slumbers in the pompous shade Like Socrates, that man is great indeed. Alas! not dazzled with their noon-tide ray, What's fame? a fancy'd life in others' breath, Compute the morn and evening to the day; A thing beyond us, ev'n before our death. The whole amount of that enorinous fame, Just what you hear, you have; and what's unknown, | A tale, that blends their glory with their shame! The same (my lord) if Tully's, or your own. 240 Know then this truth (enough for man to know). All that we feel of it begins and ends “ Virtue alone is happiness below.” 310 In the small circle of our foes or friends; The only point where human blies stands still, To all beside as much an empty shade And tastes the good without the fall to ill; An Eugene living, as a Cæsar dead; Where only merit constant pay receives, Alike or when, or where they shone, or shine, Is blest in what it takes, and what it gives; Or on the Rubicon, or on the Rhine. The joy unequal'd, if its end it gain, A vit's a feather, and a chief a rod : And if it lose, attendert with no pain : An honest man's the noblest work of God. Without satiety, though e'er so bless'd, Fame but from death a villain's name can save, And but more reljsb' as the more distress'd : As Justice tears his body from the grave; 250 The broadest mirth unfeeling Folly wears, When what toblivion better were resign'd, Less pleasing far than Virtue's very tears : 390 Is hung on high to poison balf mankind. Good, from each object, from each place acquir'd, 'All fame is foreign, but of true desert; For ever exercis'd, yet never tir'd; And where no wants, no wishes can remain, Since but to wish more virtue, is to gain. Than Cæsar with a senate at bis heels. See the sole bliss Heaven could on all bestow ! In parts superior what advantage lies? Which who but feels can taste, but thinks can know: Tell (for you can) what is it to be wise? 260 Yet poor with fortune, and with learning blind, 'Tis but to know how little can be known; The har! inust miss; the good, untaught, will finds To see all others faults, and feel our own : Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, 331 Condemu'd in business or in arts to drudge, But looks through Nature, up to Nature's God; Without a second, or without a judge: Pursues that chain which links th' immense design, Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land? Joins Heaven and Earth, and mortal and divine, All fear none aid you, and few understand. Sees, that no being any bliss can know, Painful pre-eminence! yourself to view But touches some above, and some below; Above life's weakness, and its comforts too. Learns from this union of the rising whole, Bring then these blessings to a strjet account; The first, last purpose of the human soul; Make fair ductions ; see to what they mount: And knows where faith, law, inorals, all began, How inuch of other each is sure to cost; [270 All end, in love of God, and love of man. 340 How ynuch for other oft is wholly ost; For him alone, Hope leads from goal to goal, How inconsistent greater goods with these; And opens still, and opens on his soul; VARIATION After ver. 316, in the MS. To sigh for ribbands if thou art so silly, Ev'n while it seems unequal to dispose, Mark how they grace lord I'mbra, or sir Billy. And chequers all the good man's joys with woos, Is yellow dirt the passion of thy life; 'Tis but to teach him to support each state, Look but im Gripus, or on Gripus' wife. 280 With patience this, with moderation that; If parts allure thee, think how Bacon sbin'd, And raise his base on that one solid.joy, The wisest, brightest, meanest of piankind: Which conscience gives, and nothing can destroy DEO OPT. MAX. DEO OPT. MAX. Till lengthen'd on to Faith, and unconfin'd, THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER. It may be proper to observe, that some passages, Wise is her present; she connects in this in the preceding Essay, having been unjustly His greatest virtue with his greatest bliss; 350 suspected of a tendency towards fate and naAt once his own bright prospect to be blest; turalism, the author composed this Prayer as And strongest motive to assist the rest. the sum of all, to show that his system was Self-love thus push'd to social, to divine, founded in free-will, and terminated in picty: Gires thee to make thy neighbour's blessing thine. That the first cause was as well the Lord and Is this too little for the boundless heart? Governor of the Criverse as the Creator of it; Extend it, let thy enemies have part; and that, by submission to his will (the great Grasp the whole worluis of reason, life, and sense, principle enforced throughout the Essay) was In one close system of benevolence : not meant the suffering ourselves to be carried Har pier as kinder, in whate’er degree, along by a blind determination, but the resting And height of bliss but height of charity. 360 in a religious acquiescence, and confidence full God loves from whole to parts: but hunan soul of hope and immortality. To give all this the Must rise from individual to the whole. greater weight, the poet chose for his mo:!el Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake, the Lord's Prayer, which, of all others, best deAs the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake; serves the titie prefixed to this Paraphrase. THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER. In every clime ador'd, Jehovah, Jove, or Lord ! Who all my sense confin'd And that myself am blind; 380 Yet gave me, in this dark estate, To see the good from ill; Correct with spirit, eloquent with ease, And, binding Nature fast in Pate, Left free the human will : What conscience dictates to be done, Or warns me not to do, Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale? This, teach me more than Hell to shun, When statesmen, heroes, kings, in dust repose, That, more than Heaven pursue. Let me not cast away; T' enjoy is to obey. Thy goodness let me bound, When thousand worlds are round: Lt not this weak, unknowing hand Presume thy bolts to throw, On each I judge thy foe. If I am right, thy grace impart, Still in the right to stay: thus : And now transported o'er so vast a plain, If I am wrong, oh teach my heart To find that better way. Or impious discontent, Teach me to feel another's woe, To hide the fault I see; That just to find a God is all we can, That mercy I to others show, And all the study of mankind is man. That mercy show to me. VARIATIONS. feels, Mean though I am, not wholly so, to be a little more particular conceming each of Since quicken'd by thy breath; these projected books. O lead me wherosoe'er I go, The first, as it treats of man in the abstract, Through this day's life or death. and considers bini in general under every of his This day, be bread and peace my lot: relations, becomes the foundation, and furnishes All else beneath the Sun, out the subjects, of the three following; so that Thou know'st if best bestow'd or not, The second book was to take up again the first And let thy will be done. and second epistles of the first book, and treats of man in his intellectual capacity at larye, as has To thee, whose temple is all space, been explained above. Of this only a small part Whose altar, earth, sea, skies! of the conclusion (w hich, as we said, was to hare One chorus let all being raise ! contained a satire against the misapplication of All Nature's incense rise! wit and learning) may be found in the fuurth book of the Dunciad, and up and down, occasionally, in the other three. The third book, in like manner, was to reMORAL ESSAYS, assume the subject of the third epistle of the first, which treats of man in his social, political, and IN FOUR EPISTLES TO SEVERAL PERSONS. religious capacity. But this part the poet afterEst brevitate opus, ut currat sententia, neu se wards conceived might be best executed in an Impediat verbis lassas onerantibus aures: epic poem, as the action would make it more aniEt s. rmone opus est modo tristi, sæpe jocoso, mated, and the fable less invidious; in which all Defendente vicem modo Rhetoris atque Poëtæ, the great principles of true and false governments Interdum urbani, parcentis viribus, atque and religions-should be chiefly delivered in feigned Extenuantis eas consultò. Hor. examples. The fourth and last book was to pursue the ADVERTISEMENT. subject of the fourth epistle of the tirst, and treats of ethics, or practical morality; and would have The Essay on Man was intended to have been com- consisted of many members; of which the four prised in four books; following epistles were detached portions; the two The first of which, the author has given us un- first, on the characters of men and women, der that title, in four epistles. being the introductory part of this concluding The second was to have consisted of the same book. number: 1. Of the extent and limits of human 2. Of those arts and sciences, and of the parts of them, which are useful, and there MORAL ESSAYS. fore attainable together with tbose which are unuseful, and therefore unattainable. 3. Of the nature, ends, use, and application of the different TO SIR RICHARD TEMPLE, L COBHAM. capacities of men. 4. Of the use of learning, of the science of the world, and of wit ; concluding with a satire against a misapplication of them, ARGUMENT. illustrated by pictures, characters, and examples. OF THE KNOWLEDGE AND CHARACTERS OF MEN, The third book regarded civil regimen, or the science of politics, in wbich the several forms of a 1. That it is not sufficient for this knowledge to republic were to be exainined and explained; consider man in the abstract: books will not together with the several modes of religions wor. serve the purpose, not yet our own experience ship, as far forth as they atfect society ; between singly, ver. 1. General maxims, unless they be which the author always supposed there was the formed upon both, will be but notional, ver, most interesting relationand closest connection ; so 10. Some peculiarity in every man, cbaracthat this part would have treated of civil and religi teristic to himself, yet varying from himself, 15. ous society in their full extent. Dilliculties arising froin our own The fourth and last book concerned private passions, fancies, faculties, &c. ver. 31. The ethics, or practical morality, considered in all the shortness of life to observe in, and the uncercircunstances, orders, professions, and stations of tainty of the principles of action in men to human life. observe by, ver. 37. &c. Our own principle of The scheme of all this had been naturely digest action often hid from ourselves, ver. 41. Some ed, and communicated to lord Bolingbroke, Dr. few characters plain, but in general confounded, Swift, and one or two more, and was intended for diesembled, or inconsistent, ver. 51. The same the only work of his riper years; but was, partly man utterly different in different places and through ill halth, partly through discourage seasons, ver. 71. Unimaginable weaknesses in ments from the depravity of the times, and partly the greatest, ver. 70, &c. Nothing constant on pruilential and other considerations, interrupt. and certain but God and nature, ver. 95. No ed, postponed, and, lastly, in a manner laid judging of the motives from the actions; the aside, same actions proceeding from contrary motives, But as this was the author's favourite work, and the saine motives influencing contrary acwhich more exactly retlcted the image of his tions, ver. 100. 11. Yet, to forin characters, strong capacions mind, and as we can hare but a we can only take the strongest actions of a man's very imperfect idea of it from the disjecta mem- life, and try to make them agree: the utter bra poetæ, that now remain, it may not be amiss uncertainty of this, from nature itself, and from reason. EPISTIE I. Ver. EPISTLE I. policy, ver. 120. Characters given according True, some are open, and to all men known; And in the cunning, truth itself's a lie : 70 Yes, you despise the inan to books confin'd, See the same man, in vigour, in the gout; Who from his study rails at human-kind; Alone, in company; in place, or out; Though what he learns he speaks, and may advance Early at business, and at hazard late; Some general maxims, or be right by chance. Mad at a fox-chase, wise at a debate; The coxcomb bird, so talkative and grave, Drunk at a borough, civil at a ball ; That from his cage cries cuckold, whore, and knave, Friendly at Hackney, faithless at Whitehall. Though many a passenger he rightly call, Catius is ever moral, ever grave. You hold him no philosopher at all. Thinks who endures a knave, is next a knave, And yet the fate of all extremes is such, Save just at dinner-then prefers, no doubt, Alen may be read, as well as books, too much. 10 A rogue with venison to a saint without. 80 To observations which ourselves we make, Who would not praise Patricio's high desert, We grow more partial for th’ observer's sake; His hand unstain'd, his uncorrupted heart, To writtep wisdom, as another's, less : His comprehensive head! all interests weigh'd, Maxims are drawn from notions, these from guess. All Europe sav'd, yet Britain not betray'd. There's some peculiar in each leaf and grain, lle thanks you not, his pride is in piquette, Some unmark'd fibre, or some varving vein: Newmarket-fame, and judgment at a bett. Shall only man be taken in the gross ? What made (say, Montagne, or more sage CharGrant but as many sorts of mind as moss. Otho a warrior, Cromwell a buffoon? [ron!) That each from other differs, first confess; A perjured prince a leaden saint revere, Next, that he varies from himself oo less; 20. A godless regent tremble at a star? 90 Aild nature's, custom's, reason's, passion's strife, The throne a bigot keep, a genius quit, And all opinion's colours cast on life. Faithless through piety, and dup'd through wit? Our depths who fathons, or our shallows sinds, Europe a woman, child, or dotard rule, Quick whirls, and shifting eddies, of our minds? And just her wisest monarch made a fool? On human actions reason though you can, Know, God and Nature only are the same : It may be reason, but it is not man: In man, the judgement shoots a flying game; His principle of action once explore, A bird of passage! gone as soon as found, That instant 'tis his principle no more. Now in the Moon perhaps, now under ground. Like following life through creatı res you dissect, In vain the saye, with retrospective eye, You lose it in the moment you detect. 30 Would from th' apparent what conclude the why, Yet more; the difference is as great between Infer the motive from the deed, and show, 101 The opties seeing, as the objects seen. That what we chanc'd, was what we meant to do. All mann ts take a tincture from our own; Behold if Fortune or a mistress frowns, Or come discolour'd through our passions shown. Some plunge in business, others shave their crownss Or Fancy's beam enlarges, multiplies, To ease the soul of one oppressive weight, Contracts, inverts, and gives ten thousand dyes. This quits an empire, that embroils a state : Nor will lie's stream for observation stay, The same adust complexion has impell’d It hurries all too fast to mark their way : Charles to the convent, Philip to the field. In vain sedate reflections we would make, Not always actions show the inan: we find When half our knowledge we must snatch, not take. Who does a kindness, is not therefore kind : 110 Oft, in the passion's wild rotation tost, 41 Perhaps prosperity becalı'd his breast, Our spring of action to ourselves is lost : Perhaps the wind just shifted from the east : After ver. 86. in the foriner editions, (Though past the recolkection if the thought) Triumphant leaders at an army's head, Becomes the stuff of which our dream is wrought : Hemm d round with clories, pilfer cloth or bread; Something as lim to our internal view, As meanly plunder as they bravtly fought, Is thus, perhaps, the cause of most we do. 50 Now save a people, and now save a groats .244. Take care sunt burier in hintulo ( become me." VARIATIONS, su v fiannel Not therefore humble he who seeks retreat, Opinions ? they still take a wider range : 170 Search then the ruling passion : there, alone, His pride in reasoning, not in acting, lies. The wild are constant, and the cunning known ; But grant that actions best discover man; The fool consistent, and the false sincere; Take the most strong, and sort them as you can. Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here. The few that glare, each character must mark, 121 This clue once found, unravels all the rest, You balance not the many in the dark. The prospect clears, and Wharton stands confest. What will you do with such as disagree? Wharton, the scorn and wonder of our days, 180 Suppress them, or miscall them policy? Whose ruling passion was the lust of praise ; Must then at once (the character to sare) Born with whate'er could win it from the wise, The plain rough hero turn a crafty knave? Women and fools must like him, or he dies: Alas! in truth the man but chang'd! his inind, Though wondering senates hung on all he spoke, Pe..ips was sick, in love, or had not din'd. The club must bail him master of the joke. Ask why from Britain Cæsar would retreat? Shall parts so various aim at nothing new? Cæsar imself might whisper, he was beat, 130 | He'll shine a Tully and a Wilmot too. Why risk the world's great empire for a punk? Then turns repentant, and his God adores Cæsar perhaps might answer, he was drunk With the same spirit that he drinks and whores, But, sage historians ! 'tis your task to prove Enough if all around him but admire, 190 One action, conduct; one, heroic love. And now the punk applaud, and now the friar, 'Tis from high life high charact: rs are drawn : Thus with each gift of Nature and of Art, A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn; And wanting nothing but an honest heart; A judge is just, a chancellor juster siill; Grown all to all, from ng ope vice exempt; A gownman learn'd; a bishop, what you will; And most contemptible, to shun contempt ; Wise, if a minister ; but, if a king, (thing. 140 His passion still, to covet general praise ; More wise, more learn'd, more just, mort every His life, to forfeit it a thousand ways; Court-virtnes bear, like gems, the highest rate, A constant bounty, which no friend has made ; Born where Heaven's influence scari'e can penetrate : An angel tongue, which no man can persuade ; In life's low vale, the soil the virtues like, A fool, with more of wit than half mankind, 200 "They please as beauties, here as vonders strike, Too rash for thought, for action too refind : Though the same Sun with all diffusive rays A tyrant to the wife his heart approves ; Blush in the rose, and in the diamond blaze, A rebel to the very king he loves; We prize the stronger effort of his power, He dies, sad outcast of each church and state, And justly set the gem above the flower. And, harder still ! Aagitious, yet not great. When Cæsar made a noble dame a whore ; Were means, not ends; ambition was the vice, Lucullus, when frugality could charm, That gay free thinker, a fine talker once, Had roasted turnips in the Sabine farm. What turus him now a stupid, silent dunce ! In vain the observer eyes the builder's toil, 220 Some god, or spirit, he has lately found ; But quite mistakes the scaffold for the pile. Or chanc'd to meci a minister that frown'd, In this one passion man can strength enjoy, Judge we by nature ? habit can efface, As fits give vigour, just when they destroy. Interest o'errome, or policy take place : Time, that on all things lays his lenient hand, By actions ? those uncertainty divides : Yet tames not this; it sticks to our last sand. By passions ? these dissimulation hides ; Consistent in our follies and our sins, Here honest Nature ends as she begins, Old politicians chew on wisdom past, And totter on in business to the last; Ver. 129. in the former elitions : As weak, as earnest; and as gravely out, 230 Ask why from Britain (:esar made retreat! As sober Lanesborow dancing in the gout. Cæsar himself would tell you he was beat. Behold a reverend sire, whom want of grace The mighty Czar what mov'd to wed a punk? Has made the father of a nameless race, VARIATIONS. mentarics of this war, and does not tell you he As Casar too afforded an instance of In the former editions, ver. 208. both cases, it was thought better to make him the Nature well known, no miracles remain. ,single examples Altcred, as above, for very obvious reasons. was beat. |