For Nature knew no right divine in Men,
No ill could fear in God; and understood
A sov'reign being but a sov'reign good.
True faith, true policy, united ran,

This was but love of God, and this of Man.

Who first taught souls enslav'd, and realms undone,
Th' enormous faith of many made for one;
That proud exception to all Nature's laws,

240

T' invert the world, and counter-work its Cause?

Force first made Conquest, and that conquest, Law;
'Till Superstition. taught the tyrant awe,
Then shar'd the Tyranny, then lent it aid,

245

And Gods of Conqu'rors, Slaves of Subjects made:

She 'midst the lightning's blaze, and thunder's sound,

When rock'd the mountains, and when groan'd the ground,

250

She taught the weak to bend, the proud to pray,

To Pow'r unseen, and mightier far than they:
She, from the rending earth and bursting skies,
Saw Gods descend, and fiends infernal rise:
Here fix'd the dreadful, there the blest abodes;
Fear made her Devils, and weak Hope her Gods;
Gods partial, changeful, passionate, unjust,
Whose attributes were Rage, Revenge, or Lust;
Such as the souls of cowards might conceive,
And, form'd like tyrants, tyrants would believe.
Zeal then, not charity, became the guide;

And hell was built on spite, and heav'n on pride,
Then sacred seem'd th' ethereal vault no more;
Altars grew marble then, and reek'd with gore:
Then first the Flamen tasted living food2;

265

Next his grim idol smear'd with human blood 3;

With Heav'n's own thunders shook the world below,
And play'd the God an engine on his foe.

270

So drives Self-love, thro' just and thro' unjust,
To one Man's pow'r, ambition, lucre, lust:
The same Self-love, in all, becomes the cause
Of what restrains him, Government and Laws.
For, what one likes if others like as well,
What serves one will, when many wills rebel?
How shall he keep, what, sleeping or awake,
A weaker may surprise, a stronger take?

275

His safety must his liberty restrain:

All join to guard what each desires to gain.
Forc'd into virtue thus by Self-defence,
Ev'n Kings learn'd justice and benevolence:
Self-love forsook the path it first pursu'd,
And found the private in the public good.

'Twas then, the studious head or gen'rous mind,
Follow'r of God or friend of human-kind,
Poet or Patriot, rose but to restore
The Faith and Moral Nature gave before;
Re-lum'd her ancient light, not kindled new;
If not God's image, yet his shadow drew:
Taught Pow'r's due use to People and to Kings,
Taught nor to slack, nor strain its tender strings,
The less, or greater, set so justly true,

280

285

290

That touching one must strike the other too;

'Till jarring int'rests, of themselves create

Th' according music of a well-mix'd State1.

Such is the World's great harmony, that springs

295

From Order, Union, full Consent of things:

Where small and great, where weak and mighty, made

To serve, not suffer, strengthen, not invade;

More pow'rful each as needful to the rest,

And, in proportion as it blesses, blest;
Draw to one point, and to one centre bring
Beast, Man, or Angel, Servant, Lord, or King.
For Forms of Government let fools contest;
Whate'er is best administer'd is best:
For Modes of Faith let graceless zealots fight;
His can't be wrong whose life is in the right2:
In Faith and Hope the world will disagree,
But all Mankind's concern is Charity:

300

305

All must be false that thwart this One great End;
And all of God, that bless Mankind or mend.
Man, like the gen'rous vine, supported lives;
The strength he gains is from th' embrace he gives.
On their own Axis as the Planets run,
Yet make at once their circle round the Sun3;
So two consistent motions act the Soul;
And one regards Itself, and one the Whole.
Thus God and Nature link'd the gen'ral frame,
And bade Self-love and Social be the same.

310

315

1Quæ harmonia a musicis dicitur in cantu, ca est in civitate concordia.' Cicero, de Republ. Warton.

2['His faith perhaps, in some nice tenets might Be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was in the right.' Cowley, on the Death of Mr Crashaw.

Warton thinks that Cowley may have himself taken the hint from a Latin distich by Lord Herbert of Cherbury.]

3 [at once, i.e. at one and the same time.] 4 [act, See above, Ep. 11. line 59.]

ARGUMENT OF EPISTLE IV.

Of the Nature and State of Man with respect to HAPPINESS.

I. FALSE Notions of Happiness, Philosophical and Popular, answered from v. 19 to 77. II. It is the End of all Men, and attainable by all, v. 30. God intends Happiness to be equal; and to be so, it must be social, since all particular happiness depends on general, and since he governs by general, not particular Laws, v. 37. As it is necessary for Order, and the peace and welfare of Society, that external goods should be unequal, Happiness is not made to consist in these, v. 51. But, notwithstanding that inequality, the balance of Happiness among Mankind is kept even by Providence, by the two Passions of Hope and Fear, v, 70. III. What the Happiness of Individuals is, as far as is consistent with the constitution of this world; and that the good Man has here the advantage, v. 77. The error of imputing to Virtue what are only the calamities of Nature, or of Fortune, v. 94. IV. The folly of expecting that God should alter his general Laws in favour of particulars, v. 121. V. That we are not judges who are good; but that, whoever they are, they must_be happiest, v. 133, &c. VI. That external goods are not the proper rewards, but often inconsistent with, or destructive of Virtue, v. 165. That even these can make no Man happy without Virtue: Instanced in Riches, v. 183. Honours, v. 191. Nobility, v. 203. Greatness, V. 215. Fame, v. 235. Superior Talents, v. 257. &c. With pictures of human Infelicity in Men possessed of them all, v. 267, &c. VII. That Virtue only constitutes a Happiness, whose object is universal, and whose prospect eternal, v. 307, &c. That the perfection of Virtue and Happiness consists in a conformity to the ORDER of PROVIDENCE here, and a Resignation to it here and hereafter, v. 326, &c.

EPISTLE IV.

H HAPPINESS! our being's end and aim1!

thy name:

That something still which prompts th' eternal sigh,
For which we bear to live, or dare to die,
Which still so near us, yet beyond us lies,
O'er-look'd, seen double, by the fool, and wise.
Plant of celestial seed! if dropt below,

Say, in what mortal soil thou deign'st to grow?
Fair op'ning to some Court's propitious shine3,
Or deep with di'monds in the flaming mine.?
Twin'd with the wreaths Parnassian laurels yield,
Or reap'd in iron harvests of the field?

Where grows?-where grows it not? If vain our toil,

Oh Happiness! &c.] in the MS. thus, 'Oh happiness! to which we all aspire, Wing'd with strong hope, and borne by full desire;

That ease, for which in want, in wealth we sigh; That ease, for which we labour and we die.' Warburton. [The same editor points out how the lines afterwards substituted for these successfully imitate the classical mode of invoking a Deity by his several names and places of abode, as in the Homeric Hymns (or in several Odes of Horace). Eudaimonia, Harmonia, Hygieia, Paidia, Pandaisia and others were often repre

5

10

sented by the Greeks as daughters, or as handmaids, of Aphrodite.]

2 O'erlook'd, seen double,] O'erlook'd by those who place Happiness in any thing exclusive of Virtue; seen double by those who admit any thing else to have a share with Virtue in procuring Happiness; these being the two general mistakes that this epistle is employed in con- ! futing. Warburton.

3 [shine, a substantive; so used in Spenser F. Q. Bk. 1. Canto x. st. 67; and in the Prayerbook Psalms, xcvii. 4: 'his lightnings gave shine into the world.']

We ought to blame the culture, not the soil:
Fix'd to no spot is Happiness sincere1,

15

'Tis nowhere to be found, or ev'rywhere;
'Tis never to be bought, but always free,

And fled from monarchs, ST. JOHN! dwells with thee.

Ask of the Learn'd the way? The Learn'd are blind;
This bids to serve, and that to shun mankind;
Some place the bliss in action, some in ease,
Those call it Pleasure, and Contentment these;
Some sunk to Beasts, find pleasure end in pain;
Some swell'd to Gods, confess ev'n Virtue vain;
Or indolent, to each extreme they fall,
To trust in ev'ry thing, or doubt of all.
Who thus define it, say they more or less
Than this, that Happiness is Happiness?

Take Nature's path, and mad Opinion's leave;
All states 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 Sense, and Common Ease.
Remember, Mam, "the Universal Cause
"Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral laws;"
And makes what Happiness we justly call
Subsist not in the good of one, but all.
There's not a blessing Individuals find,

But some way leans and hearkens to the kind:
No Bandit fierce, no Tyrant mad with pride,
No cavern'd Hermit, rests self-satisfy'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 pleasures: sicken, and all glories sink:

Each has his share; and who would more obtain,
Shall find, the pleasure pays not half the pain.
ORDER is Heav'n's first law; and this confest,
Some are, and must be, greater than the rest3,
More rich, more wise; but who infers from hence
That such are happier, shocks all common sense*.
Heav'n to Mankind impartial we confess,
If all are equal in their Happiness:

[sincere, i.e. pure, unalloyed.]

Some place the bliss in action-Some sunk to Beasts, &c.] 1. Those who place Happiness, or the summum bonum, in Pleasure, such as the Cyrenaic sect. 2. Those who place it in a certain tranquillity or calmness of Mind, such as the Democritic sect. 3. The Epicurean. 4. The Stoic. 5. The Protagorean, which held that Man was the measure of all things; for that all things which appear to him are, and those things which appear not to any Man are not; so that every imagination or opinion of every man was 6. The Sceptic. Warburton.

true.

But mutual wants this Happiness increase;
All Nature's diff'rence keeps all Nature's peace.
Condition, circumstance is not the thing;
Bliss is the same in subject 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 blessing, as one common soul.
each alike possest,

But Fortune's gifts if

And each were equal, must not all contest?
If then to all Men Happiness was meant,
God in Externals could not place Content.
Fortune her gifts may variously dispose,
And these be happy call'd, unhappy those;
But Heav'n's just balance equal will appear,

While those are plac'd in Hope, and these in Fear:
Nor present good or ill, the joy or curse,
But future views of better, or of worse.

Oh sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise,
By mountains pil'd on mountains, to the skies'?
Heav'n still with laughter the vain toil surveys,
And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.
Know, all the good that individuals find,
Or God and Nature meant to mere Mankind,
Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of Sense,

Lie in three words, Health, Peace, and Competence 2.

So

But Health consists with Temperance alone;

The good or bad the gifts of Fortune gain;

And Peace, oh Virtue! Peace is all thy own.

But these less taste them, as they worse obtain.
Say, in pursuit of profit or delight,

85

Who risk the most, that take wrong means, or right?
Of Vice or Virtue, whether blest or curst,

Which meets contempt, or which compassion first?
Count all th' advantage prosp'rous Vice attains,
'Tis but what Virtue flies from and disdains:
And grant the bad what happiness they would,
One they must want, which is, to pass for good3.

Oh blind to truth, and God's whole scheme below,

Who fancy Bliss to Vice, to Virtue Woe*!
Who sees and follows that great scheme the best,
Best knows the blessing, and will most be blest.
But fools the Good alone unhappy call,
For ills or accidents that chance to all.
See FALKLAND5 dies, the

virtuous and the just 5!

၄၁

95

4 [i.e. that Bliss accompanies Vice, and Woe Virtue.]

5 [Lucius Cary Lord Falkland, who after tak· ing part in the opposition against the oppressive measures of Charles I. and the policy of Strafford, seceded with Hyde and others from the popular party at the time of the Grand Remonstrance,