Which ftill fo near us, yet beyond us lies
O'erlook’d, seen double, by the fool, and wife,

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NOTES. It is to be obferved, that the Pagan deities had each their several names and places of abode, with some of which they were supposed to be more delighted than others, and consequently to be then most propitious when invoked by the favourite name and place : Hence we find, the Hymns of Homer, Orpheus, and Callimachus to be chiefly employed in reckoning up the several names and places of abode by which the patron God was distinguished. Our poet hath made these two circumstances serve to introduce his subject. His purpose is to write of Happiness ; method therefore requires that he first define what men mean by Happiness, and this he does in the ornament of a poetic Invocation ; in which the fee veral names, that happiness goes by, are enumerated,

Oh Happiness ! our being's end and aim,

Good, Pleasure, Ease, Content! whate'er thy Name, After the Definition, that which follows next, is the proposition, which is, that human Happiness confifts not ir external Advantages, but in Virtue. For the subject of this epistle is the detecting the false notions of Happiness, and settling and explaining the true; and this the poet lays down in the next fixteen lines. Now the enumeration of the several ftuations in which Happiness is fupposed to reside, is a summary of false Happiness, placed in Externals :

Plant of celestial seed ! if dropt below,
Say in what mortal soil thou deign'st to grow.
Fair op'ning to fome Court's propitious Thine,
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 ?

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 shine,
Or deep with di’monds in the faming mine? 10
Twin'd with the wreaths Parnaffian laurels yield,
Or reap'd in iron harvests of the field ?
Where grows !--where growsit not? Ifvain our toil,
We ought to blame the culture, not the soil :
Fix'd to no spot is happiness sincere,

15 'Tis no where to be found, or ev'ry where : 'Tis never to be bought, but always free, And fled from monarchs, St. John! dwells with thee.

Ask of the Learn’d the way? TheLearn’dare blind; This bid to serve, and that to shun Mankind; 20

NOTE S. The fix remaining lines deliver the true notion of Happi. ness to be in Virtue. Which is summ'd up in these two :

Fix'd to no spot is Happiness fincere,

'Tis no where to be found, or ev'ry where. The Poet having thus defined his terms, and laid down his propofition, proceeds to the support of his Thesis ; the various arguments of which make up the body of the Epiftle.

Ver. 6. 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 epifle is employed in confuting.

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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, 25
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 ?

NOTES.

Ver. 21, 23. Some place the bliss in action,-Some funk to beasts, &c.] 1. Those who place Happiness, or the summum bonum, in Pleasure 'Hoorn, such as the Cyrenaic sect, called, on that account, the Hedonic. 2. Those who place it in a certain tranquillity or calmness of Mind, which they call Evboría, such as the Democratic fect. 3. The Epicurean. 4. The Stoic. 5. The Protagorean, which held that Man was σάντων χρημάτων μέτρον, the miafure 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 true. 6. The Sceptic; whose absolute Doubt is, with great judgment, said to be the effect of Indolence, as well as the absolute Trust of the Protagorean: For the same dread of labour attending the search of truth, which makes the Protagorean presume 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 desponding, and the laziness of the other fanguine ; yet both can give it a good name, and call it Happiness.

VER. 23. Some funk to beasts, &c.] These four lines added in the last Édition, as necessary to complete the summary of the false pursuits after happiness amongst the Greek philofophers.

Take. Nature's path, and mad opinions leave;
All states can reach it, and all heads conceive; 30
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, Man, “the Universal Cause

35 « Acts not by partial, but by gen’ral laws ;" And makes what Happiness we justly call Sublist not in the good of one, but all.

There's not a blessing Individuals find, But some way leans and hearkens to the kind, 40 No Bandit fierce, no Tyrant mad with pride, No cavern'd Hermit rests self-satisfy'd: Who most to fhun or hate Mankind pretend, Seek an admirer, or would fix a friend : Abstract what others feel, what others think, 45 All pleasures ficken, 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 rest, 50

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NOTES.

VER. 49. Order is Heav'n's first law;] i.e. The first law made by God relates to Order ; which is a beautiful allusion to the Scripture-history of the Creation, when God first appeased the disorders of Chaos, and separated the light from the darkness.

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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 ;
But mutual wants this Happiness increase ; 55
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.
But fortune's gifts if each alike poffeft,
And each were equal, must not all contest?
If then to all Men Happiness was meant, 65
God in externals could not place Content.

VARIATIONS,
After ver. 52. in the MS.

Say not, “Heav'n's here profuse, there poorly saves,
“And for one Monarch makes a thousand slaves."
You'll find, when Causes and their Ends are known,

'Twas for the thousand Heav'n has made that one.
After ver. 66. in the MS,
'Tis
peace

of mind alone is at a stay :
The rest mad fortune gives or takes away.
All other bliss by accident's debarr'd ;
But Virtue's, in the instant a reward ;
In hardest trials operates the best,
And more is relish'd as the more distrest.

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