II. 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, man, 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-satisfied:
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 Heaven's first law; and this confest,
Some are, and must be, greater than the rest,
More rich, more wise; but who infers from hence
That such are happier, shocks all common sense.
Heaven to mankind impartial we confess,
If all are equal in their happiness:

But mutual wants this happiness increase;
All nature's difference 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:

Heaven breathes through every member of the whole
One common blessing, as one common soul.
But fortune's gifts if each alike possest,
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 Heaven's just balance equal will appear,
While those are plac'd in hope and these in fear:
Not present good or ill, the joy or curse,
But future views of better or of worse.

O, sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise,
By mountains pil'd on mountains, to the skies?
Heaven still with laughter the vain toil surveys,
And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.

III. Know, all the good that individuals find,
Or God and nature meant to mere mankind,
Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense,
Lies in three words, health, peace, and competence.
But health consists with temperance alone:
And peace, O virtue! peace is all thy own.
The good or bad the gifts of fortune gain;
But these less taste them, as they worse obtain.
Say, in pursuit of profit or delight,

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 prosperous 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 good.
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 Falkland dies, the virtuous and the just!
See godlike Turenne prostrate on the dust!
See Sidney bleeds amid the martial strife!
Was this their virtue, or contempt of life?
Say, was it virtue, more through Heaven ne'er gave,
Lamented Digby! sunk 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 bishop purer breath
When nature sicken'd, and each gale was death?

Or why so long (in life if long can be)
Lent Heaven a parent to the poor and me?
What makes all physical or moral ill!
There deviates nature, and here wanders wifl.
God sends not ill, if rightly understood,
Or partial ill is universal good,

Or change admits, or nature lets it fall,
Short, and but rare, till man improv'd it all.
We just as wisely might of Heaven complain
That righteous Abel was destroy'd by Cain,
As that the virtuous son is ill at ease

When his lewd father gave the dire disease.
Think we, like some weak prince, th' Eternal Cause
Prone for his favourites to reverse his laws?

IV. Shall burning Ætna, if a sage requires,
Forget to thunder, and recall her fires?
On air or sea new motions be imprest,
Oh blameless Bethel ! to relieve thy breast?
When the loose mountain trembles from on high,
Shall gravitation cease, if you go by?

Or some old temple, nodding to its fall,
For Chartres' head reserve the hanging wall?

V. But still this world (so fitted for the knave)
Contents us not. A better shall we have ?
A kingdom of the just then let it be:
But first consider how those just agree.
The good must merit God's peculiar care;
But who, but God, can tell us who they are?
One thinks on Calvin Heaven's own spirit fell;
Another deems him instrument of hell;
If Calvin feels Heaven's blessing, or its rod,
This cries, there is, and that there is no God.
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
Was made for Cæsar--but for Titus too;

[true, And which more blest? who chain'd his country, say, Or he whose virtue sigh'd to lose a day?

VI. But sometimes virtue starves, while vice is

fed.'

What then? Is the reward of virtue bread?

That vice may merit, 'tis the price of toil;
The knave deserves it when he tills the soil;
The knave deserves it 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 o'er?

'No-shall the good want health, the good want power?"

Add health and power, and every earthly thing,
'Why bounded power? why private? why no king?
Nay, why external for internal given?

Why is not man a god, and earth a heaven?'
Who ask and reason thus, will scarce conceive
God gives enough while he has more to give ;
Immense the power, immense were the demand;
Say, at what part of nature will they stand?
What nothing earthly gives or can destroy,
The soul's calm sun-shine and the heart-felt joy,
Is virtue's prize a better would you fix?
Then give humility a coach and six,

Justice a conqueror's sword, or truth a gown,
Or public spirit its great cure, a crown.

Weak, foolish man! will Heaven reward us there
With the same trash mad mortals wish for here?

The boy and man an individual makes,
Yet sigh'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 such trifles are assign'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 sixty are undone
The virtues of a saint at twenty-one!
To whom can riches give repute or trust,
Content or pleasure, but the good and just?

Judges and senates have been bought for gold;
Esteem and love were never to be sold.

Oh fool! to think God hates the worthy mind,
The lover and the love of human kind,

Whose life is healthful, and whose conscience clear,
Because he wants a thousand pounds a year.

Honour and shame from no condition rise; Act well your part, there all the honour lies. Fortune in men has some small difference made, One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade; The cobbler apron'd, and the parson gown'd, The friar hooded, and the monarch crown'd. • What differ more,' you cry, than crown and cowl I'll tell you, friend! a wise man and a fool. You'll find, if once the monarch acts the monk, Or, cobbler-like, the parson will be drunk, Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow: The rest is all but leather or prunella.

Stuck o'er with titles and hung round with strings, That thou mayst be by kings, or whores of kings. Boast the pure blood of an illustrious race,

In quiet flow from Lucrece to Lucrece :

But by your fathers' worth if yours you rate,
Count me those only who were good and great.
Go! if your ancient, but ignoble blood

Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood,
Go! and pretend your family is young;
Nor own your fathers have been fools so long.
What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards?
Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.

Look next on greatness; say where greatness lies:
Where, but among the heroes and the wise?"
Heroes are much the same, the point's agreed,
From Macedonia's madman to the Swede;
The whole strange purpose of their lives, to find,
Or make, an enemy of all mankind!

Not one looks backward, onward still he goes,
Yet ne'er looks forward further than his nose.
No less alike the politic and wise:

All sly slow things, with circumspective eyes: