The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, Esq

Ah! how unlike the man of times to come!
Of half that live the butcher and the tomb ;
Who, foe to nature, hears the general groan,
Murders their species, and betrays his own.
But just disease to luxury succeeds,
And every death its own avenger breeds;
The fury-passions from that blood began,
And turn'd on man a fiercer savage, man.

See him from nature rising slow to art.
To copy instinct then was reason's part:
Thus then to man the voice of nature spake-
'Go, from the creatures thy instructions take:
Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield;
Learn from the beasts the physic of the field;
Thy arts of building from the bee receive;
Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave;
Learn of the little Nautilus to sail,
Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale.
Here too all forms of social union find,
And hence let reason, late, instruct mankind:
Here subterranean works and cities see;
There towns aërial on the waving tree.
Learn each small people's genius, policies,
The ant's republic, and the realm of bees;
How those in common all their wealth bestow,
And anarchy without confusion know;

And these for ever, though a monarch reign,
Their separate cells and properties maintain.
Mark what unvaried laws preserve each state,
Laws wise as nature, and as fix'd as fate.
In vain thy reason finer webs shall draw,
Entangle justice in her net of law,
And right, too rigid, harden into wrong;

Still for the strong too weak, the weak too strong.
Yet go and thus o'er all the creatures sway,
Thus let the wiser make the rest obey:
And for those arts mere instinct could afford,
Be crown'd as monarchs, or as gods adored.'

V. Great nature spoke; observant man obey'd
Cities were built, societies were made:
Here rose one little state; another near
Grew by like means, and join'd through love or fear.
Did here the trees with ruddier burthens bend,

She taught the weak to bend, the proud to pray, To power 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 bless'd 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, 170 And, form'd like tyrants, tyrants would believe. Zeal then, not charity, became the guide; And hell was built on spite, and heaven on pride. Then sacred seemed the ethereal vault no more; Altars grew marble then, and reek'd with gore: Then first the flamen tasted living food, Next his grim idol smear'd with human blood; With Heaven's own thunders shook the world below, And play'd the god an engine on his foe.

260

So drives self-love, through just, and through unjust,

180 To one man's power, 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?
His safety must his liberty restrain:
All join to guard what each desires to gain.
Forced into virtue thus, by self defence,

90 E'en kings learn'd justice and benevolence:
Self-love forsook the path it first pursued,
And found the private in the public good.

200

"Twas then the studious head or generous nind, Follower of God, or friend of human-kind,

Poet or patriot, rose but to restore

The faith and moral, nature gave before;

270

280

And there the streams in purer rills descend?

What war could ravish, commerce could bestow;

And he return'd a friend, who came a foe.

Converse and love mankind might strongly draw,

When love was liberty, and nature law.

Thus states were form'd; the name of king unknown,

Till common interest placed the sway in one.

"Twas virtue only (or in arts or arms,

Diffusing blessings, or averting harms),

The same which in a sire the sons obey'd,

A prince the father of a people made.

210

Where small and great, where weak and mighty, made
To serve, not suffer, strengthen, not invade;
More powerful each as needful to the rest,
And, in proportion as it blesses, bless'd:
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 right;
In faith and hope the world will disagree,
But all mankind's concern is charity:
All must be false, that thwarts this one great end;
220 And all of God, that bless mankind, or mend.

VI. Till then, by nature crown'd, each patriarch sate, King, priest, and parent, of his growing state: On him, their second Providence, they hung, Their law his eye, their oracle his tongue. He from the wondering furrow call'd the food, Taught to command the fire, control the flood, Draw forth the monsters of the abyss profound, Or fetch the aërial eagle to the ground. Till drooping, sickening, dying, they began Whom they revered as god to mourn as man: Then, looking up from sire to sire, explored One great First Father, and that first adored. Or plain tradition, that this all begun, Convey'd unbroken faith from sire to son The worker from the work distinct was known, And simple reason never sought but one: Ere wit oblique had broke that steady light, Man, like his Maker, saw that all was right; To virtue, in the paths of pleasure trod, And own'd a father when he own'd a God. Love all the faith, and all the allegiance then, For nature knew no right divine in men ; No ill could fear in God, and understood A sovereign being, but a sovereign good. True faith, true policy, united ran; That was but love of God, and this of man.

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

I. False notions of happiness, philosophical and popular, answered from ver. 19 to 77. II. It is the end of all men, and attainable by all, ver. 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, ver. 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, ver. 51. But, notwithstanding that inequality, the balance of happiness among mankind is kept even by Providence, by the two passions of hope and fear, ver. 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, ver. 77. The error ef

imputing to virtue what are only the calamities of
nature, or of fortune, ver. 94. IV. The folly of ex
pecting that God should alter his general laws in
favour of particulars, ver. 121. V. That we are
not judges who are good; but that, whoever they are,
they must be happiest ver. 133, &c. VI. That ex-
ternal goods are not the proper rewards, but often
inconsistent with, or destructive of, virtue, ver. 167.
That even these can make no man happy without
virtue: instanced in riches. ver. 185. Honours,
Nobility, ver. 205. Greatness, ver. 217.
ver. 193.
Fame, ver. 237. Superior talents, ver. 257, &c.
With pictures of human infelicity in men, possessed
of them all, ver. 269. &c. VII. That virtue only
constitutes a happiness, whose object is universal,
and whose prospect eternal, ver. 307. That the
perfection of virtue and happiness consists in a con-
formity to the order of Providence here, and a re-
signation to it here and hereafter, ver. 326, &c.

EPISTLE IV.

On Happiness! our being's end and aim!
Good, pleasure, ease, content! whate'er thy name:
That something still which prompts the eternal sigh,
For which we bear to live, or dare to die;
Which still so near us, yet beyond us lies,
O'erlook'd, seen double, by the fool and wise:
Plant of celestial seed! if dropp'd below,
Say, in what mortal soil thou deign'st to grow?
Fair opening to some court's propitious shine,
Or deep with diamonds in the flaming mine?
Twined 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,
We ought to blame the culture, not the soil:
Fix'd to no spot is happiness sincere,
"Tis no where to be found, or every where:
"Tis never to be bought, but always free,

And fled from monarchs, St. John! dwells with thee.

I. 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 e'en virtue vain;
Or, indolent, to each extreme they fall,
To trust in every thing, or doubt of all.
Who thus define it, say they more or less
Than this, that happiness is happiness?

II. Take nature's path, and mad opinions 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 general 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 confess'd,
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 possess'd,
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 placed 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 piled 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,
Lie 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 bless'd or cursed,
Which meets contempt, or which compassion first?
Count all the 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 bless'd,
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 though 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 will.
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 improved 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, the Eternal cause
Prone for his favourites to reverse his laws!

Forget to thunder, and recall her fires!

100

110

120

IV. Shall burning Etna, if a sage requires,

On air or sea new motions be impress'd,

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?

13)

V. But still this world (so fitted for the knaye)

Contents us not. A better shall we have?

A kingdom of the just then let it be :
But first consider how those just agree.

140

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 feli:
Another deems him instrument of hell;
If Calvin feel 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 bless'd.
The very best will variously incline,
And what rewards your virtue, punish mine.
WHATEVER IE, IS RIGHT. This world, 'tis true,
Was made for Cæsar-but for Titus too;
And which more bless'd? who chain'd his country, say,
Or he whose virtue sigh'd to lose a day?

150

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 is o'er;

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

And health and power and every earthly thing,

When what to oblivion better were resign'd,

Why bounded power? why private? why no king? 160 Is hung on high, to poison half mankind.
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 god-like 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.

All fame is foreign but of true desert,
Plays round the head, but comes not to the neart :
One self-approving hour whole years outweighs
Of stupid starers, and of loud huzzas;
And more true joy Marcellus exiled feels,
Than Cesar with a senate at his heels.

In parts superior what advantage lies?
Tell (for you can) what is it to be wise?
"Tis but to know how little can be known,
170 To see all others' faults, and feel our own;
Condemn'd in business or in arts to drudge,
Without a second, or without a judge:
Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land!
All fear, none aid you, and few understand.
Painful pre-eminence! yourself to view
Above life's weakness, and its comforts too.
Bring then these blessings to a strict account:
Make fair deductions; see to what they 'mount:
How much of other each is sure to cost;

180 How each for other oft is wholly lost;

190

200

Stuck o'er with titles and hung round with strings,
That thou may'st 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;
Men in their loose ungarded hours they take,
Not that themselves are wise, but others weak.

But grant that those can conquer, these can cheat;
"Tis phrase absurd to call a villain great:
Who wickedly is wise, or madly brave,
Is but the more a fool, the more a knave.
Who noble ends by noble means obtains,
Or failing, smiles in exile or in chains,
Like good Aurelius let him reign, or bleed
Like Socrates, that man is great indeed.

What's fame? a fancied life in others' breath,

A thing beyond us, e'en before our death.

How inconsistent greater goods with these:
How sometimes life is risk'd, and always ease:
Think, and if still the things thy envy call,
Say, wouldst thou be the man to whom they fall?
To sigh for ribands if thou art so silly,
Mark how they grace Lord Umbra, or Sir Billy.
Is yellow dirt the passion of thy life?
Look but on Gripus, or on Gripus' wife.

If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined,
The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind:
Or ravish'd with the whistling of a name,
See Cromwell damn'd to everlasting fame!
If all, united, thy ambition call,

From ancient story, learn to scorn them all.
There, in the rich, the honour'd, famed, and great,
See the false scale of happiness complete!
In hearts of kings, or arms of queens who lay,
How happy those to ruin, thése betray.
Mark by what wretched steps their glory grows,
From dirt and sea-weed as proud Venice rose;
In each how guilt and greatness equal ran,
And all that raised the hero sunk the man:
Now Europe's laurels on their brows behold,
But stain'd with blood, or ill exchanged for gold:
Then see them broke with toils, or sunk in ease,
Or infamous for plunder'd provinces.

O wealth ill-fated! which no act of fame
E'er taught to shine, or sanctified from shame!
What greater bliss attends their close of life?
210 Some greedy minion, or imperious wife,

The trophied arches, storied halls invade,
And haunt their slumbers in the pompous shade.
Alas! not dazzled with their noon-tide ray,
Compute the morn and evening to the day;
The whole amount of that enormous fame,
A tale that blends their glory with their shame!
Know then this truth (enough for man to know)
'Virtue alone is happiness below.'
The only point where human bliss stands still,
220 And tastes the good without the fall to ill;
Where only merit constant pay receives,
Is bless'd in what it takes, and what it gives;
The joy unequall'd, if its end it gain,
And if it lose, attended with no pain:
Without satiety, though e'er so bless 'd,
And but more relish'd as the more distress'd:

260

270

230

290

300

310

Since but to wish more virtue, is to gain.

Just what you hear you have; and what's unknown,
The same (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 beside as much an empty shade

As Eugene living, as a Cæsar dead;

Alike or when or where they shone or shine,
Or on the Rubicon, or on the Rhine.
A wit's a feather, and a chief a rod;
An honest man's the noblest work of God.
Fame but from death a villain's name can save,
As justice tears his body from the grave;

See the sole bliss Heaven could on all bestow!
Which who but feels can taste, but thinks can know;
Yet poor with fortune, and with learning blind,
The bad must miss, the good untaught will find;
Slave to no sect, who takes no private road,
But looks through nature, up to nature's God;
Pursues that chain which links the immense design,
Joins heaven and earth, and mortal and divine;
Sees that no being any bliss can know,
But touches some above, and some below;
Learns from this union of the rising whole,
The first, last purpose of the human soul:
And knows where faith, law, morals, all began,
All end, in Love of God and Love of man.
For him alone, hope leads from goal to goal,
250 And opens still, and opens on his soul;

330

310

'Till lengthen'd on to faith, and unconfined,
I pours the bliss that fills up all the mind.
He sees why nature plants in man alone
Hope of known bliss, and faith in bliss unknown:
(Nature, whose dictates to no other kind
Are given in vain, but what they seek they find)
Wise is her present; she connects in this
His greatest virtue with his greatest bliss;
At once his own bright prospect to be bless'd;
And strongest motive to assist the rest.

Self-love thus push'd to social, to divine,
Gives thee to make thy neighbour's blessing thine.
Is this too little for the boundless heart?
Extend it, let thy enemies have part;

Grasp the whole world of reason, life, and sense;
In one close system of benevolence;
Happier as kinder, in whate'er degree,
And height of bliss but height of charity.

God loves from whole to parts: but human soul
Must rise from individual to the whole.
Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake,
As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake;
The centre moved, a circle straight succeeds,
Another still, and still another spreads;
Friend, parent, neighbour, first it will embrace;
His country next, and next all human race:
Wide and more wide, the o'erflowings of the mind
Take every creature in, of every kind;
Earth smiles around, with boundless bounty bless'd,
And Heaven beholds its image in his breast.

Come then, my friend! my genius! come along;
O master of the poet, and the song!
And while the muse now stoops, or now ascends,
To man's low passions, or their glorious ends,
Teach me, like thee, in various nature wise,
To fall with dignity, with temper rise;
Form'd by thy converse, happily to steer,
From grave to gay, from lively to severe;
Correct with spirit, eloquent with ease
Intent to reason, or polite to please.

O! while along the stream of time thy name
Expanded flies, and gathers all its fame,

Say, shall my little bark attendant sail,

Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale?

When statesmen, heroes, kings, in dust repose,

Whose sons shall blush their fathers were thy foes,
Shall then this verse to future age pretend
Thou wert my guide, philosopher, and friend?
That, urged by thee, I turn'd the tuneful art
From sounds to things, from fancy to the heart;
For wit's false mirror held up nature's light,
Shew'd erring pride, WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT;
That reason, passion, answer one great aim;
That true self-love and social are the same;
That virtue only makes our bliss below;
And all our knowledge is, ourselves to know

350

360

370

380

390

THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER.

DEO OPT. MAX

Thou Great First Cause, least understood;

Who all my sense confined:

To know but this, That thou art good,
And that myself am blind;

Yet gave me, in this dark estate, To see the good from ill; And, binding Nature fast in Fate, Left free the human will:

What conscience dictates to be done,
Or warns me not to do,

This, teach me more than hell to shun,
That, more than heaven pursue.

What blessings thy free bounty gives,
Let me not cast away;

For God is paid when man receives:
To enjoy is to obey.

Yet not to earth's contracted span
Thy goodness let me bound,
Or think thee Lord alone of man,

When thousand worlds are round:

Let not this weak, unknowing hand
Presume thy bolts to throw,
And deal damnation round the land,
On each I judge thy foe..

If I am right, thy grace impart,
Still in the right to stay:

If I am wrong, O teach my heart
To find that better way.

Save me alike from foolish pride,
Or impious discontent,
At aught thy wisdom has denied,
Or aught thy goodness lent.

Teach me to feel another's woe,
To hide the fault I see;
That mercy I to others shew,
That mercy shew to me.

Mean though I am, not wholly so,
Since quicken'd by thy breath;
O lead me, wheresoe'er I go,

Through this day's life or death.

This day, be bread and peace my lot:
All else beneath the sun,
Thou know'st if best bestow'd or not,
And let thy will be done.

To thee, whose temple is all space,
Whose altar, earth, sea, skies!
One chorus let all beings raise!
All Nature's incense rise!

MORAL ESSAYS,

IN FOUR EPISTLES TO SEVERAL PERSONS

It may be proper to observe, that some passages in the preceding Essay, having been unjustly suspected of a tendency towards fate and naturalism, the author composed this prayer as the sum of all, to shew that his system was founded in free-will, and terminated in piety: That the First Cause was as well the Lord and Governor of the universe as the Creator of it; and that, by submission to his will (the great princi ple enforced throughout the Essay) was not meant the suffering ourselves to be carried along by a blind determination, but the resting in a religious acquies cence, and confidence full of hope and immortality To give all this the greater weight, the poet chose for his model the Lord's Prayer, which, of all others, best deserves the title prefixed to this paraphrase.

FATHER of all! in every age,

In every clime adored,

By saint, by savage, and by sage, Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!

THE Essay on Man was intended to have been comprised in four books:

The first of which, the author has given us under that title, in four epistles.

The second was to have consisted of the same number: 1. Of the extent and limits of human reason. 2. Of those arts and sciences, and of the parts of them, which are useful, and therefore attainable, together with those which are unuseful, and therefore unattainable. 3. Of the nature, ends, use, and application of the different capacities of men. 4. Of the use of learning, of the

selence of the world, and of wit; concluding with a satire against a misapplication of them, illustrated by pictures, characters, and examples.

The third book regarded civil regimen, or the science of politics, in which the several forms of a republic were to be examined and explained; together with the several modes of religious worship, as far forth as they affect society between which the author always supposed there was the most interesting relation and closest connexion; so that this part would have treated of civil and religious society in their full extent.

The fourth and last book concerned private ethics, or practical morality, considered in all the circumstances, orders, professions, and stations of human life.

The scheme of all this had been maturely digested, and communicated to Lord Bolingbroke, Dr. Swift, and one or two more, and was intended for the only work of his riper years; but was, partly through ill health, partly through discouragements from the depravity of the times, and partly on prudential and other considerations, interrupted, postponed, and, lastly, in a manner laid

aside.

But as this was the author's favourite work, which more exactly reflected the image of his strong capacious mind, and as we can have but a very imperfect idea of it from the disjecta membra poetæ that now remain, it may not be amiss to be a little more particular concerning each of these projected books.

The first, as it treats of man in the abstract, and considers him in general under every of his relations, becomes the foundation, and furnishes out the subjects, of the three following; so that

The second book was to take up again the first and second epistles of the first book, and treat of man in his intellectual capacity at large, as has been explained above. Of this only a small part of the conclusion (which, as we said, was to have contained a satire against the misapplication of wit and learning) may be found in the fourth book of the Dunciad, and up and down, occasionally, in the other three.

The third book, in like manner, was to re-assume the subject of the third epistle of the first, which treats of man in his social, political, and religious capacity. But this part the poet afterwards conceived might be best executed in an epic poem; as the action would make it more animated, and the fable less invidious: in which all the great principles of true and false governments and religions should be chiefly delivered in feigned examples.

The fourth and last book was to pursue the subject of the fourth epistle of the first and to treat of ethics, or practical morality; and would have consisted of many members; of which the four following epistles were detached portions; the first two, on the characters of men and women, being the introductory part of this concluding book.

MORAL ESSAYS.

EPISTLE I.

TO SIR RICHARD TEMPLE, LORD COBHAM.

ARGUMENT.

Of the Knowledge and Characters of Men.

1. That it is not sufficient for this knowledge to consider man in the abstract: books will not serve the purpose, nor yet our own experience singly, ver. 1. General maxims, unless they be formed upon both, will be but notional, ver. 10. Some peculiarity in every man, characteristic to himself, yet varying from himself, ver. 15. Difficulties arising from our own passions, fancies, faculties, &c. ver. 31. The shortness of life to observe in, and the uncertainty of the principles of action in men to observe by, ver. 37, &c. Our own principle of action often hid from ourselves, ver. 41. Some few characters plain, but in general confounded, dissembled, or inconsistent, ver.51. The same man utterly different in different places and seasons, ver. 62. Unimaginable weaknesses in the greatest, ver. 70. &c. Nothing constant and certain but God and nature, ver. 95. No judging of the motives from the actions the same

actions proceeding from contrary motives, and the same motives influencing contrary actions, ver, 100 II. Yet, to form characters, we can only take the strongest actions of a man's life, and try to make them agree: The utter uncertainty of this, from nature itself, and from policy, ver. 120. Character given according to the rank of men of the world, ver. 135. And some reason for it, ver. 140. Education alters the nature, or at ilcast character, of many ver. 149. Actions, passions, opinions, manners, humours, or principles, all subject to change. No judging by nature, from ver. 158 to ver. 168. III. It only remains to find (if we can) his ruling pas sion: That will certainly influence all the rest, and can reconcile the seeming or real inconsistency of all his actions, ver. 175. Instanced-in the extraordinary character of Clodio, ver. 179. A caution against mistaking second qualities for first, which will destroy all possibility of the knowledge of mankind, ver. 210. Examples of the strength of the ruling passion, and its continuation to the last breath. ver. 222, &c.

EPISTLE I.

I. YES, you despise the man to books confined,
Who from his study rails at human kind;
Though what he learns he speaks, and may advance
Some general maxims, or be right by chance.
The coxcomb bird, so talkative and grave,
That from his cage cries cuckold, whore, and knave,
Though many a passenger he rightly call,
You hold him no philosopher at all

And yet the fate of all extremes is such,
Men may be read, as well as books, too much
To observations which ourselves we make,
We grow more partial for the observer's sake:
To written wisdom, as another's, less;
Maxims are drawn from notions, these from guess.
There's some peculiar in each leaf and grain,
Some unmark'd fibre, or some varying vein:
Shall only man be taken in the gross ?
Grant but as many sorts of minds as moss.

That each from other differs, first confess:
Next, that he varies from himself no less;
Add nature's, custom's, reason's, passion's strife,
And all opinion's colours cast on life.

Our depths who fathoms, or our shallows finds,
Quick whirls, and shifting eddies, of our minds?
On human actions reason though you can,
It may be reason, but it is not man:
His principle of action once explore,
That instant 'tis his principle no more.
Like following life through creatures you dissect
You lose it in the moment you detect.

Yet more; the difference is as great between
The optics seeing, as the objects seen.

All manners take a tincture from our own;
Or some discolour'd through our passions shewn.
Or fancy's beam enlarges, multiplies,

Contracts, inverts, and gives ten thousand dyes.
Nor will life's stream for observation stay;

It hurries all too fast to mark their way:

In vain sedate reflections we would make,

When half our knowledge we must snatch, not take, 10
Oft, in the passion's wild rotation toss'd,
Our spring of action to ourselves is lost:
Tired, not determined, to the last we yield,
And what comes then is master of the field.
As the last image of that troubled heap,
When sense subsides and fancy sports in sleep
(Though past the recollection of the thought),
Becomes the stuff of which our dream is wrought:
Something as dim to our internal view,
Is thus, perhaps, the cause of most we do.

True, some are open, and to all men known;
Others, so very close, they're hid from none,
(So darkness strikes the sense no less than light):
Thus gracious Chandos is beloved at sight;
And every child hates Shylock, though his soul
Still sits at squat, and peeps not from its hole.
At half mankind when generous Manly raves,
All know 'tis virtue, for he thinks them knaves:
When universal homage Umbra pays,
All see 'tis vice, an itch of vulgar praise.
When flattery glares, all hate it in a queen,
While one there is who charms us with his spleen.

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The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, Esq: To which is Prefixed the Life of ...