Whate'er the passion, knowledge, fame, or pelf,
Not one will charge his neighbor with himself.

The learn'd is happy, nature to explore;
The fool is happy that he knows no more;
The rich is happy in the plenty given;

The poor contents him with the care of Heaven.
See the blind beggar dance, the cripple sing,
The sot a hero, lunatic a king;

The starving chymist in his golden views
Supremely blest; the poet in his muse.

See some strange comfort every state attend,
And pride bestow'd on all, a common friend;
See some fit passion every age supply;
Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die.

Behold the child, by nature's kindly law,

Pleas'd with a rattle, tickled with a straw;

*For a treatise on the process of dying see "New Physiognomy." The author takes the ground that it is not hard for the good man, full of years, ripe with good

Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight,
A little louder, but as empty quite;

Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage,
And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age;*
Pleas'd with this bauble still, as that before;
Till tired he sleeps, and life's poor play is o'er!
Meanwhile opinion gilds with varying rays,
Those painted clouds that beautify our days;
Each want of happiness by hope supplied,
And each vacuity of sense by pride;
These build as fast as knowledge can destroy;
In folly's cup still laughs the bubble joy;
One prospect lost, another still we gain;
And not a vanity is given in vain ;†
E'er mean self-love becomes by force divine,
The scale to measure others wants by thine.
See! and confess, one comfort still must rise-

'Tis this, though MAN'S A FOOL, yet GOD is wise.

works, and a settled faith in God, to die. That both the physical birth and death are natural, and in accordance with His plans and purposes.

*Playthings to the child are equivalent to property to the man; and it is a true saying of most of us, that we are "once a man and twice a child." Dotage is a second childhood. But man ripens into the spiritual. It is his body, not his mind or spirit, that grows old. The immortal part knows nothing of time but of eternity.

+ We repeat,

vanity" grows out of Approbativeness, when in excess. It is akin to self-love, but differs much from dignity or true manliness. It gives only temporary enjoyment, little or no real happiness.

Epistle H.

Of

F THE NATURE AND STATE OF MAN WITH RESPECT TO SOCIETY.-The whole universe one system of society. Nothing made wholly for itself, nor yet wholly for another. The happiness of animals mutual. Reason or instinct operatą alike to the good of each individual. Reason or instinct operate alike to society, in all animals. How far society is carried by instinct, how much farther by reason. that which is called the state of nature. Reason instructed by instinct in the invention of arts, and in the forms of society. Origin of political societies. Origin of monarchy. Patriarchal government. Origin of true religion, and government, from the same principle of love. Origin of superstition and tyranny, from the same principle of fear. The influence of self-love, operating to the social and public good. Restoration of true religion and government on their first principle. Mixed government. Various forms of each, and true end of all.

Combining all below and all above.
See plastic nature working to this end,
The single atoms each to other tend,
Attract, attracted to, the next in place
Form'd and impell'd its neighbor to embrace.
See matter next, with various life endued,
Press to one center still, the general good.
See dying vegetables life sustain,
See life dissolving vegetate again:
All forms that perish, other forms supply,
(By turns we catch the vital breath, and die,)
Like bubbles on the sea of matter borne,
They rise, they break, and to that sea return.

Nothing is foreign; parts relate to whole;
One all-extending, all-preserving soul
Connects each being, greatest with the least;
Made beast an aid of man, and man of beast;
All served, all serving: nothing stands alone;
The chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown.
Has God, thou fool, worked solely for thy good,
Thy joy, thy pastime, thy attire, thy food?
Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn,
For him as kindly spread the flowery lawn.
Is it for thee the lark ascends and sings?
Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings.
Is it for thee the linnet pours his throat?
Loves of his own, and raptures, swell the note.

The bounding steed you pompously bestride, Shares with his lord the pleasure and the pride. Is thine alone the seed that strews the plain? The birds of heaven shall vindicate their grain.

Thine the full harvest of the golden year?
Part pays, and justly, the deserving steer:
The hog, that plows not, nor obeys thy call,
Lives on the labors of this lord of all.

Know, nature's children all divide her care;
The fur that warms a monarch, warm'd a bear.
While man exclaims, " See all things for my use!"
"See man for mine!" replies a pampered goose:
And just as short of reason he must fall,
Who thinks all made for one, not one for all.
Grant that the powerful still the weak control;
Be man the wit and tyrant of the whole:
Nature that tyrant checks: He only knows,
And helps another creature's wants and woes.
Say, will the falcon, stooping from above,
Smit with her varying plumage, spare the dove?
Admires the jay, the insect's gilded wings?
Or hears the hawk when Philomela sings:
Man cares for all: To birds he gives his woods,
To beasts his pastures, and to fish his floods :
For some his interest prompts him to provide,
For more his pleasure, yet for more his pride:
All feed on one vain patron, and enjoy
The extensive blessing of his luxury;
That very life his learned hunger craves,
He saves from famine, from the savage saves;
Nay, feasts the animal he dooms his feast,
And, till he ends the being, makes it blest:
Which sees no more the stroke, or feels the pain,
Than favor'd man by touch ethereal slain.
The creature had its feast of life before;
Thou too must perish, when thy feast is o'er!
To each unthinking being, Heaven a friend,
Gives not the useless knowledge of its end:
To man imparts it; but with such a view,
As, while he dreads it, makes him hope it too:
The hour conceal'd, and so remote the fear,
Death still draws nearer, never seeming near.
Great standing miracle! that Heaven assign'd
Its only thinking thing, this turn of mind.*

* In early youth, when the animal propensities predominate, we think little of the spiritual, and less of death. In middle age, our minds seem to balance between the material of the earth and the ethereal of the spiritual. But in old age, if the spiritual eyes have been opened, we naturally tire of earth and its interests, and yearn for "a