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That Virtue's ends from Vanity can raife,
Which feeks no int'reft, no reward but praise ;
And build on wants, and on defects of mind,
The joy, the peace, the glory of Mankind.

Heav'n forming each on other to depend,
A mafter, or a fervant, or a friend,
Bids each on other for affiftance call,

"Till one man's weakness grows the ftrength of all.
Wants, frailties, paffions, clofer ftill ally

The common int'reft, or endear the tie.

To these we owe true friendship, love fincere,
Each home-felt joy that life inherits here;
Yet from the fame we learn, in its decline,
Thofe joys, thofe loves, thofe int'refts to refign;
Taught half by Reason, half by mere decay,
To welcome death, and calmly pafs away.

Whate'er the Paffion, knowledge, fame, or pelf,
Not one will change his neighbour with himself.
The learn'd is happy nature to explore,

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The fool is happy that he knows no more;

The rich is happy in the plenty giv'n,

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The poor contents him with the care of Heav'n.

See the blind beggar dance, the cripple fing,
The fot a hero, lunatic a king;

The ftarving chemift in his golden views
Supremely bleft, the poet in his Mufe.

See fome ftrange comfort ev'ry ftate attend,

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And pride beftow'd on all, a common friend:

See fome fit paffion ev'ry age fupply,

Hope travels thro', nor quits us when we die.
Behold the child, by nature's kindly law,

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Pleas'd with a rattle, tickled with a straw:
Some livelier play-thing gives his youth delight,
A little louder, but as empty quite :
Scarfs, garters, gold, amufe his riper stage,
And beads and pray 'r-books are the toys of
Pleas'd with this bauble ftill, as that before;
'Till tir'd he fleeps, and Life's poor play is o'er.
Mean-while Opinion gilds with varying rays
Thofe painted clouds that beautify our days;.

age:

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ESSAY ON MAN.

Each want of happiness by Hope fupply'd,

And each vacuity of fenfe by Pride:
Thefe build as faft as knowledge can deftroy;
In folly's cup ftill laughs the bubble, joy;
One profpect loft, another ftill we gain;
And not a vanity is giv'n in vain;

Ev'n mean Self-love becomes, by force divine,
The fcale to measure others wants by thine.
See! and confefs, one comfort ftill muft rife;
'Tis this, Tho' Man's a fool, yet GOD IS WISE.

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HE

EPISTLE III.

ERE then we reft: "The Univerfal Caufe
"Acts to one end, but acts by various laws."

In all the madnefs of fuperfluous health,

The trim of pride, the impudence of wealth,
Let this great truth be prefent night and day;
But most be prefent, if we preach or pray.

Look round our world; behold the chain of Love
Combining all below and all above.

See plaftic Nature working to this end,

The fingle atoms each to other tend,
Attract, attracted to, the next in place
Form'd and impell'd its neighbour to embrace.
See Matter next, with various life endu'd,
Prefs to one center ftill, the gen'ral Good.
See dying vegetables life fuftain,

See life diffolving vegetate again:

All forms that perifh other forms fupply,
(By turns we catch the vital breath and die)
Like bubbles on the fea of Matter borne,
They rife, they break, and to that fea return.
Nothing is foreign; Parts relate to whole;
One all-extending, all-preferving Soul

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Connects each being, greatest with the leaft;
Made Beast in aid of Man, and Man of Beaft;
All ferv'd, all ferving: Nothing ftands alone;
The chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown.
Has God, thou fool! work'd folely for thy good,
Thy joy, thy paftime, thy attire, thy food?
Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn,
For him as kindly fpread the flow'ry lawn:
Is it for thee the lark afcends and fings?
Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings.
Is it for thee the linnet pours his throat?
Loves of his own and rapture fwell the note.
The bounding feed you pompously beftride,
Shares with his lord the pleafure and the pride..
Is thine alone the feed that ftrews the plain ?
The birds of Heav'n fhall vindicate their grain.
Thine the full harveft of the golden year?
Part pays, and juftly, the deferving fteer:
The hog, that plows not nor obeys thy call,
Lives on the labours of this Lord of all.

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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 ufe !"
"See Man for mine!" replies a pamper'd goofe:
And just as fhort of Reafon He must fall,

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Who thinks all made for one, not one for all.

Grant that the pow'rful ftill the weak controul;

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, ftooping from above,
Smit with her varying plumage, fpare the dove?"
Admires the jay the infect's gilded wings?
Or hears the hawk when Philomela fings?
Man cares for all: to birds he gives his woods,
To beafts his pastures, and to fifh his floods:
For fome his int'reft prompts him to provide,
For more his pleasure, yet for more his pride
All feed on one vain Patron, and enjoy
Th' extenfivé bleffing of his luxury.

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ESSAY ON MAN.

That very life his learned hunger craves,
He faves from famine, from the favage faves;
Nay, feafts the animal he dooms his feaft,
And, 'till he ends the being, makes it bleft;
Which fees no more the ftroke, or feels the pain,
Than favour'd Man by touch etherial slain.
The creature had his feaft of life before;
Thou too muft perish, when thy feast is o'er !
To each unthinking being, Heav'n a friend,
Gives not the useless knowledge of its end:
To Man imparts it; but with fuch a view
As, while he dreads it, makes him hope it too;
The hour conceal'd, and fo remote the fear,
Death ftill draws nearer, never seeming near.
Great ftanding miracle! that Heav'n affign'd
Its only thinking thing this turn of mind.

EP.

II. Whether with Reafon, or with Inftinct bleft,
Know, all enjoy that pow'r which fuits them beft;
To blifs alike by that direction tend,

And find the means proportion'd to their end,
Say, where full. Inftinet is th' unerring guide,
What Pope or Council can they need befide?
Reason, however able, cool at beft,

Cares not for fervice, or but ferves when preft,
Stays till we call, and then not often near;
But honeft Inftinct comes a Volunteer,

Sure never to o'er-fhoot, but just to hit ;.

While ftill too wide or fhort is human Wit;
Sure by quick Nature happiness to gain,
Which heavier Reafon labours at in vain.
This too ferves always, Reafon never long;
One must go right, the other may go wrong..
See then the acting and comparing pow'rs
One in their nature, which are two in ours;
And Reafon raise o'er Inftinct as you can,
In this 'tis God directs, in that 'tis Man.

Who taught the nations of the field and wood
To fhun their poifon, and to chufe their food?
Prefcient, the tides or tempefts to withstand,
Build on the wave, or arch beneath the fand?

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Who made the fpider parallels defign,

Sure as Demoivre, without rule or line?

Who bid the ftork, Columbus-like, explore

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Heav'ns not his own, and worlds unknown before?
Who calls the council, ftates the certain day,

Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way?
III. God, in the nature of each being, founds
Its proper blifs, and fets its proper bounds:
But as he framed a Whole, the Whole to blefs,
On mutual Wants built mutual Happiness:
So from the firft, eternal ORDER ran,
And creature link'd to creature, man to man.
Whate'er of life all quick'ning æther keeps,
Or breaths thro' air, or fhoots beneath the deeps,
Or pours profuse on earth, one nature feeds
The vital flame, and fwells the genial feeds.
Not man alone, but all that roam the wood,
Or wing the fky, or roll along the flood,.
Each loves itself, but not itself alone,
Each fex defires alike, 'till two are one.
Nor ends the pleasure with the fierce embrace;
They love themselves a third time in their race.
Thus beaft and bird their common charge attend,
The mothers nurfe it, and the fires defend;
The young difmifs'd to wander earth or air,
There ftops the Inftinct, and there ends the care :
The link diffolves, each feeks a fresh embrace,
Another love fucceeds, another race.
A longer care man's helpless kind demands;
That longer care contracts more lasting bands:
Reflection, Reafon, ftill the ties improve,
At once extend the int'reft, and the love;
With choice we fix, with fympathy we burn;
Each virtue in each paffion takes its turn;

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And still new needs,, new helps, new habits rise,
That graft benevolence on charities.

Still as one brood, and as another rofe,

Thefe natʼral love maintain'd, habitual thofe :
The laft, fcarce ripen'd into perfect Man,

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Saw helpless him from whom their life began:

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