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There's not a bleffing individuals find,

But fome way leans and hearkens to the kind;
No Bandit fierce, no Tyrant mad with pride,
No cavern'd Hermit, refts felf-fatisfied:
Who moft to fhun or hate Mankind pretend,
Seek an admirer, or would fix a friend:
Abftract what others feel, what others think,
All pleafares ficken, and all glories fink:
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 confefs'd,
Some are, and must be, greater than the rest ;
More rich, more wife: but who infers from hence
That fuch are happier, fhocks all common fenfe.
Heav'n to mankind impartial we confefs,
If all are equal in their Happiness:

But mutual wants this Happiness increase:
All Nature's diff'rence keeps all Nature's peace.
Condition, circumftance, is not the thing;
Blifs is the fame in fubject or in king;
In who obtain defence, or who defend,
In him who is, or him who finds a friend :
Heav'n breathes through every member of the whole
One common bleffing, as one common foul.
But Fortune's gifts if each alike poffefs'd,
And all 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 varioufly difpofe,
And these be happy call'd, unhappy thofe ;
But Heav'n's just balance equal will appear,
While thofe are plac'd in Hope, and thefe in Fear:
Not prefent good or ill, the joy or curse,

But future views of better, or of worfe.

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Oh, fons of earth! attempt ye ftill to rife,
By mountains pil'd on mountains, to the skies?
Heav'n ftill with laughter the vain toil furveys,
And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.

Know, all the good that individuals find,
Or God and Nature meant to mere mankind,
Reafon's whole Pleafure, all the joys of Senfe,
Lie in three words, Health, Peace, and Competence.

CHAP. XVI.

ON VIRTUE.

KNOW thou this truth, (enough for man to know,)

"Virtue alone is Happinefs below."

The only point where human bliss stands still
And tastes the good without the fall to ill;
Where only Merit conftant pay receives,
Is bleft in what it takes, and what it gives;
The joy unequall'd if its end it gain,
And if it lofe, attended with no pain:
Without fatiety, though e'er fo biefs'd,
And but more relifh'd as the more diftrefs'd:
The broadeft mirth unfeeling Folly wears,
Lefs pleafing far than Virtue's very tears:
Good, from each object. from each place acquir'd,
For ever exercis'd, yet never tir'd;

Never elated, while one man's opprefs'd;

Never dejected while another's blefs'd:

And where no wants, no wishes can remain,

Since but to wish more Virtue, is to gain.

See the fole blifs Heav'n could on all bestow!
Which who but feels can tafte, but thinks can know:
Yet poor with fortune, and with learning blind,
The bad muft mifs; the good, untaught, will find:
Slave to no fect, who takes no private road,
But looks through Nature, up to Nature's God:

POPE.

Purfues

Purfues that Chain which links th' immenfe defign,
Joins Heav'n and earth, and mortal and divine ;
Sees, that no Being any blifs can know,
But touches fome above, and fome below;
Learns, from this union of the rifing Whole,
The firft, laft purpose of the human foul;

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,
And opens ftill, and opens on his foul;
'Till lengthen'd on to Faith, and unconfin'd,
It pours the blifs that fills up all the mind.
He fees, why Nature plants in man alone
Hope of known blifs, and Faith in blifs unknown:
(Nature, whofe dictates to no other kind

Are giv'n in vain, but what they feek they find).
Wife is her prefent; fhe connects in this
His greatest Virtue with his greatest Blifs;
At once his own bright prospect to be bleft,
And ftrongest motive to affift the rest.

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

Grafp the whole worlds of Reafon, Life, and Senfe,
In one close fyftem 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 foul
Muft rife from Individual to the Whole.
Self-love but ferves the virtuous mind to wake,
As the fmall pebble ftirs the peaceful lake ;
The centre mov'd, a circle straight fucceeds,,
Another still, and ftill another fpreads;
F 4

Friend,

Friend, parent, neighbour, firft it will embrace;
His country next; and next all human race;
Wide and more wide, th' o'erflowings of the mind
Take ev'ry creature in of every kind;

Earth Aniles around, with boundlefs bounty bleft,
And Heav'n beholds its image in his breast.

CHAP. XVII.

ON VERSIFICATION.

POPE.

MANY by Numbers judge a Poct's fong;
And fmooth or rough, with them, is right or wrong:
In the bright Mufe though thousand charms confpire,
Her voice is all thefe tuneful fools admire;
Who haunt Parnaffus but to please their ear,
Not mend their minds; as fome to church repair,
Not for the doctrine, but the mufic there.
-Thefe equal fyllables alone require,
Though oft the ear the open vowels tire;
While expletives their feeble aid do join;
And ten low words oft creep in one dull line;
While they ring round the fame unvaried chimes,
With fure returns of ftill expected rhimes;
Where'er you find the cooling western breeze,"
In the next line, it "whifpers through the trees:"
If crystal streams" with pleafing murmurs creep,"
The reader's threaten'd (not in vain) with "fleep ;"
Then, at the laft and only couplet fraught,

With fome unmeaning thing they call a thought,
A needlefs alexandrine ends the fong,

That, like a wounded snake, drags its flow length along..
Leave fuch to tune their own dull rhimes, and know
What's roundly fmooth, or languishingly flow;

And praise the eafy vigour of a line,

Where Denham's ftrength, and Waller's fweetness join.

True

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As thofe move eafieft who have learn'd to dance.
'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence,
The found muft feem an echo to the fenfe :
Soft is the ftrain when Zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud furges lafh the founding shore,

The hoarfe, rough verse, should like the torrent roaf:
When Ajax @rives fome rock's vaft weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move flow;
Not fo, when fwift Camilla fcours the plain,
Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.
Hear how Timotheus' varied lays surprise,

And bid alternate paffions fall and rife!

While, at each change, the fon of Libyan Jove
Now burns with glory, and then melts with love;
Now his fierce eyes with fparkling fury glow,
Now fighs fteal out, and tears begin to flow:
Perfians and Greeks like turns of Nature found,
And the world's victor stood fubdued by Sound!

CHAP. XVIII.

LESSONS OF WISDOM.

How to live happieft: how avoid the pains,
The disappointments, and difguft of those
Who would in pleafure all their hours employs
The precepts here of a divine old man
I could recite. Though old, he still retain'd
His manly fenfe, and energy of mind.
Virtuous and wife he was, but not severe ;
He ftill remember'd that he once was young;
His eafy prefence check'd no decent joy.
Him even the diffolute admir'd: for he
A graceful loofenefs when he pleas'd put on,

F 5

POPE.

And

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