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If Calvin feel heav'n's bleffing, or its rod,

This cries there is, and that, there is no God.
What shocks one part will edify the reft,
Nor with one system can they all be bleft.
The very best will variously incline,

And what rewards your virtue, punish mine.
WHATEVER 15, IS RIGHT.-This world, 'tis true,
Was made for Caefar- but for Titus too;

And which more bleft? who chain'd his country, fay Or he whofe Virtue figh'd to lose a day?

"But fometimes Virtue ftarves, while Vice is fed."
What then? Is the reward of Virtue bread?
That, Vice may merit, 'tis the price of toil;
The knave deferves it,
The knave deferves it,
Where folly fights for kings,

when he tills the foil,
when he tempts the main,

The goodman may be weak,

or dives for gain.
be indolent :

Nor in his claim to plenty, but content.

No

But grant him riches, your demand is o'er? [Pow'r?"
fhall the good want Health, the good want
Add Health and Pow'r, and ev'ry earthly thing,
Why hounded Pow'r? why private? why no king!
Nay, why external for internal giv'n?

Why is not Man a God, and Earth a Heaven?
Who alk and reafon thus, will scarce conceive
GOD gives enough, while he has more to give:
Immenfe the pow'r, immenfe were the demand;
Say, at what part of nature will they stand?

What nothing earthly gives, or can destroy,
The foul's calm iun-fhine, and the heart-felt joy,

Is virtue's prize: A better would you fix?
Then give Humility a coach and fix,

Juftice a Conqu'ror's fword, or Truth a gown,
Or Public Spirit its great cure, a Crown.
Weak, foolish man! will Heav'n reward us there
With the fame trash mad mortals with for here?
The boy and man an individual makes,
Yet figh'st thou now for appies and for cakes?
Go, like the Indian, in another life
Expect thy dog, thy bottle, and thy wife;
As well as dream fuch trifles are affign'd,
As toys and empires, for a god-like mind.
Rewards, that either would to Virtue bring
No joy, or be deftructive of the thing:
How oft by thefe at fixty are undone
The virtues of a faint at twenty-one!
To whom can Riches give Repute, or Tr ft,
Content, or picafure, but the Good and fult?
Judges and Senates have been bought for gold,
Efteem and Love were never to be fold.

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

Whofe life is healthful, and whofe confcience clear, Because he wants a thoufand pounds a year.

Honour and thame from no Condition rife; Act well your part, there all the honour lies. Fortune in Men has fome small diff'rence made, One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade; The cobler apron'd, and the parson gown'd, The friar hooded, and the monarch crown'd.

"What differ more (you cry) than crown and cow!!"
I'll tell you, friend! a wife man and a fool.
You'll find, if once the monarch acts the monk,
Or, cobler-like, the parfon 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 may'st be by kings, or whores of kings. Boaft the pure blood of an illustrious race,

In quiet flow from Lucrece to Lucrece :

But by your father's worth if your's you rate,
Count me thofe only who were good and great.
Go! if your ancient, but ignoble blood
Has crept thro' fcoundrels ever fince the flood,
Go! and pretend your family is young;
Nor own your fathers have been fools fo long.
What can ennoble fots, or flaves, or cowards?
Alas! not all the blood of all the HowARDS.

Look next on Greatnefs; fay where Greatness lies,
"Where but among the Heroes and the Wife"
Heroes are much the fame, the point's agreed,
From Macedonia's madman to the Swede;
The whole ftrange purpofe of their lives, to find
Or make, an enemy of all mankind!

Not one looks backward, onward ftill he goes,
Yet ne'er looks forward further than his nofe.
No lefs alike the Politic and Wife;

All fly flow things, with circumfpective eyes :
Men in their loofe unguarded hours they take,
Not that themselves are wife, but others weak.

But grant that thofe can conquer, thefe can cheat;
"Tis phrase abfurd to call a Villain Great :
Who wickedly is wife, or madly brave,

Is but the more a fool, the more a knave..
Who noble ends by noble means obtains,
Or failing, fmiles in exile or in chains,
Like good Aurelius let him reign, or bleed
Like Socrates, that man is great indeed.

What's Fame? a fancy'd life in others breath, A thing beyond us, ev'n before our death.

Juft what you hear, you have, and what's unknown
The fame (my lord) if Tully's, or your own.
All that we feel of it begins and ends

In the fmall circle of our foes and friends;
To all befide as much an empty shade
An Eugene living, as a Caefar dead;
Alike or when, or where they fhone, or fhine,
Or on the Rubicon, or on the Rhine.

A Wit's a feather, and a Chief a rod;
An honeft Man's the nobleft work of GOD.
Fame but from death a villain's name can fave,
As Juftice tears his body from the grave;
When what t' oblivion better were refign'd,
Is hung on high, to poison half mankind.
All fame is foreign, but of true defert;

Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart:
One felf-approving hour whole years out-weighs
Of stupid ftarers, and of loud huzzas ;

And more true joys Marcellus exil'd feels,
Than Caefar with a fenate at his heels.

In Parts fuperior what advantage lies?
Tell (for you can) what is it to be wife?
"Tis but to know how little can be known;
To fee all others faults, and feel our own :
Condemn'd in bus'nefs or in arts to drudge,
Without a fecond, or without a judge:
Truths would you teach, or fave 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 bleffings to a strict account;
Make fair deductions; fee to what they mount:
How much of others each is fure to coft;
How each for other oft is wholly loft;
How inconfiftent greater goods with these;
How fometimes life is rifqu'd and always ease:
Think, and if ftill the things thy envy call,

Say, would't thou be the man to whom they fall?
To figh for ribbands if thou art fo filly,

Mark how they grace Lord Umbra or Sir Billy.

Is yellow dirt the paffion of thy life;

Look but on Gripus, or on Gripus' wife.
If parts allure thee, think how Bacon fhin'd,
The wifeft, 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 ftory, learn to fcon them all.
There, in the rich, the honour'd, fam'd and great,
See the falfe fcale of Happiness complete!

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