Who fees and follows that great scheme the best, Best knows the blessing, and will most be blest. But fools the good alone unhappy call,

For ills or accidents that chance to all.

See FALKLAND dies, the virtuous and the juft!
See god-like TURENNE proftrate on the dust!
See SIDNEY bleed amid the martial ftrife!
Was this their virtue or contempt of life?
Say, was it virtue, more tho' Hea'v'n ne'er gave,
Lamented DIGBY! funk thee to the grave?
Tell me, if virtue made the fon expire,
Why, full of days and honour, lives the fire?
Why drew Marseilles' good bishop purer breath,
When Nature ficken'd, and each gale was death;
Or why so long (in life if long can be)
Lent Heav'n a parent to the poor and me?

What makes all phyfical or moral ill?

There deviates nature, and here wanders will.

God fends not ill; if rightly understood,

Or partial ill is univerfal good,

Or change admits, or Nature lets it fall;
Short and but rare, 'till Man improv'd it all.
We just as wifely might of Heav'n complain
That righteous Abel was deftroy'd by Cain,
As that the virtuous fon is ill at ease

When his lewd father gave the dire disease. Think we, like fome weak prince, th' Eternal Cause,

Prone for his fav'rites to reverfe his laws?

Shall burning Etna, if a fage requires, Forget to thunder, and recall her fires?

On air or fea new motions.be impreft,

Oh blameless Bethel! to relieve thy breaft?

When the loofe mountain trembles from on high,

Shall gravitation ceafe, if you go by?

Or fome old temple, nodding to its fall,
For Chartres' head reserve the hanging wall?

But ftill this world (fo fitted for the knave)
Contents us not. A better fhall we have?

A kingdom of the juft then let it be

:

But first consider how those just agree.

The good muft merit God's peculiar care;
But who, but God, can tell us who they are?
One thinks on Calvin Heav'n's own spirit fell;
Another deems him inftrument of hell:

If Calvin feel Heav'n's bleffing, or its rod,
This cries, there is, and that, there is no God.
What fhocks one part will edify the reft,

Nor with one fyftem can they all be bleft.
The very beft will variously incline,

And what rewards your virtue, punish mine.
WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT.-This world, 'tis true,
Was made for Cæfar, 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, when he tills the foil, The knave deferves 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-fhall the good want health, the good want pow'r?"

Add health, and pow'r, and ev'ry earthly thing,

Why bounded pow'r? why private? why no king? "Nay, why external for internal giv'n?

"Why is not man a God, and earth a Heav'n ?” Who afk and reafon thus, will fcarce conceive God gives enough, while he has more to give: Immenfe the pow'r, immense were the demand; Say, at what part of nature will they stand?

What nothing earthly gives, or can deflroy,
The foul's calm funfhine, 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 trafh mad mortals with for here?
The Boy and Man an individual makes,

Yet figh'ft 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 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 these at fixty are undone
The virtues of a faint at twenty-one!
To whom can riches give repute or trust,
Content or pleasure, but the good and just?
Judges and fenates 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 thousand pounds a year.