Or why so long (in life if long can be) 109 Lent Heav'n a parent to the poor and me? What makes all physical or moral ill? There deviates Nature, and here wanders Will. God sends not ill, if rightly understood, Or change admits, or Nature lets it fall, That Righteous Abel was destroy'd by Cain, As that the virtuous son is ill at ease When his lewd father gave the dire dis Nay, why external for internal giv'n? Why is not man a God, and earth a Heav'n?' Who ask and reason thus will scarce conceive God gives enough while he has more to give: Immense the power, immense were the demand; Say at what part of Nature will they stand? What nothing earthly gives or can de stroy, The soul's calm sunshine and the heartfelt joy, Is Virtue's prize. A better would you fix? gown, 170 Or public spirit its great cure, a crown. Weak, foolish man! will Heav'n reward us there With the same trash mad mortals wish for here? The boy and man an individual makes, Yet sigh'st thou now for apples and for cakes? Go, like the Indian, in another life Expect thy dog, thy bottle, and thy wife; To whom can Riches give repute or trust, Content or pleasure, but the good and just? Judges and senates have been bought for gold, Esteem and Love were never to be sold. O fool! to think God hates the worthy mind, 190 The lover and the love of humankind, Whose life is healthful, and whose conscience clear, Because he wants a thousand pounds a year. Honour and shame from no condition rise; Act well your part: there all the honour lies. Fortune in men has some small diff'rence made; One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade, The cobbler apron'd, and the parson gown'd; The friar hooded, and the monarch crown'd. What differ more,' you cry, 'than crown and cowl?' 'Tis phrase absurd to call a villain great. Who wickedly is wise, or madly brave, Is but the more a fool, the more a knave. Who noble ends by noble means obtains, Or failing, smiles in exile or in chains, Like good Aurelius let him reign, or bleed Like Socrates: 200 that man is great in I'll tell you, friend! a wise man and a fool. You'll find, if once the monarch acts the deed! Alike or when or where, they shone or shine, Or on the Rubicon or on the Rhine. 249 As Justice tears his body from the grave; When what t' oblivion better were resign'd Is hung on high, to poison half mankind. All fame is foreign but of true desert, Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart: One self-approving hour whole years outweighs Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas: In Parts superior what advantage lies? Tell (for you can) what is it to be wise? 260 "T is but to know how little can be known, To see all others' faults, and feel our own: Condemn'd in bus'ness or in arts to drudge, Without a second, or without a judge. Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land? All fear, none aid you, and few understand. Painful preeminence! yourself to view Above life's weakness, and its comforts too. Bring then these blessings to a strict account; Make fair deductions; see to what they mount; 270 How much of other each is sure to cost; ease. Think, and if still the things thy envy call, Say, wouldst thou be the man to whom they fall? To sigh for ribands if thou art so silly, Is yellow dirt the passion of thy life? From ancient story learn to scorn them all: There in the rich, the honour'd, famed, and great, See the false scale of Happiness complete! Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake, As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake; The centre mov'd, a circle straight succeeds, Another still, and still another spreads; Friends, parent, neighbour, first it will embrace; His country next; and next all human race; Wide and more wide, th' o'erflowings of the mind 370 Take ev'ry creature in of ev'ry kind: Earth smiles around, with boundless bounty blest, And Heav'n beholds its image in his breast. Come then, my Friend! my Genius! come along, O master of the poet and the song! And while the Muse now stoops, or now ascends, To man's low passions, or their glorious ends, Teach me, like thee, in various nature wise, To fall with dignity, with temper rise: Form'd by thy converse, happily to steer From grave to gay, from lively to severe; Correct with spirit, eloquent with ease, 381 Intent to reason, or polite to please. O! while along the stream of time thy MORAL ESSAYS Est brevitate opus, ut currat sententia, neu se The present order of the Moral Essays is very different from that of their original publication. The fifth epistle (to Addison) was written in 1715, and published five years later in Tickell's edition of Addison's works. The fourth epistle (to the Earl of Burlington) was published in 1731, under the title Of Taste. The third epistle (to Lord Bathurst) was published in 1732, and followed in 1733 by the first epistle (to Lord Cobham). The second epistle (to a ADVERTISEMENT BY DR. WARBURTON The Essay on Man was intended to be comprised in four books: The first of which the author has given us under that title in four epistles. The second was to have consisted of the same number: 1. Of the extent and limits of human reason. 2. Of those arts and sciences, and of the parts of them, which are useful, and therefore attainable; together with those which are unuseful, and therefore unattainable. 3. Of the nature, ends, use, and application of the different capacities of men. 4. Of the use of learning; of the science of the world; and of wit; concluding with a satire against the misapplication of them, illustrated by pictures, characters, and examples. The third book regarded civil regimen, or the science of politics; in which the several forms of a republic were to be examined and explained; together with the several modes of religious worship, as far forth as they affect society between which the author always supposed there was the most interesting relation and closest connection. So that this part would have treated of civil and religious society in their full extent. The fourth and last book concerned private ethics, or practical morality, considered in all the circumstances, orders, professions, and stations of human life. The scheme of all this had been maturely digested, and communicated to Lord Bolingbroke. Dr. Swift, and one or two more; and was intended for the only work of his riper HORACE. Lady) was published in 1735. The whole series appeared in their present order, under the direction of Warburton, after Pope's death. Though it is doubtful how far it suggests Pope's primary intention, Warburton's Advertisement is here printed because Pope undoubtedly wished it, with its flattering implication of his philosophical breadth, to be accepted as a true statement of a plan which was plainly broader than its execution. years; but was, partly through ill health, partly through discouragements from the depravity of the times; and partly on prudential and other considerations, interrupted, postponed, and lastly, in a manner, laid aside. But as this was the author's favourite work, which more exactly reflected the image of his strong capacious mind, and as we can have but a very imperfect idea of it from the disjecta membra poetæ that now remain, it may not be amiss to be a little more particular concerning each of these projected books. The first, as it treats of man in the abstract, and considers him in general under every one of his relations, becomes the foundation, and furnishes out the subjects of the three following so that· The second book was to take up again the first and second epistles of the first book, and to treat of man in his intellectual capacity at large, as has been explained above. Of this only a small part of the conclusion (which, as we said, was to have contained a satire against the misapplication of wit and learning) may be found in the fourth book of the Dunciad; and up and down, occasionally, in the other three. The third book, in like manner, was to reassume the subject of the third epistle of the first, which treats of man in his social, political, and religious capacity. But this part the poet afterwards conceived might be best executed in an epic poem, as the action would make it more animated, and the fable less invidious; in which all the great principles of true and false gov ernments and religions should be chiefly delivered in feigned examples. The fourth and last book was to pursue the |