The fame felf-love, in all, becomes the cause
Of what restrains him, Government and Laws;
For, what one likes if others like as well,
What serves one will, when many wills rebel?
How shall he keep, what fleeping or awake,
A weaker may furprise, a ftronger take?
His fafety must his liberty reftrain:
All join to guard what each defires to gain.
Fore'd into virtue thus by felf-defence,
Ev'n kings learn'd juftice and benevolence:
Self-love forfook the path it first purfu'd,
And found the private in the public good.
'Twas then, the ftudious head or gen'rous mind,
Follower of God, or friend of human kind,
Poet or patriot, rose but to restore
The Faith and Moral, Nature gave before;
Re-lum'd her antient light, nor kindled new;
If not God's image, yet his shadow drew:
Taught Pow'r's due ufe to people and to kings,
Taught not to flack, nor strain its tender strings,
The less or greater, fet fo juftly true,
That touching one must strike the other too;
Till jarring int'rests of themselves create
Th' according mufic of a well-mix'd ftate.
Such is the world's great harmony that springs
From Order, Union, full Confent of things:
Where small and great, where weak and mighty, made
To ferve, not fuffer, ftrengthen, not invade;
More pow'rful each as needful to the rest,
And, in proportion as it blesses, bleft;
Draw to one point, and to one centre bring
Beast, Man, or Angel, Servant, Lord, or King.
For forms of government let fools conteft;
Whate'er is beft adminifter'd is beft.
For Modes of Faith let graceless zealots fight;
His can't be wrong whofe life is in the right;
In Faith and Hope the world will difagrée,
But all mankind's concern is charity:
All must be falfe that thwart this one great end
And all of God that bless mankind or mend.
Man, like the gen'rous vine, fupported lives;
The ftrength he gains is from th' embrace he gives.
On their own axis as the planets run,
Yet make at once their circle round the fun;
So two confiftent motions act the foul;
And one regards itself, and one the whole.
Thus God and Nature link'd the gen'ral frame, And bade felf-love and focial be the fame.
OH HAPPINESS! our being's end and aim!
Good, pleasure, ease, content! whate'er thy name :
That fomething ftill which prompts th' eternal figh,
For which we bear to live, or dare to die;
Which still fo near us, yet beyond us lies,
O'erlook'd, feen double, by the fool and wife.
Plant of celestial feed! if dropt below,
Say, in what mortal foil thou deign'st to grow?
Fair op'ning to fome court's propitious shine,
Or deep with diamonds in the flaming mine?
Twin'd with the wreaths Parnaffian laurels yield,
Or reap'd in iron harvests of the field?
Where grows?—where grows it not? If vain our toil,
We ought to blame the culture, not the foil:
Fix'd to no spot is happiness fincere,
'Tis no where to be found, or ev'ry where;
'Tis never to be bought, but always free,
And, fled from monarchs, St. John! dwells with thee.
Afk of the learn'd the way? The learn'd are blind;
This bids to ferve, and that to shun mankind :
Some place the blifs in action, fome in ease,
Those call it pleasure, and contentment these;
Some, funk to beasts, find pleasure end in pain :
Some, fwell'd to gods, confefs e'en virtue vain :
Or indolent, to each extreme they fall,
To truft in every thing, or doubt of all.
Who thus define it, fay they more or lefs Than this, that happiness is happiness?
Take nature's path, and mad opinions leave :
All ftates can reach it, and all heads conceive;
Obvious her good, in no extreme they dwell;
There needs but thinking right, and meaning well;
And mourn our various portions as we please,
Equal is common fense, and common ease.
Remember, man," the universal Caufe
Acts not by partial, but by genral laws;"
And makes what happiness, we justly call,
Subfift not in the good of one, but all.
There's not a bleffing individuals find,
But fomeway leans and hearkens to the kind;
No bandit fierce, no tyrant mad with pride,
No cavern'd hermit, rests felf-fatisfied:
Who moft to fhun or hate mankind pretend,
Seek an admirer, or would fix a friend :
Abstract what others feel, what others think,
All pleasures ficken, and all glories:fink:
Each has his hare: and who would-more obtain,
Shall find the pleasure pays not half the pain.
Order is Heav'ns firil law; and this confest,
Some are, and must be, greater than the reft;
More rich; more wife; but who infers from hence
That fuch are happier, fhocks all common sense.
Heav'n to mankind impartial we confess,
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;
Bliss is the fame in subject or in king;
In who obtain defence, or who defend,
In him who is, or him who finds a friend :
Heav'n breathes thro' every member of the whole
One common bleffing, as one common foul.
But fortune's gifts if each alike poffeft,
And each 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 variously difpofe,
And these be happy call'd, unhappy thofe :
But Heav'n's juft balance equal will appear,
While those are plac'd in hope, and these in fear:
Not prefent good or ill, the joy or curfe,
But future views of better, or of worfe.
Oh fons of earth! attempt ye ftill to rise,
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 pleasure, all the joys of sense,
Lie in three words, health, peace, and competence.
KNOW thou this truth (enough for man to know)
"Virtue alone is happiness below."
The only point where human blifs ftands still,
And taftes 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, tho' e'er fo blefs'd,
And but more relish'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 bless'd;
And where ne 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 tafle, but thinks can know
Yet poor with fortune, and with learning blind,
The bad must mifs; the good, untaught will find;
Slave to no fect, who takes no private road,
But look's through nature, up to nature's God;
Pursues that chain which links th' immense design,
Joins heav'n and earth, and mortal and divine;
Sees, that no being any blifs can know,
But touches fome above, and some below;
Learns, from this union of the rifing whole,
The first, last purpose of the human foul;
And knows where faith, law, morals, all began,
All end, in love of God, and love of man.
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