Judges and Senates have been bought for gold,
Esteem and Love were never to be sold.

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

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 cobler apron'd, and the parson gown'd,

The friar hooded, and the monarch crown'd.

<< What differ more (you cry) than crown and cowl? » I'll tell you, friend; a wise man and a fool.

You'll find, if once the monarch acts the monk,
Or, cobler-like, the parson will be drunk,
Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow;
'The rest is all but leather or prunello.

Stuck o'er with titles, and hung round with strings, That thou may'st be by kings, or whores of kings.

étale sa pourpre, et l'autre ses lambeaux;
un leste uniforme un colonel se carre,

nagistrat se plaît dans sa longue simare
ordon fastueux pare le courtisan,
imple tablier distingue l'artisan,
rêtre s'applaudit en soutane moirée,
quais insolent est fier de sa livrée,
octeur fièrement enfonce son bonnet,
entillâtre altier arbore le plumet;

se couvre d'un froc, l'autre d'un diadême.
liadême, un froc! quelle distance extrême!
i de plus opposé (me le demandes-tu?)
les bons, les méchants, le vice et la vertu?

u néant, comme un moine, un lâche roi se livre, alet crapuleux qu'un vil prêtre s'enivre ;

· la honte ou l'honneur que font des titres vains? ertu fait les grands, le vice les faquins.

Boast the pure blood of an illustrious race,

In quiet flow from Lucrece to Lucrece :
But by your father's worth if yours you rate,
Count me those only who were good and great.
Go! if your ancient, but ignoble blood

Has crept thro' scoundrels ever since the flood,
Go! and pretend your family is young;
Nor own, your fathers have been fools so long.
What can enoble sots, or slaves or cowards?
Alas! not all the blood of all the HoWARDS.

Look next on Greatness; say where Greatness lies?
<«< Where, but among the Heroes and the Wise! »
Heroes are much the same, the point's agreed,
From Macedonia's madman to the Swede;
The whole strange purpose of their lives, to find
Or make an enemy of all mankind!

Not one looks backward, onward still he goes,
Yet ne'er looks forward further than his nose.

ESSAI SUR L'HOMME, ÉPITRE IV. 135

Tout prince ou son ministre, ou plutôt sa maîtresse,
Ont pu te surcharger de marques de noblesse,
Et d'étoiles d'argent, et de cordons d'azur ;

Le

sang de tes aïeux, peut-être toujours pur, De Lucrèce en Lucrèce a passé dans tes veines; Mais si par leurs vertus tu calcules les tiennes, Efface donc, au moins, ceux qui n'en eurent pas. Va, crois-moi : si ton sang est antique, mais bas, Et si de lâche en lâche il a coulé sans gloire, Même par vanité laisse en paix leur mémoire ; Garde-toi d'avouer, pour l'honneur de ton nom, Qu'un aussi long opprobre a souillé ta maison : Déchire ces portraits de tes lâches ancêtres; Rien n'ennoblit des sots, rien n'ennoblit des traîtres. Et toi, si tes vertus ne te font honorer

Tout le sang des Talbot ne s'aurait t'illustrer. (9

Et la grandeur, dis-moi, qui l'obtient en partage?
Un conquérant rapide, un politique sage.
Qu'est-ce qu'un conquérant? un bandit meurtrier
Qui se fait l'ennemi de l'univers entier ;

Qui, sans avoir de but, sans retourner la tête,
Court, noble extravagant, de conquête en conquête :
Du brigand de Stokholm à celui de Pella,

Tels sont tous ces héros devant qui tout trembla.
Qu'est-ce qu'un politique? un fourbe sans scrupule,
Qui, tentant des humains l'imprudence crédule,

No less alike the Politic and Wise ;

All sly slow things, with circumspective eyes :
Men in their loose unguarded hours they take,
Not that themselves are wise, but others weak.
But grant that those can conquer, these can cheat;
"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, that Man is great indeed.

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

A thing beyond us,

Just what you hear , you have, and what's unknown The same (my Lord) if Tully's, or your own.

All that we feel of it begins and ends

In the small circle of our foes or friends;

To all beside as much an empty shade

An Eugene living, as a Cæsar dead;

Alike or when, or where, they shone or shine.

Or on the Rubicon, or on the Rhine.