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Which still so near us, yet beyond us lies
O'erlook'd, feen double, by the fool, and wife,

NOTES.

5

It is to be obferved, that the Pagan deities had each their several names and places of abode, with fome of which they were fuppofed to be more delighted than others, and confequently to be then moft propitious when invoked by the favourite name and place: Hence we find, the Hymns of Homer, Orpheus, and Callimachus to be chiefly employed in reckoning up the feveral names and places of abode by which the patron God was dif tinguished. Our poet hath made thefe two circumstances ferve to introduce his fubject. His purpose is to write of Happiness; method therefore requires that he first define what men mean by Happiness, and this he does in the ornament of a poetic Invocation; in which the feveral names, that happiness goes by, are enumerated,

Oh Happiness! our being's end and aim,

Good, Pleasure, Eafe, Content! whate'er thy Name. After the Definition, that which follows next, is the propofition, which is, that human Happiness confifts not in external Advantages, but in Virtue. For the fubject of this epiftle is the detecting the false notions of Happinefs, and fettling and explaining the true; and this the poet lays down in the next fixteen lines. Now the enumeration of the feveral fituations in which Happiness is fuppofed to refide, is a fummary of false Happinefs, placed in Externals:

Plant of celeftial feed! if dropt below,

Say in what mortal foil thou deign'ft to grow.
Fair op'ning to fome Court's propitious shine,
Or deep with Di'monds in the flaming mine,
Twin'd with the wreaths Parnaffian laurels yield,
Or reap'd in iron harvests of the field ?

Plant of celeftial feed; if dropt below,

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Say, in what mortal foil thou deign'st to grow;
Fair op'ning to fome Court's propitious shine,
Or deep with di'monds 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? Ifvain our toil,
We ought to blame the culture, not the soil :
Fix'd to no spot is happiness fincere,

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'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. Ask of the Learn'd the way? The Learn'd are blind; This bid to ferve, and that to fhun Mankind; 20

NOTES.

The fix remaining lines deliver the true notion of Happiness to be in Virtue. Which is fumm'd up in these two: Fix'd to no spot is Happiness fincere,

'Tis no where to be found, or ev'ry where.

The Poet having thus defined his terms, and laid down his propofition, proceeds to the fupport of his Thefis ; the various arguments of which make up the body of the Epiftle.

VER. 6. O'erlook'd, feen double,] O'erlook'd by thofe who place Happiness in any thing exclufive of Virtue; seen double by those who admit any thing else to have a share with Virtue in procuring Happiness; these being the two general mistakes that this epifle is employed in confuting.

Some place the bliss in action, fome in ease,
Those call it pleasure, and contentment these ;
Some funk to beafts, find pleasure end in pain;
Some fwell'd to Gods, confefs ev'n Virtue vain;
Or indolent, to each extreme they fall,

To truft in ev'ry thing, or doubt of all.
Who thus define it, fay they more or less
Than this, that Happiness is Happiness ?

NOTES.

25

VER. 21, 23. Some place the bliss in action,-Some funk to beafts, &c.] 1.Those who place Happiness, or the fummum bonum, in Pleasure Hdon, fuch as the Cyrenaic fect, called, on that account, the Hedonic. 2. Those who place it in a certain tranquillity or calmness of Mind, which they call Eluuia, fuch as the Democratic sect. 3. The Epicurean. 4. The Stoic. 5. The Protagorean, which held that Man was πάντων χρημάτων μέτρον, the mea fure of all things ; for that all things which appear to him are, and those things which appear not to any Man are not; fo that every imagination or opinion of every Man was true. 6. The Sceptic; whofe abfolute Doubt is, with great judgment, faid to be the effect of Indolence, as well as the abfolute Truft of the Protagorean: For the fame dread of labour attending the search of truth, which makes the Protagorean prefume it to be always at hand, makes the Sceptic conclude it is never to be found. The only difference is, that the laziness of the one is defponding, and the laziness of the other fanguine; yet both can give it a good name, and call it Happiness.

VER. 23. Some funk to beafis, &c.] These four lines added in the laft Edition, as neceffary to complete the fummary of the falfe purfuits after happinefs amongst the Greek philofophers.

Take Nature's path, and mad opinions leave;

All states can reach it, and all heads conceive; 30
Obvious her goods, in no extreme they dwell;
There needs but thinking right, and meaning well;
And mourn our various portions as we please,
Equal is Common Senfe, and Common Ease.
Remember, Man, "the Universal Cause
"Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral laws;"
And makes what Happiness we justly call
Subfift not in the good of one, but all.

There's not a bleffing Individuals find,

35

But fome way leans and hearkens to the kind, 40
No Bandit fierce, no Tyrant mad with pride,
No cavern'd Hermit refts felf-fatisfy'd:

Who most to shun or hate Mankind pretend,

Seek an admirer, or would fix a friend :

Abstract what others feel, what others think, 45 All pleasures ficken, and all glories fink:

Each has his fhare; and who would more obtain, Shall find, the pleasure pays not half the pain.

ORDER is Heav'n's first law; and this confeft, Some are, and must be, greater than the rest, 50

NOTES.

VER. 49. Order is Heav'n's firft law;] i. e. The first law made by God relates to Order; which is a beautiful allufion to the Scripture-history of the Creation, when God first appeafed the diforders of Chaos, and separated the light from the darkness.

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 ; 55 All Nature's diff'rence keeps all Nature's peace. Condition, circumftance is not the thing;

Bliss is the fame in fubject or in king,

In who obtain defence, or who defend,

In him who is, or him who finds a friend :

Heav'n breathes thro ev'ry member of the whole
One common bleffing, as one common soul.
But fortune's gifts if each alike poffest,

And each were equal, muft not all contest?
If then to all Men Happiness was meant,
God in externals could not place Content.

VARIATIONS.

After ver. 52. in the MS.

60.

65

Say not, "Heav'n's here profufe, there poorly faves, "And for one Monarch makes a thousand flaves." You'll find, when Causes and their Ends are known, "Twas for the thousand Heav'n has made that one. After ver. 66. in the MS.

'Tis peace of mind alone is at a stay :
The rest mad fortune gives or takes away.
All other blifs by accident's debarr'd ;
But Virtue's, in the inftant a reward;
In hardest trials operates the best,

And more is relish'd as the more distrest.

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