Fortune her gifts may varioufly difpofe,
And these be happy call'd, unhappy those ;
But Heav'n's juft balance equal will appear,
While those are plac'd in Hope, and these in Fear:
:70
Not prefent good or ill, the joy or curse,
But future views of better, or of worse.

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, 75
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 pleafure, all the joys of Senfe,
Lie in three words, Health, Peace, and Competence.
But Health confifts with Temperance alone;
And Peace, oh Virtue! Peace is all thy own.

NOTES.

81

VER. 79. Reafon's whole pleasure, &c.] This is a beautiful periphrafis for Happinefs; for all we feel of good is by fenfation and reflexion.

VER 82. And Peace, &c.] Confcious Innocence (fays the poet) is the only fource of internal Peace; and known Innocence, of external; therefore Peace is the fole iffue of Virtue; or, in his own emphatic words, Peace is all thy own; a conclufive observation in his argument, which ftands thus: Is Happinefs rightly placed in Externals ? No; for it confifts in Health, Peace, and Competence. Health and Competence are the product of Temperance, and Peace of perfect Innocence.

The good or bad the gifts of Fortune gain;

But these less taste them, as they worse obtain.
Say, in pursuit of profit or delight,

85

Who risk the moft, that take wrong means or right?
Of Vice or Virtue, whether bleft or curft,
Which meets contempt, or which compaffion first ?
Count all th' advantage prosp'rous Vice attains,
'Tis but what Virtue flies from and difdains: 90
And grant the bad what happiness they wou'd,
One they must want, which is to pass for good.
Oh blind to truth, and God's whole scheme below,
Who fancy Blifs to Vice, to Virtue Woe!

VARIATIONS.

After ver. 92. in MS.

Let fober Moralifts correct their speech,
No bad man's happy he is great or rich.

NOTES.

VER. 93. Ob blind to truth, &c.] Our author having thus largely confuted the mistake of Happiness's confifting in externals, proceeds to expofe the terrible confequences of fuch an opinion on the fentiments and practice of all forts of men, making the Diffolute impious and atheistical; the Religious uncharitable and intolerant; and the Good reftlefs and difcontent. For when it is once taken for granted, that Happiness confifts in externals, it is immediately feen, that ill men are often more happy than good; which fets all conditions on objecting to the ways of Providence and fome even on rafhly attempting to rectify its difpenfations, though by the violation of all Law, divine and human.

4

ΙΟ

Who fees and follows that great fcheme the beft, 95.
Beft knows the bleffing, and will most be bleft,
But fools the Good alone, unhappy call,
For ills or accidents that chance to all.
See FALKLAND dies, the virtuous and the just !
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' Heav'n ne'er gave,
Lamented DIGBY! funk thee to the grave
Tell me, if Virtue made the Son expire,
Why, full of days and honour, lives the Sire?
Why drew Marseilles' good bishop purer breath,
When Nature ficken'd, and each gale was death;
Or why fo long (in life if long can be)

Lent Heav'n a parent to the and me

poor

NOTES.

?

?

105

100

VER. 100. See godlike Turenne.] This epithet has a peculiar juftnefs; the great man to whom it is applied, not being diftinguished, from other generals, for any of his fuperior qualities, fo much as for his providential care of thofe whom he led to war; which was fo uncommon, that his chief purpose, in taking on himself the command of armies, feems to have been the prefervation of mankind. In this god-like care he was more diftinguifhably employed, throughout the whole courfe of that famous campaign in which he loft his life.

VER. 110. Lent Heav'n a parent, &c.]This last instance of the poet's illuftration of the ways of Providence, the

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 destroy'd by Cain,
As that the virtuous fon is ill at ease

When his lewd father gave the dire disease.

115

120

Think we, like fome weak Prince, th' Eternal Cause, Prone for his fav'rites to reverse his laws?

VARIATIONS.

After ver. 116. in the MS.

Of ev'ry evil, fince the world began,
The real fource is not in God, but man.

NOTES.

reader fees, has a peculiar elegance; where a tribute of piety to a parent is paid in a return of thanks to, and made fubfervient of, his vindication of the Great Giver and Father of all things. The mother of the author, a perfon of great piety and charity, died the year this poem was finished, iz 1733.

VER.121. Think we, Ike fome weak Prince, &c.] Agreeably hereunto, holy Scripture, in its account of things under the common Providence of Heaven, never reprefents miracles as wrought for the fake of him who is the object of them, but in order to give credit to fome of God's extraordinary difpenfations to Mankind.

H

Shall burning Ætna, if a fage requires, Forget to thunder, and recall her fires ? On air or fea new motions be impreft,

125

Oh blameless Bethel! to relieve thy breast? When the loose mountain trembles from on high, Shall gravitation ceafe, if you go by?

Or fome old temple nodding to its fall,

For Chartres' head referve the hanging wall? 130
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 confider how thofe Juft 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,

135

This cries there is, and that, there is no God. 140.
What shocks one part will edify the rest,
Nor with one fyftem can they all be bleft.

VARIATIONS.

After ver. 142 in fome Editions,

Give each a fyftem, all must be at ftrife;

What diff'rent fyftems for a Man and Wife?

The joke, tho' lively, was ill plac'd ; and therefore ftruck out of the text.

NOTES.

VER. 123. Shall burning Etna, &c.] Alluding to the fate of those two great Naturalifts, Empedocles and Pliny