But by your father's worth if your's 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 ennoble 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,
Nor ne'er looks forward further than his nose.
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
'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 other's breath, A thing beyond us, ev'n before our death.
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, or a Cæsar dead;
Alike, or when or where, they shone or shine,
Or on the Rubicon, or on the Rhine.
A wit's a feather, and a chief a rod;
An honest man's the noblest work of God.
Fame but from death a villain's name can save,
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 out weighs
Of stupid starers, and of loud huzzas;
And more true joy Marcellus exil'd feels,
Than Cæsar with a senate at his heels.
In parts superior what advantage lies? Tell (for you can) what is it to be wise? "Tis but to know how little can be known; To see all other's 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 pre-eminence! 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;
How much of other each is sure to cost;
How each for other oft is wholly lost;
How inconsistent greater goods with these ;
How sometimes life is risqu'd, and always ease :
Think, and if still the things thy envy call,
Say, wouldst thou be the man to whom they fall?
To sigh for ribbands if thou art so silly,
Mark how they grace Lord Umbra, or Sir Billy.
Is yellow dirt the passion of thy life?
Look but on Gripus, or on Gripus' wife.
If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shin'd,
The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind :
Or ravish'd with the whistling of a name,
See Cromwell damn'd to everlasting fame!
If all, united, thy ambition call,
From ancient story learn to scorn them all :
There in the rich, the honour'd, fam'd and great,
See the false scale of happiness complete!
In hearts of kings, or arms of queens who lay,
How happy those to ruin, these betray.
WHEN the gay sun first breaks the shades of night,
And streaks the distant eastern hills with light,
Colour returns, the plains their livery wear,
And a bright verdure clothes the smiling year;
The blooming flowers with opening beauties glow,
And grazing flocks their milky fleeces show;
The barren cliffs with chalky fronts arise,
And a pure azure arches o'er the skies.
But when the gloomy reign of night returns,
Stript of her fading pride all nature mourns :
The trees no more their wonted verdure boast,
But weep in dewy tears their beauty lost:
No distant landscapes draw our curious eyes,
Wrapt in night's robe the whole creation lies.
Yet still even now, while darkness clothes the land,
We view the traces of th'almighty hand;
Millions of stars in heaven's wide vault appear,
And with new glories hang the boundless sphere :
The silver moon her western couch forsakes,
And o'er the skies her nightly circle makes;
Her solid globe beats back the sunny rays,
And to the world her borrow'd light repays.
GAY.
'Tis from high life high characters are drawn;
A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn:
A judge is just, a chanc'lor juster still;
A gownsman, learn'd; a bishop, what you will;
Wise, if a minister; but, if a king,
More wise, more learn'd, more just, more ev'ry thing.
Court-virtues bear, like gems, the highest rate,
Born where Heav'n's influence scarce can pene
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