What you (the cried) unlearn'd in arts to pleafe,
Slaves to yourfelves, and even fatigu'd with cafe,
Who lofe a length of undeferving days-
Would you ufurp the lover's dear-bought praife?
To juft contempt, ye vain pretenders, fall;
The people's fable, and the fcorn of all!
Straight the black clarion fends a horrid sound,
Loud laughs burft out, and bitter fcoffs fly round,
Whispers are heard, with taunts reviling loud,
And icornful hiffes run thro' all the crowd.
Laft, thofe who boaft of mighty mifchiefs done,
Enflave their country, or ufurp a throne;
Or who their glory's dire foundation lay'd
On fov'reigns ruin'd, or on friends betray'd;
Calm thinking villains, whom no faith could fix,
Of crooked counfels and dark politics-
Of these a gloomy tribe furround the throne,
And beg to make th' immortal treasons known.
The trumpet roars, long flaky flames expire,
With fparks that feem'd to fet the world on fire.
At the dread found pale mortals ftood aghaft,
And startled nature trembled with the blaft.
This having heard and feen,fome pow'runknown
Straight chang'd the scene, and fnatch'd me from
the throne.

Before my view appear'd a structure fair,
Its fite uncertain, if in earth or air;
With rapid motion turn'd the mantion round;
With ceafelefs noife the ringing walls refound;
Not lefs in number were the fpacious doors
Than leaves on trees, or fands upon the fhores;
Which ftill unfolded stand, by night, by day,
Pervious to winds, and open ev'ry way.
As flames by nature to the skies afcend,
As weighty bodies to the centre tend,
As to the fea returning rivers roll,
And the touch'd needle trembles to the pole;
Hither, as to their proper place, arise
All various founds from earth, and feas, and fkies,
Or fpoke aloud, or whisper'd in the ear;
Nor ever filence, reft, or peace is here.
As on the fmooth expanse of crystal lakes
The finking ftone at firft a circle makes;
The trembling furface, by the motion stirr'd,
Spreads in a fecond circle, then a third;
Wide, and more wide, the floating rings advance,
Fill all the wat'ry plain, and to the margin dance:
Thus ev'ry voice and found, when firft they break,
On neighb'ring air a foft impreffion make;
Another ambient circle then they move;
That, in its turn, impels the next above;
Thro' undulating air the founds are fent,
And spread o'er all the fluid element.

There various news I heard of love and ftrife, Of peace and war, health, fickness, death, and life;

Of lofs and gain, of famine and of store;
Of storms at fea, and travels on the fhore;
Of prodigies, and portents feen in air;
Of fires and plagues, and stars with blazing hair,
Of turns of fortune, changes in the ftate;
The falls of fav'rites, projects of the great;
Of old mitinanagements, taxations new:
All neither wholly falfe, nor wholly true.

Above, below, without, within, around,
Confus'd, unnumber'd multitudes are found,
Who pafs, repafs, advance, and glide away;
Hofts rais'd by fear, and phantoms of a day:
Aftrologers, that future fates forefhew;
Projectors, quacks, and lawyers not a few;
And pricfts, and party zealots, num'rous bands,
With home-born lyes, or tales from foreign lands;
Each talk'd aloud, or in fome fecret place;
And wild impatience ftar'd in ev'ry face.
The flying rumours gather'd as they roll'd,
Scarce any tale was fooner heard than told;
And all who told it added fomething new,
And all who heard it made enlargements too;
In ev'ry car it fpread, on ev'ry tongue it grew.
Thus flying caft and weft, and north and fouth,
News travell'd with increase from mouth to mouth.
So from a fpark, that kindled firft by chance,
With gath'ring force the quick'ning flames ad-

vance;

Till to the clouds their curling heads afpire,
And tow'rs and temples fink in floods of fire.

When thus ripe lyes are to perfection fprung,
Full grown, and fit to grace a mortal tongue,
Thro' thousand vents, impatient, forth they flow,
And ruth in millions on the world below;
Fame fits aloft, and points them out their course,
Their date determines, and prefcribes their force;
Some to remain, and fome to perifh foon;
Or wane and wax alternate like the moon.
Around a thoufand winged wonders fly, [fky.
Borne by the trumpet's blaft, and scatter'd thro' the
There, at one paffage, oft you might survey
A lye and truth, contending for the way;
And long 'twas doubtful, both fo closely pent,
Which first should iffue thro' the narrow vent.
At laft agreed, together out they fly,
Infeparable now the truth and lye;
The ftrict companions are for ever join'd,
And this or that unmix'd no mortal e'er fhall find.
While thus I ftood, intent to fee and hear,
One came, methought, and whisper'd in my ear:
What could thus high thy rafh ambition raife?
Art thou, fond youth, a candidate for praise?

'Tis true, faid I, not void of hopes I came,
For who fo fond as youthful bards of Fame?
But few, alas! the cafual bleffing boast,
So hard to gain, fo cafy to be loft.
How vain that fecond life in others' breath,
Th' eftate which wits inherit after death!
Eafe, health, and life, for this they must resign;
Unfure the tenure, but how vaft the fine!
The great man's curfe, without the gains, endure;
Be envied, wretched-and be latter'd, poor;
All lucklefs wits their enemies pret ft,
And all fuccefsful, jealous finds at best.
Nor fame I flight, nor for her favours call;
She comes unlook'd for, if fhe comes at all.
But if the purchase costs fo de ar a price
As foothing folly, or exalting vice;
Oh! if the mufe muft flatter lawless fway,
And follow ftill where fortune leads the way
Or if no bafis bear my rifing name
But the fallen ruins of another's fame-
R

Then

Then teach me, Heaven! to fcorn the guilty bays,
Drive from my breaft that wretched luft of praife ;1
Unblemish'd let me live, or die unknown;
Oh grant an honest fame, or grant me none !

§ 15. The happy Life of a Country Parfon. POPE. In Imitation of Dr. Swift.

PARSON, thefe things in thy poffeffing

Are better than the Bishop's bleffing-
A Wife that makes conferves; a Steed
That carries double when there's need;
October ftore, and best Virginia;
Tythe-Pig, and mortuary Guinea;
Gazettes fent gratis down, and frank'd,
For which thy patron 's weekly thank'd;
A large Concordance, bound long fince;
Sermons to Charles the Firft when Prince;
A Chronicle of ancient ftanding;
A Chryfoftom to fmooth thy band in.
The Polyglott-three parts-my text,
Howbeit-likewife-now to my next.
Lo! here the Septuagint-and Paul,
To fum the whole-the close of all.

He that has thefe, may pafs his life,
Drink with the 'Squire, and kifs his Wife;
On Sundays preach, and eat his fill;
And faft on Fridays-if he will:

Toaft Church and Queen, explain the News,
Talk with Churchwardens about pews,
Pray heartily for fome new Gift,
And thake his head at Doctor St.

§16. An Effy on Man: in Four Epifles. Pore.
To H. St. John Lord Bolingbroke.

EPISTLE I.

ARGUMENT.

Of the Nature and State of Man with respect to the Universe.

the bodily qualifications of the Brutes; though to poffejs any of the fenfitive faculties in a bigher degree would render bim miserable.— That throughout the whole visible world an univerfal order and gradation in the fenfual and mental faculties is obferved, ubich causes a fubordination of creature to creature, and of all creatures to Man. The gradations of fenfe, inftinét, thought, reflection, reafon; that Reafon alone countervails all the other faculties. How much further this order and fubordination of living creatures may extend, alove and below us; were any part of which broken, not that part only, but the whole connected creation must be diflroyed.-The extravagance, madnefs and pride of fuch a defive.-The confequence of all the abfolute fubmiflion due to Providence, both as to our present and future ftare.

AWAKE, my Saint John! leave all meaner

things

To low ambition and the pride of Kings.
Let us, fince life can little more fupply
Than juft to look about us, and to die,
Expatiate free o'er all this fcene of Man;
A mighty maze! but not without a plan;
A Wild, where weeds and flow'rs promifcuous
Or Garden, tempting with forbidden fi uit. [fhoot;
Together let us beat this ample field,
Try what the open, what the covert yield!
The latent tracks, the giddy heights explore,
Of all who blindly creep, or fightless foar;
Eye Nature's walks, thoot Folly as it flies,
And catch the manners living as they rife;
Laugh where we must, be candid where we can,
But vindicate the ways of Ged to Man.

Say first, of Goed above, or Mau below,
What can we reafon, but from what we know?
Of Man, what fee we but his ftation here,
From which to reafon, or to which refer?

Thro' worlds unnumber'd tho' the God te known, Of Man in the abftract. That we can judge Tis ours to trace him only in our own. only with regard to our own fyftem, being ig. He who thro' vaft immenfity can pierce, norant of the relations of fyftems and things. See worlds on worlds compofe one universe, That Man is not to be deemed imperfect, but Obferve how fyftem into fyftem runs, a Being fuited to his place and rank in the What othet planets circle other funs, creation, agreeable to the general Order of What varied Being peoples ev'ry star, things, and conformable to Ends and Relations May tell why Heaven has made us as we are. to bim unknown.—That it is partly upon his But of this frame the bearings and the ties, ignorance of future events, and partly upon The frong connections, nice dependencies, the hope of a future flate, that all bis bap- Gradations juit, has thy pervading foul pines in the prefent depends.-The pride of Look'd thro' or can a part contain the whole ? aiming at more knowledge, and pretending to Is the great chain that draws all to agree, more perfection, the caufe of Man's ero and And drawn fupports, upheld by God or thee? mifery. The impiety of putting himself in the Prefumptuous Man! the reafon wouldst thou find place of God, and judging of the fitness or Why form'd to weak, fo little, and fo blind? unfinfs, perfection or imperfection, juice or First, if thou cauft, the harder reafon guefs, injuflice, of his difpenfations.-The abfurdity Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no lefs; of conceiting himself the final caule of the cre-Afk of thy mother earth, why oaks are made ation, or expecting that perfection in the moral Taller and stronger than the weeds they fhade; world which is not in the natmal.--The | Or afk of yonder argent fields above, unreafonablenefs of his complaints against Pro-Why Jove's Satellites are lefs than Jove. vidence, tubile on the one hand be demands Of fyftems poflible, if 'tis confuft

the perfections of the angels, and on the other That Wildom infinite muit form the beft,

8

Where

Where all must full or not coherent be,
And all that rifes rife in due degree;
Then in the fcale of reas'ning life, 'tis plain,
There must be fomewhere fuch a rank as Man:
And all the question (wrangle e'er fo long)
Is only this, if God has plac'd him wrong?

Go, wifer thou! and in thy fcale of fenfe
Weigh thy Opinion against Providence;
Call imperfection what thou fancieft fuch;
Say, here he gives too little, there too much:
Deftroy all creatures for thy fport or guft;
Yet cry, if Man's unhappy, God's unjust;
If Mau alone engrofs not Heaven's high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there :
Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,
Re-judge his juftice, be the God of God.
In Pride, in reas'ning Pride, our error lies;
All quit their fphere, and rush into the fkies.
Pride ftill is aiming at the bleft abodes;
Men would be Angels, Angels would be Gods.
Afpiring to be Gods, if Angels fell,
Afpiring to be Angels, Men rebel:
And who but wishes to invert the laws
Of Order, fins against th' Eternal Cause.
Afk for what end the heavenly bodies fhine,
Earth for whofe ufe? Pride anfwers, "Tis for
"mine:

Refpecting Man, whatever wrong we call, May, must be right, as relative to all. In human works, tho' labour'd on with pain, A thousand movements fearce one purpose gain; In God's, one fingle can its end produce, Yet ferves, to fecond too fome other ufe; So Man, who here feems principal alone, Perhaps acts fecond to fome fphere unknown, Touches fome wheel, or verges to fome goal; 'Tis but a part we fee, and not a whole. [ftrains When the proud Steed shall know why man reHis fiery courfe, or drives him o'er the plains; When the dull Ox, why now he breaks the clod, Is now a victim, and now Egypt's God; Then fhall Man's pride and dulnefs comprehend His actions', paffions', being's, ufe and end; Why doing, fuff'ring, check 'd, impell'd; and why" Suckles each herb, and fpreads out ev'ry flow'r; This hour a flave, the next a deity.

Then fay not Man's imperfect, Heaven in
Say rather, Man 's as perfect as he ought: [fault;
His knowledge meafur'd to his ftate and place;
His time a moment, and a point his fpace.

Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate,
All but the page prefcrib'd, their present state;
From brutes what men, from men what fpirits
Or who could fuffor Being here below? [know;
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day;
Had he thy Reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the laft, he crops the flow'ry food,
And licks the hand just rais'd to fhed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly given,

"For me kind Nature wakes her genial pow'r,

"Annual for me the grape, the rofe, renew
"The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew;
"For me the mine a thoufand treatures brings,
"For me health guthes from a thousand fprings;
"Seas roll to waft me, funs to light me rife;

My foot-ftool earth, my canopy the fkies."

But errs not Nature from this gracious end,
From burning funs when livid deaths defcend,
When earthquakes fwallow or when tempefts
fweep

Towns to one grave, whole Nations to the deep?
"No ('tis replied); the first Almighty Caufe
"Acts not by partial but by gen'ral laws;
"Th' exceptions few; fome change fince all began:

That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heaven;" And what created perfect"-Why then man?

Who fees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a fparrow fall;
Atoms or fyftems into ruin hurl'd;
And now a bubble burst, and now a world.
Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions foar;
Wait the great teacher Death, and God adore.
What future blifs he gives not thee to know,
But gives that Hope to be thy bleifing now.
Hope fprings eternal in the human breaft:
Man never Is, but always To be, bleft.
The foul, uneafy, and confin'd from home,
Refts and expatiates in a life to come.

Lo! the poor Indian, whofe untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hars him in the wind;
His foul proud Science never taught to stay
Far as the folar walk, or milky way;
Yet fimple Nature to his hope has given,
Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heaven;
Some fafer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier ifland in the wat'ry waste;
Where flaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, fo Chriftians thirst for gold.
To Be, contents his natural defire,
He asks no Angel's wing, no Seraph's fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal fky,
His faithful dog fhall bear him company.

If the great end be human Happiness,
Then Nature deviates; and can Man do lefs?
As much that end a conftant courfe requires
Of fhow'rs and funfhine, as of Man's defires;
As much eternal fprings and cloudless skics,
As men for ever temp rate, calm, and wife.
If plagues or earthquakes break not Heaven's de-
Why then a Borgia or a Catiline? [fign,
Who knows but he whofe hand the lightning forms,
Who heaves old Ocean, and who wings the ftorms,
Pours fierce Ambition in a Cæfar's mind,
Orturns young Ammon loofe to fcourge mankind?
From pride, from pride, our very reas'ning Iprings;
Account for moral as for nat'ral things:
Why charge we Heaven in thofe, in these acquit ?
In both, to reafon right, is to fubmit.
Better for us, perhaps, it might appear,
Were there all harmony, all virtue here;
That never air or ocean felt the wind;
That never paffion difcompos'd the mind.
But all fubfifts by elemental strife;
And paflions are the elements of Life.
The gen'ral Order, fince the whole began,
Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man.

What would this Man? Now upward will he
And, little less than Angel, would be more: [foar,
R 2
Now,

Frailties. The Limits of his Capacity.-The Deduct but what is Vanity or Dress, two Principles of Man, Self-love and Reafon, Or Learning's Luxury, or Idleness; both neceffary. Self-love the fronger, and Or tricks to fhew the stretch of human brain, zuby. Their end the fame.-The Paffions, and Mere curious pleasure, or ingenious pain; their ufe.-The Predominant Paffion, and its Expunge the whole, or lop th' excrefcent parts force. Its neceflity in directing Men to different Of all our Vices have created Arts; Purposes-Its providential Use, in fixing our Then fee how little the remaining fum, Principle, and afcertaining our Virtue.-Virtue Which ferv'd the paft, and muft the time to come! and Vice joined in our mixed Nature; the limits Two Principles in human nature reign; near, yet the things feparate and evident: What Self-love to urge, and Reason to restrain: is the Office of Reafon.-How odious Vice in Nor this a good, nor that a bad we call; itself, and bow we deceive ourselves in it.-Each works its end, to move or govern all : That, however, the Ends of Providence and And to their proper operation ftill general Good are anfwered in our Paffions and Afcribe all Good; to their improper, Ill. Imperfections.-How ufefully thefe are difiributed to all Orders of Men.-How useful they are to Society, and to Individuals, in every ftate and every age of life.

Self-love, the fpring of motion, acts the foul;
Reafon's comparing balance rules the whole.
Man, but for that, no action could attend;
And, but for this, were active to no end
Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot,

KNOW then thyself, prefume not God to fcan; To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot:
The proper study of Mankind is Man.
Plac'd on this ifthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wife, and rudely great;
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic fide,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act or rest,
In doubt to deem himself a God or Beaft;
In doubt his Mind or Body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reafoning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reafon fuch,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much:
Chaos of Thought and Paffion, all confus'd,
Still by himself abus'd or disabus'd;
Created half to rife, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all:
Sole judge of Truth, in endlets Error hurl'd;
The glory, jeft, and riddle of the world!

Go, wondrous creature! mount where Science
guides,

Go, meature earth, weigh air, and state the tides;
Inftruct the planets in what orbs to run,
Correct old Time, and regulate the Sun;
Go, foar with Plato to th' empyreal sphere,
To the first good, first perfect, and first fair;
Or tread the mazy round his followers trod,
And quitting fenfe call imitating God;
As Eastern priests in giddy circles run,
And turn their heads to imitate the Sun.
Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule;
Then drop into thyfelf, and be a fool!

Superior beings, when of late they faw
A mortal Man unfold all Nature's law,
Admir'd fuch wisdom in an earthly shape,
And fhew'd a Newton as we fhew an Ape.

Could he, whofe rules the rapid comet Bind,
Defcribe or fix one movement of his Mind?
Who faw its fires here rife, and there defcend,
Explain his own beginning or his end?
Alas, what wonder! Man's fuperior part
Uncheck'd may rife, and climb from art to art;
But when his own great work is but begun,
What Reason weaves, by Paffion is undone.
Trace Science then, with Modefty thy guide;
Firft ftrip off all her equipage of Pride;

Or, meteor-like, flame lawless thro' the void;
Deftroying others, by himself deftroy'd.
Moft ftrength the moving principle requires;
Active its talk, it prompts, impels, infpires.
Sedate and quiet the comparing lies,
Form'd but to check, delib'rate, and advife.
Self-love, ftill ftronger, as its objects nigh;
Reafon's at diftance and in profpe&t lie:
That fees immediate good by prefent sense;
Reason, the future and the confequence.
Thicker than arguments temptations throng;
At best more watchful this, but that more strong.
The action of the stronger to fufpend
Reafon ftill ufe, to Reaton ftill attend.
Attention, habit and experience gains;
Each ftrengthens Reafon, and Self-love reftrains.
Let fubtle fchoolmen teach these friends to fight,
More ftudious to divide than to unite ;
And Grace and Virtue, Senfe and Reafon split,
With all the rafh dexterity of wit.
Wits, just like Fools, at war about a name,
Have full as oft no meaning, or the fame.
Self-love and Reafon to one end afpire;
Pain their averfion, Pleasure their defire;
But greedy that, its object would devour;
This tafte the honey, and not wound the flow'r:
Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood,
Our greatest evil, or our greatest good.

Modes of Self-love the Paffions we may call;
'Tis real good, or feeming, moves them all:
But fince not ev'ry good we can divide,
And Reafon bids us for our own provide;
Paffions, tho' felfish, if their means be fair,
Lift under Reason, and deferve her care;
Those that imparted court a nobler aim,
Exalt their kind, and take fome Virtue's name,
In lazy Apathy let Stoics boast
Their Virtue fix'd; 'tis fix'd as in a froft
Contracted all, retiring to the breaft :
But ftrength of mind is Exercife, not Reft.
The rifing tempeft puts in act the foul;
Parts it may ravage, but preferves the whole.
On life's vaft ocean diverfely we fail,
Reason the card, but Paffion is the gale:

R 3

Nor