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Some place the bliss in action, some 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?

Take Nature's path, and mad Opinion's leave;
All states can reach it, and all heads conceive;
Obvious her goods, in no extreme they dwell;
There needs but thinking right, and meaning well;
And mourn our various paffions as we please,
Equal is Common Senfe, and Common Eafe.

Remember, Man, "the Universal Caufe
"Acts not by partial, but by genʼral laws;
And makes what Happiness we justly call
Subfift not in the good of one, but all.
There's not a bleffing Individuals find,

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But fome way leans and hearkens to the kind:
No Bandit fierce, no Tyrant mad with pride,
No cavern'd Hermit, refts felf-fatisfy'd:
Who moft to fhun or hate Mankind pretend,
Seek an admirer, or would fix a friend :
Abftract what others feel, what others think,

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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 firft law; and this confeft,

Some are, and muft be, greater than the reft,

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More rich, more wife; but who infers from hence

That fuch are happier, shocks all common fenfe.
Heav'n to Mankind impartial we confefs,
If all are equal in their Happinefs:

But mutual wants this Happiness increase;

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

Blifs 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 :

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Heav'n breathes thro' ev'ry member of the whole
One common bleffing, as one common foul.
But Fortune's gifts if each alike poffeft,
And each were equal, must not all conteft?

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If then to all Men Happiness was meant, God in Externals could not place Content. Fortune her gifts may variously dispose, And these be happy call'd, unhappy those;

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Say not, "Heav'n's here profufe, there poorly faves,

"And for one Monarch makes a thousand flaves."
You'll find, when Caufes and their Ends are known,
'Twas for the thoufand Heav'n has made that one.

After ver. 66. in the MS.

'Tis peace of mind alone is at a flay:
The rest mad Fortune gives or takes away.

All other blifs by accident's debar'd;
But Virtue's, in the inftant, a reward:

In hardest trials operates the best,

And more is relish'd as the more distrest.

But Heav'n's juft balance equal will appear,

While those are plac'd in Hope, and thefe in Fear : Not prefent good or ill, the joy or curse,

But future views of better or of worse.

Oli fons of earth! attempt ye ftill to rise, By mountains pil'd on mountains, to the skies? Heav'n still with laughter the vain toil surveys, 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 pleasure, all the joys of Sense, Lie in three words, Health, Peace, and Competence. But Health confifts with Temperance alone And Peace, oh Virtue! Peace is all thy own. The good or bad the gifts of Fortune gain: But these less taste them, as they worse obtain.

Say, in purfuit of profit or delight,

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Who risks the moft, that take wrong means, or right?

Of Vice or Virtue, whether bleft or curst,

Which meets contempt, or which compassion first ?
Count all th' advantage prosp'rous Vice attains,
'Tis but what Virtue flies from and difdains :
And grant the bad what happiness they wou'd,
One they must want, which is, to pass for good.

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Oh blind to truth, and God's whole scheme below, Who fancy Blifs to Vice, to Virtue Woe!

After ver. 92. in the MS.

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

Who fees and follows that great scheme the best,
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 bleeds 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 poor and me?

What makes all phyfical and 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 juft as wifely might of Heav'n complain
That righteous Abel was deftroy'd by Cain,
As that the virtuous fon is ill at eafe
When his lewd father gave the dire disease.

After ver. 116. in the MS.

Of ev'ry evil, fince the world began,

The real fource is not in God, but man.

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

Shall burning Etna, if a fage requires,

Forget to thunder, and recall her fires?

On air or fea new motions be imprest,

Oh blameless Bethel ! to relieve thy breast ?

When the loofe 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?
But still this world (fo fitted for the knave)
Contents us not. A better fhall we have?
A kingdom of the just then let it be :
But first confider how thofe Juft agree.
The good muft merit God's peculiar care;

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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 blessing, or its rod,

This cries there is, and that, there is no God.

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What shocks one part will edify the reft,
Nor with one fyftem can they all be bleft.

VER. 123. Shall burning Ætna, &c.] Alluding to the fate of those two great Naturalifts, Empedocles and Pliny, who both perish'd by too near an approach to Etna and Vefuvius, while they were exploring the cause of their eruptions.

After ver. 142. in fome Editions,

Give each a Syftem, all must be at ftrife;

What, diff'rent Syftems for a Man and Wife?

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