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 sicken'd, and each gale was death?
Or why so long (in life if long can be)
Lent Heav'n a parent to the poor and me?
What makes all physical or moral ill?
There deviates Nature, and here wanders Will.
God sends not ill, if rightly understood,
Or partial ill is universal good,
Or change admits, or Nature lets it fall,
Short and but rare till Man improv'd it all.
We just as wisely might of Heav'n complain
That righteous Abel was destroy'd by Cain,
As that the virtuous son is ill at ease
When his lewd father gave the dire disease.
Think we, like some weak prince, th' Eternal Cause
Prone for his fav'rites to reverse his laws?
Shall burning Ætna, if a sage requires,
Forget to thunder, and recall her fires?
On air or sea new motions be imprest,
Oh, blameless Bethel! to relieve thy breast?
When the loose mountain trembles from on high,
Shall gravitation cease if you go by?
Or some old temple, nodding to its fall,
For Chartres' head reserve the hanging wall? 130
But still this world (so fitted for the knave) Contents us not. A better shall we have?
A kingdom of the just then let it be ;
But first consider how those just agree.
The good must 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 instrument of Hell :
If Calvin feel Heav'n's blessing or its rod,
This cries There is, and that There is no God. 140
What shocks one part will edify the rest;
Nor with one system can they all be blest.
The very best will variously incline,
And what rewards your virtue punish mine.
Whatever is is right.-This world, 'tis true,
Was made for Cæsar-but for Titus too:
And which more bless'd? who chain'd his country, say, Or he whose virtue sigh'd to lose a day?
"But sometimes virtue starves while vice is fed." What then? is the reward of virtue bread?
That vice may merit; 'tis the price of toil;
The knave deserves it when he tills the soil,
The knave deserves it when he tempts the main,
Where Folly fights for kings or dives for gain.
The good man may be weak, be indolent;
Nor is his claim to plenty but content,
But grant him riches, your demand is o'er? [pow'r?"
"No shall the good want health, the good want
Add health and pow'r, and ev'ry earthly thing;
66 Why bounded pow'r? why private? why no king?"
Nay, why external for internal giv'n?
Why is not man a god, and earth a heav'n?
Who ask and reason thus will scarce conceive
God gives enough while he has more to give :
Immense the pow'r, immense were the demand;
Say at what part of Nature will they stand?
What nothing earthly gives or can destroy,
The soul's calm sunshine and the heart-felt joy
Is virtue's prize. A better would
you fix?
Then give Humility a coach and six,
Justice a conqu❜ror's sword, or Trnth a gown,
Or Public Spirit its great cure, a crown.
Weak, foolish Man! will Heav'n reward us there
With the same trash mad mortals wish for here?
The Boy and Man an individual makes,
Yea sigh'st thou now for apples and for cakes?
Go, like the Indian, in another life
Expect thy dog, thy bottle, and thy wife,
As well as dream such trifles are assign'd,
As toys and empires, for a godlike mind:
Rewards that either would to virtue bring
No joy, or be destructive of the thing.
How oft' by these at sixty are undone
The virtues of a saint at twenty-one!
To whom can riches give repute or trust,
Content or pleasure, but the good and just?
Judges and senates have been bought for gold;
Esteem and love were never to be sold.
Oh! fool, to think God hates the worthy mind,
The lover and the love of human-kind,
Whose life is healthful, and whose conscience clear,
Because he wants a thousand pounds a year!
Honour and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part, there all the honour lies.
Fortune in Men has some small diff'rence made, 195
One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade;
The cobler apron'd, and the parson gown'd,
The friar hooded, and the monarch crown'd.
“What differ more (you cry) than crown and coul?”
I'll tell you, friend, a wise man and a fool.
You'll find if once the monarch acts the monk,
Or, cobler-like, the parson will be drunk.
Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow;
The rest is all but leather or prunella.
204 Stuck o'er with titles, and hung round with strings, That thou mayst be by kings, or whores of kings, Boast the pure blood of an illustrious race,
In quiet flow from Lucrece to Lucrece:
But by your father's worth if your's you rate,
Count me those only who were good and great. 210
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,
Yet 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 cheat,
'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,
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