See SIDNEY bleeds amid the martial ftrife!

105

Was this their Virtue, or Contempt of Life?
Say, was it Virtue, more tho' Heav'n ne'er gave,
Lamented DIG BY! funk thee to the grave?
Tell me, if Virtue made the Son expire,
Why, full of days and honour, lives the Sire?
Why drew Marseille's good bishop purer breath,
When Nature ficken'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 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.

VARIATIONS.

After 116. in the MS.

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

NOTES.

110

115

felf the command of armies, | of that famous campaign in feems to have been the Pre-which he loft his life.

In VER. 110. Lent Heav'n

fervation of Mankind.
this god-like care he was more
diftinguishably employed
throughout the whole courfe

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.

120

Think we, like fome weak Prince, th'Eternal Caufe,

Prone for his fav'rites to reverse his laws?

Shall burning Ætna, if a fage requires,
Forget to thunder, and recall her fires?
On air or fea new motions be impreft,
Oh blameless Bethel ! to relieve thy breaft?

125

When the loose mountain trembles from on high, Shall gravitation cease, if you go by?

NOTES.

vidence, the 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, viz. 1733.

VER. 121. Think we, like fome weak Prince, &c.] Agreeably hereunto, holy Scripture, in its account of things under the common

|

F

Providence of Heaven, nèver represents 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.

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

Or fome old temple, nodding to its fall,

For Chartres' head reserve the hanging wall?

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 those Just agree.
The good muft merit God's peculiar care;

130

135

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,
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 bleft.
The very best will variously incline,

And what rewards your Virtue, punish mine.
WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT.-This world, 'tis true,

146

Was made for Cæfar-but for Titus too:

And which more bleft? who chain'd his country, fay,

Or he whose Virtue figh'd to lose a day?

"But fometimes Virtue ftarves, while Vice is fed." What then? Is the reward of Virtue bread?

150

VARIATIONS.

After VER. 142. in fome Editions,

Give each a Syftem, all must be at strife ;
What different Systems for a Man and Wife ?

That, Vice may merit, 'tis the price of toil;
The knave deferves it, when he tills the foil,

155

The knave deferves 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?
"No-fhall the good want Health, the good want
Pow'r ?"

Add Health, and Pow'r, and ev'ry earthly thing,

Why bounded Pow'r? why private? why no king?" Nay, why external for internal giv❜n?

161

Why is not Man a God, and Earth a Heav'n?
Who afk and reafon thus, will scarce conceive
God gives enough, while he has more to give :
Immense the pow'r immense were the demand; 165
Say, at what part of nature will they stand?

What nothing earthly gives, or can destroy,
The foul's calm fun-fhine, and the heart-felt joy,
Is Virtue's prize: A better would you fix?
"Then give Humility a coach and fix,
Juftice a Conq'r's fword, or Truth a gown,
Or Public Spirit its great cure, a Crown.

Say, what rewards this idle world imparts,
Or fit for fearching heads or honeft hearts.

170

175

EP. IV. Weak, foolish man! will Heav'n reward us there With the fame trash mad mortals wifh for here? The Boy and Man an individual makes, Yet figh'ft 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 fuch trifles are affign'd, As toys and empires, for a god-like mind. Rewards, that either would to Virtue bring No joy, or be deftructive of the thing: How oft by these at fixty are undone The virtues of a faint at twenty-one !

180

To whom can Riches give Repute, or Truft, 185
Content, or Pleasure, but the Good and Juft?
Judges and Senates have been bought for gold,
Efteem and Love were never to be fold.

Oh fool! to think God hates the worthy mind,.
The lover and the love of human-kind,

190

tional hopes of future happinefs, but only to reprove the folly of feparating them them from charity as

when

Zeal, not Charity, became the guide,
And hell was built on spite, and heav'n on pride.