The good or bad the gifts of Fortune gain;
But these less tafte them, as they worfe obtain.
Say, in pursuit of profit or delight,

85

Who risk the moft, that take wrong means or right?
Of Vice or Virtue, whether bleft or curft,
Which meets contempt, or which compaffion firft?
Count all th' advantage profp'rous Vice attains,
'Tis but what Virtue flies from and difdains: 90
And grant the bad what happiness they wou'd,
One they must want, which is to pafs for good.
Oh blind to truth, and God's whole scheme below,
Who fancy Blifs to Vice, to Virtue Woe!

VARIATIONS.

After ver. 92. in MS.

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

NOTES.

VER. 93. Ob blind to truth, &c.] Our author having thus largely confuted the mistake of Happiness's confifting in externals, proceeds to expose the terrible confequences of fuch an opinion on the fentiments and practice of all forts of men, making the Diffolute impious and atheistical; the Religious uncharitable and intolerant; and the Good reftlefs and difcontent. For when it is once taken for granted, that Happiness confifts in externals, it is immediately feen, that ill men are often more happy than good; which fets all conditions on objecting to the ways of Providence: and fome even on rafhly attempting to rectify its difpenfations, though by the violation of all Law, divine and human.

4

Who fees and follows that great scheme the best, 95 Best 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 juft!
See god-like TURENNE proftrate on the dust!
See SIDNEY bleed 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 e?

Tell me, if Virtue made the Son expire, 105
Why, full of days and honour, lives the Sire?
Why drew Marfeilles' 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? 100

NOTES.

VER. 100. See godlike Turenne.] This epithet has a peculiar juftness; the great man to whom it is applied, not being diftinguished, from other generals, for any of his fuperior qualities, fo much as for his providential care of those whom he led to war; which was fo uncommon, that his chief purpose, in taking on himself the command of armies, feems to have been the preservation of mankind. In this god-like care he was more diftinguishably employed, throughout the whole courfe of that famous campaign in which he loft his life.

VER. 110. Lent Heav'n a parent, &c.]This laft inftance of the poet's illuftration of the ways of Providence, the

What makes all physical or moral ill!

There deviotes 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 ease

115

120

When his lewd father gave the dire disease.
Think we, like fome weak Prince, th' Eternal Cause;
Prone for his fav'rites to reverfe his laws?

VARIATIONS.

After ver. 116. in the MS.

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

NOTES.

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 Providence of Heaven, never represents miracles as wrought for the fake of him who is the ob ject of them, but in order to give credit to fome of God's extraordinary difpenfations to Mankind.

Shall burning Ætna, 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 breaft?

125

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

Or fome old temple nodding to its fall,

For Chartres' head referve the hanging wall? 130
But still 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 thofe Juft agree.
The good muft 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 inftrument of hell;

If Calvin feel Heav'n's bleffing, or its rod,

135

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.

VARIATIONS.

After ver. 142 in some Editions,

Give each a fyftem, all must be at strife;

What diff'rent fyftems for a Man and Wife?

The joke, tho' lively, was ill plac'd ; and therefore struck out of the text.

NOTES.

VER. 123. Shall burning Ætna, &c.] Alluding to the fate of thofe two great Naturalifts, Empedocles and Pliny,

The very beft will varioufly incline,

And what rewards your Virtue, punish mine. WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT.-This world, 'tis true, Was made for Cæfar, but for Titus too: 146

And which more bleft? who chain'd his country, fay, Or he whose Virtue figh'd to lofe a day?

150

"But fometimes Virtue ftarves, while Vice is fed." What then? Is the reward of Virtue bread? That Vice may merit, 'tis the price of toil; The knave deferves it, when he tills the foil, 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?

J

155

"No-shall the good want Health, the good want Pow'r?"

161

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? "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:

NOTES.

who both perished by too near an approach to Etna and Vefuvius, while they were exploring the cause of their eruptions.