Plate XI. Vol. III facing p 159. N.Blakey inv. et del Ravenct sculp Know then this Truth (enough for Man to know) Virtue alone is Happyness below. Essay on Man, Ep. IV. EPISTLE IV. H HAPPINESS! our being's end and aim! Good, Pleasure, Eafe, Content! whate'er thy name: That something ftill which prompts th' eternal figh, For which we bear to live, or dare to die, VARIATIONS. VER. 1. Oh Happiness! &c.] in the MS. thus, Oh Happiness! to which we all aspire, Wing'd with strong hope, and borne by full defire; COMMENTARY. THE two foregoing epiftles having confidered Man with regard to the MEANS (that is, in all his relations, whether as an Individual, or a Member of Society) this laft comes to confider him with regard to the END, that is, Happiness. It opens with an Invocation to HAPPINESS, in the manner of the ancient Poets; who, when deftitute of a patron God, applied to the Mufe; and if fhe was engaged, took up with any fimple Virtue next at hand, to infpire and profper their Undertakings. This was the antient Invocation, which few modern Poets have had the art to imitate with any degree either of fpirit or decorum: but our Author hath contrived to make his fubfervient to the method and reasoning of his philofophic compofition. I will endeavour to explain fo uncommon a beauty. Which still so near us, yet beyond us lies, 5 O'erlook'd, feen double, by the fool, and wife. COMMENTARY. It is to be observed that the pagan Deities had each their feveral names and places of abode; with fome of which they were fuppofed to be more delighted than others; and confequently to be then moft propitious when invoked by the fa vourite name and place: Hence we find, the hymns of Homer, Orpheus, and Callimachus to be chiefly employed in reckoning up the feveral titles and habitations by which the patron God was diftinguished. Our Poet hath made these two circumstances serve to introduce his fubject. His purpose is to write of Happiness; method therefore requires that he first define what men mean by Happiness; and this he does in the ornament of a poetic Invocation; in which the several names, that Happiness goes by, are enumerated. "O Happiness! our being's end and aim, "Good, Pleasure, Eafe, Content! whate'er thy Name:" After the DEFINITION, that which follows next, is the PROPOSITION, which is, that human Happiness confifts not in external Advantages, but in Virtue. For the fubject of this epiftle is the detecting the falfe notions of Happiness, and fettling and explaining the true; and this, the Poet lays down in the next fixteen lines. Now the enumeration of the feveral fituations where Happiness is fuppofed to refide, is a fummary of false Happiness placed in Externals: NOTES. VER. 6. O'erlook'd, feen double, &c.] O'erlook'd by those who place Happiness in any thing exclufive of Virtue; seen double by those who admit any thing elfe to have a share with Virtue in procuring Happiness; thefe being the two general miftakes which this epiftle is employed to confute. Fair op'ning to fome Court's propitious shine, We ought to blame the culture, not the foil: 'Tis no where to be found, or ev'ry where: "Tis never to be bought, but always free, And fled from monarchs, ST. JOHN! dwells with thee. Ask of the Learn'd the way? The Learn'd are blind; This bids to ferve, and that to fhun mankind; 20 COMMENTARY. "Plant of celeftial feed! if dropt below, "Say, in what mortal foil thou deign'st to grow? " "Twin'd with the wreaths Parnaffian laurels yield, The fix remaining lines deliver the true notion of Happiness to be in Virtue. Which is fummed up in these two: "Fix'd to no fpot is Happiness fincere ; " 'Tis no where to be found, or ev'ry where." The Poet having thus defined his terms, and laid down his propofition, proceeds to the fupport of his Thefis; the various arguments of which make up the body of the Epistle. VER. 19. Afk of the Learn'd, &c.] He begins (from Ver. 18 to 29.) with detecting the falfe notions of Happiness. VOL. III. M Some place the bliss in action, some in ease, Those call it Pleasure, and Contentment thefe; COMMENTARY. These are of two kinds, the Philofophical and Popular: The popular he had recapitulated in the invocation, when Happinefs was called upon, at her feveral fuppofed places of abode: the philofophical only remained to be delivered: "Afk of the Learn'd the way? The Learn'd are blind; "This bids to serve, and that to fhun Mankind : "Some place the bliss in action, fome in ease; "Thofe call it Pleafure, and Contentment thefe." They differed as well in the means, as in the nature of the end. Some placed Happiness in Action, fome in Contemplation; the first called it Pleasure, the fecond Eafe. Of those who placed it in Action and called it Pleasure, the rout they purfued either funk them into fenfual Pleafures, which ended in Pain; or led them in search of imaginary Perfctions, unfuitable to their nature and ftation. (fee Ep. i.) which ended in Vanity. Of those who placed it in Eafe, the contemplative station they were fixed in, made them, for their quiet, find truth in every thing; others in nothing. "Who thus define it, fay they more or lefs "Than this, that Happinefs is Happiness?" The confutation of thefe Philofophic errors he fhews to be very eafy, one common fallacy running through them all; namely this, that inftead of telling us in what the happiness of human nature confifts, which was what was asked of them, each bufies himself in explaining in what he placed his own. NOTES. VER. 21, 23. Some place the blifs in action, 1. Those who place Happiness, or the fummum bonum, in Pleafure, Hdovn; fuch as the Cyrenaic fect, called, on that account, the Hedonic. 2. Those who place it in a certain |