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And grant the bad what happiness they wou'd, One they must want, which is, to pass for good.

Oh blind to truth, and God's whole scheme below, Who fancy Blifs to Vice, to Virtue Woe! Who fees and follows that great scheme the best, 95 Beft knows the blessing, 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 duft! 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?

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105

VER. 100. See god-like Turenne] This epithet has a peculiar juftness; the great man to whom it is applied not being diftinguifhed, 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 Prefervation of Mankind. In this god-like care he was more diftinguishably employed throughout the whole course of that famous campaign in which he loft his life.

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

Why drew Marseilles' good bifhop 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 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.
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

110

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 reverse his laws?

VER. 110. Lent Heav'n a parent, etc.] This laft inftance of the poet's illuftration of the ways of Providence, 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 person of great piety and charity, died the year this poem was finished, viz. 1733.

VARIATIONS,

After 116. in the MS.

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

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

Or fome old temple, nodding to its fall,

125

135

For Chartres' head referve the hanging wall? 139
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 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,
This cries there is, and that, there is no God. 140
What shocks one part will edify the reft,

Nor with one system can they all be blest.

VER. 123. Shall burning Ætna, etc.] Alluding to the fate of those two great Naturalifts, Empedocles and Pliny, who both perished by too near an approach to Ætna and Vefuvius, while they were exploring the caufe of their cruptions.

VARIATIONS.

After 142. in fome Editions,

Give each a Syftem, all must be at ftrife;

What diff'rent Systems for a Man and Wife?

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

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 whofe Virtue figh'd to lose 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 deserves 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? "No-fhall the good want Health, the good want "Pow'r??'

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

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155

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Nay, why external for internal giv'n?

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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:
Immenfe the pow'r, immense were the demand;
Say, at what part of nature will they stand? 166
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,

Justice a Conqu❜ror's fword, or Truth a gown,
Or Public Spirit its great cure, a Crown.

170

Weak, foolish man! will Heav'n reward us there With the fame trash mad mortals wifh for here?

175

The Boy and Man an individual makes,
Yet figh'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 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 destructive 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 Just?

VER. 177. Go, like the Indian, etc.] Alluding to the example of the Indian, in Epift. i. y 99. and fhewing, that that example was not given to difcredit any rational hopes of future happiness, but only to reprove the folly of separating them from charity: as when

-Zeal, not Charity, became the guide,

And hell was built on spite, and heav'n on pride.

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

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