Some place the bliss in action, some in ease, To truft in ev'ry thing, or doubt of all. Who thus define it, fay they more or less Take Nature's path, and mad Opinion's leave; Remember, Man, "the Universal Caufe But fome way leans and hearkens to the kind: 25 30 35 40 45 All pleasures ficken, and all glories fink: Each has his fhare; and who would more obtain, ORDER is Heav'n's firft law; and this confeft, Some are, and muft be, greater than the reft, 50 More rich, more wife; but who infers from hence That fuch are happier, shocks all common fenfe. But mutual wants this Happiness increase; 55 All Nature's diff'rence keeps all Nature's peace. Blifs is the fame in fubject, or in king, In who obtain defence, or who defend, In him who is, or him who finds a friend : 60 Heav'n breathes thro' ev'ry member of the whole 65 If then to all Men Happiness was meant, God in Externals could not place Content. Fortune her gifts may variously dispose, And these be happy call'd, unhappy those; Say not, "Heav'n's here profufe, there poorly faves, "And for one Monarch makes a thousand flaves." After ver. 66. in the MS. 'Tis peace of mind alone is at a flay: All other blifs by accident's debar'd; In hardest trials operates the best, And more is relish'd as the more distrest. But Heav'n's juft balance equal will appear, While those are plac'd in Hope, and thefe in Fear : Not prefent good or ill, the joy or curse, But future views of better or of worse. Oli fons of earth! attempt ye ftill to rise, By mountains pil'd on mountains, to the skies? Heav'n still with laughter the vain toil surveys, And buries madmen in the heaps they raise. Know, all the good that individuals find, Or God and Nature meant to mere Mankind, Reafon's whole pleasure, all the joys of Sense, Lie in three words, Health, Peace, and Competence. But Health confifts with Temperance alone And Peace, oh Virtue! Peace is all thy own. The good or bad the gifts of Fortune gain: But these less taste them, as they worse obtain. Say, in purfuit of profit or delight, ; 71 75 81. 85 Who risks the moft, that take wrong means, or right? Of Vice or Virtue, whether bleft or curst, Which meets contempt, or which compassion first ? 90 Oh blind to truth, and God's whole scheme below, Who fancy Blifs to Vice, to Virtue Woe! After ver. 92. in the MS. Let fober Moralifts correct their speech, Who fees and follows that great scheme the best, Lent Heav'n a parent to the poor and me? What makes all phyfical and moral ill ? There deviates Nature, and here wanders Will. Or partial Ill is univerfal Good, Or Change admits, or Nature lets it fall, After ver. 116. in the MS. Of ev'ry evil, fince the world began, The real fource is not in God, but man. 95 100 105 110 115 120 Think we, like fome weak Prince, th' Eternal Cause Prone for his fav'rites to reverse his laws? Shall burning Etna, 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, Or fome old temple, nodding to its fall, 125 130 135 But who, but God, can tell us who they are? One thinks on Calvin Heav'n's own spirit fell; 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 reft, VER. 123. Shall burning Ætna, &c.] Alluding to the fate of those two great Naturalifts, Empedocles and Pliny, who both perish'd by too near an approach to Etna and Vefuvius, while they were exploring the cause of their eruptions. After ver. 142. in fome Editions, Give each a Syftem, all must be at ftrife; What, diff'rent Syftems for a Man and Wife? |