But still this world, so fitted for the knave, A kingdom of the just then let it be: 135 If Calvin feel Heaven's blessing or its rod, And what rewards your virtue punish mine. And which more bless'd? who chain'd his country? say, Or he whose virtue sigh'd to lose a day? which Cerinthus the heretic was bathing, providentially fell down, and crushed him to death.' But he should have first disproved the fact. The early church boasted of no two purer authorities than Irenæus and Polycarp, the immediate successors of the apostles. 145 Whatever is, is right. This maxim, in the sense of the optimists, is untrue; for no dexterity can pronounce the common events of society, wars, factions, public treacheries, or personal profligacies, to be natural parts of a system of perfection. But, in the sense of the Christian, it is true; for his religion shows him a perpetual Providence controlling the evil of man into good; and for all the difficulties which still elude his solution, he alone is intitled to refer to a world to come. No true philosophy can allow that crime is a good; as no intelligible logic can prove that the imperfections of all the parts can make up the perfection of the whole. But the passage exhibits a noble flow of poetry. 'But sometimes virtue starves, while vice is fed.' What then? Is the reward of virtue bread? 150 155 Add health, and power, and every earthly thing. 'Why bounded power? why private? why no king?' Nay, why external for internal given? 160 166 Why is not man a god, and earth a heaven? Expect thy dog, thy bottle, and thy wife; 170 175 As well as dream such trifles are assign'd, To whom can riches give repute or trust, Content or pleasure, but the good and just? Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold. 180 185 190 O fool! to think God hates the worthy mind, Because he wants a thousand pounds a year. Honor and shame from no condition rise; Act well your part; there all the honor lies. 194 Fortune in men has some small difference made; One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade; The cobbler apron'd, and the parson gown'd, The friar hooded, and the monarch crown'd. 'What differ more,' you cry, 'than crown and cowl?' 200 I'll tell you, friend! a wise man and a fool. Stuck o'er with titles, and hung round with strings, 205 That thou mayst be by kings, or whores of kings; Boast the blood of an illustrious race, pure In quiet flow from Lucrece to Lucrece: But by your fathers' worth if yours you rate, 209 Count me those only who were good and great. Go! if your ancient, but ignoble blood Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood, Go! and pretend your family is young; Nor own your fathers have been fools so long. What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards? 215 Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards. Look next on greatness; say where greatness lies? 'Where, but 220 His 220 From Macedonia's madman. Warton here charges Pope with having fallen into the common cant about Alexander the Great,' and says, think of the scene in Darius's tent; think of the foundation of the city of Alexandria,' &c.-The commentator evidently falls into the ridiculous error of supposing that the poet pronounced Alexander lunatic. military skill and his vigorous government, must have amply vindicated his personal faculties to the poet and the world : but, in the larger sense, of plunging into a desperate enterprise without an adequate cause, pursuing it with totally disproportioned means, and closing it without a productive or permanent result, Alexander was a madman. His invasion of Asia was merely a wild adventure for individual fame: bis Scythian and Indian campaigns were a prodigal lavishing of treasure, troops, and time, for a conquest incapable of being retained, and not worth retaining; personal glory was the purpose of his being; and in the spirit of this gallant selfishness, he left his empire to be torn in pieces by his captains. It is impossible to doubt that he must have known the importance of a settled succession to the tranquillity of empire; but his purpose was fulfilled with himself: he had gained the highest renown among men, and he was indifferent to the future. Gifted with the most brilliant genius, Alexander was the palpable slave of vanity: of all the great captains of the ancient world, he trusted the most to fortune; and owed the The whole strange purpose of their lives, to find Not one looks backward, onward still he goes, 225 230 All sly, slow things, with circumspective eyes: 235 What's fame? a fancied life in others' breath; A thing beyond us, ev'n before our death. most to fortune: he reared a shadowy throne, and it vanished as he sank into the grave. History gives no example of a mind of such magnificent powers, of so bold a heart, of such comprehensive ambition, and of such resistless triumphs, all rendered so totally useless for any great continuing object of government or man. 237 What's fame? a fancied life in others' breath. Wollaston says, in contempt of this universal desire,- The man is not known ever the more to posterity because his name is transmitted to them; since Pompey is as little known as Cæsar, all that is said of their conquests amounts to this, somebody conquered somebody.' But the universality of any impulse is a proof that it is an impulse originally implanted in our nature and that, again, is a proof that it exists for an important purpose. The desire to be spoken well of while we live is of obvious importance as a summons to human exertion: and the desire of posthumous fame is but adding the future as a stimulant to the present, and a stimulant perhaps of a still |