Some place the bliss in action, fome in ease,
Those call it Pleasure, and Contentment these;
Some, sunk to Beasts, find Pleasure end in Pain;
Some, swell’d to Gods, confess ev'n Virtue vain

i
Or, indolent, to each extreme they fall,
To trust in ev'ry thing, or doubt of all.

Who thus define it, say they more less Than this, that Happiness is Happiness?

Take Nature's path, and mad Opinion's leave; All states can reach it, and all heads conceive; 30 Obvious her goods, in no extreme they dwell; There needs but thinking right, and meaning well; And, mourn our various portions as we please, Equal is Common Sense, and Common Ease. Remember, Man, “ the Universal Cause

35 “ Acts not by partial, but by gen’ral laws;" And makes what Happiness we justly call Subsist not in the good of one, but all. There's not a blessing Individuals find, But some-way leans and hearkens to the kind :

40 No Bandit fierce, no Tyrant mad with pride, No cavern'd Hermit, rests self-fatisfy'd: Who most to shun or hate Mankind pretend, Seek an admirer, or would fix a friend : Abstract what others feel, what others think, 45 All pleasures ficken, and all glories sink : Each has his share; and who would more obtain, Shall find, the pleasure pays not half the pain.

ORDER is Heaven's first Law; and this confest, Some are, and must be, greater than the rest,

More

More rich, more wise; but who infers from hence
That such are happier, shocks all common sense.
Heaven to Mankind impartial we confess,
If all are equal in their Happiness :
But mutual wants this Happiness increase;

55
All Nature's difference keeps all Nature's peace.
Condition, circumstance, is not the thing;
Bliss is the same in subject or in king,
In who obtain defence, or who defend,
In him who is, or him who finds a friend :
Heaven breathes through every member of the whole
One common blessing, as one common foul.
But Fortune's gifts if each alike poffeft,
And each were equal, must not all contest?
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;

But

60

65

VARIATIONS. After ver. 52. in the MS.

Say not, “ Heaven's here profufe, there poorly saves, " And for one Monarch makes a thousand flaves." You'll find, when Caufes and their Ends are known,

'Twas for the thousand Heaven has made that one. After ver. 66. in the MS.

'Tis peace of mind alone is at a stay :
The reft mad Fortune gives or takes away.
All other bliss by accident 's debar'd;
But Virtue's, in the instant, a reward;
In hardest trials operates the best,
And more is relish'd as the more diftreft.

But Heaven's just balance equal will appear,
While those are plac'd in Hope, and these in Fear: 79
Not present good or ill, the joy or curfe,
But fuiure views of better, or of worse.

Oh, sons of earth! atteinpt ye still to rise,
By mountains pil'd on mountains, to the skies?
Ileaven still with laughter the vain toil surveys, 75
And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.

Know, all the good that individuals find, Or God and Nature meant to mere Mankind, Reason’s whole pleasure, all the joys of Sense, Lie in three words, Health, Peace, and Competence, 80 But Health consists 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 pursuit of profit or delight, Who risk the most, that take wrong means, or right? Of Vice or Virtue, whether bleft or curst, Which meets contempt, or which compassion first ? Count all th' advantage prosperous Vice attains, 'Tis but what Virtue flies from and disdains : And grant the bad what happiness they would, One they must want, which is, to pass for good. Oh blind to truth, and God's whole scheme below, Who fancy Bliss to Vice, to Virtue Woe! Who sees and follows that great scheme the best, 95 Best knows the blesling, and will most be blest.

But
VARIATION.
After ver. 92. in the MS.

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

85

90

But fools, the Good alone, unhappy call,
For ills or accidents that chance to all.
See Falkland dies, the virtuous and the just!
See godlike Turenne prostrate on the dust! 100
See Sidney bleeds amid the martial strife !
Was this thér Virtue, or contempt of Life?
Say, was it Virtue, more though Heaven ne'er gave,
Lamented Digby! sunk thee to the grave ?
Tell me, if Virtue made the Son expire,

105
Why, full of days and honour, lives the Sire ?
Why drew Marseilles' good bishop purer breath,
When Nature ficken’d, and each gale was death?
Or why so long (in life if long can be)
Lent Heaven a parent to the poor and me?

What makes all physical or moral ill?
There deviates Nature, and here wanders will.
God sends not ill; if rightly understood,
Or partial Ill is universal Good,
Or Change admits, or Nature lets it fall,

115
Short, and but rare, till Man improv'd it all.
We just as wisely might of Heaven complain
That righteous Abel was destroy'd by Cain,
As that the virtuous son is ill at ease
When his lewd father gave the dire disease.
Think we, like some weak Prince, th' Eternal Cause
Prone for his favourites to reverse his laws ?

Shall

110

1

120

VARIATION.
After ver. 116. in the MS.

Of every evil, since the world began,
The real source is not in God, but man.

Shall burning Ætna, if a fage requires, Forget to thunder, and recall her fires ? On air or sea new motions be impreft,

125
Oh blameless Bethel ! to relieve thy breast?
When the loose mountain trembles from on high,
Shall gravitation cease, if you go by ?
Or some old temple, nodding to its fall,
For Chartres' head reserve the hanging wall ? 130

But still this world (fo fitted for the knave)
Contents us not. A better shall we have?
A kingdom of the just then let it be:
But first confider how those Just agree.
The good must merit God's peculiar care!

135
But who, but God, can tell us who they are ?
One thinks on Calvin Heaven's own Spirit fell;
Another deems him inftrument of hell;
If Calvin feel Heaven's blessing, or its rod,
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 blest.
The very best will variously incline,
And what rewards your Virtue, punith mine.
WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT.-This world, 'tis true,
Was made for Cæsar-but for Titus too;

And

VARIATION.

After ver. 142. in some Editions,

Give each a System, all must be at strife; What different Systems for a man and wife ? The joke, though lively, was ill placed, and therefore

ftruck out of the text,