The less, or greater, set so justly true,

That touching one must strike the other too:
Till, jarring interest, of themselves create

The according music of a well-mix'd state.

Such is the world's great harmony, that springs

295

From order, union, full consent of things:

Where small and great, where weak and mighty, made

To serve, not suffer-strengthen, not invade;
More powerful each as needful to the rest,
And, in proportion as it blesses, blest;
Draw to one point, and to one centre bring
Beast, man, or angel, servant, lord, or king.

11

300

For forms of government let fools contest:
Whate'er is best administer'd is best:
For modes of faith, let graceless zealots fight;
His can't be wrong whose life is in the right; 12
In faith and hope the world will disagree,
But all mankind's concern is charity:

305

All must be false that thwart this one great end:

And all of God, that bless mankind, or mend.
Man, like the generous vine, supported lives:

310

The strength he gains is from the embrace he gives.
On their own axis as the planets run,

Yet make at once their circle round the sun;

So two consistent motions act the soul;

315

And one regards itself, and one the whole.

Thus God and Nature link'd the general frame,

And bade self-love and social be the same.

11 The author of these lines was far from meaning that no one form of government is, in itself, better than another (as, that mixed or limited monarchy, for example, is not preferable to absolute), but that no form of government, however excellent or preferable, in itself, can be sufficient to make a people happy, unless it be administered with integrity. On the contrary, the best sort of government, when the form of it is preserved, and the administration corrupt, is most dangerous. [Warburton states that Pope wrote this explanation in the margin of a pamphlet in which the two celebrated lines in the text were very much misapplied.]

12 ["His faith, perhaps, some nice tenets might
Be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was in the right."

Cowley on Crashaw.]

OF THE NATURE AND STATE OF MAN WITH RESPECT TO HAPPINESS.

I. False notions of happiness, philosophical and popular, answered from ver. 19 to 27. II. It is the end of all men, and attainable by all, ver. 30. God intends happiness to be equal; and, to be so, it must be social, since all particular happiness depends on general, and since he governs by general, not particular laws, ver. 37. As it is necessary for order, and the peace and welfare of society, that external goods should be unequal, happiness is not made to consist in these, ver. 51. But notwithstanding that inequality, the balance of happiness among mankind is kept even by Providence, by the two passions of hope and fear, ver. 70. III. What the happiness of individuals is, as far as is consistent with the constitution of this world ; and that the good man has here the advantage, ver. 77. The error of imputing to virtue what are only the calamities of Nature, or of Fortune, ver. 94. IV. The folly of expecting that God should alter his general laws in favour of particulars, ver. 121. V. That we are not judges who are good; but that whoever they are, they must be happiest, ver. 133, &c. VI. That external goods are not the proper rewards, but often inconsistent with, or destructive of virtue, ver. 167. That even these can make no man happy without virtue instanced in riches, ver. 185. Honours, ver. 193 Nobility, ver. 205. Greatness, ver. 217. Fame, ver. 237. Superior talents, ver. 259, &c. With pictures of human infelicity in men possessed of them all, ver. 269, &c. VII. That virtue only constitutes a happiness whose object is universal, and whose prospect eternal, ver. 309. That the perfection of virtue and happiness consists in a conformity to the order of Providence here, and a resignation to it here and hereafter, ver. 326, &c.

OH Happiness! our being's end and aim!1

Good, pleasure, ease, content! whate'er thy name: That something still which prompts the eternal sigh, For which we bear to live, or dare to die,

In the MS. thus:

"Oh Happiness, to which we all aspire,

Wing'd with strong hope, and borne by full desire;
That ease, for which in want, in wealth, we sigh;
That ease, for which we labour and we die."

Which still so near us, yet beyond us lies,
O'erlook'd, seen double, by the fool and wise.
Plant of celestial seed! if dropp'd below,
Say, in what mortal soil thou deign'st to grow?
Fair opening to some court's propitious shine,
Or deep with diamonds in the flaming mine?
Twined with the wreaths Parnassian laurels yield,
Or reap'd in iron harvests of the field?

5

10

Where grows? where grows it not? If vain our toil,
We ought to blame the culture, not the soil :
Fix'd to no spot is happiness sincere,

15

"Tis nowhere to be found, or everywhere:

'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 serve, and that to shun, mankind;

20

Some place the bliss in action, some in ease,

Those call it pleasure, and contentment these ;

Some, sunk to beasts, find pleasure end in pain;
Some, swell'd to gods, confess even virtue vain;
Or, indolent, to each extreme they fall,
To trust in everything, or doubt of all.
Who thus define it, say they more or less
Than this, that happiness is happiness?

2

Take Nature's path, and mad opinions leave;
All states can reach it, and all heads conceive;
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
Acts not by partial, but by general 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:
No bandit fierce, no tyrant mad with pride,
No cavern'd hermit, rests self-satisfied:
Who most to shun or hate mankind pretend,
Seek an admirer, or would fix a friend:
Abstract what others feel, what others think,
All pleasures sicken, 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 confess'd,
Some are, and must be, greater than the rest,
More rich, more wise; but who infers from hence
That such are happier, shocks all common sense.

2 [In the editions of 1735 this passage stands

"Who thus desire it, say they more or less
Than this, that happiness is happiness?
One grants his pleasure is but rest from pain,
One doubts of all, one owns even virtue vain.
Take Nature's path," &c.]

3 In the MS.,

Say not, 'Heaven's here profuse, there poorly saves,
And for one monarch makes a thousand slaves.'
You'll find, when causes and their ends are known,
'Twas for the thousand Heaven has made that one."

25

30

335

,40

45

50

Heaven to mankind impartial we confess,
If all are equal in their happiness:

But mutual wants this happiness increase;

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:

60

Heaven breathes through every member of the whole
One common blessing, as one common soul.
But fortune's gifts, if each alike possess'd,
And each were equal, must not all contest?
If then to all men happiness was meant,
God in externals could not place content.4

65

Fortune her gifts may variously dispose, And these be happy call'd, unhappy those; But Heaven's just balance equal will appear,

While those are placed in hope, and these in fear:

70

Not present good or ill, the joy or curse,
But future views of better, or of worse.

Oh sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise,
By mountains piled on mountains, to the skies?
Heaven 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,
Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense,
Lie in three words,-health, peace, and competence.
But health consists with temperance alone;
And peace, O Virtue! peace is all thy own.
The good or bad the gifts of fortune gain;

75

80

But these less taste them, as they worse obtain.
Say, in pursuit of profit or delight,

85

Who risk the most, that take wrong means, or right?

4 In the MS.,

""Tis peace of mind alone is at a stay :
The rest mad fortune gives or takes away.

All other bliss by accident's debarred:

But virtue's, in the instant, a reward;

In hardest trials operates the best,

And more is relish'd as the more distress'd."