Judges and Senates have been bought for gold,
Efteem and Love were never to be fold.

190

Oh fool! to think God hates the worthy mind,
The lover and the love of human-kind,
Whofe life is healthful, and whofe confcience clear,
Becaufe he wants a thousand pounds a year.

194

Honour and fhame from no Condition rife; A&t well your part, there all the honour lies. Fortune in Men has fome fmall diff'rence made, One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade; The cobler apron'd, and the parfon gown'd, The frier hooded, and the monarch crown'd. "What differ more (you cry) than crown and cowl!” I'll tell you, friend! a wife man and a Fool. You'll find, if once the monarch acts the monk, Or, cobler-like, the parfon will be drunk, Worth makes the man, and want of it, the fellow; The reft is all but leather or prunella. 204

200

VER. 193. Honour and fhame from no Condition rife; A&t well your part, there all the honour lies.] What power then has Fortune over the Man? None at all; for as her favours can confer neither worth nor wisdom; fo neither can her difpleasure cure him of any of his follies. On his Garb indeed fhe hath fome little influence; but his Heart ftill remains the fame :

Fortune in Men has fome fmall diff'rence made,
One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade.

But this difference extends no further than to the habit; the pride of heart is the fame both in the flaunter and flutterer, as it is the poet's intention to infinuate by the ufe of thofe terms.

Stuck o'er with titles and hung round with strings, That thou may't be by kings, or whores of kings.

Boaft the pure blood of an illustrious race,
In quiet flow from Lucrece to Lucrece:
But by your father's worth if your's you rate,
Count me those only who were good and great.
Go! if your ancient, but ignoble blood
Has crept thro' fcoundrels ever fince the flood,
Go! and pretend your family is young;
Nor own, your fathers have been fools fo long.
What can ennoble fots, or flaves, or cowards? 215
Alas! not all the blood of all the HowARDS?

220

Look next on Greatnefs; fay where Greatness lies? "Where, but among the Heroes and the Wife ?" Heroes are much the fame, the point's agreed, From Macedonia's madman to the Swede; The whole ftrange purpose of their lives, to find Or make, an enemy of all mankind! Not one looks backward, onward still he goes, Yet ne'er looks forward further than his nofe.

VER.

VARIATIONS.

. 207. Boaft the pure blood, etc.] in the MS. thus,
The richest blood, right-honourably old,

Down from Lucretia to Lucretia roll'd,
May fwell thy heart and gallop in thy breast,
Without one dash of usher or of pricft:
Thy pride as much defpife all other pride
As Christ-Church once all colleges befide.

No lefs alike the Politic and Wife;

225

230

All fly flow things, with circumfpective eyes :
Men in their loose unguarded hours they take,
Not that themselves are wife, but others weak.
But
grant that those can conquer, these can cheat;
'Tis phrafe abfurd to call a Villain Great :
Who wickedly is wife, or madly brave,
Is but the more a fool, the more a knave.
Who noble ends by noble means obtains,
Or failing, fmiles in exile or in chains,
Like good Aurelius let him reign, or bleed
Like Socrates, that Man is great indeed.

235

What's Fame? a fancy`d life in others breath, A thing beyond us, ev'n before our death.

Juft what you hear, you have, and what's unknown
The fame (my Lord) if Tully's, or your own. 140
All that we feel of it begins and ends

In the fmall circle of our foes or friends;
To all befide as much an empty fhade
An Eugene living, as a Cæfar dead;

Alike or when, or where, they fhone, or fhine, 245
Or on the Rubicon, or on the Rhine.

A Wit's a feather, and a Chief a rod;

An honeft Man's the noble work of God.

Fame but from death a villain's name can fave,
As Juftice tears his body from the grave;
When what t'oblivion better were refign'd,
Is hung on high, to poifon half mankind.

I

250

All fame is foreign, but of true desert;

Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart:
One felf-approving hour whole years out-weighs
Of ftupid ftarers, and of loud huzzas;
And more true joy Marcellus exil'd feels,
Than Cæfar with a fenate at his heels.

256

260

In Parts fuperior what advantage lies? Tell (for You can) what is it to be wife? 'Tis but to know how little can be known; To fee all others faults, and feel our own: Condemn'd in bus'nefs or in arts to drudge, Without a fecond, or without a judge: Truths would you teach, or fave a finking land? All fear, none aid you, and few understand. Painful preheminence! yourself to view Above life's weakness, and its comforts too.

Bring then thefe bleffings to a strict account;

266

Make fair deductions; fee to what they mount: 270
How much of other each is fure to coft;
How each for other oft is wholly loft;
How inconfiftent greater goods with these;

275

How fometimes life is rifqu'd, and always eafe:
Think, and if ftill the things thy envy call,
Say, would'st thou be the Man to whom they fall?
To figh for ribbands if thou art so filly,
Mark how they grace Lord Umbra, or Sir Billy.
Is yellow dirt the paffion of thy life?

Look but on Gripus, or on Gripus' wife.

280

If Parts allure thee, think how Bacon fhin'd,
The wifeft, brightest, meanest of mankind :
Or ravish'd with the whiftling of a Name,
See Cromwell, damn'd to everlasting fame!

VER. 281. 283. If parts allure thee,—Or ravish'd with the whistling of a Name,] These two inftances are chosen with great judgment; the world, perhaps, doth not afford two other fuch. Bacon difcovered and laid down thofe principles, by whofe affiftance, Newton was enabled to unfold the whole law of Nature. He was no less eminent for the creative power of his imagination, the brightness of his conceptions, and the force of his expreffion: Yet being legally convicted for bribery and corruption in the adminiftration of Juftice, while he prefided in the fupreme Court of Equity, he endeavoured to repair his ruined fortunes by the most profligate flattery to the Court: Which, from his very firft entrance into it, he had accustomed himself to practise with a prostitution that disgraceth the very profeffion of letters.

Cromwell feemeth to be diftinguished in the most eminent manner, with regard to his abilities, from all other great and wicked men, who have overturned the Liberties of their Country. The times, in which others fucceeded in this attempt, were fuch as faw the fpirit of Liberty fuppreffed and ftifled, by, a general luxury and venality: But Cromwell fubdued his country, when this spirit was at its height, by a fuccessful struggle against court-oppreffion; and while it was conducted and fupported by a set of the greatest Geniuses for government the world ever faw embarked together in one common cause.

VER. 283. Or ravished with the whistling of a Name,] Andeven this fantastic glory fometimes fuffers a terrible reverse.—` Sacheverel, in his Voyage to I-columbkill, defcribing the churchthere, tells us, that "In one corner is a peculiar inclosure, in "which were the monuments of the kings of many different "nations, as Scotland, Ireland, Norway, and the Isle of Man.