If Calvin feel heaven's bleffing, or its rod, And what rewards your virtue, punish mine. And which more bleft? who chain'd his country, fay, Or he whofe virtue figh'd to lose a day? "But fometimes virtue ftarves, while vice is fed." What then? Is the reward of virtue bread? 150 "No-fhall the good want health, the good want 170 What nothing earthly gives, or can destroy, The foul's calm fun fhine, and the heart-felt joy, Is vie's prize: A better would you fix? Then give Humility a coach and fix, Juftice a conqueror's fword, or Truth a gown, Or Pale Spirit its great cure, a crown. Weak, foolish man! will Heaven reward us there With the fame trash mad mortals with for here? The boy and man an individual makes, Yet figa't thou now for apples and for cakes? Go, like the Indian, in another life Expect thy dog, thy bottle, and thy wife; As well as dream fuch trifles are affign'd, Asters and empires, for a godlike mind. Rewards, that either would to virtue bring No joy, or be destructive of the thing; How oft by these at fixty are undone The virtues of a faint at twenty-one ! To whom can riches give repute, or truft, Content, or pleafure, but the good and juft? Judges and fenates have been bought for gold; Eteem and love were never to be fold. VARIATIONS. After ver. 142, in fome cditions, 180 Give each a fyftem, all must be at ftrife; After ver. 172, in the MS. 190 Oh fool to think God hates the worthy mind, Honour and fhame from no condition rife; Look next on greatnefs; fay where greatness "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 frange purpofe of their lives, to find, Or make, an enemy of all mankind! Not one looks backward, onward ftill he goes, Yet ne'er looks forward further than his nofe. No lefs alike the politic and wife : 230 All fly flow things, with circumfpective eyes: What's fame? a fancy'd life in others' breath, The fame (my lord) if Tully's, or your own. 240 VARIATIONS. Ver. 207. Boaft the pure blood, &c.] In the The richest blood, right-honourably old, All that we feel of it begins and ends Alike or when, or where they fhone, or fhine, Or on the Rubicon, or on the Rhine. An honest man's the nobleft work of God. 250 Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart: 280 To figh for ridbands if thou art fo filly, 290 E'er taught to fhine, or fan&ify'd from shame! 300 Alas! not dazzled with their noon-tide ray, "Virtue alone is happiness below." 310 The only point where human bliss stands still, 320 See the fole blifs heaven could on all bestow! Which who but feels can taste, but thinks can know : Yet poor with fortune, and with learning blind, Joins heaven and earth, and mortal and divine; 350 Self love thus pufh'd to focial, to divine, Gives thee to make thy neighbour's bleffing thine. Is this too little for the boundless heart? Extend it, let thy enemies have part; VARIATIONS. After ver. 316, in the MS. Ev'n while it seems unequal to difpofe, And chequers all the good man's joys with woes, 'Tis but to teach him to fupport each state, With patience this, with moderation that; And raile his bafe on that one folid joy, Which compience gives, and nothing can deftroy Crafp the whole worlds of reason, life, and fenfe, | 360 God loves from whole to parts: but human foul VARIATIONS. 380 And while the mufe now ftoops, or now afcends, Ver. 373. Come then, my friend! &c.] In the That true felf-love and focial are the fame; MS. thus: And now transported o'er so vast a plain, Now fcatter'd fools fly trembling from her heels, That virtue only makes our bliss below; VARIATIONS. Ver 397. That virtue only,&c ] In the MS. thus: Giij THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER. DEO OPT. MAX. Ir may be proper to obferve, that fome paffages, in the preceding Effay, having been unjustly fufpected of a tendency towards fate and naturalism, the author composed this Prayer as the fumr of all, to show that his system was founded in free-will, and terminated in piety: That the First Caufe was as well the Lord and Governor of the Universe as the Creator of it; and that, by. fubmiffion to his will (the great principle enforced throughout the Essay) was not meant the fuffering ourselves to be carried along by a blind determination, but the refting in a religious acquiefcence, and confidence full of hope and immortality. To give all this the greater weight, the poet chofe for his model the Lord's Prayer, which, of all others, beft deferves the title prefixed to this Paraphrase. DR. WARBURTON. FATHER of all in every age, In every clime ador'd, By faint, by favage, and by fage, Thou Great First Cause, least understood; Who all my sense confin'd To know but this, that thou art good, Yet gave me, in this dark cftate, And, binding nature fast in fate, What confcience diâates to be done, That, more than heaven pursue. What bleffings thy free bounty gives, For God is paid when man receives, Yet not to earth's contracted span Thy goodness let me bound, Or think thee Lord alone of man, When thousand worlds are round: Let not this weak, unknowing hand And deal damnation round the land, If I am right, thy grace impart, Save me alike from foolish pride, Mean though I am, not wholly fo, Through this day's life or death. To thee, whofe temple is all space, THE Effay on Man was intended to have been, comprised in four books. The first of which, the author has given us under that title, in four epiftles. The fecond was to have confifted of the fame number: 1. Of the extent and limits of human realon. 2. Of thofe arts and fciences, and of the parts of them, which are useful, and therefore at. tamable, together with thofe which are unufeful, and therefore unattainable. 3. Of the nature, ends, ufe, and application of the different capacities of men. 4 Of the ufe of learning, of the feience of the world, and of wit; concluding with a tarire again a mifapplication of them, illuftrated by pictures, characters, and examples. The third book regarded civil regimen, or the kience of politics, in which the feveral forms of a republic were. to be examined and explained; together with the feveral modes of religious worfhip, as far forth as they affect fociety; between which the author always fuppofed there was the moft interesting relation, and clofeft connection; fo that this part would have treated of civil and rchisious fociety in their full extent. The fourth and laft book concerned private ethics, or practical morality, confidered in all the circumstances, orders, profeffions, and stations of human life. The scheme of all this had been maturely digefted, and communicated to Lord Bolingbroke, Dr Swift, and one or two more; and was intended for the only work of his riper years; but was, partly through ill health, partly through difcouragements from the depravity of the times, and partly on prudential and other considerations, inrupted, poftponed, and, laftly, in a manner laid afide. But as this was the author's favourite work, which more exactly reflected the image of his fro: g capacious mind, and as we can have but a very in perfect idea of it from the "disjecta mem"bra Poetæ," that now remain, it may not be amifs to be a little more particular concerning each of these projected books. The firft, as it treats of man in the abstract, and confiders him in general under every of his relations, becomes the foundation, and furnishes out the fubjects, of the three following; fo that The fecond book was to take up again the first and fecond epiftles of the first book, and treats of man in his intelle&ual capacity at large, as has been explained above. Of this only a finall part of the conclufion (which, as we faid, was to have contained a fatire against the mifapplication of wit and learning), may be found in the fourth book of the Dunciad, and up and down, occafionally, in the other three. the third book, in like manner, was to re-af-. fume the subject of the third epiftle of the first, which treats of man in his focial, political, and religious capacity. But this part the poet afterwards conceived might be beft executed in an Epic Poem, as the action would make it more animated, and the fable lefs invidious; in which all the great principles of true and false governments and religions thould be chiefly delivered in feigned examples. The fourth and laft book was to pursue the fubje& of the fourth epifle of the first, and treats of ethics, or practical morality; and would have confifted of many members; of which the four following epiftles were detached portions: the two firft, on the characters of men and women, being the introductory part of this concluding book. DR. WARBURTON. |