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EPISTLE IV.

Ο

H HAPPINESS! our being's end and aim!
Good, Pleasure, Eafe, Content! whate'er thy

name:

VARIATIONS.

VER. 1. Oh Happiness! &c.] in the MS. thus,
Oh Happiness! to which we all aspire,

Wing'd with strong hope, and borne by full defire;
That eafe, for which in want, in wealth we figh;
That eafe, for which we labour and we die.

COMMENTARY.

THE two foregoing epiftles having confidered Man with regard to the Means (that is, in all his relations, whether as an Individual, or a Member of Society) this last comes to confider him with regard to the End, that is, Happiness.

It opens with an Invocation to Happinefs, in the manner of the ancient poets, who, when deftitute of a patron God, applied to the Mufe, and, if she was engaged, took up with any fimple Virtue next at hand, to infpire and profper their undertakings. This was the ancient Invocation, which few modern poets have had the art to imitate with any degree either of fpirit or decorum but our author hath contrived to make it fubfervient to the method and reafoning of his philofophic compofition. I will endeavour to explain fo uncommon a beauty.

It is to be obferved that the Pagan deities had each their feveral names and places of abode, with fome of which they were fuppofed to be more delighted than others, and confequently to be then moft propitious when invoked by the favourite name and place: Hence we find, the hymns of Homer, Orpheus, and Callimachus to be chiefly employed in reckoning up the feveral names and places of abode by which the patron Ged was diftinguifhed. Our poet hath made the 'e two circumstances VOL. III.

K

That fomething ftill which prompts th'eternal figh,
For which we bear to live, or dare to die,
Which still fo near us, yet beyond us lies,
O'er-look'd, feen double,, by the fool, and wife.
Plant of celeftial feed! if dropt below,

Say, in what mortal foil thou deign'ft to grow?

COMMENTARY.

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ferve to introduce his fubject. His purpofe is to write of Happinefs; method therefore requires that he first define what men mean by Happiness, and this he does in the ornament of a poetic Invocation; in which the feveral names, that happiness goes by, are enumerated.

Oh Happiness! our being's end and aim,

Good, Pleasure, Eafe, Content! whate'er thy Name:

After the Definition, that which follows next, is the Propofition, which is, that human Happiness confifts not in external Advantages, but in Virtue. For the fubject of this epiftle is the detecting the falfe notions of Happinefs, and fettling and explaining the true; and this the poet lays down in the next fixteen lines. Now the enumeration of the feveral fituations in which Happiness is fuppofed to refide, is a fummary of falfe Happinefs, placed in Externals;

Plant of celeftial feed! if dropt below,

Say, in what mortal foil thou deign'ft to grow?
Fair op'ning to fome Court's propitious fhine,
Or deep with Di'monds in the flaming mine,
Twin'd with the wreaths Parnaffian laurels yield,
Or reap'd in iron harvests of the field?

NOTES.

VER. 6. O'erlook'd, feen double,] O'erlook'd by those who place Happiness in any thing exclufive of Virtue; feen double by thofe who admit any thing elfe to have a fhare with Virtue in procuring Happinefs; thefe being the two general mistakes that this epiftle is employed in confuting.

Fair op'ning to fome Court's propitious fhine,
Or deep with di'monds in the flaming mine? 10
Twin'd with the wreaths Parnaflian lawrels yield,
Or reap'd in iron harvests of the field?
Where grows?---where grows it not? If vain our toil,
We ought to blame the culture, not the foil:
Fix'd to no fpot is happiness fincere,
15

"Tis no where to be found, or ev'ry where:
"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 ferve, and that to fhun mankind; 20

COMMENTARY.

The fix remaining lines deliver the true notion of Happiness to be in Virtue. Which is fummed up in these two:

Fix'd to no fpot is Happiness fincere,

'Tis no where to be found, or ev'ry where.

The Poet having thus defined his terms, and laid down his propofition, proceeds to the support of his Thefis; the various arguments of which make up the body of the Epiftle.

VER. 19. Afk of the Learn'd, &c.] He begins (from 18 to 29) with detecting the falfe notions of Happiness. These are of two kinds, the Philofophical and Popular: The latter he had re-capitulated in the invocation, when happiness was called upon at her feveral fuppofed places of abode; the Philofophic only remained to be delivered:

Ask of the Learn'd the way, the Learn'd are blind;
This bids to ferve, and that to fhun Mankind;

Some place the blifs in action, some in ease, Those call it Pleasure, and Contentment thefe ;

COMMENTARY.

Some place the blifs in action, fome in ease;
Those call it Pleafure, and Contentment these.

They differed as well in the means, as in the nature of the end. Some plac'd Happiness in Action, fome in Contemplation; the first called it Pleasure, the fecond Eafe. Of those who placed it in Action and called it Pleasure, the moral rout they pursued either funk them into fenfual pleafures, which ended in Pain, or led them in search of imaginary perfections, unsuitable to their nature and station (fee Ep. i.) which ended in Vanity. Of thofe who placed it in Eafe, the contemplative ftation they were fixed in made fome, for their quiet, find truth in every thing, others in nothing.

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

The confutation of thefe Philofophic errors he fhews to be very eafy, one common fallacy running through them all; namely this, that instead of telling us in what the Happiness of human nature confifts, which was what was afked of them, each bufies himself in explaining in what he placed his own.

NOTES.

VER. 21. Some place the blifs in action,-Some funk to beafts, &c.] 1. Thofe who place Happiness, or the fummum bonum, in Pleasure, Hoovn, fuch as the Cyrenaic fect, called on that account the Hedonic. 2. Those who place it in a certain tranquillity or calmness of Mind, which they call Evvμía, fuch as the Democritic fect. 3. The Epicurean. 4. The Stoic. 5. The The Protagorean, which held that Man was πάντων χρημάτων μέτρον, the meafure of all things, for that all things which appear to him are, and those things which appear not to any Man are not; fo that every imagination or opinion of every man was true. 6. The Sceptic: Whose abfolute Doubt is with great judgment faid to be the effect of In

Some funk to Beafts, find pleasure end in pain;
Some fwell'd to Gods, confefs ev'n Virtue vain;
Or indolent, to each extreme they fall,

To truft in ev'ry thing, or doubt of all.
Who thus define it, fay they more or less
Than this, that Happiness is Happiness ?

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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 Senfe, and Common Eafe.

COMMENTARY.

VER. 29. Take Nature's path, &c.] The Poet then proceeds (from 28 to 35) to reform their mistakes; and fhews them. that, if they will but take the road of Nature and leave that of mad Opinion, they will foon find Happiness to be a good of the Species, and, like Common Senfe, equally diftributed to all Mankind.

NOTES.

dolence, as well as the abfolute Truft of the Protagorean: For the fame dread of labour attending the fearch of truth, which makes the Protagorean prefume it to be always at hand, makes the Sceptic conclude it is never to be found. The only difference is, that the laziness of the one is defponding, and the lazinefs of the other fanguine; yet both can give it a good name, and call it Happiness.

VER. 23. Some funk to Beafts, &c.] Thefe four lines added in the laft Edition, as necefiary to complete the fummary of the falfe pursuits after happinefs amongst the Greek philofoK 3 phers.

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