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Add Health to Pow'r, and every earthly Thing:
Why bounded Pow'r? why private? why no King?
Nay, why external for internal giv’n,

Why is not Man a God, and Earth a Heav'n?
Who afk and reason thus, will scarce conceive
God gives enough while he has more to give :
Immense the Pow'r, immense were the Demand;
Say, at what Part of Nature will they stand?

Such People afking as a Reward for Virtue what would most certainly destroy it, he concludes therefore on the Whole, that,

What nothing earthly gives, or can deftroy, The Soul's calm Sunfhine, and the Heart felt Joy Is Virtue's Prize.

The Poet (fays our Commentator) begins therefore [from 1. 174 to 195] with confidering Riches. 1. He examines firft, what there is of real Value in them, and fhews, they can give the good Man only that very Contentment he had before, or, at most, but burthen him with a Trust to be difpens'd for the Benefit of others:

For Riches, can they give but to the Juft
His own Contentment, or another's Truft?

Since the good Man efteems all, befide what is fufficient to fupply him with the Conveniencies of Life, as entrusted to him by Providence, for the Supply of others Neceffaries.

'Tis true, he tells us elfewhere, that another Sort of good-Men are of a different Opinion : The grave Sir Gilbert holds it for a Rule, That ev'ry Man in IVant is Knave or Fool:

God

God cannot love (fays Blunt, with lifted Eyes)
The Wretch he farves-and pioufly denies.

Of the Ufe of Riches, 1. 103.

And these are they to whom he here alludes, where he says,

O Fool! to think God hates the worthy Mind, The Lover, and the Love, of Human-kind, Whofe Life is healthful, and whofe Confcience clear, Because he wants a thousand Pounds a Year!

The Poet next examines the imaginary Value of Riches, as the Fountain of Honour. For his Adverfaries Objection ftands thus :--As Honour is the genuine Claim of Virtue, and fhame the juft Retri bution of Vice; and as Honour, in their Opiniòn, follows Riches, and Shame Poverty; therefore the good Man fhould be rich.-He tells them in this they are much mistaken :

Honour and Shame from no Condition rife;
Act 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 Wifdom; fo neither can her Displeasure cure him of any of his Follies. On his Garb indeed fhe has 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.

Then, as to Nobility, by Creation or Birth, this too he fhews [from 1. 195 to 207] is, in itself, as devoid of all real Worth as the reft: Becaufe, in the firft Cafe the Title is generally gain'd by no Merit at all:

Stuck

Stuck o'er with Titles, and hung round with Strings, That thou may'st be by Kings, or Whores of Kings.

In the fecond, by the Merit of the first Founder of the Family, which will always, when reflected on, be rather the Subject of Mortification than Glory: Go! if your antient, but ignoble, Blood Has crept thro' Scoundrels ever fince the Flood, Go! and pretend your Family is young; Nor own your Fathers have been Fools fo long.

III. The Poet in the next Place [from I. 206 to 227] unmafks the falfe Pretences of Greatness, whereby it is feen that the Hero and Politician (the two Characters which would monopolize that Quality) after all their Buftle, effect only this, if they want Virtue, that the one proves himself a Fool, and the other a Knave: And Virtue they but too generally want. The Art of Heroifm being understood to confift in Ravage and Defolation; and the Art of Politicks, in Circumvention. Now

-Grant that thofe can conquer, thefe 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.

It is not the Succefs therefore that constitutes true Greatness; but the End aimed at; and the Means which are employed: And if these be right, Glory will be the Reward, whatever be the Iffue:

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.

IV. With regard to Fame, that ftill more fantaftick Bleffing, he fhews [from 1. 226 to 249] that

all

all of it, befides what we hear ourselves, is merely nothing; and that even of this fmall Portion, no more of it gives the Poffeffor a real Satisfaction, than what is the Fruit of Virtue.

All Fame is foreign, but of true Desert,

Plays round the Head, but comes not near the Heart. Thus he fhews, that Honour, Nobility, Greatness, Glory, fo far as they have any Thing real and fubftantial, that is, fo far as they contribute to the Happiness of the Poffeffor, are the fole Iffue of Virtue, and that neither Riches, Courts, Armies, nor the Populace, are capable of conferring them.

V. But laftly, the Poet proves [from 1. 248 to 259] that as there are no external Goods can make Man happy, fo neither is it in the Power of all internal. For, that even fuperior Parts bring no more real Happiness to the Poffeffor, than the reft, nay, put him into a worse Condition; for that the Quicknefs of Apprehenfion, and Depth of Penetration do but sharpen the Miseries of Life:

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, &c.
Painful Pre-eminence! yourself to view
Above Life's Weakness, and its Comforts too.

This to his Friend-nor does it at all contradict what he had faid to him concerning Happiness in the Beginning of the Epiftle: For he is now proving that nothing external to Man, or what is not in his own Power, and of his own Acquirement, can make him happy here. The most plaufible Rival of Virtue is Knowledge. Yet even this, he fays, is fo far from giving any Degree of real Happiness, that it deprives

Men

Men of those common Comforts of Life, which are a Kind of Support to us under the Want of Happinefs Such as the more innocent of thofe Delafions which he speaks of in the second Epistle, where he fays:

'Till then, Opinion gilds with varying Rays Those painted Clouds, that beautify our Days, &c. L. 265.

Having thus prov'd how empty and unfatisfactory. all thefe greateft external Goods, are, from an Examination of their Nature, the Poet proceeds to ftrengthen his Argument [from 1. 258 to 299] by these two farther Confiderations:

ift, That the Acquirement of thefe Goods is made with the Lofs of one another; or of greater, either as inconfiftent with them, or as spent in attaining them :

How much of other each is fure to coft?
How each for other oft is wholly loft?
How inconfiftent greater Goods than these?
How fometimes Life is rifqu'd, and always Eafe?

2dly, That the Poffeffors of each of thefe Goods are generally fuch as are fo far from raising Envy in a good Man, that he would refufe to take their Per fons, tho' accompanied with their Poffeffions. And this the Poet illuftrates by Examples:

Think, and if ftill thefe Things thy Envy call, Say, would'ft thou be the Man to whom they fall? &c. 3dly, Nay, that even the Poffeffion of them all together, where they have excluded Virtue, only terminates in more enormous Mifery:

If all, united, thy Ambition call,

From antient Story learn to fcorn them all.

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