Weak, foolish man! will Heaven reward us there
With the fame trash mad mortals wish for here?
The Boy and Man an individual makes,
Yet figh'st 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,
As toys and empires, for a godlike mind.
Rewards, that either would to Virtue bring
No joy, or be destructive of the thing;
How oft by thefe 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 Senates have been bought for gold.
Efteem and Love were never to be fold.
Oh fool! to think God hates the worthy mind,
The lover and the love of human-kind.
Whofe life is healthful, and whose confcience clear,
Because he wants a thousand pounds a-year.
Honour and fhame from no Condition rife;
A&t well your part, there all the honour lies.
Fortune in Men has fome fmall difference 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 cow!!"
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 rest is all but leather or prunella.
Stuck o'er with titles and hung round with strings, -That thou may'st be by kings, or whores of kings. Boast the pure blood of an illustrious race,
In quiet flow from Lucrece to Lucrece:
But by your fathers' worth if your's you rate,
Count me those only who were good and great,
Go! if your ancient, but ignoble blood
Has crept through 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?
Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.
Look next on Greatness; 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 strange 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. No lefs alike the Politic and Wife:
All fly flow things, with circumfpective eyes:
Ver. 207. Boaft the pure blood, &c.] 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 dafh of ufher or of prieft:
Thy pride as much defpife all other pride,
As Chrift-Church once all colleges befide.
Men in their loose unguarded hours they take,
Not that themselves are wife, but others weak.
But grant that those can conquer, thefe can cheat;
'Tis phrase 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, finiles in exile or in chains,
Like good Aurelius let him reign, or bleed
Like Socrates, that Man is great indeed.
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.
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,
Or on the Rubicon, or on the Rhine.
A Wit's a feather, and a Chief a rod ;
An honeft Man's the nobleft work of God.
Fame but from death a villain's name can fave,
As Justice tears his body from the grave;
When what t' oblivion better were refign'd,
Is hung on high, to poison half mankind.
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 255
Of stupid ftarers, and of loud huzzas;
And more true joy Marcellus exil'd feels,
Than Cæfar with a fenate at his heels.
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 business or in arts to drudge,
Without a fecond, or without a judge:
Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land?
All fear, none aid you, and few understand.
Painful preheminence! yourself to view
Above life's weakness, and its comforts too.
Bring then these bleffings to a ftri&t account;
Make fair deductions; fee to what they mount:
How much of other each is fure to coft;
How each for other of is wholly loft;
How inconfiftent greater goods with these ;
How fometimes life is risqu'd, and always ease:
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 passion of thy life;
Look but on Gripus, or on Gripus' wife.
If Parts allure thee, think how Bacon fhin'd,
The wifeft, brightest, meanest of mankind:
Or ravish'd with the whistling of a Name,
See Cromwell, damn'd to everlasting fame!
If all, united, thy ambition call,
From ancient ftory, learn to fcorn them all.
There, in the rich, the honour'd, fam'd, and great,
See the false scale of Happiness complete!
In hearts of Kings, or arms of Queens who lay,
How happy! those to ruin, these betray.
Mark by what wretched steps their glory grows,
From dirt and fea-weed as proud Venice rose;
In each how guilt and greatness equal ran,
And all that rais'd the Hero, funk the Man:
Now Europe's laurels on their brows behold,
But ftain'd with blood, or ill exchang'd for gold:
Then see them broke with toils, or funk in ease,
Or infamous for plunder'd provinces.
O! wealth ill-fated! which no act of fame
E'er taught to fhine, or fanctify'd from shame!
What greater blifs attends their close of life?
Some greedy minion, or imperious wife,
The trophy'd arches, ftory'd halls invade,
And haunt their flumbers in the pompous shade.
Alas! not dazzled with their noon-tide ray,
Compute the morn and evening to the day;
The whole amount of that enormous fame,
A Tale, that blends their glory with their shame!
Know then this truth (enough for Man to know)
"Virtue alone is happiness below."
The only point where human bliss stands ftill,
And tastes the good without the fall to ill;
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