But still this world (so fitted for the knave)Contents us not. A better shall we have?
A kingdom of the just then let it be:
But first consider how those just agree.
The good must merit God's peculiar care:
But who, but God, can tell us who they are?
One thinks on Calvin Heaven's own spirit fell;Another deems him instrument of hell;
If Calvin feel Heaven's blessing, or its rod.
This cries there is, and that, there is no God.
What shocks one part will edify the rest, Nor with one system can they all be blest.
The very best will variously incline, And what rewards your virtue, punish mine.
Whatever is, is right. This world, 'tis true, Was made for Caesar--but for Titus too:
And which more blest? who chained his country, say, Or he whose virtue sighed to lose a day?
"But sometimes virtue starves, while vice is fed."What then? Is the reward of virtue bread?
That, vice may merit, 'tis the price of toil;The knave deserves it, when he tills the soil, The knave deserves it, when he tempts the main, Where folly fights for kings, or dives for gain.
The good man may be weak, be indolent;
Nor is his claim to plenty, but content.
But grant him riches, your demand is o'er?
"No--shall the good want health, the good want power?"Add health, and power, and every earthly thing, "Why bounded power? why private? why no king?"Nay, why external for internal given?
Why is not man a god, and earth a heaven?
Who ask and reason thus, will scarce conceive God gives enough, while He has more to give:
Immense the power, immense were the demand;Say, at what part of nature will they stand?
What nothing earthly gives, or can destroy, The soul's calm sunshine, and the heartfelt joy, Is virtue's prize: A better would you fix?
Then give humility a coach and six, Justice a conqueror's sword, or truth a gown, Or public spirit its great cure, a crown.
Weak, foolish man! will heaven reward us there With the same trash mad mortals wish for here?
The boy and man an individual makes, Yet sighest 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 such trifles are assigned, As toys and empires, for a God-like mind.
Rewards, that either would to virtue bring No joy, or be destructive of the thing:
How oft by these at sixty are undone The virtues of a saint at twenty-one!
To whom can riches give repute or trust, Content, or pleasure, but the good and just?
Judges and senates have been bought for gold, Esteem and love were never to be sold.
Oh, fool! to think God hates the worthy mind, The lover and the love of human kind, Whose life is healthful, and whose conscience clear, Because he wants a thousand pounds a year.
Honour and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part, there all the honour lies.
Fortune in men has some small difference made, One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade;The cobbler aproned, and the parson gowned, The friar hooded, and the monarch crowned, "What differ more (you cry) than crown and cowl?"I'll tell you, friend! a wise man and a fool.
You'll find, if once the monarch acts the monk, Or, cobbler-like, the parson 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 mayest be by kings, or wh***s of kings.
Boast the pure blood of an illustrious race, In quiet flow from Lucrece to Lucrece;But by your fathers' worth if yours you rate, Count me those only who were good and great.
Go! if your ancient, but ignoble blood Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood, Go! and pretend your family is young;Nor own, your fathers have been fools so long.
What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards?
Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.
Look next on greatness; say where greatness lies?
"Where, but among the heroes and the wise?"Heroes are much the same, the points 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 farther than his nose.
No less alike the politic and wise;
All sly slow things, with circumspective eyes;Men in their loose unguarded hours they take, Not that themselves are wise, but others weak.
But grant that those can conquer, these can cheat;'Tis phrase absurd to call a villain great:
Who wickedly is wise, or madly brave, Is but the more a fool, the more a knave.
Who noble ends by noble means obtains, Or failing, smiles in exile or in chains, Like good Aurelius let him reign, or bleed Like Socrates, that man is great indeed.
What's fame? a fancied life in others' breath, A thing beyond us, even before our death.
Just what you hear, you have, and what's unknown The same (my Lord) if Tully's, or your own.
All that we feel of it begins and ends In the small circle of our foes or friends;To all beside as much an empty shade An Eugene living, as a Caesar dead;Alike or when, or where, they shone, or shine, Or on the Rubicon, or on the Rhine.
A wit's a feather, and a chief a rod;
An honest man's the noblest work of God.
Fame but from death a villain's name can save, As justice tears his body from the grave;When what the oblivion better were resigned, 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 self-approving hour whole years outweighs Of stupid starers, and of loud huzzas;And more true joy Marcellus exiled feels, Than Caesar with a senate at his heels.
In parts superior what advantage lies?
Tell (for you can) what is it to be wise?
'Tis but to know how little can be known;To see all others' faults, and feel our own;Condemned in business or in arts to drudge, Without a second or without a judge;Truths would you teach or save a sinking land, All fear, none aid you, and few understand.
Painful pre-eminence! yourself to view Above life's weakness, and its comforts too.
