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EPISTLE IV.

ARGUMENT OF EPISTLE IV.

OF THE NATURE AND STATE OF MAN WITH RESPECT TO HAPPINESS.

I. False notions of happiness, philosophical and popular, answered from ver. 19 to 77. II. It is the end of all men, and attainable by all, ver. 30. God intends happiness to be equal; and, to be so, it must be social, since all particular happiness depends on general, and since he governs by general, not particular laws, ver. 37. As it is necessary for order, and the peace and welfare of society, that external goods should be unequal, happiness is not made to consist in these, ver. 51. But notwithstanding that inequality, the balance of happiness among mankind is kept even by Providence, by the two passions of hope and fear, ver. 70. III. What the happiness of individuals is, as far as is consistent with the constitution of this world; and that the good man has here the advantage, ver. 77. The error of imputing to virtue what are only the calamities of Nature, or of Fortune, ver. 94. IV. The folly of expecting that God should alter his general laws in favour of particulars, ver. 121. V. That we are not judges who are good; but that whoever they are, they must be happiest, ver. 133, &c. VI. That external goods are not the proper rewards, but often inconsistent with, or destructive of virtue, ver. 167. That even these can make no man happy without virtue: instanced in riches, ver. 185. Honours, ver. 193. Nobility, ver. 205. Greatness, ver. 217. Fame, ver. 237. Superior talents,

ver. 259, &c. With pictures of human infelicity in men possessed of them all, ver. 269, &c. VII. That virtue only constitutes a happiness whose object is universal, and whose prospect eternal, ver. 309. That the perfection of virtue and happiness consists in a conformity to the order of Providence here, and a resignation to it here and hereafter, ver. 326, &c.

H Happiness! our being's end and aim!1

Good, pleasure, ease, content! whate'er thy name:
That something still which prompts the eternal sigh,
For which we bear to live, or dare to die,

In the MS. thus:

"Oh Happiness, to which we all aspire,

Wing'd with strong hope, and borne by full desire;
That ease, for which in want, in wealth, we sigh;
That ease, for which we labour and we die."

Which still so near us, yet beyond us lies,
O'erlook'd, seen double, by the fool and wise.
Plant of celestial seed! if dropp'd below,
Say, in what mortal soil thou deign'st to grow?
Fair opening to some court's propitious shine,
Or deep with diamonds in the flaming mine?
Twined with the wreaths Parnassian laurels 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 soil:
Fix'd to no spot is happiness sincere,

"Tis nowhere to be found, or everywhere:

'Tis never to be bought, but always free,

And, fled from monarchs, St. John! dwells with thee.

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15

5

Ask of the learn'd the way? the learn'd are blind: This bids to serve, and that to shun, mankind;

Some place the bliss in action, some in ease,

Those call it pleasure, and contentment these ;

20

Some, sunk to beasts, find pleasure end in pain ; 2
Some, swell'd to gods, confess even virtue vain ;
Or, indolent, to each extreme they fall,
To trust in everything, or doubt of all.

Who thus define it, say they more or less
Than this, that happiness is happiness?

Take Nature's path, and mad opinions leave;
All states can reach it, and all heads conceive;
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 sense, and common ease.
Remember, man,
66 The Universal Cause
Acts not by partial, but by general laws;"
And makes what happiness we justly call
Subsist, not in the good of one, but all.

There's not a blessing individuals find,

But some way leans and hearkens to the kind :
No bandit fierce, no tyrant mad with pride,
No cavern'd hermit, rests self-satisfied:
Who most to shun or hate mankind pretend,
Seek an admirer, or would fix a friend:
Abstract what others feel, what others think,
All pleasures sicken, and all glories sink:
Each has his share; and who would more obtain,
Shall find, the pleasure pays not half the pain.

Order is Heaven's first law; and, this confess'd,
Some are, and must be, greater than the rest,
More rich, more wise; but who infers from hence
That such are happier, shocks all common sense.3

2 [In the editions of 1735 this passage stands

"Who thus desire it, say they more or less
Than this, that happiness is happiness?
One grants his pleasure is but rest from pain,
One doubts of all, one owns even virtue vain.
Take Nature's path," &c.]

3 In the MS.,

'Say not,' Heaven's here profuse, there poorly saves,
And for one monarch makes a thousand slaves.'
You'll find, when causes and their ends are known,
'Twas for the thousand Heaven has made that one."

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30

35

40

45

50

Heaven to mankind impartial we confess,
If all are equal in their happiness:
But mutual wants this happiness increase;

All nature's difference keeps all nature's peace.
Condition, circumstance, is not the thing;
Bliss is the same in subject or in king,

55

In who obtain defence, or who defend,

In him who is, or him who finds a friend:

60

Heaven breathes through every member of the whole
One common blessing, as one common soul.
But fortune's gifts, if each alike possess'd,
And each were equal, must not all contest?
If then to all men happiness was meant,
God in externals could not place content.4

65

Fortune her gifts may variously dispose,
And these be happy call'd, unhappy those;
But Heaven's just balance equal will appear,
While those are placed in hope, and these in fear:
Not present good or ill, the joy or curse,
But future views of better, or of worse.

70

Oh sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise,
By mountains piled on mountains, to the skies?
Heaven still with laughter the vain toil surveys,
And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.

Know, all the good that individuals find,
Or God and Nature meant to mere mankind,
Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense,
Lie in three words, health, peace, and competence.
But health consists with temperance alone;
And peace, O Virtue! peace is all thy own.
The good or bad the gifts of fortune gain;

But these less taste them, as they worse obtain.
Say, in pursuit of profit or delight,

Who risk the most, that take wrong means, or right?

4 In the MS.,

"'Tis peace of mind alone is at a stay:
The rest mad fortune gives or takes away.

All other bliss by accident's debarred:
But virtue's, in the instant, a reward;
In hardest trials operates the best,

And more is relish'd as the more distress'd."

75

80

85

Of vice or virtue, whether blest or curst,

Which meets contempt, or which compassion first ?
Count all the advantage prosperous vice attains,
'Tis but what virtue flies from and disdains :
And grant the bad what happiness they would,
One they must want, which is, to pass for good.5
Oh blind to truth, and God's whole scheme below,
Who fancy bliss to vice, to virtue woe!

Who sees and follows that great scheme the best,
Best knows the blessing, and will most be blest.
But fools, the good alone, unhappy call,
For ills or accidents that chance to all.
See Falkland dies, the virtuous and the just!6
See godlike Turenne prostrate on the dust!7
See Sidney bleeds amid the martial strife! 8
Was this their virtue, or contempt of life?

5 In the MS.,

"Let sober moralists correct their speech,

No bad man's happy: he is great, or rich."

6 [Lucius Cary, the second Viscount Falkland, whose memory Clarendon has embalmed in one of his most finished and beautifully-drawn characters. He was learned, eloquent, and high-minded, but probably better fitted for speculation than action. His first public services were on the side of the Parliament, but he afterwards embraced the cause of Charles, and died in battle, a volunteer, at Newbury, in 1643, aged thirty-four.]

7 "This epithet has a peculiar justness; the great man to whom it is applied not being distinguished, from other generals, for any of his superior qualities so much as for his providential care of those whom he led to war; which was so uncommon, that his chief purpose in taking on himself the command of armies seems to have been the preservation of mankind. In this godlike care he was more distinguishably employed throughout the whole course of that famous campaign in which he lost his life."-Warburton, [Marshal Turenne was killed by a cannon shot, July 27, 1675, near the village of Saltyback. Voltaire, in his affectionate record of his death, says, "It seems as if one could not too often repeat, that the same bullet which killed him, having shot off the arm of St. Hilaire, lieutenant-general of the artillery, his son came and bewailed his misfortune with many tears but the father, looking towards Turenne, said, 'It is not I, but that great man who should be lamented.' These words may be compared with the most heroic sayings recorded in all history.""]

8 [Sir Philip Sidney, the flower of the English nobility, in the chivalrous and romantic reign of Elizabeth, was mortally wounded in a victorious action near Zutphen, and died on the 17th of October, 1586. His body was brought