The joy unequalled, if its end it gain, Never elated, while one man's oppressed; See the sole bliss Heav'n could on all bestow! Which who but feels could taste, but thinks can know: Yet poor with fortune, and with learning blind, For him alone, hope leads from goal to goal, Self-love thus pushed to social, to divine, Gives thee to make thy neighbour's blessing thine. Is this too little for the boundless heart? Extend it, let thy enemies have part: Grasp the whole worlds of reason, life, and sense, In one close system of benevolence: God loves from whole to parts: but human soul Must rise from individual to the whole. Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake. Friend, parent, neighbour, first it will embrace; Earth smiles around, with boundless bounty blest, Come, then my Friend! my genius! come along; Oh, master of the poet, and the song! And while the muse now stoops, or now ascends, Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale? THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER.1 DEO. OPT. MAX. FATHER of all! in ev'ry age, Thou Great First Cause, least undersood: To know but this, that Thou art good, Yet gave me, in this dark estate, What conscience dictates to be done, This, teach me more than hell to shun, What blessings Thy free bounty gives, For God is paid when man receives: Yet not to earth's contracted span Let not this weak unknowing hand 1 Some passages in the "Essay on Man" having been unjustly sus pected of a tendency towards Fate and Naturalism, the author composed a prayer as the sum of all, which was intended to show that his system was founded in Free-will and terminated in Piety.Ruff head. To hide the fault I see; That mercy I to others show, That mercy show to me. 6 Mean though I am, not wholly so, This day, be bread and peace my lot: Thou know'st if best bestowed or not; To Thee, whose temple is all space, MORAL ESSAYS. IN FIVE EPISTLES TO SEVERAL PERSONS. Est brevitate opus, ut currat sententia, neu se EPISTLE I. TO SIR RICHARD TEMPLE, LORD COBHAM. ARGUMENT. OF THE KNOWLEDGE AND CHARACTERS OF MEN. That it is not sufficient for this knowledge to consider man in the abstract: books will not serve the purpose, nor yet our own exper ience singly, ver. 1. General maxims, unless they be formed upon both. will be but notional, ver. 10. Some peculiarity in every man, characteristic to himself, yet varying from himself, ver. 15. Difficulties arising from our own passions, fancies, faculties, &c., ver. 31. The shortness of life, w observe in, and the uncertainty of the principles of action in men, to observe by, ver. 37, &c. Our own principle of action often hid from ourselves, ver. 41. Some few characters plain, but in general confounded, dissembled, or inconsistent, ver. 51. The same man utterly different in different places and seasons, ver. 71. Unimaginable weakness in the greatest, ver. 77, &c. Nothing constant and certain but God and Nature, ver. 95. No judging of the motives from the actions; the same actions proceeding from contrary motives, and the same motives influencing contrary actions, ver. 100.-II. Yet to form characters, we can only take the strongest actions of a man's life, and try to make them agree. The utter uncertainty of this, from nature itself, and from policy, ver. 120. Characters given according to the rank of men of the world, ver. 135. And some reason for it, ver. 141. Education alters the nature, or at least character of many, ver 149. Actions, passions, opinions, manners, humours, or principles, all subject to change. No judging by nature, from ver. 158 to 178.-III. It only remains to find (if we can) his ruling passion: that will certainly influence all the rest, and can reconcile the seeming or real inconsistency of all his actions, ver. 175. Instanced in the extraordinary character of Clodio, ver. 179. A caution against mistaking second qualities for first, which will destroy all possibility of the knowl edge of mankind, ver. 210. Examples of the strength of the ruling passion, and its continuation to the last breath, ver. 222, &c. YES, you despise the man to books confined, Though what he learnshe speaks, and may advance |