Where small and great, where weak and mighty

made

To serve, not suffer, strengthen, not invade;
More pow’rful each as needful to the rest,
And, in proportion as it blesses, blest;

Draw to one point, and to one center bring
Beast, man, or angel, servant, lord, or king.

For forms of government let fools contest;

Whate'er is best administer'd is best:

For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight;
His can't be wrong whose life is in the right:
In faith and hope the world will disagree,
But all mankind's concern is charity:
All must be false that thwart this one great end;
And, all of God, that bless mankind or mend.

Man, like the gen'rous vine, supported lives; The strength he gains is from th' embrace he gives. On their own axis as the planets run,

Yet make at once their circle round the sun;

So two consistent motions act the soul;

And one regards itself, and one the whole.

Thus God and nature link'd the general frame,

And bade self-loye and social be the same.

EPISTLE IV.

ARGUMENT. Of the Nature and State of Man with respect to Happiness. False notions of happiness, philosophical and popular....It is the end of all men, and

attainable by all....God intends happiness to be equal; and to be so, it must be social; since all particular happiness depends on al, and since he governs by general, not particular, laws.... 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....But, notwithstanding that inequality, the balance of happiness among mankind is kept even by Providence, by the two passions of hope and fear ... 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....The error of imputing to virtue what are only the calamities of nature or of fortune.... The folly of expecting that God should alter his general laws in favour of particulars....That we are not judges who are good; but that, whoever they are, they must be happiest.... That external goods are not the proper rewards, but often inconsistent with, or destructive of, virtue.... That even these can make no man happy without virtue: instanced in riches, honours, nobility, greatness, fare, and superior talents ; with pictures of human infelicity in men possessed of them all..., That virtue only constitutes a happiness whose object is universal, and whose prospect eternal.... 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,

O HAPPINESS! our being's end and aim !
Good, Pleasure, Ease, Content, whate'er thy name;
That something still which prompts th'eternal sigh,
For which we bear to live, or dare to die;

K

Which still so near us, yet beyond us lies,
O’erlook'd, seen double, by the fool, and wise.
Plant of celestial seed! if dropt below,
Say, in what mortal soil thou deign'st to grow?
Fair op'ning to some court's propitious shine,
Or deep with di'monds in the flaming mine?
Twin'd 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 no where to be found, or ev'ry where:
”Tis never to be bought, but always free,
And fled from monarchs, St.John,dwells with thee.

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;
Some sunk to beasts, find pleasure end in pain;
Some swell’d to Gods, confess ev’n virtue vain;
Or indolent, to each extreme they fall,
To trust in ev'ry thing; 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 Opinion's 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, “ the universal cause “ Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral laws;"