To Pow'r unseen, and mightier far than they :
She, from the rending earth and bursting skies,
Saw gods descend, and fiends infernal rise:
255 Here fix'd the dreadful, there the blest abodes;
Fear made her devils, and weak hope her gods;
Gods partial, changeful, passionate, unjust,
Whose attributes were rage, revenge, or lust;
Such as the souls of cowards might conceive,
260 And, form'd like tyrants, tyrants would believe.
Zeal, then, not charity, became the guide;

And hell was built on spite, and heav'n on pride. Then sacred seem'd th' ethereal vault no more; Altars grew marble then, and reek'd with gore: 265 Then first the Flamen tasted living food;

Next his grim idol smear'd with human blood; With Heav'n's own thunders shook the world below, And play'd the god an engine on his foe.

So drives Self-love, through just, and through
unjust,

270 To one man's pow'r, ambition, lucre, lust:
The same self-love, in all, becomes the cause
Of what restrains him, government and laws.
For what one likes, if others like as well,

What serves one will, when many wills rebel?
275 How shall he keep what, sleeping or awake,
A weaker may surprise, a stronger take?
His safety must his liberty restrain :

All join to guard what each desires to gain.
Fore'd into virtue thus, by self-defence,
280 Ev'n kings learn'd justice and benevolence:
Self-love forsook the path it first pursu'd,
And found the private in the public good.

'T was then the studious head or gen'rous mind, Foll'wer of God, or friend of human-kind,

285 Poet or patriot, rose but to restore

The faith and moral Nature gave before;
Relum'd her ancient light, not kindled new;
If not God's image, yet His shadow drew;

Taught pow'r's due use to people and to kings; 290 Taught nor to slack, nor strain its tender strings, The less, or greater, set so justly true,

That touching one must strike the other too;
Till jarring int'rests of themselves create
Th' according music of a well-mix'd state.
295 Such is the world's great harmony, that springs
From order, union, full consent of things;
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,
300 And, in proportion as it blesses, blest;
Draw to one point, and to one centre bring
Beast, man, or angel, servant, lord, or king.

For forms of government let fools contest;
Whate'er is best administer'd is best:
305 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; 310 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,

315 So two consistent motions act the soul,
And one regards itself, and one the Whole.
Thus God and Nature link'd the gen'ral frame,
And bade Self-love and Social be the same.

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 verses 19 to 26. II. It is the end of all men, and attainable by all, verse 29. 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, verse 35. 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, verse 49. But notwithstanding that inequality, the balance of Happiness among mankind is kept even by Providence, by the two passions of Hope and Fear, verse 67. 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, verse 77. The error of imputing to Virtue what are only the calamities of Nature or of Fortune, verse 93. IV. The folly of expecting that God should alter his general laws in favor of particulars, verse 123. V. That we are not judges who are good; but that whoever they are, they must be happiest, verse 131, etc. VI. That external goods are not the proper rewards, but often inconsistent with, or destructive of Virtue, verse 149. That even these can make no man happy without Virtue: instanced in Riches, verse 185; Honors, verse 193; Nobility, verse 205; Greatness, verse 217; Fame, verse 237; Superior Talents, verse 259, etc., with pictures of human infelicity in men possessed of them all, verse 269, etc. VII. That Virtue only constitutes a Happiness whose object is universal, and whose prospect eternal, verse 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, verse 327, etc.

EPISTLE IV.

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;
5 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,
19 Or deep with diamonds 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: 15 Fix'd to no spot is happiness sincere,

'Tis nowhere to be found, or ev'rywhere:

'Tis never to be bought, but always free ;

And, fled from monarchs, ST. JOHN! dwells with thee.

I. Ask of the learn'd the way! the learn'd are

blind;

20 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;
25 Or, indolent, to each extreme they fall,

To trust in ev'rything, or doubt of all.
Who thus define it, say they more or less

Than this, that happiness is happiness?

II. Take Nature's path, and mad Opinion's leave ;

30 All states can reach it, and all heads conceive; Obvious her goods, in no extreme they dwell;

15. Sincere, unalloyed.

21-26. Pope said that he was speaking in this passage of the Epicurean, Stoic, and Sceptic schools.

35

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,"
And makes what happiness we justly call,
Subsist, not in the good of one, but all.
There's not a blessing individuals find,
40 But some way leans and hearkens to the kind;
No bandit fierce, no tyrant mad with pride,
No cavern'd hermit rests self-satisfy'd:

Who most to shun or hate mankind pretend,
Seek an admirer, or would fix a friend.
45 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 Heav'n's first law; and, this confest,
50 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.
Heav'n to mankind impartial we confess,
If all are equal in their happiness:

55 But mutual wants this happiness increase;
All Nature's diff'rence keeps all Nature's peace.
Condition, circumstance is not the thing;

Bliss is the same in subject or in king,
In who obtain defence, or who defend,

60 In him who is, or him who finds a friend:
Heav'n breathes through ev'ry member of the whole
One common blessing, as one common soul.
But Fortune's gifts if each alike possest,
And each were equal, must not all contest?
65 If then to all men happiness was meant,
God in externals could not place content.