Oh let me live my own, and die so too! Restoration of true Religion and Government on their first principle, v. To please a mistress one aspersed his life; He lashed him not, but let her be his wife. Who taught the nations of the field and wood To shun their poison, and to choose their food? Preach as I please, I doubt our curious men Alexander pope essay choose a pheasant still before a hen; Yet hens of Guinea full as good I hold, alexander pope essay, Except you eat the feathers green and gold. or to be grave Have I no friend to serve, no soul to save? See Falkland dies, the virtuous and the just!
INTRODUCTION.
This essay discusses the philosophy that Pope brings forth in his Essay that Man, in alexander pope essay pride and disbelief, is blinded and fails to realize the beauty and sublimity in the perfect world that God has created, rather it is Man who creates the dissonance and distortion to this seamless creation. An Essay on Man was written by Alexander Pope in and was published anonymously. The Essay presents a contradictory situation through which Pope steers the readers between the new age of mathematical and scientific certainty and that of the older traditional ecclesiastic faith.
Through the poem, Pope uses old ideas as a frame to bind, the modern thought of given instantaneous world in order to reconcile a notional map of Nature, alexander pope essay. The expressed contradiction between man and Nature shows the intellectual weakness of man. Man, in his foolishness, searches for the mysteries of life that is safely kept in the intricate and alexander pope essay creation of the landscape architect. For all its intricacies, the creator has created the maze to perfection. The description of the garden scene in the poem opens the contradiction that Pope talks of in the introduction to the Essay.
Man creates a perfect, intricate maze and Pope compares it to the wild Nature created by God that apparently seems spontaneous and unplanned. He, thus, shows the pride in man through the description of alexander pope essay hunter who shows confidence at his complete knowledge of the quarry:. Man is presented as the creator of disorder in the simple, unexploited, natural setting. Man, represented as problematic and divided, is not a harmonious dweller in the Nature God created, alexander pope essay. Nature has found its repeated presence in the Essay. This makes one almost believe that Nature and God are intermingled to form a superpower. Nevertheless, reading the poem shows repeated reference of Nature indicates that the concept is not a mere personification. These lines written in present tense metaphorically show the living Nature in the sun that participates in the godly action.
There is a contradiction in the deist believe expressed by Pope in the Essay. Whenever there is, a mention of the word Heaven or God there arises a conflict with Nature. When he alexander pope essay God, he implies the almighty, superpower, which has planned it all. Nevertheless, when he says Heaven he brings in a personal touch to God who becomes a close companion and observer of all. Pope in the Essay says that Nature, though Man believes that Nature is unplanned, keeps account of all its creations:. In this delineation of Nature, God, heaven, Pope actually tries to demonstrate the God keeps humans below and limits of human knowledge to reduce his suffering.
God made the universe and makes it alexander pope essay the principles He made. This dualism of conceptualization of God and Nature is furthers in Epistle III where Pope discusses the historic moral development of man starting from the time be started living as the lord with simple cohabitation with Nature. After this couplet, Pope shows a new facet of Nature wherein he professes that Alexander pope essay is the innocent face of Man before it was contaminated with the art to reason. Pope therefore, confuses the readers, as it becomes difficult to ascertain if reason is a foe or a friend to Man in his history of social and moral evolution.
The Essay shows that Superior creatures have a way of looking down upon the Inferior creatures, as Man looks down upon animals, alexander pope essay, which, amusingly are closest to the rational Nature. In Epistle II Pope speaks of this idea of the chain of Being:. In his pride and perception of superiority, man becomes an object of mirth. Pope uses the example of Newton to show the innate interest in all Man to expand his rationality into Nature. Alexander pope essay furthers the irony in the pride of Man in showing that the pride that man so dearly cherishes is given to him by none other than Nature, alexander pope essay. Following this, Pope reaches to the climax of his philosophy where he says that it is Heaven or Nature that supplies all that is necessary for the creation of the world, including goodness and virtue.
On the other hand, Man, ironically considers himself as the lord of all creation, fails to fathom that he too is created by Nature. Pope therefore says:. Here Pope reinforces the beliefs that Man is blinded in his pride, and fails to see that it is Heaven that is the master of all creation. The vanity that Man store is created by Nature. Pope shows that Nature created the alexander pope essay with utmost perfection and ceased to intervene in its diurnal motion. Man blinded with pride thinks that he can unravel the mystery lying at the abyss of the world, but fails to realize that this intelligence, this pride, this vanity that he so self-obsessively cherishes is a creation of that nature he tries to trivialize.
Therefore, Pope in the Essay praises the beauty of the system that Nature rationalizes its creation, alexander pope essay. The love of self of man is dynamic and is directed through human passion and conduct along with reason. In this duality of passion and reason, passion has an upper hand. The Essay is a satire on the follies of man, but within its witticism and mirth, Pope skillfully presents a metaphysical philosophy that is difficult to neglect. Man has tried to control and recreate nature according to his own will. However, Pope contends that Man fails to see that the one who planned it to remain unplanned, Nature, created the world. Atkins, G. Cutting-Gray, Joanne and James E. Lawlor, Nancy K. Rogers, Pat. The Cambridge Companion to Alexander Pope.
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euthanasia pros essay
Happiness does not consist in external goods; is kept even by providence, through Hope and Fear; and the good man will have an advantage. We should not judge who is good, and external goods are often inconsistent with or destructive of virtue. Discussion with others regarding the location of bliss will evoke varied responses. He then makes clear that those who are virtuous and just may die too soon, but their deaths are not caused by their virtue. Humility, Justice, Truth, and Public Spirit deserve to wear a Crown, and they will, but one must wait to receive the rewards of possessing such traits.
Pope assembles an honor code for all to follow, as he attempts to convince individuals not to feel jealousy toward others who seem to have more possessions, as these do not lead to bliss. Pope has managed, through various examples, to lead from his opening request for a definition of happiness to the conclusion that virtue equates to that state, and, because virtue is available to all, everyone can enjoy happiness. As any worthy lesson does, this one bears repeating, and Pope closes with that emphasis:. That REASON, PASSION, answer one great aim; That true SELF-LOVE and SOCIAL are the same; That VIRTUE only makes our BLISS below; And all our Knowledge is, OURSELVES TO KNOW. The main gravamen of the Essay is thus an assault on pride, on the aspiration of mankind to get above its station, scan the mysteries of heaven, promote itself to the central place in the universe.
But there is something disturbing about this assumption of authority. Similarly, Pope counsels concentration on the human scale in what is, nonetheless, his cosmological testament. Milton aspires to be the poet of God, and so indeed does Pope; if the latter is seeking to stifle adventurous mental journeys, he can only do so by giving them a certain amount of weight and interest. Pope seeks a way out of this paradox by contrasting visions: human vision is limited to its own state, but can reason and infer other states from that position. EM, I: 21—8. Again the proposition is that our limited vision cannot see only the limitations of our place in the chain, and not its active dynamism:.
EM, I: 57— Our cosmological position is also limited temporally by our blindness to the future, and Pope reminds us of our superiority of knowledge over other creatures on earth, to indicate our own inferiority to creatures we cannot but again, do imagine I: 81—6. We might imagine, for example, a Heaven. EM, I: 87— Pope discovers this intellectual pride to operate at more or less every level of human experience, including the bodily senses. Why has not Man a microscopic eye For this plain reason, Man is not a Fly. Pope is resisting the imaginative world opened up by improved microscopic technology, just as his cosmic vision ambivalently absorbs the epochal discoveries in physics made by Newton; his moral point is that Man has the right amount of perception for his state and position in the system, no more and no less.
The reason we cannot, and should not seek to, break this bound or alter our place on the ladder, is correspondingly huge in its theological overtones. Since the system which Pope has imagined is cosmological, if anything steps out of line the entire cosmos is ruined:. Pope works up this dominating, pacifying rhetoric partly out of a sense of his own poetic audacity and its closeness to the aspirations of reason and pride. The second Epistle sets about redeploying those energies of enquiry into the microcosmos of the human mind.
Using his favourite device of the telling oxymoron, Man becomes a miniature cosmology which has internalised that war which Milton turns into narrative: he is both Adam and Satan, top and bottom of the scale. Could he, whose rules the rapid Comet bind, Describe or fix one movement of his Mind Who saw its fires here rise, and there descend, Explain his own beginning, or his end EM, II: 35—8. Self-love is a kind of id, appetitive, desiring, urging, instigating action; reason is an ego which judges, guides, advises, makes purposeful theenergies of self-love. Without these complementary forces human nature would be either ineffectual or destructive this is the true cosmic drama :. EM, II: 61—6. Across the structure of the epistle, Heaven has replaced science as the artist of the mind, with society as the place in which psychomachic forces operate to a benign ratio.
EM, III: 9— Sociality is the basic pattern of all nature; life-cycles provide a chronological sequencing of the same principle, one which should remind us of our own place in the scheme, a mutual dependency of created things III: 21—6. JONATHAN SWIFT - Literary Criticism An Introduction Why Criticism Literary criticism. Art Criticism Art Criticism n Art Criticism is. Alexander Pope An Essay on Man Contents Alexander. The Rape of the Lock Alexander Pope Pope. http www smsu eduacademicscollegenowliterary20 criticism ppt LITERARY CRITICISM. Literary Criticism Genre Criticism You analyze and critique. Gay and Lesbian Literature Lesbian Criticism Lesbian criticism. Literary Criticism Literary criticism is the study discussion.
Lecture 14 Historical Criticism Some Definitions Bible Criticism. Constructive Criticism Criticism may not be agreeable but. ART CRITICISM Describe Analysis Interpret Judgment ART CRITICISM. SOURCE CRITICISM Source criticism studies the specific problem. 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. 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. who chained his country, say, Or he whose virtue sighed to lose a day? Is the reward of virtue bread? The good man may be weak, be indolent; Nor is his claim to plenty, but content.
why private? why no king? 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? 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.
a wise man and a fool. 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? not all the blood of all the Howards. Look next on greatness; say where greatness lies? 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. 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. 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 Cæsar dead; Alike or when, or where, they shone, or shine, Or on the Rubicon, or on the Rhine.
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 Cæsar with a senate at his heels. In parts superior what advantage lies? Tell for you can what is it to be wise? Painful pre-eminence! To sigh for ribands if thou art so silly, Mark how they grace Lord Umbra, or Sir Billy: Is yellow dirt the passion of thy life? If all, united, thy ambition call, From ancient story learn to scorn them all.
There, in the rich, the honoured, famed, and great, See the false scale of happiness complete! In hearts of kings, or arms of queens who lay, How happy! those to ruin, these betray. Oh, wealth ill-fated! Some greedy minion, or imperious wife. The trophied arches, storeyed halls invade And haunt their slumbers in the pompous shade. See the sole bliss Heaven could on all bestow! For Him alone, hope leads from goal to goal, And opens still, and opens on his soul! Till lengthened on to faith, and unconfined, It pours the bliss that fills up all the mind He sees, why Nature plants in man alone Hope of known bliss, and faith in bliss unknown: Nature, whose dictates to no other kind Are given in vain, but what they seek they find Wise is her present; she connects in this His greatest virtue with his greatest bliss; At once his own bright prospect to be blest, And strongest motive to assist the rest.
Is this too little for the boundless heart? 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, As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake! Come, then, my friend! my genius! come along; Oh, master of the poet, and the song! while along the stream of time thy name Expanded flies, and gathers all its fame, Say, shall my little bark attendant sail, Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale? When statesmen, heroes, kings, in dust repose, Whose sons shall blush their fathers were thy foes, Shall then this verse to future age pretend Thou wert my guide, philosopher, and friend?
Father of all! in every age, In every clime adored, By saint, by savage, and by sage, Jehovah, Jove, or Lord! Thou Great First Cause, least understood, Who all my sense confined To know but this, that Thou art good, And that myself am blind;. Yet gave me, in this dark estate, To see the good from ill; And binding Nature fast in fate, Left free the human will. What conscience dictates to be done, Or warns me not to do, This, teach me more than Hell to shun, That, more than Heaven pursue. What blessings Thy free bounty gives, Let me not cast away; For God is paid when man receives, To enjoy is to obey. Let not this weak, unknowing hand Presume Thy bolts to throw, And deal damnation round the land, On each I judge Thy foe. If I am right, Thy grace impart, Still in the right to stay; If I am wrong, oh, teach my heart To find that better way.
Save me alike from foolish pride, Or impious discontent, At aught Thy wisdom has denied, Or aught Thy goodness lent. Est brevitate opus, ut currat sententia, neu se Impediat verbis lassas onerantibus aures: Et sermone opus est modo tristi, sæpe jocoso, Defendente vicem modo Rhetoris atque Poetæ, Interdum urbani, parcentis viribus, atque Extenuantis eas consultò. That it is not sufficient for this knowledge to consider Man in the Abstract: Books will not serve the purpose, nor yet our own Experience singly, v. General maxims, unless they be formed upon both, will be but notional, v. Some Peculiarity in every man, characteristic to himself, yet varying from himself, v. Difficulties arising from our own Passions, Fancies, Faculties, etc. The shortness of Life, to observe in, and the uncertainty of the Principles of action in men, to observe by, v.
Our own Principle of action often hid from ourselves, v. Some few Characters plain, but in general confounded, dissembled, or inconsistent, v. The same man utterly different in different places and seasons, v. Unimaginable weaknesses in the greatest, v. Nothing constant and certain but God and Nature, v. No judging of the Motives from the actions; the same actions proceeding from contrary Motives, and the same Motives influencing contrary actions v. Characters given according to the rank of men of the world, v. And some reason for it, v. Education alters the Nature, or at least Character of many, v.
Actions, Passions, Opinions, Manners, Humours, or Principles all subject to change. No judging by Nature, from v. 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, v. Instanced in the extraordinary character of Clodio, v. A caution against mistaking second qualities for first, which will destroy all possibility of the knowledge of mankind, v. Examples of the strength of the Ruling Passion, and its continuation to the last breath, v.
Yes, you despise the man to books confined, Who from his study rails at human kind; Though what he learns he speaks, and may advance Some general maxims, or be right by chance. And yet the fate of all extremes is such, Men may be read as well as books, too much. Grant but as many sorts of mind as moss. Our depths who fathoms, or our shallows finds, Quick whirls, and shifting eddies, of our minds? Like following life through creatures you dissect, You lose it in the moment you detect. Yet more; the difference is as great between The optics seeing, as the object seen. All manners take a tincture from our own; Or come discoloured through our passions shown.
As the last image of that troubled heap, When sense subsides, and fancy sports in sleep Though past the recollection of the thought , Becomes the stuff of which our dream is wrought: Something as dim to our internal view, Is thus, perhaps, the cause of most we do. When flattery glares, all hate it in a queen, While one there is who charms us with his spleen. But these plain characters we rarely find; Though strong the bent, yet quick the turns of mind: Or puzzling contraries confound the whole; Or affectations quite reverse the soul.
See the same man, in vigour, in the gout; Alone, in company; in place, or out; Early at business, and at hazard late; Mad at a fox-chase, wise at a debate; Drunk at a borough, civil at a ball; Friendly at Hackney, faithless at Whitehall. Catius is ever moral, ever grave, Thinks who endures a knave is next a knave, Save just at dinner—then prefers, no doubt, A rogue with venison to a saint without. all interests weighed, All Europe saved, yet Britain not betrayed. He thanks you not, his pride is in piquet, Newmarket-fame, and judgment at a bet. What made say Montagne, or more sage Charron Otho a warrior, Cromwell a buffoon? A perjured prince a leaden saint revere, A godless regent tremble at a star? The throne a bigot keep, a genius quit, Faithless through piety, and duped through wit?
Europe a woman, child, or dotard rule, And just her wisest monarch made a fool? Know, God and Nature only are the same: In man, the judgment shoots at flying game, A bird of passage! gone as soon as found, Now in the moon, perhaps, now under ground. In vain the sage, with retrospective eye, Would from the apparent what conclude the why, Infer the motive from the deed, and show, That what we chanced was what we meant to do. if fortune or a mistress frowns, Some plunge in business, others shave their crowns: To ease the soul of one oppressive weight, This quits an empire, that embroils a state: The same adust complexion has impelled Charles to the convent, Philip to the field.
Not always actions show the man: we find Who does a kindness, is not therefore kind; Perhaps prosperity becalmed his breast, Perhaps the wind just shifted from the east: Not therefore humble he who seeks retreat, Pride guides his steps, and bids him shun the great: Who combats bravely is not therefore brave, He dreads a death-bed like the meanest slave: Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise, His pride in reasoning, not in acting lies. But grant that actions best discover man; Take the most strong, and sort them as you can. The few that glare each character must mark; You balance not the many in the dark. What will you do with such as disagree? Suppress them, or miscall them policy? Must then at once the character to save The plain rough hero turn a crafty knave?
in truth the man but changed his mind, Perhaps was sick, in love, or had not dined. Ask why from Britain Cæsar would retreat? Cæsar himself might whisper he was beat. Cæsar perhaps might answer he was drunk. But, sage historians! Though the same sun with all-diffusive rays Blush in the rose, and in the diamond blaze, We prize the stronger effort of his power, And justly set the gem above the flower. Boastful and rough, your first son is a squire; The next a tradesman, meek, and much a liar; Tom struts a soldier, open, bold, and brave; Will sneaks a scrivener, an exceeding knave: Is he a Churchman? sly: A Presbyterian? sour: } A smart Freethinker? all things in an hour.
That gay Freethinker, a fine talker once, What turns him now a stupid silent dunce? Some god, or spirit he has lately found: Or chanced to meet a minister that frowned. Judge we by Nature? those uncertainty divides: By passions? these dissimulation hides: Opinions? they still take a wider range: Find, if you can, in what you cannot change. Manners with fortunes, humours turn with climes, Tenets with books, and principles with times. Search then the ruling passion: there, alone, The wild are constant, and the cunning known; The fool consistent, and the false sincere; Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here. This clue once found, unravels all the rest, The prospect clears, and Wharton stands confest. Shall parts so various aim at nothing new! Thus with each gift of nature and of art, And wanting nothing but an honest heart; Grown all to all, from no one vice exempt; And most contemptible, to shun contempt: His passion still, to covet general praise, His life, to forfeit it a thousand ways; A constant bounty which no friend has made; An angel tongue, which no man can persuade; A fool, with more of wit than half mankind, Too rash for thought, for action too refined: A tyrant to the wife his heart approves; A rebel to the very king he loves; He dies, sad outcast of each church and state, And, harder still!
flagitious, yet not great. Ask you why Wharton broke through every rule? Nature well known, no prodigies remain, Comets are regular, and Wharton plain. Yet, in this search, the wisest may mistake, If second qualities for first they take. Lucullus, when frugality could charm, Had roasted turnips in the Sabine farm. In this one passion man can strength enjoy, As fits give vigour, just when they destroy. Time, that on all things lays his lenient hand, Yet tames not this; it sticks to our last sand. Consistent in our follies and our sins, Here honest Nature ends as she begins.
Behold a reverend sire, whom want of grace Has made the father of a nameless race, Shoved from the wall perhaps, or rudely pressed By his own son, that passes by unblessed: Still to his haunt he crawls on knocking knees, And envies every sparrow that he sees. Is there no hope! in woollen! what, all? And you! How many pictures of one nymph we view, All how unlike each other, all how true! Here Fannia, leering on her own good man, And there, a naked Leda with a swan. Come then, the colours and the ground prepare! Dip in the rainbow, trick her off in air; Choose a firm cloud, before it fall, and in it Catch, ere she change, the Cynthia of this minute.
How soft is Silia! Sudden, she storms! she raves! You tip the wink, But spare your censure; Silia does not drink. All eyes may see from what the change arose, All eyes may see—a pimple on her nose. Why pique all mortals, yet affect a name? A fool to pleasure, yet a slave to fame: Now deep in Taylor and the Book of Martyrs, Now drinking citron with his grace and Chartres: Now Conscience chills her, and now Passion burns; And Atheism and Religion take their turns; A very heathen in the carnal part, Yet still a sad, good Christian at her heart. What then? What has not fired her bosom or her brain? Cæsar and Tall-boy, Charles and Charlemagne.
Say, what can cause such impotence of mind? A spark too fickle, or a spouse too kind. Wise wretch! Or her, whose life the Church and scandal share, For ever in a passion, or a prayer. Woman and fool are two hard things to hit; For true no-meaning puzzles more than wit. Scarce once herself, by turns all womankind! No thought advances, but her eddy brain Whisks it about, and down it goes again. Full sixty years the world has been her trade, The wisest fool much time has ever made From loveless youth to unrespected age, No passion gratified except her rage. So much the fury still outran the wit, The pleasure missed her, and the scandal hit. Her every turn with violence pursued, Nor more a storm her hate than gratitude: To that each passion turns, or soon or late; Love, if it makes her yield, must make her hate: Superiors?
and equals? what a curse! But an inferior not dependent? by the means defeated of the ends, By spirit robbed of power, by warmth of friend By wealth of followers! without one distress Sick of herself through very selfishness! Atossa, cursed with every granted prayer, Childless with all her children, wants an heir. To heirs unknown descends the unguarded store, Or wanders, Heaven-directed, to the poor. Chameleons who can paint in white and black? She speaks, behaves, and acts just as she ought; But never, never, reached one generous thought.
Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour, Content to dwell in decencies for ever. So very reasonable, so unmoved, As never yet to love, or to be loved. She, while her lover pants upon her breast, Can mark the figures on an Indian chest; And when she sees her friend in deep despair, Observes how much a chintz exceeds mohair. Of all her dears she never slandered one, But cares not if a thousand are undone. She bids her footman put it in her head. Chloe is prudent—would you too be wise? Then never break your heart when Chloe dies. One certain portrait may I grant be seen, Which Heaven has varnished out, and made a Queen. The same for ever! and described by all With truth and goodness, as with crown and ball. Poets heap virtues, painters gems at will, And show their zeal, and hide their want of skill.
who can paint or write, To draw the naked is your true delight. That robe of quality so struts and swells, None see what parts of nature it conceals: The exactest traits of body or of mind, We owe to models of an humble kind. In men, we various ruling passions find; In women, two almost divide the kind: Those, only fixed they first or last obey— The love of pleasure, and the love of sway. That, Nature gives; and where the lesson taught Is but to please, can pleasure seem a fault? Men, some to business, some to pleasure take; But every woman is at heart a rake: Men, some to quiet, some to public strife; But every lady would be queen for life.
Yet mark the fate of a whole sex of queens! Power all their end, but beauty all the means: In youth they conquer, with so wild a rage, As leaves them scarce a subject in their age: For foreign glory, foreign joy, they roam; No thought of peace or happiness at home. Beauties, like tyrants, old and friendless grown, Yet hate repose, and dread to be alone, Worn out in public, weary every eye, Nor leave one sigh behind them when they die. See how the world its veterans rewards! A youth of frolics, an old age of cards; Fair to no purpose, artful to no end; Young without lovers, old without a friend; A fop their passion, but their prize a sot; Alive, ridiculous; and dead, forgot! to dazzle let the vain design; To raise the thought and touch the heart be thine! That it is known to few, most falling into one of the extremes, Avarice or Profusion, v.
The point discussed, whether the invention of money has been more commodious or pernicious to Mankind, v. That Riches, either to the Avaricious or the Prodigal, cannot afford Happiness, scarcely Necessaries, v. That Avarice is an absolute Frenzy, without an end or purpose, v. Conjectures about the motives of Avaricious men, v. That the conduct of men, with respect to Riches, can only be accounted for by the Order of Providence, which works the general good out of extremes, and brings all to its great End by perpetual Revolutions, v. How a Miser acts upon Principles which appear to him reasonable, v. How a Prodigal does the same, v. The due Medium and true use of Riches, v.
The Man of Ross, v. The fate of the Profuse and the Covetous, in two examples; both miserable in Life and in Death, v. The Story of Sir Balaam, v. Who shall decide, when doctors disagree, And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me? You hold the word, from Jove to Momus given, That man was made the standing jest of Heaven; And gold but sent to keep the fools in play, For some to heap, and some to throw away. Like doctors thus, when much dispute has past, We find our tenets just the same at last. Trade it may help, society extend. But lures the pirate, and corrupts the friend. In vain may heroes fight, and patriots rave; If secret gold sap on from knave to knave. last and best supply!
That lends corruption lighter wings to fly! that such bulky bribes as all might see, Still, as of old, encumbered villainy! Could France or Rome divert our brave designs, With all their brandies or with all their wines? What could they more than knights and squires confound, Or water all the Quorum ten miles round? Astride his cheese Sir Morgan might we meet; And Worldly crying coals from street to street, Whom with a wig so wild, and mien so mazed, Pity mistakes for some poor tradesman crazed. Or soft Adonis, so perfumed and fine, Drive to St. Since then, my lord, on such a world we fall, What say you? Why, take it, gold and all.
What Riches give us let us then inquire: Meat, fire, and clothes. What more? Meat, clothes, and fire. Is this too little? would you more than live? What can they give? to dying Hopkins, heirs; To Chartres, vigour; Japhet, nose and ears? Perhaps you think the poor might have their part? Yet, to be just to these poor men of pelf, Each does but hate his neighbour as himself: Damned to the mines, an equal fate betides The slave that digs it, and the slave that hides. Who suffer thus, mere charity should own, Must act on motives powerful, though unknown.
Some war, some plague, or famine they foresee, Some revelation hid from you and me. Why Shylock wants a meal, the cause is found— He thinks a loaf will rise to fifty pound. What made directors cheat in South-Sea year? To live on venison when it sold so dear. Ask you why Phryne the whole auction buys? Phryne foresees a general excise. Why she and Sappho raise that monstrous sum? they fear a man will cost a plum. The crown of Poland, venal twice an age, To just three millions stinted modest Gage. Congenial souls! Much injured Blunt! Riches, like insects, when concealed they lie, Wait but for wings, and in their season fly. Old Cotta shamed his fortune and his birth, Yet was not Cotta void of wit or worth: What though the use of barbarous spits forgot His kitchen vied in coolness with his grot?
His court with nettles, moats with cresses stored, With soups unbought and salads blessed his board? If Cotta lived on pulse, it was no more Than Brahmins, saints, and sages did before; To cram the rich was prodigal expense, And who would take the poor from Providence? Not so his son; he marked this oversight, And then mistook reverse of wrong for right. For what to shun will no great knowledge need; But what to follow is a task indeed. Yet sure, of qualities deserving praise, More go to ruin fortunes, than to raise. What slaughtered hecatombs, what floods of wine, Fill the capacious squire, and deep divine! And shall not Britain now reward his toils, Britain, that pays her patriots with her spoils? In vain at Court the bankrupt pleads his cause, His thankless country leaves him to her laws.
yet unspoiled by wealth! That secret rare, between the extremes to move Of mad good-nature, and of mean self-love. Wealth in the gross is death, but life diffused; As poison heals, in just proportion used: In heaps, like ambergrise, a stink it lies, But well dispersed, is incense to the skies. Who starves by nobles, or with nobles eats? The wretch that trusts them, and the rogue that cheats. Is there a lord who knows a cheerful noon Without a fiddler, flatterer, or buffoon? There, English bounty yet awhile may stand, And Honour linger ere it leaves the land.
But all our praises why should lords engross? Rise, honest Muse! and sing the Man of Ross: Pleased Vaga echoes through her winding bounds, And rapid Severn hoarse applause resounds. From the dry rock who bade the waters flow? Not to the skies in useless columns tost, Or in proud falls magnificently lost, But clear and artless, pouring through the plain Health to the sick, and solace to the swain. Whose causeway parts the vale with shady rows? Whose seats the weary traveller repose? Who taught that heaven-directed spire to rise? The Man of Ross divides the weekly bread; He feeds yon almshouse, neat, but void of state, Where age and want sit smiling at the gate; Him portioned maids, apprenticed orphans blest, The young who labour, and the old who rest.
Is any sick? the Man of Ross relieves, Prescribes, attends, the medicine makes, and gives. Is there a variance? enter but his door, Baulked are the courts, and contest is no more. Despairing quacks with curses fled the place, And vile attorneys, now a useless race. Thrice happy man! enabled to pursue What all so wish, but want the power to do! Oh say, what sums that generous hand supply? What mines, to swell that boundless charity? Of debts, and taxes, wife and children clear, This man possest—five hundred pounds a year. Blush, grandeur, blush! proud courts, withdraw your blaze! Ye little stars, hide your diminished rays! And what?
no monument, inscription, stone? His race, his form, his name almost unknown? Who builds a church to God, and not to Fame, Will never mark the marble with his name; Go, search it there, where to be born and die, Of rich and poor makes all the history; Enough, that virtue filled the space between; Proved, by the ends of being, to have been. Behold what blessings wealth to life can lend! And see what comfort it affords our end. how changed from him, That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim! No wit to flatter left of all his store! No fool to laugh at, which he valued more. There, victor of his health, of fortune, friends, And fame, this lord of useless thousands ends.
That I can do, when all I have is gone. Thy life more wretched, Cutler, was confessed, Arise, and tell me, was thy death more blessed? Cutler saw tenants break, and houses fall, For very want; he could not build a wall. What even denied a cordial at his end, Banished the doctor, and expelled the friend? What but a want, which you perhaps think mad, Yet numbers feel the want of what he had! and wealth! what are ye but a name! Or are they both in this their own reward? A knotty point! to which we now proceed. The devil was piqued such saintship to behold, And longed to tempt him like good Job of old: But Satan now is wiser than of yore, And tempts by making rich, not making poor.
Roused by the prince of Air, the whirlwinds sweep The surge, and plunge his father in the deep; Then full against his Cornish lands they roar, And two rich shipwrecks bless the lucky shore. two puddings smoked upon the board. Asleep and naked as an Indian lay, An honest factor stole a gem away: He pledged it to the knight; the knight had wit, So kept the diamond, and the rogue was bit. per cent. There so the devil ordained one Christmas tide My good old lady catched a cold and died. Stephen gains. My lady falls to play; so bad her chance, He must repair it; takes a bribe from France; The House impeach him; Coningsby harangues; The Court forsake him, and Sir Balaam hangs; Wife, son, and daughter, Satan!
are thine own, His wealth, yet dearer, forfeit to the Crown: The Devil and the King divide the prize, And sad Sir Balaam curses God and dies. The Vanity of Expense in people of Wealth and Quality. The abuse of the word Taste, v. That the first Principle and foundation, in this as in everything else, is Good Sense, v. The chief Proof of it is to follow Nature even in works of mere Luxury and Elegance. Instanced in Architecture and Gardening, where all must be adapted to the Genius and Use of the Place, and the Beauties not forced into it, but resulting from it, v. How men are disappointed in their most expensive undertakings, for want of this true Foundation, without which nothing can please long, if at all: and the best Examples and Rules will but be perverted into something burdensome or ridiculous, v.
A description of the false Taste of Magnificence; the first grand Error of which is to imagine that Greatness consists in the size and dimension, instead of the Proportion and Harmony of the whole, v. A word or two of false Taste in Books, in Music, in Painting, even in Preaching and Prayer, and lastly in Entertainments, v. Yet Providence is justified in giving Wealth to be squandered in this manner, since it is dispersed to the poor and laborious part of mankind, v. What are the proper objects of Magnificence, and a proper field for the Expense of Great Men, v.
Not for himself he sees, or hears, or eats; Artists must choose his pictures, music, meats: He buys for Topham, drawings and designs, For Pembroke, statues, dirty gods, and coins; Rare monkish manuscripts for Hearne alone, And books for Mead, and butterflies for Sloane. Think we all these are for himself? no more Than his fine wife, alas! For what has Virro painted, built, and planted?
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