Is virtue's prize: a better would you fix?
Then give Humility a coach and six,
Justice a conqueror's sword, or Truth a gown,
Or Public Spirit its great cure, a crown.

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 sigh'st 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 godlike 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 humankind,
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.
Fortune in men has some small difference made,
One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade;
The cobbler aproned, and the parson gowned,
The friar hooded, and the monarch crowned.
What differ more (you cry) than crown and cowl!'
I'll tell you, friend-a wise man and a fool.
You'll find, if once the monarch acts the monk,
Or, cobbler-like, the parson will be drunk;
Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow:
The rest is all but leather or prunella.

Stuck o'er with titles, and hung round with strings,
That thou may'st be by kings, or whores of kings:
Boast the pure blood of an illustrious race,
In quiet flow from Lucrece to Lucrece :
But by your father's worth if yours you rate,
Count me those only who were good and great.
Go! 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?
Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.

Look next on greatness; say where greatness lies:
'Where, but among the heroes and the wise?'
Heroes are much the same, the point's agreed,
From Macedonia's madman to the Swede;
The whole strange purpose of their lives to find,
Or make, an enemy of all mankind!
Not one looks backward, onward still he goes,
Yet ne'er looks forward further than his nose.
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.
But grant that those can conquer, these can cheat;
'Tis phrase absurd to call a villain great!
Who wickedly is wise, or madly brave,
Is but the more a fool, the more a knave.
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.

What's fame? a fancied life in others' breath

A thing beyond us, even before our death.

Just what you hear, you have; and what's unknown, The same (my lord) if Tully's, or your own.

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.
A wit's a feather, and a chief a rod;

An honest man's the noblest work of God.
Fame but from death a villain's name can save,
As justice tears his body from the grave;
When what to oblivion better were resigned,
Is hung on high to poison half mankind.
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?
"Tis but to know how little can be known;
To see all other faults, and feel our own:
Condemned in business or in arts to drudge,
Without a second, or without a judge:
Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land?
All fear, none aid you, and few understand.
Painful pre-eminence! yourself to view
Above life's weakness, and its comforts too.

Bring then these blessings to a strict account;
Make fair deductions; see to what they 'mount:
How much of other each is sure to cost;
How each for other oft is wholly lost;
How inconsistent greater goods with these;
How sometimes life is risked, and always ease:
Think, and if still the things thy envy call,
Say, wouldst thou be the man to whom they fall!
To sigh for ribbons, if thou art so silly,
Mark how they grace Lord Umbra, or Sir Billy:
Is yellow dirt the passion of thy life?
Look but on Gripus, or on Gripus' wife;
If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined,
The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind:
Or ravished with the whistling of a name,
See Cromwell, damned to everlasting fame!
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:
Mark by what wretched steps their glory grows,
From dirt and sea-weed as proud Venice rose;
In each how guilt and greatness equal ran,
And all that raised the hero, sunk the man:
Now Europe's laurels on their brows behold,
But stained with blood, or ill exchanged for gold:
Then see them broke with toils, or sunk in ease,
Or infamous for plundered provinces.
Oh, wealth ill-fated! which no act of fame
Ere taught to shine, or sanctified from shame!
What greater bliss attends their close of life?
Some greedy minion, or imperious wife,
The trophied arches, storied halls invade,
And haunt their slumbers in the pompous shade.
Alas! not dazzled with their noontide ray,
Compute the morn and evening to the day;
The whole amount of that enormous fame,
A tale, that blends their glory with their shame!
Know then this truth (enough for man to know),
'Virtue alone is happiness below.'

The only point where human bliss stands still,
And tastes the good without the fall to ill;
Where only merit constant pay receives,
Is blest in what it takes, and what it gives;
The joy unequalled, if its end it gain,
And if it lose, attended with no pain:
Without satiety, though e'er so blessed,
And but more relished as the more distressed:
The broadest mirth unfeeling Folly wears,
Less pleasing far than Virtue's very tears:

Did some more sober critic come abroad;
If wrong, I smiled; if right, I kissed the rod.
Pains, reading, study, are their just pretence,
And all they want is spirit, taste, and sense.
Commas and points they set exactly right,
And 'twere a sin to rob them of their mite.
Yet ne'er one sprig of laurels graced these ribalds,
From slashing Bentley down to piddling Tibbalds;
Each wight, who reads not, and but scans and spells,
Each word-catcher, that lives on syllables,
Even such small critics some regard may claim,
Preserved in Milton's or in Shakspeare's name.
Pretty! in amber to observe the forms

Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms!
The things we know are neither rich nor rare,
But wonder how the devil they got there.

Were others angry? I excused them too;
Well might they rage, I gave them but their due.
A man's true merit 'tis not hard to find;
But each man's secret standard in his mind,
That casting-weight pride adds to emptiness,
This, who can gratify? for who can guess?
The bard whom pilfered pastorals renown,
Who turns a Persian tale for half-a-crown,
Just writes to make his barrenness appear,

And strains from hard-bound brains eight lines a-year;
He who, still wanting, though he lives on theft,
Steals much, spends little, yet has nothing left:
And he, who now to sense, now nonsense leaning,
Means not, but blunders round about a meaning;
And he, whose fustian's so sublimely bad,
It is not poetry, but prose run mad:
All these my modest satire bade translate,
And owned that nine such poets made a Tate.

How did they fume, and stamp, and roar, and chafe!
And swear, not Addison himself was safe.

Peace to all such! but were there one whose fires True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires; Blest with each talent and each art to please, And born to write, converse, and live with ease: Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne, View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, And hate for arts that caused himself to rise; Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike; Alike reserved to blame, or to commend, A timorous foe, and a suspicious friend; Dreading even fools, by flatterers besieged, And so obliging, that he ne'er obliged; Like Cato, give his little senate laws, And sit attentive to his own applause; While wits and Templars every sentence raise, And wonder with a foolish face of praise. Who but must laugh, if such a man there be? Who would not weep, if Atticus were he ?*

Who can your merit selfishly approve,
And show the sense of it without the love;
Who has the vanity to call you friend,
Yet wants the honour, injured, to defend ;
Who tells whate'er you think, whate'er you say,
And, if he lie not, must at least betray:
Who reads, but with a lust to misapply,
Makes satire a lampoon, and fiction lie;

A lash like mine no honest man shall dread,
But all such babbling blockheads in his stead.

Let Sporus tremble*-A. What? that thing of silk,
Sporus, that mere white curd of asses' milk?
Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel?
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?

P. Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings,
This painted child of dirt, that stinks and stings;
Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys,
Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'er enjoys:
So well-bred spaniels civilly delight

In mumbling of the game they dare not bite.
Eternal smiles his emptiness betray,

As shallow streams run dimpling all the way;
Whether in florid impotence he speaks,

And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks;
Or at the ear of Eve, familiar toad,

Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad,
In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies,
Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blasphemies;
His wit all seesaw, between that and this,
Now high, now low, now master up, now miss,
And he himself one vile antithesis.
Amphibious thing! that acting either part,
The trifling head, or the corrupted heart,
Fop at the toilet, flatterer at the board,
Now trips a lady, and now struts a lord.
Eve's tempter thus the Rabbins have expressed :
A cherub's face, a reptile all the rest,
Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust,
Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust.
Not fortune's worshipper, nor fashion's fool;
Not lucre's madman, nor ambition's tool;
Not proud nor servile: be one poet's praise,
That, if he pleased, he pleased by manly ways;
That flattery even to kings he held a shame,
And thought a lie in verse or prose the same;
That not in fancy's maze he wandered long,
But stooped to truth, and moralised his song;
That not for fame, but virtue's better end,
He stood the furious foe, the timid friend,
The damning critic, half-approving wit,
The coxcomb hit, or fearing to be hit;
Laughed at the loss of friends he never had,
The dull, the proud, the wicked, and the mad;
The distant threats of vengeance on his head;
The blow, unfelt, the tear he never shed;
The tale revived, the lie so oft o'erthrown,
The imputed trash, and dulness not his own;
The morals blackened when the writings 'scape,
The libelled person, and the pictured shape;
Abuse on all he loved, or loved him, spread,
A friend in exile, or a father dead;
The whisper, that to greatness still too near,
Perhaps yet vibrates on his sovereign's ear.
Welcome to thee, fair Virtue, all the past;
For thee, fair Virtue! welcome even the last!
The Man of Ross.+

[From the Moral Essays. Epistle III.] But all our praises why should lords engross! Rise, honest Muse! and sing the Man of Ross: * Lord Hervey.

The Man of Ross was Mr John Kyrle, who died in 1724, aged 90, and was interred in the church of Ross, in Herefordshire, Mr Kyrle was enabled to effect many of his benevolent purposes by the assistance of liberal subscriptions. Pope had been in Ross, on his way from Lord Bathurst's to Lord Oxford.

POETS.

Ah, Colin! give not her thy vows, Vows due to me alone;

Nor thou, fond maid! receive his kiss,
Nor think him all thy own.

To-morrow in the church to wed,
Impatient both prepare;

But know, fond maid! and know, false man!
That Lucy will be there.

Then bear my corse, my comrades! bear,
This bridegroom blithe to meet;
He in his wedding trim so gay,

I in my winding sheet.'

She spoke; she died. Her corpse was borne
The bridegroom blithe to meet;
He in his wedding trim so gay,
She in her winding sheet.

Then what were perjured Colin's thoughts?
How were these nuptials kept?
The bridesmen flocked round Lucy dead,
And all the village wept.
Confusion, shame, remorse, despair,
At once his bosom swell;

The damps of death bedewed his brow;
He shook, he groaned, he fell.

From the vain bride, ah! bride no more!
The varying crimson fled,
When stretched before her rival's corpse
She saw her husband dead.

Then to his Lucy's new made grave

Conveyed by trembling swains,
One mould with her, beneath one sod,
For ever he remains.

Oft at this grave the constant hind
And plighted maid are seen;
With garlands gay and true-love knots
They deck the sacred green.

But, swain forsworn! whoe'er thou art,
This hallowed spot forbear;
Remember Colin's dreadful fate,
And fear to meet him there.

SIR SAMUEL GARTH.

Speak, goddess! since 'tis thou that best canst tell,
How ancient leagues to modern discord fell;
And why physicians were so cautious grown
Of others' lives, and lavish of their own;
How by a journey to the Elysian plain,
Peace triumphed, and old time returned again.
Not far from that most celebrated place,
Where angry justice shows her awful face;
Where little villains must submit to fate,
That great ones may enjoy the world in state;
There stands a dome,2 majestic to the sight,
And sumptuous arches bear its oval height;
A golden globe, placed high with artful skill,
Seems, to the distant sight, a gilded pill;
This pile was, by the pious patron's aim,
Raised for a use as noble as its frame;
Nor did the learned society decline
The propagation of that great design;
In all her mazes, Nature's face they viewed,
And, as she disappeared, their search pursued.
Wrapt in the shade of night the goddess lies,
Yet to the learned unveils her dark disguise,
But shuns the gross access of vulgar eyes.

Now she unfolds the faint and dawning strife
Of infant atoms kindling into life;
How ductile matter new meanders takes,
And slender trains of twisting fibres makes;
And how the viscous seeks a closer tone,
By just degrees to harden into bone;
While the more loose flow from the vital urn,
And in full tides of purple streams return;
How lambent flames from life's bright lamps
arise,

And dart in emanations through the eyes;
How from each sluice a gentle torrent pours,
To slake a feverish heat with ambient showers;
Whence their mechanic powers the spirits claim;
How great their force, how delicate their frame;
How the same nerves are fashioned to sustain
The greatest pleasure and the greatest pain;
Why bilious juice a golden light puts on,
And floods of chyle in silver currents run;
How the dim speck of entity began

To extend its recent form, and stretch to man;
Why envy oft transforms with wan disguise,
And why gay Mirth sits smiling in the eyes;
Whence Milo's vigour at the Olympic's shown,
Whence tropes to Finch, or impudence to Sloane;
How matter, by the varied shape of pores
Or idiots frames, or solemn senators.

Hence 'tis we wait the wondrous cause to find,
How body acts upon impassive mind;
How fumes of wine the thinking part can fire,
Past hopes revive, and present joys inspire;
Why our complexions oft our soul declare,
And how the passions in the features are;
How touch and harmony arise between
Corporeal figure, and a form unseen;
How quick their faculties the limbs fulfil,
And act at every summons of the will;
With mighty truths, mysterious to descry,
Which in the womb of distant causes lie.

But now no grand inquiries are descried;
Mean faction reigns where knowledge should preside;
Feuds are increased, and learning laid aside;
Thus synods oft concern for faith conceal,
And for important nothings show a zeal:
The drooping sciences neglected pine,
And Paan's beams with fading lustre shine..
No readers here with hectic looks are found,
Nor eyes in rheum, through midnight-watching

drowned:

The lonely edifice in sweats complains
That nothing there but sullen silence reigns.

Before the face of Ilion, and her bright turrets showed. A thousand courts of guard kept fires, and every guard allowed

Fifty stout men, by whom their horse eat oats, and hard-white corn,

And all did wilfully expect the silver-throned morn.
Cowper's translation is brief, but vivid and distinct :-
As when around the clear bright moon, the stars
Shine in full splendour, and the winds are bushed,
The groves, the mountain-tops, the headland heights
Stand all apparent, not a vapour streaks
The boundless blue, but ether opened wide
All glitters, and the shepherd's heart is cheered.

THOMAS TICKELL.

The friendship of Addison has shed a reflected light on some of his contemporaries, and it elevated them, in their own day, to considerable importance. Amongst these was THOMAS TICKELL (1686–1740), born at Bridekirk, near Carlisle, and educated at Oxford. He was a writer in the Spectator and Guardian, and when Addison went to Ireland as secretary to Lord Sunderland, Tickell accompanied him, and was employed in public business. He published

a translation of the first book of the Iliad at the same

time with Pope. Addison and the Whigs pronounced it to be the best, while the Tories ranged under the banner of Pope. The circumstance led to a breach of the friendship betwixt Addison and Pope, which was never healed. Addison continued his patronage of Tickell, made him his under secretary of state, and left him the charge of publishing his works. Tickell had elegance and tenderness as a poet, but was deficient in variety and force. His ballad of Colin and Lucy' is worth all his other works. It has the simplicity and pathos of the elder lyrics, without their too frequent coarseness and abrupt transitions. His Elegy on the Death of Addison' is considered by Johnson one of the most elegant and sublime funeral poems in the language. The author's own friend, Steele, considered it only 'prose in rhyme!' The following extract contains the best verses in the elegy:

Oft let me range the gloomy aisles alone,
Sad luxury! to vulgar minds unknown,
Along the walls where speaking marbles show
What worthies form the hallowed mould below;
Proud names! who once the reins of empire held,
In arms who triumphed, or in arts excelled;
Chiefs graced with scars, and prodigal of blood,
Stern patriots, who for sacred freedom stood;
Just men by whom impartial laws were given,
And saints who taught and led the way to heaven.
Ne'er to these chambers where the mighty rest,
Since their foundation came a nobler guest;
Nor e'er was to the bowers of bliss conveyed
A fairer spirit, or more welcome shade.

In what new region to the just assigned,

What new employments please the unbodied mind?
A winged virtue through the ethereal sky,
From world to world unwearied does he fly;
Or curious trace the long laborious maze

Of Heaven's decrees, where wondering angels gaze!
Does he delight to hear bold seraphs tell
How Michael battled, and the dragon fell;
Or, mixed with milder cherubim, to glow
In hymns of love not ill essayed below?
Or dost thou warn poor mortals left behind?
A task well suited to thy gentle mind.
Oh! if sometimes thy spotless form descend,
To me thy aid, thou guardian genius! lend.

When rage misguides me, or when fear alarms,
When pain distresses, or when pleasure charms,
In silent whisp'rings purer thoughts impart,
And turn from ill a frail and feeble heart;
Lead through the paths thy virtue trod before,
Till bliss shall join, nor death can part no more.
That awful form which, so the Heavens decree,
Must still be loved, and still deplored by me,
In nightly visions seldom fails to rise,

Or roused by Fancy, meets my waking eyes.
If business calls, or crowded courts invite,
The unblemished statesman seems to strike my sight;
If in the stage I seek to soothe my care,

I meet his soul, which breathes in Cato there;
If pensive to the rural shades I rove,
His step o'ertakes me in the lonely grove;
'Twas there of just and good he reasoned strong,
Cleared some great truth, or raised some serious song;
There patient showed us the wise course to steer,
There taught us how to live, and (oh! too high
A candid censor, and a friend severe;
The price for knowledge) taught us how to die.

Thou hill! whose brow the antique structures grace,
Reared by bold chiefs of Warwick's noble race;
Why, once so loved, whene'er thy bower appears,
How sweet were once thy prospects fresh and fair,
O'er my dim eyeballs glance the sudden tears!
Thy sloping walks, and unpolluted air!
How sweet the glooms beneath thy aged trees,
Thy noontide shadow, and thy evening breeze!
His image thy forsaken bowers restore,
Thy walks and airy prospects charm no more;
No more the summer in thy glooms allayed,
Thy evening breezes, and thy noonday shade.

Colin and Lucy.-A Ballad.

Of Leinster, famed for maidens fair,
Bright Lucy was the grace,
Nor e'er did Liffy's limpid stream
Reflect so sweet a face;

Till luckless love and pining care
Impaired her rosy hue,

Her coral lips and damask cheeks,
And eyes of glossy blue.

Oh! have you seen a lily pale

When beating rains descend? So drooped the slow-consuming maid, Her life now near its end.

By Lucy warned, of flattering swains
Take heed, ye easy fair!
Of vengeance due to broken vows,
Ye perjured swains! beware.

Three times all in the dead of night
A bell was heard to ring,
And shrieking, at her window thrice
The raven flapped his wing.

Too well the love-lorn maiden knew
The solemn boding sound,
And thus in dying words bespoke
The virgins weeping round:

'I hear a voice you cannot hear,
Which says I must not stay;
I see a hand you cannot see,
Which beckons me away.

By a false heart and broken vows
In early youth I die.

Was I to blame because his bride
Was thrice as rich as I?