"What differ more (you cry) than crown and
I'll tell you friend, a wise man and a fool.
You'll find, if once the monarch acts the monk, Or, cobler-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 mayst 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 are 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
'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 fanci'd life in others breath,
A thing beyond us, e'en before our death.
Just what you hear, you have, and what's
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
As 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 t' oblivion better were resign'd,
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 out-weighs
Of stupid starers, and of loud huzzas;
And more true joy Marcellus exil'd 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 others faults, and feel our own:
Condemn'd in bus'ness 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 risqu'd, 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 ribands 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 shin'd,
The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind:
Or ravish'd with the whistling of a name,
See Cromwell damn'd to everlasting fame!
If all, united, thy ambition call,
From ancient story learn to scorn them all.
There, in the rich, the honor'd, fam'd 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 rais'd the Hero, sunk the Man:
Now Europe's laurels on their brows behold,
But stain'd with blood, or ill exchang'd for gold:
Then see them broke with toils, or sunk in ease,
Or infamous for plunder'd provinces.
Oh wealth ill-fated! which no act of fame
E'er taught to shine, or sanctifi'd from shame!
What greater bliss attends their close of life?
Some greedy minion, or imperious wife,
The trophi'd arches, stori'd halls invade,
And haunt their slumbers in the pompous shade-
Alas! not dazzled with their noon-tide 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, (encugh for man to know) "Virtue alone is happiness below."
The only point where human bliss stands still,
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