An Essay on Man Part 7

Gold imped by thee can compa.s.s hardest things, Can pocket states, can fetch or carry kings; A single leaf shall waft an army o'er, Or s.h.i.+p off senates to a distant sh.o.r.e; A leaf, like Sibyl's, scatter to and fro Our fates and fortunes, as the winds shall blow: Pregnant with thousands flits the sc.r.a.p unseen, And silent sells a king, or buys a queen.

Oh! that such bulky bribes as all might see, Still, as of old, enc.u.mbered 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?

A statesman's slumbers how this speech would spoil!

"Sir, Spain has sent a thousand jars of oil; Huge bales of British cloth blockade the door; A hundred oxen at your levee roar."

Poor Avarice one torment more would find; Nor could Profusion squander all in kind.

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.

Had Colepepper's whole wealth been hops and hogs, Could he himself have sent it to the dogs?

His Grace will game: to White's a bull be led, With spurning heels and with a b.u.t.ting head.

To White's be carried, as to ancient games, Fair coursers, vases, and alluring dames.

Shall then Uxorio, if the stakes he sweep, Bear home six w****s, and make his lady weep?

Or soft Adonis, so perfumed and fine, Drive to St. James's a whole herd of swine?

Oh, filthy cheek on all industrious skill, To spoil the nation's last great trade, Quadrille!

Since then, my lord, on such a world we fall, What say you? B. Say? Why, take it, gold and all.

P. What Riches give us let us then inquire: Meat, fire, and clothes. B. What more? P. Meat, clothes, and fire.

Is this too little? would you more than live?

Alas! 'tis more than Turner finds they give.

Alas! 'tis more than (all his visions past) Unhappy Wharton, waking, found at last!

What can they give? to dying Hopkins, heirs; To Chartres, vigour; j.a.phet, nose and ears?

Can they in gems bid pallid Hippia glow, In Fulvia's buckle ease the throbs below; Or heal, old Na.r.s.es, thy obscener ail, With all th' embroid'ry plastered at thy tail?

They might (were Harpax not too wise to spend) Give Harpax' self the blessing of a friend; Or find some doctor that would save the life Of wretched Shylock, spite of Shylock's wife: But thousands die, without or this or that, Die, and endow a college, or a cat.

To some, indeed, Heaven grants the happier fate, T' enrich a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, or a son they hate.

Perhaps you think the poor might have their part?

Bond d.a.m.ns the poor, and hates them from his heart: The grave Sir Gilbert holds it for a rule, That "every man in want is knave or fool:"

"G.o.d cannot love," says Blunt, with tearless eyes, "The wretch He starves"-and piously denies: But the good bishop, with a meeker air, Admits, and leaves them-Providence's care.

Yet, to be just to these poor men of pelf, Each does but hate his neighbour as himself: d.a.m.ned to the mines, an equal fate betides The slave that digs it, and the slave that hides.

B. Who suffer thus, mere charity should own, Must act on motives powerful, though unknown.

P. 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?

Alas! they fear a man will cost a plum.

Wise Peter sees the world's respect for gold, And therefore hopes this nation may be sold: Glorious ambition! Peter, swell thy store, And be what Rome's great Didius was before.

The crown of Poland, venal twice an age, To just three millions stinted modest Gage.

But n.o.bler scenes Maria's dreams unfold, Hereditary realms, and worlds of gold.

Congenial souls! whose life one av'rice joins, And one fate buries in th' Asturian mines.

Much injured Blunt! why bears he Britain's hate?

A wizard told him in these words our fate: "At length corruption, like a gen'ral flood (So long by watchful Ministers withstood), Shall deluge all; and av'rice, creeping on, Spread like a low-born mist, and blot the sun; Statesman and patriot ply alike the stocks, Peeress and butler share alike the box, And judges job, and bishops bite the town, And mighty dukes pack cards for half-a-crown.

See Britain sunk in Lucre's sordid charms, And France revenged of Anne's and Edward's arms!"

'Twas no Court-badge, great Scriv'ner! fired thy brain, Nor lordly luxury, nor City gain: No, 'twas thy righteous end, ashamed to see Senates degen'rate, patriots disagree, And, n.o.bly wis.h.i.+ng party-rage to cease, To buy both sides, and give thy country peace.

"All this is madness," cries a sober sage: But who, my friend, has reason in his rage?

"The ruling pa.s.sion, be it what it will, The ruling pa.s.sion conquers reason still."

Less mad the wildest whimsey we can frame, Than even that pa.s.sion, if it has no aim; For though such motives folly you may call, The folly's greater to have none at all.

Hear then the truth: "'Tis Heaven each pa.s.sion sends, And different men directs to different ends.

Extremes in nature equal good produce, Extremes in man concur to gen'ral use."

Ask we what makes one keep, and one bestow?

That Power who bids the ocean ebb and flow, Bids seed-time, harvest, equal course maintain, Through reconciled extremes of drought and rain, Builds life on death, on change duration founds, And gives th' eternal wheels to know their rounds.

Riches, like insects, when concealed they lie, Wait but for wings, and in their season fly.

Who sees pale Mammon pine amidst his store, Sees but a backward steward for the poor; This year a reservoir, to keep and spare; The next, a fountain, spouting through his heir, In lavish streams to quench a country's thirst, And men and dogs shall drink him till they burst.

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?

Like some lone Chartreux stands the good old hall, Silence without, and fasts within the wall; No raftered roofs with dance and tabor sound, No noontide bell invites the country round; Tenants with sighs the smokeless towers survey, And turn th' unwilling steeds another way; Benighted wanderers, the forest o'er, Curse the saved candle and unopening door; While the gaunt mastiff growling at the gate, Affrights the beggar whom he longs to eat.

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!

Yet no mean motive this profusion draws; His oxen perish in his country's cause; 'Tis George and Liberty that crowns the cup, And zeal for that great house which eats him up.

The woods recede around the naked seat; The sylvans groan-no matter-for the fleet; Next goes his wool-to clothe our valiant bands; Last, for his country's love, he sells his lands.

To town he comes, completes the nation's hope, And heads the bold train-bands, and burns a Pope.

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.

The sense to value riches, with the art T' enjoy them, and the virtue to impart, Not meanly, nor ambitiously pursued, Not sunk by sloth, nor raised by servitude; To balance fortune by a just expense, Join with economy, magnificence; With splendour, charity; with plenty, health; O teach us, Bathurst! yet unspoiled by wealth!

That secret rare, between the extremes to move Of mad good-nature, and of mean self-love.

B. To worth or want well weighed, be bounty given, And ease, or emulate, the care of Heaven (Whose measure full o'erflows on human race); Mend Fortune's fault, and justify her grace.

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.

P. Who starves by n.o.bles, or with n.o.bles 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?

Whose table, wit or modest merit share, Unelbowed by a gamester, pimp, or play'r?

Who copies yours or Oxford's better part, To ease the oppressed, and raise the sinking heart?

Where'er he s.h.i.+nes, O Fortune, gild the scene, And angels guard him in the golden mean!

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 hoa.r.s.e applause resounds.

Who hung with woods you mountain's sultry brow?

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," each lisping babe replies.

Behold the market-place with poor o'erspread!

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.

B. 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?

P. Of debts, and taxes, wife and children clear, This man possest-five hundred pounds a year.

Blush, grandeur, blus.h.!.+ proud courts, withdraw your blaze!

Ye little stars, hide your diminished rays!

B. And what? no monument, inscription, stone?

His race, his form, his name almost unknown?

P. Who builds a church to G.o.d, 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 s.p.a.ce between; Proved, by the ends of being, to have been.

When Hopkins dies, a thousand lights attend The wretch, who living saved a candle's end: Shouldering G.o.d's altar a vile image stands, Belies his features, nay, extends his hands; That livelong wig, which Gorgon's self might own, Eternal buckle takes in Parian stone.