how sometimes life is risk d and always ease the english poets think and if still the things thy envy call say would st thou be the man to whom they fall to sigh for if thou art so silly mark how they grace lord or sir is yellow dirt the passion of thy life look but on or on wife if parts thee think how bacon d the wisest brightest meanest of mankind or d with the whistling of a name see damn d to everlasting fame i if all united thy ambition call from ancient story learn to scorn them all there in the rich the honoured d and great see the false scale of happiness complete in hearts of kings or arms of who lay how happy those to ruin these betray mark by what wretched steps their glory grows from dirt and sea weed as proud rose in each how guilt and greatness equal ran and all that d the hero sunk the man now europe s on their brows behold but stain d with blood or ill exchanged 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 from shame what greater bliss their close of life some greedy or imperious wife the arches halls and haunt their in the shade alas not dazzled with their ray the mom and evening to the day the whole amount of that enormous fame a tale that 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 alexander pope where only merit constant pay receives is in what it takes and what it gives the joy if its end it gain and if it lose attended with no pain without though e er so bless d and but more relish d as the more distress d the mirth folly wears less pleasing far than virtue s very tears good from each object from each place acquired for ever d yet never d never elated while one man s oppressed never dejected while another s bless d and where no wants no wishes can remain since but to wish more virtue is to gain from moral essays i yes you despise the man to books d who from his study rails at human kind tho what he he speaks and may advance some gen or be right by chance the bird so and grave that from his cage cries and tho many a passenger he rightly call you hold him no philosopher at all and yet the fate of all extremes is such men may be read as well as books too much to observations which ourselves we make we grow more partial for th observer s sake to written wisdom as another s less are drawn from notions those from guess there s some peculiar in each leaf and grain some d fibre or some varying vein shall only man be taken in the gross grant but as many sorts of mind as moss vou iii h the english poets that each from other first confess next that he from himself no less add nature s custom reason s passion s strife and all opinion s colours cast on life our depths who or our finds quick and shifting of our minds on human actions reason tho you can it may be reason but it is not man his principle of action once explore that instant tis his principle no more like following life through creatures you you lose it in the moment you detect yet more the is as great between the seeing as the objects seen all manners take a from our own or come d through our passions shown or fancy s beam and gives ten thousand dies nor will life s stream for observation stay it all too fast to mark their way in vain reflections we would make when half our knowledge we must snatch not take oft in the passions wide our spring of action to ourselves is lost d not d to the last we yield and what comes then is master of the field as the last image of that troubled heap when sense and fancy sports in sleep tho 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 true some are open and to all men known others so very close they re hid from none so darkness strikes the sense no less than light thus gracious is d at sight and ev ry child hates tho his soul still sits at and not from its hole alexander pope at mankind when gen manly all know tis virtue for he thinks them when universal homage pays all see tis vice and of vulgar praise when ry all hate it in a queen while one there is who charms us with his but these plain characters we rarely find tho strong the bent yet quick the turns of mind or confound the whole or quite reverse the soul the dull flat falsehood serves for policy and in the cunning truth itself s a lie of cheat us in the wise the hid in see the sam e man in vigour in the 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 civil at a ball friendly at at is ever moral ever grave thinks who a is next a save just at dinner � then prefers no doubt a rogue with ven son to a saint without who would not praise s 