An Essay on Man; Moral Essays and Satires
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 shines, 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 hoarse 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, blush! 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 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.
When Hopkins dies, a thousand lights attend
The wretch, who living saved a candle's end:
Shouldering God'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.
Behold what blessings wealth to life can lend!
And see what comfort it affords our end.
In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half-hung,
The floors of plaster, and the walls of dung,
On once a flock-bed, but repaired with straw,
With tape-tied curtains, never meant to draw,
The George and Garter dangling from that bed
Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red,
Great Villiers lies--alas! how changed from him,
That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim!--
Gallant and gay, in Cliveden's proud alcove,
The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love;
Or just as gay, at council, in a ring
Of mimic'd statesmen and their merry king.
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.
His grace's fate sage Cutler could foresee,
And well (he thought) advised him, "Live like me."
As well his grace replied, "Like you, Sir John?
That I can do, when all I have is gone."
Resolve me, Reason, which of these is worse,
Want with a full, or with an empty purse?
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.
His only daughter in a stranger's power,
For very want; he could not pay a dower.
A few grey hairs his reverend temples crowned,
'Twas very want that sold them for two pound.
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!
Cutler and Brutus, dying, both exclaim,
"Virtue! and wealth! what are ye but a name!"
Say, for such worth are other worlds prepared?
Or are they both in this their own reward?
A knotty point! to which we now proceed.
But you are tired--I'll tell a tale. B. Agreed.
P. Where London's column, pointing at the skies,
Like a tall bully, lifts the head, and lies;
There dwelt a citizen of sober fame,
A plain good man, and Balaam was his name;
Religious, punctual, frugal, and so forth;
His word would pass for more than he was worth.
One solid dish his week-day meal affords,
An added pudding solemnised the Lord's;
Constant at church, and Change; his gains were sure,
His givings rare, save farthings to the poor.
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.
Sir Balaam now, he lives like other folks,
He takes his chirping pint, and cracks his jokes;
"Live like yourself," was soon my lady's word;
And lo! 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.
Some scruple rose, but thus he eased his thought,
"I'll now give sixpence where I gave a groat;
Where once I went to church, I'll now go twice--
And am so clear, too, of all other vice."
The Tempter saw his time; the work he plied;
Stocks and subscriptions pour on every side,
'Till all the demon makes his full descent
In one abundant shower of cent. per cent.,
Sinks deep within him, and possesses whole,
Then dubs director, and secures his soul.
Behold Sir Balaam, now a man of spirit,
Ascribes his gettings to his parts and merit;
What late he called a blessing, now was wit,
And God's good Providence, a lucky hit.
Things change their titles, as our manners turn;
His counting-house employed the Sunday morn;
Seldom at church ('twas such a busy life),
But duly sent his family and wife.
There (so the devil ordained) one Christmas tide
My good old lady catched a cold and died.
A nymph of quality admires our knight;
He marries, bows at court, and grows polite:
Leaves the dull cits, and joins (to please the fair)
The well bred c*ck**ds in St. James's air;
First, for his son a gay commission buys,
Who drinks and fights, and in a duel dies;
His daughter flaunts a viscount's tawdry wife;
She bears a coronet and ---- for life.
In Britain's senate he a seat obtains,
And one more pensioner St. 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.
EPISTLE IV. TO RICHARD BOYLE, EARL OF BURLINGTON.
ARGUMENT.
Of the Use of Riches.
The Vanity of Expense in people of Wealth and Quality. The abuse of the
word Taste, v.13. That the first Principle and foundation, in this as in
everything else, is Good Sense, v.40. 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.50. 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.65, etc., to 92. 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.97, and the second, either in
joining together Parts incoherent, or too minutely resembling, or in the
Repetition of the same too frequently, v.105, etc. A word or two of
false Taste in Books, in Music, in Painting, even in Preaching and
Prayer, and lastly in Entertainments, v.133, etc. 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.169 (recurring to
what is laid down in the first book, Ep. ii., and in the Epistle
preceding this, v.159, etc.). What are the proper objects of
Magnificence, and a proper field for the Expense of Great Men, v.177,
etc., and finally, the Great and Public Works which become a Prince,
v.191 to the end.
'Tis strange, the miser should his cares employ
To gain those riches he can ne'er enjoy:
Is it less strange, the prodigal should waste
His wealth, to purchase what he ne'er can taste?
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! or finer w***e.
For what has Virro painted, built, and planted?
Only to show, how many tastes he wanted.
What brought Sir Visto's ill-got wealth to waste?
Some demon whispered, "Visto! have a taste."
Heaven visits with a taste the wealthy fool,
And needs no rod but Ripley with a rule.
See! sportive Fate, to punish awkward pride,
Bids Bubo build, and sends him such a guide.
A standing sermon, at each year's expense,
That never coxcomb reached magnificence!
You show us, Rome was glorious, not profuse,
And pompous buildings once were things of use.
Yet shall, my lord, your just, your noble rules
Fill half the land with imitating fools;
Who random drawings from your sheets shall take,
And of one beauty many blunders make;
Load some vain church with old theatric state,
Turn arcs of triumph to a garden-gate;
Reverse your ornaments, and hang them all
On some patched dog-hole eked with ends of wall;
Then clap four slices of pilaster on 't,
That, laced with bits of rustic, makes a front
Shall call the winds through long arcades to roar,
Proud to catch cold at a Venetian door;
Conscious they act a true Palladian part,
And, if they starve, they starve by rules of art.
Oft have you hinted to your brother peer
A certain truth, which many buy too dear:
Something there is more needful than expense,
And something previous even to taste--'tis sense.
Good sense, which only is the gift of Heaven,
And though no science, fairly worth the seven:
A light, which in yourself you must perceive:
Jones and Le Notre have it not to give.
To build, to plant, whatever you intend,
To rear the column, or the arch to bend,
To swell the terrace, or to sink the grot;
In all, let Nature never be forgot.
But treat the goddess like a modest fair,
Nor over-dress, nor leave her wholly bare;
Let not each beauty everywhere be spied,
Where half the skill is decently to hide.
He gains all points, who pleasingly confounds,
Surprises, varies, and conceals the bounds.
Consult the genius of the place in all;
That tells the waters or to rise or fall,
Or helps the ambitious hill the heavens to scale,
Or scoops in circling theatres the vale;