Where only merit constant pay receives, Never elated, while one man's oppress'd; And where no wants, no wishes can remain, See the sole bliss Heaven could on all bestow ! know; 320 Yet poor with fortune, and with learning blind, But looks through nature, up to nature's God; sign, Joins heaven and earth, and mortal and divine; For him alone, hope leads from goal to goal, Are given in vain, but what they seek they find): 340 350 Self-love thus push'd to social, to divine, Grasp the whole world of reason, life, and sense, God loves from whole to parts: but human soul 360 370 Earth smiles around, with boundless bounty bless'd, And Heaven beholds its image in his breast. Come then, my friend! my genius! come along: O master of the poet, and the song! And while the muse now stoops, or now ascends, 380 O! while along the stream of time thy name 300 That reason, passion, answer one great aim; THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER. DEO OPT. MAX. It may be proper to observe, that some passages in the preceding Essay, having been unjustly suspected of a tendency towards fate and naturalism, the author composed this prayer as the sum of all, to shew that his system was founded in free-will, and terminated in piety: That the First Cause was as well the Lord and Governor of the universe as the Creator of it; and that, by submission to his will (the great principle enforced throughout the Essay) was not meant the suffering ourselves to be carried along by a blind determination, but the resting in a religious acquiescence and confidence, full of hope and immortality. To give all this the greater weight, the poet chose for his model the Lord's Prayer, which, of all others, best deserves the title prefixed to this paraphrase. FATHER of all! in every age, In every clime adored, By saint, by savage, and by sage, Jehovah, Jove, our Lord! Thou Great First Cause, least understood; Who all my sense confined To know but this, That thou art good, Yet gave me, in this dark estate, To see the good from ill; And, binding Nature fast in Fate, What conscience dictates to be done, Or warns me not to do, This, teach me more than hell to shun, That, more than heaven pursue. What blessings thy free bounty gives, Let me not cast away; For God is paid when man receives; Yet not to earth's contracted span If I am right, thy grace impart, Save me alike from foolish pride, At aught thy wisdom has denied, Teach me to feel another's woe, Mean though I am, not wholly so, Through this day's life or death. This day, be bread and peace my lot: All else beneath the sun, Thou know'st if best bestow'd or not, To thee, whose temple is all space, One chorus let all being raise ! MORAL ESSAYS, In Four Epistles to several Persons. Est brevitate opus, ut currat sententia, neu se ADVERTISEMENT. THE Essay on Man was intended to have been comprised in four books: The first of which, the author has given us under that title, in four epistles. The second was to have consisted of the same number: 1. Of the extent and limits of human reason. 2. Of those arts and sciences, and of the parts of them, which are useful, and therefore attainable, together with those which are unuseful, and therefore unattainable. 3. Of the nature, ends, use, and application of the different capacities of men. 4. Of the use of learning, of the science of the world, and of wit; concluding with a satire against a misapplication of them, illustrated by pictures, characters, and examples. The third book regarded civil regimen, or the science of politics, in which the several forms of a republic were to be examined and explained; together with the several modes of religious worship, as far forth as they affect society; between which the author always supposed there was the most interesting relation and closest connexion; so that this part would have treated of civil and religious society in their full extent. The fourth and last book concerned private ethics, or practical morality, considered in all the circumstances, or, ders, professions, and stations of human life. The scheme of all this had been maturely digested, and communicated to Lord Bolingbroke, Dr. Swift, and one or two more, and was intended for the only work of his riper years; but was, partly through ill health, partly through discouragements from the depravity of the times, and partly on prudential and other considerations, interrupted, postponed, and, lastly, in a manner laid aside. But as this was the author's favourite work, which more |