Careless of censure, nor too fond of fame, Still pleased to praise, yet not afraid to blame, Averse alike to flatter or offend, Not free from faults, nor yet too vain to mend.
Order is Heaven's first law; and this confessed, some are, and must be, greater than the rest, more rich, more wise; but who infers from hence that such are happier, shocks all common sense. Condition, circumstance, is not the thing; bliss is the same in subject or in king.
There should be, methinks, as little merit in loving a woman for her beauty as in loving a man for his prosperity; both being equally subject to change.
First follow Nature, and your judgment frame
By her just standard, which is still the same:
Unerring nature, still divinely bright,
One clear, unchanged, and universal light,
Life, force, and beauty must to all impart,
At once the source, and end, and test of art.
The best way to prove the clearness of our mind, is by showing its faults; as when a stream discovers the dirt at the bottom, it convinces us of the transparency and purity of the water.
See plastic Nature working to this end, The single atoms each to other tend, Attract, attracted to, the next in place Form'd and impell'd its neighbor to embrace.
Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of fate, All but the page prescribed, their present state: From brutes what men, from men what spirits know: Or who could suffer being here below?
What so pure, which envious tongues will spare?
Some wicked wits have libell'd all the fair,
With matchless impudence they style a wife,
The dear-bought curse, and lawful plague of life;
A bosom serpent, a domestic evil,
A night invasion, and a mid-day devil;
Let not the wise these sland'rous words regard,
But curse the bones of ev'ry living bard.