As far up towards Heaven the branches grow, So far the root sinks down to Hell below.

Another horrible disgrace to greatness is, that it is for the most part in pitiful want and distress: what a wonderful thing is this! Unless it degenerate into avarice, and so cease to be greatness, it falls perpetually into such necessitics, as drive it into all the meanest and most sordid ways of borrowing, cozcnage, and robbery:

Mancipiis locuples, eget æris Cappadocum rex.

This is the case of almost all great men, as well as of the poor king of Cappadocia: they abound with slaves, but are indigent of money. The ancient Roman emperors, who had the riches of the whole world for their revenue, had wherewithal to live (one would have thought) pretty well at ease, and to have been exempt from the pressures of extreme poverty. But yet with most of them it was much otherwise; and they fell perpetually into such miserable penury, that they were forced to devour or squeeze most of their friends and servants, to cheat with infamous projects, to ransack and pillage all their provinces. This fashion of imperial grandeur is imitated by all inferior and subordinate sorts of it, as if it were a point of honour. They must be cheated of a third part of their estates, two other thirds they must expend in vanity; so that they remain debtors for all the necessary provisions of life, and have no way to satisfy those debts, but out of the succours and supplies of rapine: "as riches increase" (says Solomon) "so do the mouths that devour them 7." The master mouth has no more than before. The owner, methinks, is like Ocnus in the fable, who is perpetually winding a rope of hay, and an ass at the end perpetually eating

it.

Out of these inconveniences arises naturally one more, which is, that no greatness can be satisfied or contented with itself: still, if it could mount up a little higher, it would be happy, if it could gain but that point, it would obtain all its desires; but yet at last, when it is got up to the very top of the Pic of Teneriff, it is in very great danger of breaking its neck downwards, but in no possibility of ascending upwards into the seat of tranquillity above the Moon. The first ambitious men in the world, the old giants, are said to have made an heroical attempt of scaling Heaven in despite of the gods: and they cast Ossa upon Olympus, and Pelion upon Ossa: two or three mountains more, they thought, would have done their business: but the thunder spoilt all the work, when they were come up to the third story:

absolute tyrant of three kingdoms, which was the third, and almost touched the Heaven which he affected, is believed to have died with grief and discontent, because he could not attain to the honest name of a king, and the old formality of a crown, though he had before exceeded the power by a wicked usurpation. If he could have compassed that, he would perhaps have wanted something else that is necessary to felicity, and pined away for want of the title of an emperor or a god. The reason of this is, that greatness has no reality in nature, being a creature of the fancy, a notion that consists only in relation and comparison: it is indeed an idol; but St. Paul teaches us, "that an idol is nothing in the world." There is in truth no rising or meridian of the Sun, but only in respect to several places: there is no right or left, no upper-hand in nature; every thing is little, and every thing is great, according as it is diversely compared. There may be perhaps some village in Scotland or Ireland, where I might be a great man: and in that case I should be like Cæsar (you would wonder how Cæsar and I should be like one another in any thing); and choose rather to be the first man of the village, than second at Rome. Our country is called Great Britany, in regard only of a lesser of the same name; it would be but a ridiculous epithet for it, when we consider it together with the kingdom of China. That, too, is but a pitiful rood of ground, in comparison of the whole Earth besides : and this whole globe of Earth, which we account so immense a body, is but one point or atom in relation to those numberless worlds that are scattered up and down in the infinite space of the sky which we behold.

The other many inconveniences of grandeur I have spoken of dispersedly in several chapters; and shall end this with an ode of Horace, not exactly copied, but truly imitated.

HORACE.

Lib. III. Ode I.

Odi profanum vulgus, &c.

HENCE, ye profane; I hate you all ; virgin minds, which yet their native whiteBoth the great vulgar, and the small.

To

ness hold,

Not yet discolour'd with the love of gold
(That jaundice of the soul,
Which makes it look so gilded and so foul),
The Muse inspires my song; hark, and observe
To you, ye very few, these truths I tell;

it well.

We look on men, and wonder at such odds

"Twixt things that were the same by birth; We look on kings as giants of the Farth, These giants are but pigmies to the gods.

The humblest bush and proudest oak Beauty, and strength, and wit, and wealth, aud Are but of equal proof against the thunder-stroke.

power,

Have their short flourishing hour:

And love to see themselves, and smile, And joy in their pre-eminence awhile;

Ev'n so in the same land,

[stand;

Poor weeds, rich corn, gay flowers, together Alas! Death mows down all with an impartial hand.

And all ye men, whom greatness does so please,
Ye feast, I fear, like Damocles:
If ye your eyes could upwards move
(But ye, I fear, think nothing is above)
Ye would perceive by what a little thread
The sword still hangs over your head:
No tide of wine would drown your cares;
No mirth or music over-noise your fears:
The fear of Death would you so watchful keep,
As not t' admit the image of it, Sleep.

Sleep, is a god too proud to wait in palaces, And yet so humble too, as not to scorn

The meanest country cottages: "His poppy grows among the corn." The halcyon Sleep will never build his nest In any stormy breast.

'Tis not enough that he does find Clouds and darkness in their mind; Darkness but half his work will do: 'Tis not enough; he must find quiet too.

The man, who in all wishes he does make,
Does only Nature's counsel take,
That wise and happy man will never fear
The evil aspects of the year;
Nor tremble, though two comets should appear;
He does not look in almanacs, to see

Whether he fortunate shall be ;

Let Mars and Saturn in the heavens conjoin, And what they please against the world design, So Jupiter within him shine.

If of your pleasures and desires no end be found,
God to your cares and fears will set no bound.
What would content you? who can tell?
Ye fear so much to lose what ye have got,
As if ye lik'd it well:

Ye strive for more, as if ye lik'd it not.
Go, level hills, and fill up seas,
Spare nought that may your wanton fancy please;
But, trust me, when you have done all this,
Much will be missing still, and much will be
amiss.

VII.

OF AVARICE.

THERE are two sorts of avarice: the one is but of a bastard kind, and that is, the rapacious appetite of gain; not for its own sake, but for the pleasure of refunding it immediately through all the channels of pride and luxury: the other is the true kind, and properly so called; which is a restless and unsatiable desire of riches, nor for any farther end or use, but only to hoard, and preserve, and perpetually increase them. The covetous man, of the first kind, is like a greedy ostrich, which devours any metal; but it is with an intent to feed upon it, and in effect, it makes a shift to digest and excern it. The

second is like the foolish chough, which loves to steal money only to hide it. The first does much harm to mankind; and a little good too, to some few: the second does good to none; no, not to himself. The first can make no excuse to God, or angels, or rational men, for his actions: the second can give no reason or colour, not to the Devil himself, for what he does; he is a slave to Mammon without wages. The first makes a shift to be beloved; ay, and envied too by some people; the second is the universal object of hatred and contempt. There is no vice has been so pelted with good sentences, and especially by the poets, who have pursued it with stories, and fables, and allegories, and allusions; and moved, as we say, every stone to fling at it: among all which I do not remember a more fine and gentleman-like correction, than that which was given it by one line of Ovid:

Desunt luxuriæ multa, avaritiæ omnia.

Much is wanting to luxury, all to avarice.

To which saying, I have a mind to add one member, and tender it thus,

Poverty wants some, luxury many, avarice all things.

Somebody says of a virtuous and wise man, "that having nothing, he has all :" this is just his antipode, who, having all things, yet has nothing. He is a guardian eunuch to his beloved gold: divi eos amatores esse maximos, sed nil potesse. They are the fondest lovers, but impotent to enjoy.

And, oh, what man's condition can be worse Than his, whom plenty starves, and blessings

curse;

The beggars but a common fate deplore, The rich poor man's emphatically poor.

I wonder how it comes to pass, that there has never been any law made against him: against him do I say? I mean, for him: as there are public provisions made for all other madmen: it is very reasonable that the king should appoint some persons (and I think the courtiers would not be against this proposition) to manage his estate during his life (for his heirs commonly need not that care): and out of it to make it their business to see, that he should not waut alimony befitting his condition, which he could never get out of his own cruel fingers. We relieve idle vagrants, and counterfeit beggars; but have no care at all of these really poor men, who are, methinks, to be respectfully treated, ių regard of their quality. I might be endless against them, but I am almost choaked with the super-abundance of the matter; too much plen

The author, well acquainted with the taste of his readers, would not disgust their delicacy by letting them know that this "somebody" was St. Paul, [2 Cor. vi. 10.]-though the sense and expression would have done honour to Plato. HURD.

ty impoverishes me, as it does them. I will conclude this odious subject with part of Horace's first satire, which take in his own familiar style:

I admire, Mæcenas, how it comes to pass,
That no man ever yet contented was,
Nor is, nor perhaps will be, with that state
In which his own choice plants him, or his fate.
Happy the merchaut, the old soldier cries:
The merchant, beaten with tempestuous skies,
Happy the soldier! one half-hour to thee
Gives speedy death, or glorious victory :
The lawyer, knockt up early from his rest
By restless clients, calls the peasant blest:
The peasant, when his labours ill succeed,
Envies the mouth, which only talk does feed.
"Tis not (I think you'll say) that I want store
Of instances, if here I add no more;
They are enough to reach, at least a mile,
Beyond long orator Fabius's style.

But hold, ye, whom no fortune e'er endears,
Gentlemen, malecontents, and mutineers,
Who bounteous Jove so often cruel call,
Behold, Jove's now resolv'd to please you all.
Thou soldier, be a merchant: merchant, thou
A soldier be and lawyer, to the plough.
Change all your stations straight: why do they stay?
The devil a man will change, now when he may.
Were I in generai Jove's abused case,
By Jove I'd cudgel this rebellious race:
But he 's too good; be all, then, as ye were ;
However, make the best of what ye are,
And in that state be cheerful and rejoice,
Which either was your fate, or was your choice.
No, they must labour yet, and sweat, and toil,
And very miserable be awhile;
But 'tis with a design only to gain
What may their age with plenteous ease main-

tain.

The prudent pismire does this lesson teach,
And industry to lazy mankind preach:
The little drudge does trot about and sweat,
Nor does he straight devour all he can get;
But in his temperate mouth carries it home
A stock for winter, which he knows must come.
And, when the rolling world to creatures here
Turns up the deform'd wrong-side of the year,
And shuts him in, with storms, and cold, and
wet,

He cheerfully does his past labours eat:
O, does he so your wise example, th' ant,
Does not, at all times, rest and plenty want;
But, weighing justly a mortal ant's condition,
Divides his life 'twixt labour and fruition.
Thee, neither heat, nor storms, nor wet, nor cold,
From thy unnatural diligence can withhold:
To th' Indies thou would'st run, rather than see
Another, though a friend, richer than thee.
Fond man! what good or beauty can be found
In heaps of treasure, buried under ground?
Which rather than diminish'd e'er to see,
Thou would'st thyself, too, buried with them be:
And what's the difference is 't not quite as bad
Never to use, as never to have had?
In thy vast barns millions of quarters store;
Thy belly, for all that, will hold no more
Than mine does. Every baker makes much bread:
What then? He's with no more, than others,

fed.

Do you within the bounds of nature live,
And to augment your own you need not strive;
One hundred acres will no less for you
Your life's whole business, than ten thousand, do.
But pleasant 'tis to take from a great store.
What, man! though you 're resolv'd to take no

more

Than I do from a small one? If your will
Be but a pitcher or a pot to fill,
To some great river for it must you go,
When a clear spring just at your feet does flow!
Give me the spring, which does to human use
Safe, easy, and untroubled stores produce;
He who scorns these, and needs will drink at Nile,
Must run the danger of the crocodile,
And of the rapid stream itself, which may,
At unawares, bear him perhaps away.
In a full flood Tantalus stands, his skin
Wash'd o'er in vain, for ever dry within:
He catches at the stream with greedy lips,
From his toucht mouth the wanton torrent slips:
You laugh now, and expand your careful brow;
'Tis finely said, but what's all this to you?
Change but the name, this fable is thy story,
Thou in a flood of useless wealth dost glory,
Which thou canst only touch, but never taste;
Th' abundance still, and still the want, does last.
The treasures of the gods thou would'st not spare:
But when they're made thine own, they sacred

are,

And must be kept with reverence; as if thou
No other use of precious gold didst know,
But that of curious pictures, to delight,
With the fair stamp, thy virtuoso sight.
The only true and genuine use is this,
To buy the things, which nature cannot miss
Without discomfort; oil and vital bread,
And wine, by which the life of life is fed,
And all those few things else by which we live:
All that remains, is giv'n for thee to give.
If cares and troubles, envy, grief, and fear,
The bitter fruits be, which fair riches bear;
If a new poverty grow out of store;
The old plain way, ye gods! let me be poor,

Paraphrase on HORACE, B. III. Od. xvi.

A TOWER of brass, one would have said, And locks, and bolts, and iron bars, And guards, as strict as in the heat of wars, Might have preserv'd one innocent maidenhead, The jealous father thought he well might spare All further jealous care; And, as he walk'd, t' himself alone he smil'd, To think how Venus' arts he had beguil'd;

And, when he slept, his rest was deep: But Venus laugh'd to see and hear him sleep. She taught the amorous Jove A magical receipt in lave,

Which arm'd him stronger, and which help'd him more,

Than all his thunder did, and his almighty-ship before.

She taught him love's elixir, by which art His godhead into gold he did convert:

No guards did then his passage stay,
He pass'd with ease; gold was the word;