See SIDNEY bleeds amid the martial ftrife! 105 Was this their Virtue, or Contempt of Life? What makes all physical or moral ill ? Or partial Ill is univerfal Good, Or Change admits, or Nature lets it fall; Short, and but rare, till Man improv'd it all. VARIATIONS. After 116. in the MS. Of ev'ry evil, fince the world began, NOTES. 110 115 felf the command of armies, | of that famous campaign in feems to have been the Pre-which he loft his life. In VER. 110. Lent Heav'n fervation of Mankind. We just as wifely might of Heav'n complain When his lewd father gave the dire disease. 120 Think we, like fome weak Prince, th'Eternal Caufe, Prone for his fav'rites to reverse his laws? Shall burning Ætna, if a fage requires, 125 When the loose mountain trembles from on high, Shall gravitation cease, if you go by? NOTES. vidence, the reader fees, has a peculiar elegance; where a tribute of piety to a parent is paid in a return of thanks to, and made fubfervient of, his vindication of, the Great Giver and Father of all things. The Mother of the author, a perfon of great piety and charity, died the year this poem was finished, viz. 1733. VER. 121. Think we, like fome weak Prince, &c.] Agreeably hereunto, holy Scripture, in its account of things under the common | F Providence of Heaven, nèver represents miracles as wrought for the fake of him who is the object of them, but in order to give credit to fome of God's extraordinary difpenfations to Mankind. VER. 123. Shall burning Etna, &c.] Alluding to the fate of those two great Naturalifts, Empedocles and Pliny, who both perished by too near an approach to Etna and Vefuvius, while they were exploring the cause of their eruptions. Or fome old temple, nodding to its fall, For Chartres' head reserve the hanging wall? But ftill this world (fo fitted for the knave) 130 135 But who, but God, can tell us who they are? One thinks on Calvin Heav'n's own spirit fell; If Calvin feel Heav'n's bleffing, or its rod, Nor with one system can they all be bleft. And what rewards your Virtue, punish mine. 146 Was made for Cæfar-but for Titus too: And which more bleft? who chain'd his country, fay, Or he whose Virtue figh'd to lose a day? "But fometimes Virtue ftarves, while Vice is fed." What then? Is the reward of Virtue bread? 150 VARIATIONS. After VER. 142. in fome Editions, Give each a Syftem, all must be at strife ; That, Vice may merit, 'tis the price of toil; 155 The knave deferves it, when he tempts the main, Add Health, and Pow'r, and ev'ry earthly thing, Why bounded Pow'r? why private? why no king?" Nay, why external for internal giv❜n? 161 Why is not Man a God, and Earth a Heav'n? What nothing earthly gives, or can destroy, Say, what rewards this idle world imparts, 170 175 EP. IV. Weak, foolish man! will Heav'n reward us there With the fame trash mad mortals wifh for here? The Boy and Man an individual makes, Yet figh'ft thou now for apples and for cakes? Go, like the Indian, in another life, Expect thy dog, thy bottle, and thy wife: As well as dream fuch trifles are affign'd, As toys and empires, for a god-like mind. Rewards, that either would to Virtue bring No joy, or be deftructive of the thing: How oft by these at fixty are undone The virtues of a faint at twenty-one ! 180 To whom can Riches give Repute, or Truft, 185 Oh fool! to think God hates the worthy mind,. 190 tional hopes of future happinefs, but only to reprove the folly of feparating them them from charity as when Zeal, not Charity, became the guide, |