Can all your tap'ftries, or your pictures, fhow
More beauties, than in herbs and flowers do grow?
Fountains and trees our wearied pride do please,
Even in the midst of gilded palaces.
And in your towns, that profpect gives delight,
Which opens round the country to our fight.
Men to the good, from which they rafhly fly,
Return at laft; and their wild luxury
Does but in vain with those true joys contend,
Which nature did to mankind recommend.
The man, who changes gold for burnish'd brass,
Or small right gems, for larger ones of glass,
Is not, at length, more certain to be made
Ridiculous, and wretched by the trade,
Than he, who fells a folid good, to buy
The painted goods of pride and vanity.
If thou be wife, no glorious fortune choose,
Which 'tis but pain to keep, yet grief to lofe.
For, when we place even trifles, in the heart,
With trifles too, unwillingly we part [i].
An humble roof, plain bed, and homely board,
› More clear, untainted pleasures do afford,
Than all the tumult of vain greatness brings
To kings, or to the favorites of kings [k].
The horned deer, by nature arm'd so well,
Did with the horse in common pasture dwell;
[i] For, when we place, &c.] He gives the sense of Horace,
"-fi quid mirabere, pones
but in a turn of phrafe and verfe more touching, and, though fomewhat paraphraftical, not lefs elegant. [k] Pope, Effay on Man, iv. 205.
And, when they fought, the field it always wan,
Till the ambitious horfe beg'd help of man,
And took the bridle, and thenceforth did reign
Bravely alone, as lord of all the plain :
But never after could the rider get
From off his back, or from his mouth the bit.
So they, who poverty too much do fear,
'T' avoid that weight, a greater burden bear;
That they might power above their equals have,
To cruel mafters they themselves enslave.
For gold, their liberty exchang'd we see,
That faireft flower, which crowns humanity [7]
And all this mischief does upon them light,
Only, because they know not how, aright
That great, but secret, happiness to prize,
That's laid up in a little, for the wife:
That is the best and easiest estate,
Which to a man fits clofe, but not too ftrait;.
'Tis like a fhoe; it pinches, and it burns,
Too narrow; and too large, it overturns.
My dearest friend, ftop thy defires at last,
And chearfully enjoy the wealth thou haft.
And, if me still seeking for more you see,
Chide, and reproach, despise and laugh at me.
Money was made, not to command our will,
But all our lawful pleasures to fulfil
[1] That faireft flower, which crowns humanity] The poet, as ufual, expreffes his own feeling: but he does more, he expreffes it very claffically. The allufion is to the antient custom of wearing wreaths or garlands of flowers, on any occafion of joy and feftivity. Of these flowers (taken in the fenfe of pleafures, of which they were the emblems) the faireft, fays he, that crowns the happy man, is liberty.
Shame and woe to us, if we our wealth obey;
The horse doth with the horseman run away.
BLEST be the man (and bleft he is) whom e'er
(Plac'd far out of the roads of hope or fear)
A little field, and little garden, feeds:
The field gives all that frugal nature needs;
The wealthy garden liberally bestows
All she can ask, when the luxurious grows,
'The fpecious inconveniences, that wait
Upon a life of bufinefs, and of ftate,
He fees (nor does the fight difturb his reft)
By fools defir'd, by wicked men poffeft.
Thus, thus (and this deferv'd great Virgil's praise)
The old Corycian yeoman pass'd his days:
Thus his wife life Abdolonymus fpent:
Th' ambaffadors, which the great emperor fent
To offer him a crown, with wonder found
The reverend gard'ner howing of his ground;
Unwillingly and flow and discontent,
From his lov'd cottage, to a throne he went.
And oft he ftopt in his triumphant way,
And oft look'd back, and oft was heard to fay
Not without fighs, Alas, I there forfake
A happier kingdom, than I go to take.
Thus Aglaüs (a man unknown to men,
But the gods knew and therefore lov'd him then [m])
Thus
[m]-lov'd him then] Emphatically, then; i. e. when unknown to men: for here lay the wonder (to
Thus liv'd obfcurely then without a name,
Aglaüs, now confign'd t' eternal fame.
For Gyges, the rich king, wicked and great,
Prefum'd, at wife Apollo's Delphic feat
Prefum'd, to ask, Oh thou, the whole world's eye,
See'st thou a man, that happier is than I ?
The God, who scorn'd to flatter man, reply'd,
Aglaüs happier is. But Gyges cry'd,
In a proud rage, Who can that Aglaüs be?
We have heard, as yet, of no fuch king as he.
And true it was, through the whole earth around]
No king of fuch a name was to be found.
Is fome old hero of that name alive,
Who his high race does from the gods derive ?
Is it fome mighty general, that has done
Wonders in fight, and god-like honours won ?
Is it fome man of endless wealth, faid he?
None, none of these who can this Aglaüs be?
After long search and vain inquiries paft,
In an obfcure Arcadian vale at last,
(Th' Arcadian life has always fhady [n] been)
Near Sopho's town (which he but once had seen)
This Aglaus who monarchs envy drew,
Whofe happiness the gods ftood witness to,
This mighty Aglaüs was labouring found,
With his own hands, in his own little ground,
which the poet, by his following ftory, would reconcile us), that an obfcure man fhould be the favourite of heaven, or, in the eye of true wisdom, deserve to be reputed happy.
[n] always fhady] A well-chofen word, implying, at once, repofe and obfcurity.
So, gracious God [•], (if it may lawful be,
Among those foolish gods to mention thee)
So let me act, on such a private stage,
The laft dull scenes of my declining age
After long toils and voyages in vain,
This quiet port let my toft veffel gain,
Of heavenly reft, this earnest to me lend,
Let my life fleep, and learn to love her end [p].
[o] So, gracious God, &c.] Thefe concluding eight lines are written in the author's best manner, which is (as I have feveral times obferved), when he expreffes his own feeling, along with his ideas.
[p]-love her end] i, e. death, of which fleep is the image.
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