But here's the diff'rence; Agamemnon's wife
Was a grofs butcher with a bloody knife;
But murder, now, is to perfection grown,
And fubtle poisons are employ'd alone:
Unless some antidote prevents their arts,
And lines with balsam all the nobler parts:
In fuch a cafe, referv'd for fuch a need,
Rather than fail, the dagger does the deed.
THE ARGUMENT.
The poet's defign, in this divine fatire, is to reprefent the various wishes and defires of mankind; and to fet out the folly of them. He runs through all the feveral beads of riches, honours, eloquence, fame for martial atchievements, long life, and beauty; and gives inftances, in each, how frequently they have proved the ruin of those that owned them. He concludes therefore, that fince we generally chufe fo ill for ourselves, we should do better to leave it to the Gods, to make the choice for us. All we can fafely afk of heaven, lies within a very Small compafs. 'Tis but health of body and mind. And if we have thefe, it is not much matter what we want befides; for we have already enough to make us happy.
OOK round the habitable world, how few Know their own good; or knowing it, pursue. How void of reafon are our hopes and fears! What in the conduct of our life appears So well defign'd, fo luckily begun,
But, when we have our wish, we with undone?
Whole houses, of their whole defires poffeft,
Are often ruin'd, at their own request.
In wars,
and peace, things hurtful we require,
When made obnoxious to our own defire.
With laurels fome have fatally been crown'd;
Some, who the depths of eloquence have found,
In that unnavigable ftream were drown'd.
The brawny fool, who did his vigour boast;
In that prefuming confidence was lost:
But more have been by avarice oppreft,
And heaps of money crowded in the chest:
Unwieldy fums of wealth, which higher mount
Than files of marshall'd figures can account.
To which the ftores of Cræfus, in the scale,
Would look like little dolphins, when they fail
In the vaft fhadow of the British whale.
For this, in Nero's arbitrary time,
When virtue was a guilt, and wealth a crime,
A troop of cut-throat guards were sent to seize
The rich men's goods, and gut their palaces:
The mob, commiffion'd by the government,
Are feldom to an empty garret fent.
The fearful paffenger, who travels late,
Charg'd with the carriage of a paltry plate,
Shakes at the moonshine fhadow of a rush;
And fees a red-coat rise from ev'ry bush:
The beggar fings, ev'n when he fees the place
Befet with thieves, and never mends his pace.
Of all the vows, the firft and chief request
Of each, is to be richer than the reft:
And yet no doubts the poor man's draught control,
He dreads no poison in his homely bowl,
Then fear the deadly drug, when gems divine
Enchase the cup, and sparkle in the wine.
Will you not now the pair of fages praise, Who the fame end purfu'd, by feveral ways? One pity'd, one contemn'd the woful times: One laugh'd at follies, one lamented crimes : Laughter is eafy; but the wonder lies, What store of brine fupply'd the weeper's eyes, Democritus could feed his fpleen, and shake His fides and fhoulders till he felt 'em ake; Tho in his country-town no lictors were, Nor rods, nor ax, nor tribune did appear:
Nor all the foppish gravity of show,
Which cunning magiftrates on crowds bestow:
What had he done, had he beheld, on high,
Our prætor seated, in mock majesty;
His chariot rolling o'er the dufty place,
While, with dumb pride, and a fet formal face,
He moves, in the dull ceremonial track,
With Jove's embroider'd coat upon his back:
A fute of hangings had not more oppreft
His fhoulders, than that long, laborious veft:
A heavy gugaw, (call'd a crown,) that spread
About his temples, drown'd his narrow head:
And would have crufh'd it with the mafly
freight,
But that a sweating flave sustain'd the weight:
A flave in the fame chariot seen to ride,
To mortify the mighty madman's pride.
Add now th' imperial eagle, rais'd on high,
With golden beak (the mark of majesty)
Trumpets before, and on the left and right,
A cavalcade of nobles, all in white :
In their own natures falfe and flatt'ring tribes,
But made his friends, by places and by bribes.
In his own age, Democritus could find
Sufficient caufe to laugh at human kind:
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