Oh sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise,
By mountains piled on mountains, to the skies?
Heav'n still with laughter the vain toil surveys,
And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.
Ver. 77. Know, all the good, &c.] The poet having thus confuted the two errors concerning happiness, the philosophical and popular, and proved that true happiness was neither solitary and partial, nor yet placed in externals, goes on, from ver. 76 to 83, to show in what it doth consist. He had before said in general, and repeated it, that happiness lay in common to the whole species. He now brings us better acquainted with it, in a more explicit account of its nature, and tells us, it is all contained in health, peace, and competence; but that these are to be gained only by virtue, namely, by temperance, innocence, and industry.
Ver. 83. The good or bad, &c.] Hitherto the poet hath only considered health and peace:
But health consists with temperance alone;
And peace, oh virtue! peace is all thy own.
One head yet remained to be spoken to, namely, competence. In the pursuit of health and peace there is no danger of running into excess; but the case is different with regard to competence: here wealth and affluence would be apt to be mistaken for it, in men's passionate pursuit after external goods. To obviate this mistake, therefore, the poet shows, from ver. 82 to 93, that, as exorbitant wealth adds nothing to the happiness arising from a competence, so, as it is generally ill-gotten, it is attended with circumstances which weaken another part of this triple cord, namely, peace.
Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense,
Lie in three words, health, peace, and competence.
But health consists with temperance alone;
And peace, oh virtue! peace is all thy own.
Ver. 93. Oh blind to truth, &c.] Our author having thus largely confuted the mistake, that happiness consists in externals, proceeds to expose the terrible consequences of such an opinion, on the sentiments and practice of all sorts of men; making the dissolute, impious and atheistical; the religious, uncharitable and intolerant; and the good, restless and discontent. For when it is once taken for granted, that happiness consists in externals, it is immediately seen that ill men are often more happy than the good, which sets all conditions on objecting to the ways of Providence, and some even on rashly attempting to rectify his dispensations, though by the violation of all laws, divine and human. Now this being the most important part of the subject under consideration, is deservedly treated most at large. And here it will be proper to take notice of the art of the poet in making this confutation serve, at the same time, for a full solution of all objections which might be made to his main proposition, that happiness consists not in externals.
1. He begins, first of all, with the atheistical complainers; and pursues their impiety from ver. 93 to 131.
Oh blind to truth! and God's whole scheme below, &c.
Ver. 97. But fools, the good alone unhappy call, &c.] He exposes their folly, even in their own notions of external goods. 1. By examples, from ver. 98 to 111, where he shows, first, that if good men have been untimely cut off, this is not to be ascribed to their virtue, but to a contempt of life, which hurried them into dangers. Secondly, That if they will still persist in ascribing untimely death to virtue, they must needs, on the same principle , ascribe long life to it also; consequently, as the argument, in fact, concludes both ways, in logic it concludes neither.