To rob another's is to lose our own,
And the just bound once passed the whole is gone.
[1430] MS.:
inference if you make,
That such are happier, 'tis a gross mistake.
Say not, "Heav'n's here profuse, there poorly saves,
And for one monarch makes a thousand slaves;"
You'll find when causes and their ends are known,
'Twas for the thousand heav'n has made that one.
Ev'n mutual want to common blessings tends,
One labours, one directs, and one defends,
While double pay benevolence receives,
Is blessed in what it takes, and what it gives.
In what (heav'n's hand impartial to confess)
Need men be equal but in happiness.
The bliss of all, if heav'n's indulgent aim,
He could not place in riches, pow'r or fame.
In these suppose it placed, one greatly blessed,
Others were hurt, impoverished, or oppressed;
Or did they equally on all descend,
If all were equal must not all contend?
[1431] After ver. 66 in the MS.
Tis peace of mind alone is at a stay:
The rest mad fortune gives or takes away:
All other bliss by accident's debarred,
But virtue's, in the instant, a reward;
In hardest trials operates the best,
And more is relished as the more distressed.—Warburton.
There is still another couplet in the MS.:
Virtue's plain consequence is happiness,
Or virtue makes the disappointment less.
[1432] The exemplification of this truth, by a view of the equality of happiness in the several particular stations of life, was designed for the subject of a future Epistle.—Pope.
"Heaven's just balance" is made "equal," says this writer, because men are harassed with fears in proportion to their elevation, and amused with hopes in a state of distress. But a man may be good either in high or low rank; and God does not, to make the happiness of mankind equal, fill the heart of one with idle fears, and of the other with chimerical hopes.—Crousaz.
[1433] Sir W. Temple, Works, vol. iii. p. 531: "Whether a good condition with fear of being ill, or an ill with hope of being well, pleases or displeases most." Pope's MS. goes on thus: