The sense in the first line is not completed. Virtue "seems unequal to dispose" something, but we are not told what.
[1554] This is the Greek expression, πλατυς γελως, broad or wide laughter, derived, I presume, from the greater aperture of the mouth in loud laughter.—Wakefield.
[1555] MS.:
More pleasing, then, humanity's soft tears
Than all the mirth unfeeling folly wears.
There are numerous grades of character between "unfeeling folly" and christian excellence, and many gratifications of the earthly-minded are assuredly more pleasant for the time than the sharp and ennobling pangs of suffering virtue.
[1556] MS.:
Which not by starts, and from without acquired,
Is all ways exercised, and never tired.
[1557] Is it so impossible that a "wish" should "remain" when Pope has just said that virtue is "never elated while one oppressed man" exists? Or has virtue in tears, ver. 320, no wish for that happiness which Pope says, ver. 1, is "our being's end and aim?" Or is the "wish" for "more virtue" fulfilled by the act of wishing, without frequent failure, and perpetual conflict, and prolonged self-denial?
[1558] "The good" is singular, and stands for "the good man," as is required by the verbs "takes," "looks," "pursues," etc., up to the end of the paragraph.
[1559] Creech's Horace, Epist. i. 1, ver. 23: