"What differ more," you cry, "than crown and cowl?"
I'll tell you, friend! a wise man and a fool.
You'll find, if once the monarch acts the monk,
Or, cobbler-like, the parson will be drunk,
Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow :
The rest is all but leather or prunella.1
Go! if your ancient but ignoble blood
Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood,
Go! and pretend your family is young,
Nor own your fathers have been fools so long.
What can ennoble sots or slaves or cowards?
Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.
Look next on greatness! say where greatness lies?
"Where, but among the heroes and the wise?
Heroes are much the same, the point's agreed,
From Macedonia's madman to the Swede; 2
The whole strange purpose of their lives, to find
Or make an enemy of all mankind!
Not one looks backward, onward still he goes,
Yet ne'er looks forward farther than his nose.
No less alike the politic and wise;
All sly slow things, with circumspective eyes:
Men in their loose unguarded hours they take,
Not that themselves are wise, but others weak.
But grant that those can conquer, these can cheat;
'Tis phrase absurd to call a villain great :
Who wickedly is wise, or madly brave,
Is but the more a fool, the more a knave.
Who noble ends by noble means obtains,
Or, failing, smiles in exile or in chains,
Like good Aurelius let him reign, or bleed
Like Socrates, that man is great indeed.
2 The allusion is to Alexander the Great and Charles XII. of Sweden.
8 Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, the Roman emperor
ELEGY TO THE MEMORY OF AN UNFORTUNATE LADY 1
WHAT beckoning ghost along the moonlight shade
Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?
"I is she! - but why that bleeding bosom gored,
Why dimly gleams the visionary sword?
O ever beauteous, ever friendly! tell,
Is it, in heaven, a crime to love too well?
To bear too tender, or too firm a heart?
To act a lover's, or a Roman's part?
Is there no bright reversion 2 in the sky
For those who greatly think, or bravely die?
Why bade ye else, ye Powers, her soul aspire
Above the vulgar flight of low desire?
Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes;
The glorious fault of angels and of gods;
Thence to their images on earth it flows,
And in the breasts of kings and heroes glows.
Most souls, 't is true, but peep out once an age,
Dull, sullen prisoners in the body's cage :
Dim lights of life, that burn a length of years
Useless, unseen, as lamps in sepulchers;
Like eastern kings a lazy state they keep,
And, close confined to their own palace, sleep.
From these perhaps (ere Nature bade her die)
Fate snatched her early to the pitying sky.
1 This Elegy, published in 1717, is one of Pope's most consummate efforts, and in pathetic power surpasses any other poem of his. Much conjecture and investigation as to the identity of the "Unfortunate Lady" have resulted in the general conclusion among critics that the situation upon which the poem is based is fictitious. Yet certitude is lacking; and considering the gravity of the theme, and the fine ardor and delicate pathos of the piece, it is difficult to believe that art so perfect would disguise itself in needless artifice.
As into air the purer spirits flow,
And sep'rate from their kindred dregs below;
So flew her soul to its congenial place,
Nor left one virtue to redeem her race.
But thou, false guardian of a charge too good, Thou, mean deserter of thy brother's blood! See on these ruby lips the trembling breath, These cheeks now fading at the blast of death: Cold is that breast which warmed the world before, And those love-darting eyes must roll no more. Thus, if eternal justice rules the ball,
Thus shall your wives, and thus your children fall;
On all the line a sudden vengeance waits,
And frequent hearses shall besiege your gates.
There passengers shall stand, and, pointing, say,
(While the long funerals blacken all the way)
"Lo these were they whose souls the Furies steeled,
And cursed with hearts unknowing how to yield.
Thus unlamented pass the proud away,
The gaze of fools, and pageant of a day!
So perish all whose breast ne'er learned to glow
For others' good, or melt at others' woe."
What can atone, O ever-injured shade,
Thy fate unpitied, and thy rites unpaid?
No friend's complaint, no kind domestic tear
Pleased thy pale ghost, or graced thy mournful bier.
By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed,
By foreign hands thy decent limbs composed,
By foreign hands thy humble grave adorned,
By strangers honored, and by strangers mourned !
What though no friends in sable weeds appear,
Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year,
And bear about the mockery of woe
To midnight dances, and the public show?
What though no weeping Loves thy ashes grace,
Nor polished marble emulate thy face?
What though no sacred earth allow thee room,
Nor hallowed dirge be muttered o'er thy tomb?
Yet shall thy grave with rising flowers be drest,
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast:
There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow,
There the first roses of the year shall blow;
While angels with their silver wings o'ershade
The ground, now sacred by thy reliques made.
So, peaceful, rests, without a stone, a name,
What once had beauty, titles, wealth and fame.
How loved, how honored once, avails thee not,
To whom related, or by whom begot;
A heap of dust alone remains of thee,
'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be !
Poets themselves must fall, like those they sung,
Deaf the praised ear, and mute the tuneful tongue.
E'en he, whose soul now melts in mournful lays,
Shall shortly want the generous tear he pays;
Then from his closing eyes thy form shall part,
And the last pang shall tear thee from his heart,
Life's idle business at one gasp be o'er,
The muse forgot, and thou be loved no more.
ON THE POET GAY, IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY
Or manners gentle, of affections mild;
In wit a man; simplicity, a child:
Above temptation in a low estate,
And uncorrupted e'en among the great:
A safe companion, and an easy friend,
Unblamed through life, lamented in thy end-
These are thy honors! not that here thy bust
Is mixed with heroes, or with kings thy dust
But that the worthy and the good shall say,
Striking their pensive bosoms, "Here lies Gay."
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN was born in Boston, Mass, in the year 1706, the youngest son and the youngest child but two in a family of seventeen children. His father, who was a tallow chandler by trade, at first designed his youngest son for the ministry of religion; and accordingly sent the lad for a
year to the grammar-school of his native place, and afterwards for some time to a private instructor; but finding that his straitened means would not enable him to carry out his first intention, he set the boy at work as an assistant in his own business. This employment was one that young Franklin found very irksome. He himself tells how he can not remember a time when he was unable to read, and how from his earliest years he was always "of a bookish inclination." Partly to gratify this inclination, and partly to make
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