In palaces of kings, or hermits’ cells?
Does she confirm the minister’s mock-state,
Or bloody on the victor’s garland wait?
Warbles, harmonious, she the poet’s song,
Or, graver, laws pronounces to the throng?
To no profession, party, place confined,
True greatness lives but in the noble mind;
Him constant through each various scene attends,
Fierce to his foes, and faithful to his friends.
In him, in any sphere of life she shines,
Whether she blaze a Hoadley ‘mid divines,
Or, an Argyle, in fields and senates dare,
Supreme in all the arts of peace and war.
Greatness with learning deck’d in Carteret see,
With justice, and with clemency in Lee;
In Chesterfield to ripe perfection come,
See it in Lyttelton beyond its bloom.
Lives there a man, by nature form’d to please,
To think with dignity, express with ease;
Upright in principle, in council strong,
Prone not to change, nor obstinate too long:
Whose soul is with such various talents bless’d,
What he now does seems to become him best;
Whether the Cabinet demands his powers,
Or gay addresses soothe his vacant hours,
Or when from graver tasks his mind unbends,
To charm with wit the muses or his friends?
His friends! who in his favour claim no place,
From titles, pimping, flattery or lace,
To whose blest lot superior portions fall,
To most of fortune, and of taste to all.
Awed not by fear, by prejudice not sway’d
By fashion led not, nor by whim betray’d,
By candour only biass’d, who shall dare
To view and judge and speak men as they are?
In him (if such there be) is greatness shown,
Nor can he be to Dodington unknown.
OF GOOD NATURE TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF RICHMOND
WHAT is good-nature? Gen’rous Richmond, tell
He can declare it best, who best can feel.
Is it a foolish weakness in the breast,
As some who know, or have it not, contest?
Or is it rather not the mighty whole,
Full composition of a virtuous soul?
Is it not virtue’s self? A flower so fine,
It only grows in soils almost divine.
Some virtues flourish, like some plants, less nice.
And in one nature blossom out with vice.
Knaves may be valiant, villains may be friends;
And love in minds depraved effect its ends.
Good-nature, like the delicatest seeds,
Or dies itself, or else extirpates weeds.
Yet in itself howe’er unmix’d and pure,
No virtue from mistakes is less secure.
Good-nature often we those actions name,
Which flow from friendship, or a softer flame.
Pride may the friend to noblest efforts thrust,
Or savages grow gentle out of lust.
The meanest passion may the best appear,
And men may seem good-natured from their fear.
What by this name, then, shall be understood?
What? but the glorious lust of doing good?
The heart that finds its happiness to please
Can feel another’s pain, and taste his ease;
The cheek that with another’s joy can glow,
Turn pale and sicken with another’s woe;
Free from contempt and envy, he who deems
Justly of life’s two opposite extremes,
Who to make all and each man truly bless’d
Doth all he can and wishes all the rest?
Tho’ few have power their wishes to fulfill,
Yet all men may do good, at least in will.
Tho’ few, with you or Marlborough, can save
From poverty, from prisons, and the grave;
Yet to each individual Heaven affords
The power to bless in wishes, and in words.
Happy the man with passions bless’d like you,
Who to be ill, his nature must subdue;
Whom fortune fav’ring, was no longer blind,
Whose riches are the treasures of mankind.
O ! nobler in thy virtues than thy blood,
Above thy highest titles place THE GOOD.
High on life’s summit raised, you little know
The ills which blacken all the vales below;
Where industry toils for support in vain,
And virtue to distress still joins disdain.
Swelt’ring with wealth, where men unmoved can hear.
The orphan’s sigh, and see the widow’s tear;
Where griping av’rice slights the debtor’s prayer,
And wretches wanting bread deprives of air.
Must it not wond’rous seem to hearts like thine,
That God, to other animals benign,
Should unprovided man alone create,
And send him hither but to curse his fate?
Is this the being for whose use the earth
Sprung out of nought, and animals had birth?
This he, whose bold imagination dares
Converse with Heaven, and soar beyond the stars?
Poor reptile! wretched in an angel’s form,
And wanting that which Nature gives the worm.
Far other views our kind Creator knew,
When man the image of Himself He drew.
So full the stream of Nature’s bounty flows,
Man feels no ill, but what to man he owes.
The earth abundant furnishes a store,
To sate the rich, and satisfy the poor.
These would not want, if those did never hoard;
Enough for Irus falls from Dives’ board.
And dost thou, common son of Nature, dare
From thy own brother to withhold his share?
To vanity, pale idol, offer up
The shining dish, the empty golden cup!
Or else in caverns hide thy precious ore,
And to the bowels of the earth restore
What for our use she yielded up before?
Behold, and take example, how the steed
Attempts not, selfish, to engross the mead.
See how the lowing herd, and bleating flock,
Promiscuous graze the valley, or the rock;
Each tastes his share of Nature’s gen’ral good,
Nor strives from others to withhold their food.
But say, O man! would it not strange appear
To see some beast (perhaps the meanest there)
To his repast the sweetest pastures choose,
And ev’n the sourest to the rest refuse?
Wouldst thou not view, with scornful wond’ring eye,
The poor, contented, starving herd stand by?
All to one beast a servile homage pay,
And boasting, think it honour to obey?
Who wonders that good-nature in so few,
Can anger, lust, or avarice subdue?
When the cheap gift of fame our tongues deny,
And risk our own, to poison with a lie.
Dwells there a base malignity in men.
That ‘scapes the tiger’s cave, or lion’s den?
Does our fear dread, or does our envy hate,
To see another happy, good, or great?
Or does the gift of fame like money seem?
Think we we lose, whene’er we give, esteem?
Oh! great Humanity, whose beams benign,
Like the sun’s rays, on just and unjust shine;
Who turning the perspective friendly still,
Dost magnify all good, and lessen ill;
Whose eye, while small perfections it commends,
Not to what
’s better, but what’s worse attends:
Who, when at court it spies some well-shaped fair,
Searches not through the rooms for Shaftsb’ry’s air;
Nor when Clarinda’s lilies are confess’d,
Looks for the snow that whitens Richmond’s breast.
Another’s sense and goodness when I name,
Why wouldst thou lessen them with Mountford’s fame?
Content, what Nature lavishes admire,
Nor what is wanting in each piece require.
Where much is right some blemishes afford,
Now look for Ch — d in every lord.
LIBERTY
TO GEORGE LYTTELTON, ESQ.
To Lyttelton the muse this off’ring pays;
Who sings of liberty, must sing his praise.
This man, ye grateful Britons, all revere;
Here raise your altars, bring your incense here.
To him the praise, the blessings which ye owe,
More than their sires your grateful sons shall know.
O! for thy country’s good and glory born!
Whom Nature vied with Fortune to adorn!
Brave, tho’ no soldier; without titles, great;
Fear’d without power; and envied, without state.
Accept the muse whom Truth inspires to sing,
Who soars, tho’ weakly, on an honest wing.
See Liberty, bright goddess, comes along;
Raised at thy name, she animates the song.
Thy name, which Lacedemon had approved,
Rome had adored, and Brutus’ self had loved.
Come then, bright maid, my glowing breast inspire
Breathe in my lines, and kindle all thy fire.
Behold, she cries, the groves, the woods, the plains,
Where Nature dictates, see how freedom reigns;
The herd, promiscuous, o’er the mountain strays;
Nor begs this beast the other’s leave to graze.
Each freely dares his appetite to treat,
Nor fears the steed to neigh, the flock to bleat.
Did God, who freedom to these creatures gave,
Form His own image, man, to be a slave?
But men, it seems, to laws of compact yield;
While Nature only governs in the field;
Curse on all laws which liberty subdue,
And make the many wretched for the few.
However deaf to shame, to reason blind,
Men dare assert all falsehoods of mankind;
The public never were, when free, such elves
To covet laws pernicious to themselves.
Presumptuous power assumes the public voice,
And what it makes our fate, pretends our choice.
To whom did power original belong?
Was it not first extorted by the strong?
And thus began, where it will end, in wrong.
These scorn’d to power another claim than might,
And in ability established right.
At length a second nobler sort arose,
Friends to the weak, and to oppression foes;
With warm humanity their bosoms glow’d,
They felt to Nature their great strength they owed.
And as some elder born of noble rate,
To whom devolves his father’s rich estate,
Becomes a kind protector to the rest,
Nor sees unmoved the younger branch distress’d,
So these, with strength whom Nature deign’d to grace,
Became the guardians of their weaker race;
Forced tyrant power to bend its stubborn knee,
Broke the hard chain, and set the people free.
O’er abject slaves they scorn’d inglorious sway,
But taught the grateful freed man to obey;
And thus, by giving liberty, enjoy’d
What the first hoped from liberty destroy’d.
To such the weak for their protection flew,
Hence right to power and laws by compact grew.
With zeal embracing their deliverer’s cause,
They bear his arms, and listen to his laws.
Thus power superior strength superior wears,
In honour chief, as first in toils and cares.
The people power, to keep their freedom, gave,
And he who had it was the only slave.
But fortune wills to wisest human schemes
The fate that torrents bring to purest streams,
Which from clear fountains soon polluted run,
Thus ends in evil what from good begun.
For now the savage host, overthrown and slain,
New titles, by new methods, kings obtain.
To priests and lawyers soon their arts applied,
The people these, and those the gods belied.
The gods, unheard, to power successors name,
And silent crowds their rights divine proclaim.
Hence all the evils which mankind have known,
The priest’s dark mystery, the tyrant’s throne;
Hence lords, and ministers, and such sad things;
And hence the strange divinity of kings.
Hail, Liberty! Boon worthy of the skies,
Like fabled Venus fair, like Pallas wise.
Thro5 thee the citizen braves war’s alarms,
Tho’ neither bred to fight, nor paid for arms;
Thro’ thee, the laurel crown’d the victor’s brow,
Who served before his country at the plough:
Thro’ thee (what most must to thy praise appear)
Proud senates scorn’d not to seek virtue there.
O thou, than health or riches dearer far,
Thou gentle breath of peace, and soul of war;
Thou that hast taught the desert sweets to yield,
And shame the fair Campania’s fertile field;
Hast shown the peasant glory, and call’d forth
Wealth from the barren sand, and heroes from the north!
The southern skies, without thee, to no end
In the cool breeze, or genial showers descend:
Possess’d of thee, the Vandal, and the Hun,
Enjoy their frost, nor mourn the distant sun.
As poets Samos, and the Cyprian grove,
Once gave to Juno, and the Queen of Love:
Be thine Britannia: ever friendly smile,
And fix thy seat eternal in this isle.
Thy sacred name no Romans now adore,
And Greece attends thy glorious call no more.
To thy Britannia, then, thy fire transfer,
Give all thy virtue, all thy force to her;
Revolve, attentive, all her annals o’er,
See how her sons have loved thee heretofore.
While the base sword oppress’d Iberia draws,
And slavish Gauls dare fight against thy cause,
See Britain’s youth rush forth, at thy command,
And fix thy standard in the hostile land.
With noble scorn they view the crowded field,
And force unequal multitudes to yield.
So wolves large flocks, so lions herds survey,
Not foes more num’rous, but a richer prey.
O ! teach us to withstand, as they withstood,
Nor lose the purchase of our father’s blood.
Ne’er blush that sun that saw in Blenheim’s plain
Streams of our blood, and mountains of our slain;
Or that of old beheld all France to yield
In Agincourt or Cressy’s glorious field;
Where freedom Churchill, Henry, Edward gave,
Ne’er blush that sun to see a British slave.
As industry might from the bee be taught,
So might oppression from the hive be brought:
Behold the little race laborious stray,
And from each flower the hard-wrought sweets convey,
That in warm ease in winter they may dwell,
And each enjoy the riches of its cell.
Behold th’ excising power of man despoil
These little wretches of their care and toiL
Death’s the reward of all their labour lost,
Careful in vain, and provident to their cost.
But thou, great Liberty, keep Britain free,
Nor let men use us as we use the bee.
Let not base drones upon our honey thrive,
And suffocate the maker in his hive.
TO A FRIEND ON THE CHOICE OF A WIFE
‘Tis hard (experience long so taught the wise)
Not to provoke the person we advise.
Counsel, tho’ ask’d, may very oft offend,
When it insults th’ opinion of my friend.
Men frequent wish another’s judgment known,
Not to destroy, but to confirm their own.
With feign’d suspense for our advice they sue,
On what they’ve done, or are resolved to do.
The favoured scheme should we by chance oppose,
Henceforth they see us in the light of foes.
For could mankind th’ advice they ask receive,
Most to themselves might wholesome counsel give.
Men in the beaten track of life’s highway,
Ofter through passion than through error stray,
Want less advice than firmness to obey.
Nor can advice an equal hazard prove
To what is given in the cause of love;
None ask it here till melting in the flame.
If we oppose the now victorious dame,
You think her enemy and yours the same.
But yet, tho’ hard, tho’ dangerous the task,
Fidus must grant, if his Alexis ask.
Take then the friendly counsels of the Muse;
Happy, if what you’ve chosen she should choose
The question’s worthy some diviner voice,
How to direct a wife’s important choice.
In other aims if we should miss the white,
Reason corrects, and turns us to the right:
But here, a doom irrevocable’s past,
And the first fatal error proves the last.
Rash were it then, and desperate, to run
With haste to do what cannot be undone.
Whence comes the woes which we in marriage find,
Complete Fictional Works of Henry Fielding Page 373
