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And gave you Beauty, but deny'd the Pelf
That buys your fex a Tyrant o'er itself,

The gen'rous God, whe Wit and Gold refines,
And ripens Spirits as he ripens Mines,

260

Kept Drofs for Ducheffes, the world shall know it, To you gave fenfe, Good-humour, and a Poet.

together is, that the two rareft things in all Nature are a DISINTERESTED MAN, and a REASONABLE WOMAN.

K 4

[122

MORAL ESSAYS,

EPISTLE III.

то

ALLEN, Lord BATHURST.

ARGUMENT.

Of the Ufe of RICHES.

THAT it is known to few, most falling into one of the extremes, Avarice or Profufion, ver. 1, etc. The Point difcuffed, whether the invention of Money has been more commodicus or pernicious to Mankind, ver. 21 to 77. That Riches, either to the Avaricious or the Prodigal, cannot afford Happiness, scarcely Necffaries, ver. 89 to 160. That Avarice is an abfolute Frenzy, without an End or Purpose, ver. 113, etc. 152. Conjectures about the Motives of Avaricious men, ver. 121 to 153, That the conduct of men, awith respect to Riches, can only be accounted for by the ORDER OF PROVIDENCE, which works the general Good out of Extremes, and brings all to its great End by perpetual Revolutions, ver. 161 to 178. How

a Mifer acts upon Principles which appear to him reaJonable, ver. 179. How a Prodigal doe, the fame, ver. 199. The due Medium, and true ufe of Riches,

ver. 219. The Man of Rofs, ver. 250. The fate of the Profufe and the Covetous, in two examples; both miferable in Life and in Deark, ver. 300, etc. The Story of Sir Balaam, ver. 339 to the end.

P.

EPISTLE III.

HO fhall decide, when Doctors difagree,
And foundeft Cafuifts doubt, like you and
me?

You hold the word, from Jove to Momus giv'n,
That Man was made the standing jest of Heav'n ;

EPISTLE III.] This Epiftle was written after a violent outcry against our Author, on a fuppofition that he had ridiculed a worthy nobleman merely for his wrong taste. He juftified himself upon that article in a letter to the Earl of Burlington; at the end of which are these words: "I have "learnt that there are fome who would rather be wicked than "ridiculous; and therefore it may be safer to attack vices "than follies. I will therefore leave my betters in the quiet "poffeffion of their idols, their groves, and their high places; "and change my subject from their pride to their meanness, "from their vanities to their miferies; and as the only cer"tain way to avoid misconstructions, to leffen offence, and not to multiply ill-natured applications, I may probably, "in my next, make ufe of real names instead of fictitious " ones."

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VER. 3. Momus giv's,] Amongst the earliest abuses of reafon, one of the first was to cavil at the ways of Providence. But as, in thofe times, every Vice as well as Virtue, had its Patron-God, Moмus came to be at the head of the old Freethinkers. Him, the Mythologifts very ingeniously made the Son of Sleep and Night, and so, confequently, half-brother to Dulness. But having been much employed, in after-ages, by the Greek Satirifts, he came, at laft, to pass for a Wit; and under this idea he is to be confidered in the place before us,

Wh

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pale. Hummon pine amidst his Store Secs ut a backward Steward for the Poor? This year a Reservoir, to keep and spare. _ The next a Fountain, spouting thro his Heir.

Ep.on Riches

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