PATIENCE. CONTENTS. Of PATIENCE. An EPISTLE to The Right Honourable Samuel Lord Masham. Patience, my Lord, a virtue rare, I grant; And what, I fear, the wisest of us want: Easy the task in Action to excell, The soul's last trial lies in suff'ring well. From fear, or shame what specious acts proceed! And worldly aims oft prompt the shining deed. Look but on half the boasted things we do, And praise, or profit is the point in view. From these, what crops of virtue bless the land! With these, how oft the mower fills his hand! Prompted by these the knave we oft regard, While suff'ring virtue is her own reward; Silent and meek she passes unobserv'd, Nor prais'd by whom she's over-reach'd or starv'd. But granting nobler motives to the few, And same or int'rest not the point in view; Grant of the wretched's suff'rings we partake, And praise, or pity ev'n for virtue's sake; Yet that soft temper of the gen'rous mind, That very breast, benevolent and kind, That noble sense, which feels what others feel, Which you, my Lord, who know it, best can tell; Itself opprest, can least resistance show, But pines, or sinks beneath its proper woe. What tho' in Action brave, unaw'd by fear, Resolv'd as Clayton, or as Swift severe; In diff'rent views their trials, tempers scan, Ev'n Swift can weep, and Clayton is a man. Superior faculties avail not here, Wit points the shaft, and valour pours the tear. The same nice nerve which vibrates to the brain Its sense of pleasure, gives as quick its pain: And all the diff'rence 'twixt the fool and wise, In their sensations, and perceptions lies. The Man of Wit in many parts is sore, Touch but a Genius, and he smarts all o'er. The wife his Wisdom to Resentment owes, The Fool feels little, for he little knows. The downright Ass is passive, mild, and tame, By blows or kindness urg'd, is still the same: His stoic breast no kindling passions prove, Kick him you may, but you can never move. O envy'd creature! who nor feels or fears, Who all things suffers, all things bravely bears. Whom neither Hope, or Fear, or Shame can move, Nor kindling mounts to Rage, or melts to Love. His pleasures always equal, flowing, full, For ever patient and for ever dull! If then from Wisdom half our pains arise, Say, Masham, what avails it to be wise? The greatest good proud Science can bestow, But learn'd the latest, is — Our selves to know. Yet after all their search, the wise complain, This very knowledge irritates their pain. In vain you tell me of the stoic train: Where is the man not sensible of pain? All find, all feel it too in some degree; It makes old Zeno fret as well as me. Else why not choose, for contemplation sake, The burning plough-share, or the tort'ring rack? If pain's no ill, why not prefer the stone To velvet cushions, and to beds of down? — I grant he reason'd calmly in the gout, But try him farther, and you'll find him out. Touch but his pride, at once you make him smart: A stoic only, just in such a part; In all the rest susceptible of pain, And feels and reasons much like other men. Among th' intrepid breed I know there are, Who any hardship, any pains can bear. To whom less shocking is th' impending sword, Than to the meek of soul, a slighting word. What hardy 'squires, what soldiers daily feel, A thousand soft Adonises wou'd kill. "Yet whence is this?" — From reason, sir, no doubt. But pray, will abstract reason cure the gout? Did ever axioms sooth the nervous ill? Or syllogisms pay the doctor's bill? Too much, I fear, of reason's aid we boast, Where most 'tis wanted, there it fails us most. 'Tis not the soldier's reason makes him bear Th' inclement season, and the toilsome war; 'Tis not the nice deduction of the 'squire, That keeps him well and warm without a fire: The mind does little; 'tis the body here, That is, in strictness, the philosopher. Those only then are truly said to bear, Who feel the pain, no matter what, or where. Suppose it of th' acute, or lingring kind, Suppose it of the body, or the mind; Suppose it touch the welfare of a friend, Suppose it only at the finger's end; Yet, if you feel the stroke, 'tis pain to you, And if you bear it well, you're patient too. For pain, as such, is neither more or less, But borrows all its sting from passiveness. From those nice touches which from sense arise, Or which when past, reflection oft supplies. In this, I grant, are infinite degrees, But hence results our misery or ease: Not from the stroke, so much as from the smart, Not from the wound, but from the head or heart. Hence Timon's peevish, Dromio mild and tame; But shall we flatter one, the other blame, Because their feelings are not just the same? Yet quite a Wretch who feels and frets we call, And quite a Saint who nothing feels at all. This too, perchance, may serve to reconcile The virgin's panicks, and the stoic's smile. 'Tis this makes Charlot at a spider scream — This spite of reason, resolution, fame, May make a soldier shrink, a saint blaspheme. This to a medium every station brings, This levels with their slaves the proudest kings, And reconciles th' unequal face of things. This inward sense, the feeling of the soul, Of pain and pleasure comprehends the whole. In vain soft Conti warbles in my ear, If the lax nerve convey no pleasure there. In vain the picture, and the splendid feast, If this not strike the eye, nor that the taste. Less pleas'd am I with Farinelli's note, Than the rude Cobler in his merry throat: He, who beneath some shatter'd bulk reclin'd, Smiles at the tempest, and derides the wind. Who hunger, dirt, and all but thirst can bear, To spleen a stranger, and a foe to fear. His mind no rude sensations discompose, Nor smells offensive e'er affront his nose; Nor high debates, nor falling stocks he minds, His awful temples, lo! a fillet binds; Patient he eyes the future and the past, And, as a king, is happy to the last. To me it seems, howe'er our lot may fall, That pain and pleasure's dealt alike to all; That ev'ry station has its proper ill, In what we fancy, or in what we feel; That ev'ry worldly pleasure we may gain, Is dropt again in some attendant pain. Thus wisely deals th' impartial hand of Heav'n, To check our pride, and keep the ballance ev'n. Tell me, ye Proud ones! who this world possess, Are not the high and low, the great and less, Born with an equal plea to happiness? True, in your wants and wishes you succeed; But are you better than the slaves you feed? Have you more virtue who of ven'son eat, Than he who thirsts and hungers at your gate? Alas! with plenty, peace is seldom giv'n, Nor Beccaficoes always gifts of Heav'n. Tell me, ye Poor ones! and your state explain, Whose patience Heav'n proportions to your pain, To whom is wanting ev'ry earthly good, But quiet sleeps, and appetites subdu'd; Whose hopes to no wild summit ever prest, No keen sensations to disturb your breast: Say, why were all these wondrous blessings giv'n, But to convince you of the care of Heav'n? To shew how equally its gifts are lent, To some in Gold, to others in Content. Still those are restless, discontented these, The poor for riches sigh, the rich for ease. Thus Curio pines with envy at the great, While you, my Lord, are sick of pomp and state. "My fate is hard, (cries one) o'erlook'd! forgot! Yet all life's comforts are my neighbour's lot. See, he's posless'd of all that Heav'n can grant, But I, unhappy! ev'ry blessing want; His life, tho' vile, is one luxurious treat, Whilst I have virtue, but not bread to eat." Well, but you've friends, in health too pretty sound. "That's not the case; I want — tenthousand pound." Still you have — "What! no reason to complain?" Perhaps not much. However, think again. As yet but half this envy'd man you've seen, The outside's fair indeed, but look within; Perhaps there's something there corrodes his breast, That cruel something, common to the rest: Some fav'rite wish too wild, or weak to own, Some secret pang, to all besides unknown. Or with his blessings, count his want of health, And to the pleasures, add the plagues of wealth: On ev'ry side the envy'd creature view, Then tell me which is happiest, He or You? Possessing all things, cou'd we all enjoy, Wou'd neither appetites, nor objects cloy, Were ev'ry sense, each pleasing passion keen, Not pall'd by surfeits, nor chastis'd with spleen; How blest the rich! how curst indeed the poor! One to enjoy, the other to endure. But why repine at what to wealth is giv'n? Since gouts and cholics set the matter ev'n. Behold the man of luxury and wine! His station too, it seems, is hard as thine. What, tho' for him our stateliest turbots swim, And France her vines luxuriant prunes for him; Yet he complains, when lab'ring thro' the feast, Of loss of appetite, and want of taste; Envies the very beggar at his gate, Who hardly knows the luxury to eat. But what? your barns are full, your rents increase; Sir Robert too has promis'd you a Place. Have comfort, man! let not your spirits fail! Perhaps to morrow you may relish quail. Think rather of the pleasures which you share, And learn their inconveniencies to bear. Rejoice in cray-fish soup! be glad in trout! But pray have patience, when you feel the gout; Sit down resign'd, when cholics rack your breast, Or rise, like Bethel, from th' intemp'rate feast. Thus each has something to enjoy, and bear; And none may envy much his neighbour's share. Envy! the source of half the wretched feel, And where it strikes, the hardest wound to heal. Yet why repine at what my neighbours taste? Since I in something else am just as blest. To me perhaps kind heav'n indulgent grants The spirits, health, or limbs my neighbour wants; To me has giv'n a quicker sense of shame, While he feels nothing of contempt or blame: To me no acres of paternal ground, To him the spleen and fifty thousand pound. If doom'd severer trials to sustain, Some secret pow'r may blunt the edge of pain: The keen sensation use may reconcile, And added Hope affliction's sting beguile. Wou'd you enquire, why man's to suff'ring born; To feel his frailties, and his nature mourn? Why each has his peculiar ill assign'd, Some pain of body, or some plague of mind; Some lingring malady for years endur'd, Some hopeless passion, never to be cur'd: And why not rather temp'rate, wise, serene, Without all healthful, and all peace within? Know, thankless man! that He, who rules the ball, In goodness infinite permits it all. For nat'ral Evil, rightly understood, Works but the grand design, our moral Good; And he unjustly of his lot complains, Who finds his strength proportion'd to his pains. This life, with pain and pleasure intermixt, Is but a state of trial for the next; A stage, on which amid 'the vary'd scenes, Promiscuous Cesars tread with Harlequins. Where none of all the self-admiring train, May choose his part, or strut his hour again: Our bus'ness only thro' the measur'd span, To act it well, and wisely as we can. Pain was permitted in the various part, To check the manners, and chastise the heart; To blunt the appetite to moral ill; To curb, restrain, and rectify the will; To call us back from ev'ry wild pursuit; To clear the soil for virtue's plants to shoot; To move compassion for our neighbour's ill, And teach us where to weep, from what we feel: To fix, to urge the bus'ness of our span; To raise the hero, and to mend the man. Strong trials must the headstrong temper break, As gentler methods oft reclaim the meek. When lightnings flash, the most obdurate mind Some efforts sure of penitence must find: Ev'n Felix trembles at a gen'ral doom, And owns the terrors of a world to come. These are the ends for which afflictions came, To rouze our reason, and our passions tame; To set fair Virtue in her proper light, And fix the wavering attention right. What tho' your part amid 'the gen'ral scene, Too high or hard appear, too low or mean; Beset with wants, with cares and fears opprest, The sport of fortune, and of men the jest: Yet wait awhile, whatever chance befal, Heav'n's ways are equal, thine unequal all. Here but as strangers journeying for a space, To seek some sure, some distant resting-place; Some perils by the way we must endure, The cruel robber, and the night obscure. Yet, arm'd with Patience, let us boldly dare, The end is certain, and the prospect fair. He, who proportions largely all our gain, Weighs ev'ry loss, and counts out ev'ry pain; Sees all our frailties, measures dust by dust, In all he gives and takes, supremely just: That pow'r eternal will our steps befriend, And guide us safely to our journey's end; Where ev'ry pang, where ev'ry fear shall cease, And each immortal guest subside to peace. To him who suffer'd well, will much be giv'n, And Patience wear the brightest wreath in Heav'n. For you, my Lord, in various conflicts seen, Not spoil'd with peevishness, nor sow'rd with spleen, The best of tempers, and the best of men: For you, alas! one trial yet remains; O suffer righteously these proving strains! And if unmov'd, unruffled you can hear, What Patience 'self perchance could hardly bear; If yet this forer trial you survive, Your Lordship is the patient'st man alive.