Bad as men are, why should thy frantic rhymes Traffic in slander, and invent new crimes?-- Crimes which, existing only in thy mind, Weak spleen brings forth to blacken all mankind. By pleasing hopes we lure the human heart To practise virtue and improve in art; 240 To thwart these ends (which, proud of honest fame, A noble Muse would cherish and inflame) Thy drudge contrives, and in our full career Sicklies our hopes with the pale hue of fear; Tells us that all our labours are in vain; That what we seek, we never can obtain; That, dead to virtue, lost to Nature's plan, Envy possesses the whole race of man; That worth is criminal, and danger lies, Danger extreme, in being good and wise. 250 'Tis a rank falsehood; search the world around, There cannot be so vile a monster found, Not one so vile, on whom suspicions fall Of that gross guilt which you impute to all. Approved by those who disobey her laws, Virtue from Vice itself extorts applause: Her very foes bear witness to her state; They will not love her, but they cannot hate. Hate Virtue for herself! with spite pursue Merit for Merit's sake! might this be true, 260 I would renounce my nature with disdain, And with the beasts that perish graze the plain; Might this be true,--had we so far fill'd up The measure of our crimes, and from the cup Of guilt so deeply drank, as not to find, Thirsting for sin, one drop, one dreg behind; Quick ruin must involve this flaming ball, And Providence in justice crush us all. None but the damn'd, and amongst them the worst, Those who for double guilt are doubly cursed, 270 Can be so lost; nor can the worst of all At once into such deep damnation fall; By painful slow degrees they reach this crime, Which e'en in hell must be a work of time. Cease, then, thy guilty rage, thou wayward son, With the foul gall of Discontent o'errun; List to my voice,--be honest, if you can, Nor slander Nature in her favourite, man. But if thy spirit, resolute in ill, Once having err'd, persists in error still, 280 Go on at large, no longer worth my care, And freely vent those blasphemies in air, Which I would stamp as false, though on the tongue Of angels the injurious slander hung. Duped by thy vanity (that cunning elf Who snares the coxcomb to deceive himself), Or blinded by thy rage, didst thou believe That we too, coolly, would ourselves deceive? That we, as sterling, falsehood would admit, Because 'twas season'd with some little wit? 290 When fiction rises pleasing to the eye, Men will believe, because they love the lie; But Truth herself, if clouded with a frown, Must have some solemn proof to pass her down. Hast thou, maintaining that which must disgrace And bring into contempt the human race, Hast thou, or canst thou, in Truth's sacred court, To save thy credit, and thy cause support, Produce one proof, make out one real ground,