This maxim more than all the rest
Is thought too base for human breast:
"In all distresses of our friends,
We first consult our private ends;
While Nature, kindly bent to ease us,
Points out some circumstance to please us."
If this perhaps your patience move,
Let reason and experience prove.
We all behold with envious eyes
Our equals rais'd above our size.
Who would not at a crowded show
Stand high himself, keep others low?
I love my friend as well as you:
But why should he obstruct my view?
Then let me have the higher post;
Suppose it but an inch at most.
If in a battle you should find
One, whom you love of all mankind,
Had some heroick action done,
A champion kill'd, or trophy won;
Rather than thus be overtop'd,
Would you not wish his laurels crop'd?
Dear honest Ned is in the gout,
Lies rack'd with pain, and you without;
How patiently you hear him groan!
How glad, the case is not your own!
What poet would not grieve to see
His brother write as well as he?
But, rather than they should excel,
Would wish his rivals all in Hell?
Her end when Emulation misses,
She turns to Envy; stings, and hisses?
The strongest friendship yields to pride,
Unless the odds be on our side.
