cause his faults were very often the effects of his misfortunes.
In this gay period[1] of his life, while he was surrounded by affluence and pleasure, he published The Wanderer, a moral poem, of which the design is comprised in these lines:
I fly all publick care, all venal strife,
To try the still, compar'd with active, life;
To prove, by these, the sons of men may owe
The fruits of bliss to bursting clouds of woe;
That ev'n calamity, by thought refin'd,
Inspirits and adorns the thinking mind.
And more distinctly in the following passage:
By woe, the soul to daring action swells;
By woe, in plaintness patience it excels;
From patience, prudent clear experience springs,
And traces knowledge thro' the course of things!
Thence hope is form'd, thence fortitude, success,
Renown:—whate'er men covet and caress.
This performance was always considered by himself as his master-piece; and Mr. Pope, when he asked his opinion of it, told him, that he read it once over, and was not dis-
- ↑ 1729.
