The cabinets of the sick and the closets of the dead have been ransacked to publish private letters and divulge to all mankind the most secret sentiments of friendship.
The search of our future being is but a needless, anxious, and haste to be knowing, sooner than we can, what, without all this solicitude, we shall know a little later.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never Is, but always To be Blest.
The soul, uneasy, and confin'd from home,
Rest and expatiates in a life to come.
Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul proud Science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk or milky way;
Yet simple Nature to his hope has giv'n,
Behind the cloud-topp'd hill, an humbler heav'n.
Tis from high Life high Characters are drawn; A Saint in Crape is twice a Saint in Lawn: A Judge is just, a Chanc'llor juster still; A Gownman learn'd; a Bishop what you will; Wise if a minister; but if a King, More wise, more learn'd, more just, more ev'rything.
In lazy apathy let stoics boast, their virtue fix'd: 't is fix'd as in a frost; contracted all, retiring to the breast; but strength of mind is exercise, not rest.
Statesman, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere, In action faithful, and in honour clear; Who broke no promise, serv'd no private end, Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend.