4 What conscience dictates to be done, Or warns me not to do, This, teach me more than hell to shun, That, more than heaven pursue.
5 What blessings thy free bounty gives, Let me not cast away; For God is paid when man receives; T' enjoy is to obey.
6 Yet not to earth's contracted span Thy goodness let me bound, Or think Thee Lord alone of man, When thousand worlds are round:
7 Let not this weak, unknowing hand Presume Thy bolts to throw, And deal damnation round the land, On each I judge Thy foe.
8 If I am right, Thy grace impart, Still in the right to stay; If I am wrong, oh teach my heart To find that better way!
9 Save me alike from foolish pride, Or impious discontent, At ought Thy wisdom has denied. Or ought Thy goodness lent.[132]
10 Teach me to feel another's woe, To hide the fault I see; That mercy I to others show, That mercy show to me.
11 Mean though I am, not wholly so, Since quicken'd by Thy breath; Oh, lead me, wheresoe'er I go, Through this day's life or death!
12 This day, be bread and peace my lot: All else beneath the sun, Thou know'st if best bestow'd or not, And let Thy will be done.
13 To Thee, whose temple is all space, Whose altar, earth, sea, skies! One chorus let all being raise! All Nature's incense rise!
OCCASIONED BY THE FIRST CORRECT EDITION OF THE DUNCIAD.
It is with pleasure I hear that you have procured a correct copy of 'The Dunciad,' which the many surreptitious ones have rendered so necessary; and it is yet with more, that I am informed it will be attended with a commentary; a work so requisite, that I cannot think the author himself would have omitted it, had he approved of the first appearance of this poem.
Such notes as have occurred to me I herewith send you: you will oblige me by inserting them amongst those which are, or will be, transmitted to you by others; since not only the author's friends but even strangers appear engaged by humanity, to take some care of an orphan of so much genius and spirit, which its parent seems to have abandoned from the very beginning, and suffered to step into the world naked, unguarded, and unattended.
It was upon reading some of the abusive papers lately published, that my great regard to a person, whose friendship I esteem as one of the chief honours of my life, and a much greater respect to truth, than to him or any man living, engaged me in inquiries, of which the enclosed notes are the fruit.