objection, and fluctuations of uncertainty.

We are next entertained with Pope's alleviations of those evils which we
are doomed to suffer.

"Poverty, or the want of riches, is generally compensated by having more
hopes, and fewer fears, by a greater share of health, and a more
exquisite relish of the smallest enjoyments, than those who possess them
are usually blessed with. The want of taste and genius, with all the
pleasures that arise from them, are commonly recompensed by a more
useful kind of common sense, together with a wonderful delight, as well
as success, in the busy pursuits of a scrambling world. The sufferings
of the sick are greatly relieved by many trifling gratifications,
imperceptible to others, and, sometimes, almost repaid by the
inconceivable transports occasioned by the return of health and vigour.
Folly cannot be very grievous, because imperceptible; and I doubt not
but there is some truth in that rant of a mad poet, that there is a
pleasure in being mad, which none but madmen know. Ignorance, or the
want of knowledge and literature, the appointed lot of all born to
poverty and the drudgeries of life, is the only opiate capable of
infusing that insensibility, which can enable them to endure the
miseries of the one, and the fatigues of the other. It is a cordial,
administered by the gracious hand of providence, of which they ought
never to be deprived by an ill-judged and improper education. It is the
basis of all subordination, the support of society, and the privilege of
individuals; and I have ever thought it a most remarkable instance of
the divine wisdom, that, whereas in all animals, whose individuals rise
little above the rest of their species, knowledge is instinctive; in
man, whose individuals are so widely different, it is acquired by
education; by which means the prince and the labourer, the philosopher