many fail and many succeed. Those that fail, will feel their misery more
acutely; but since poverty is now confessed to be such a calamity, as
cannot be borne without the opiate of insensibility, I hope the
happiness of those whom education enables to escape from it, may turn
the balance against that exacerbation which the others suffer.

I am always afraid of determining on the side of envy or cruelty. The
privileges of education may, sometimes, be improperly bestowed, but I
shall always fear to withhold them, lest I should be yielding to the
suggestions of pride, while I persuade myself that I am following the
maxims of policy; and, under the appearance of salutary restraints,
should be indulging the lust of dominion, and that malevolence which
delights in seeing others depressed.

Pope's doctrine is, at last, exhibited in a comparison, which, like
other proofs of the same kind, is better adapted to delight the fancy
than convince the reason.

"Thus the universe resembles a large and well-regulated family, in which
all the officers and servants, and even the domestic animals, are
subservient to each other, in a proper subordination: each enjoys the
privileges and perquisites peculiar to his place, and, at the same time,
contributes, by that just subordination, to the magnificence and
happiness of the whole."

The magnificence of a house is of use or pleasure always to the master,
and sometimes to the domesticks. But the magnificence of the universe
adds nothing to the supreme being; for any part of its inhabitants, with
which human knowledge is acquainted, an universe much less spacious or
splendid would have been sufficient; and of happiness it does not