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Home  »  The English Poets  »  Extract from The Art of Preserving Health, Book IV

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. III. The Eighteenth Century: Addison to Blake

John Armstrong (1709–1779)

Extract from The Art of Preserving Health, Book IV

HOW to live happiest? how avoid the pains,

The disappointments, and disgusts of those

Who would in pleasure all their hours employ,

The precepts here of a divine old man

I could recite. Tho’ old, he still retained

His manly sense, and energy of mind.

Virtuous and wise he was, but not severe;

He still remembered that he once was young;

His easy presence checked no decent joy.

Him even the dissolute admired; for he

A graceful looseness when he pleased put on,

And laughing could instruct. Much had he read,

Much more had seen: he studied from the life,

And in th’ original perused mankind.

Versed in the woes and vanities of life

He pitied man: and much he pitied those

Whom falsely-smiling fate has cursed with means

To dissipate their days in quest of joy.

‘Our aim is happiness; ’tis yours, ’tis mine,’

He said, ‘’tis the pursuit of all that live:

Yet few attain it, if ’twas e’er attained.

But they the widest wander from the mark,

Who thro’ the flowery paths of sauntering joy

Seek this coy goddess: that from stage to stage

Invites us still, but shifts as we pursue.

For, not to name the pains that pleasure brings

To counterpoise itself, relentless fate

Forbids that we thro’ gay voluptuous wilds

Should ever roam: and were the fates more kind

Our narrow luxuries would soon grow stale:

Were these exhaustless, nature would grow sick,

And, cloyed with pleasure, squeamishly complain

That all is vanity, and life a dream.

Let nature rest: be busy for yourself,

And for your friend; be busy even in vain

Rather than tease her sated appetites.

Who never fasts no banquet e’er enjoys;

Who never toils or watches, never sleeps.

Let nature rest: and when the taste of joy

Grows keen, indulge; but shun satiety.

’Tis not for mortals always to be blest,

But him the least the dull or painful hours

Of life oppress, whom sober sense conducts,

And virtue, thro’ this labyrinth we tread.

Virtue and sense I mean not to disjoin;

Virtue and sense are one: and trust me, still

A faithless heart betrays the head unsound.

Virtue (for mere good-nature is a fool)

Is sense and spirit with humanity:

’Tis sometimes angry and its frown confounds;

’Tis even vindictive, but in vengeance just.

Knaves fain would laugh at it: some great ones dare

But at his heart the most undaunted son

Of fortune dreads its name and awful charms.

To noblest uses this determines wealth;

This is the solid pomp of prosperous days;

The peace and shelter of adversity.

And if you pant for glory, build your fame

On this foundation, which the secret shock

Defies of envy and all-sapping time.

The gaudy gloss of fortune only strikes

The vulgar eye; the suffrage of the wise,

The praise that ’s worth ambition, is attained

By sense alone and dignity of mind.

Virtue, the strength and beauty of the soul,

Is the best gift of Heaven: a happiness

That even above the smiles and frowns of fate

Exalts great Nature’s favourites; a wealth

That ne’er encumbers, nor can be transferr’d.