Editor’s Introduction

something for the common good. This was the state’s craft, that maintain’d The whole, of which each part complain’d: This, as in music harmony, Made jarrings in the main agree; Parties directly opposite, Assist each oth’r, as ’twere for spite; And temp’rance with sobriety Serve drunkenness and gluttony. The root of evil, avarice, That damn’d ill-natur’d baneful vice, Was slave to prodigality, That noble sin; whilst luxury Employ’d a million of the poor, And odious pride a million more: Envy itself and vanity Were ministers of industry; Their darling folly, fickleness In diet, furniture, and dress, That strange ridic’lous vice, was made The very wheel that turn’d the trade. Their laws and clothes were equally Objects of mutability; For what was well done for a time, In half a year became a crime; Yet whilst they altered thus their laws, Still finding and correcting flaws, They mended by inconstancy Faults which no prudence could foresee. Thus vice nursed ingenuity, Which join’d with time and industry, Had carry’d life’s conveniencies, Its real pleasures, comforts, ease, To such a height, the very poor Lived better than the rich before; And nothing could be added more.”