Note 1548 — AN ESSAY ON MAN, IN FOUR EPISTLES (continued 3)

Pope may mean that nothing affords happiness which infringes virtue, and this would contradict the conclusion of the second epistle, where he dwells upon the continuous happiness we derive from follies and vanities. Or he may mean that virtue is by itself complete happiness, whatever else may be our circumstances, which would contradict ver. 119, where he says that the "virtuous son is ill at ease" when he inherits a "dire disease" from his profligate father.