165

A mightier Pow'r the ftrong direction sends,
And fev'ral Men impels to fev'ral ends:
Like varying winds, by other paffions tost,
This drives them conftant to a certain coast.
Let pow'r or knowledge, gold or glory, please,
Or (oft more ftrong than all) the love of ease; 170
Thro' life 'tis follow'd, ev'n at life's expence;
The merchant's toil, the fage's indolence,
The monk's humility, the hero's pride,
All, all alike, find Reason on their fide.

Th' Eternal Art educing good from ill,
Grafts on this Paffion our best principle:
'Tis thus the Mercury of Man is fix'd,
Strong grows the Virtue with his nature mix'd;
The drofs cements what else were too refin❜d,
And in one intereft body acts with mind.

NOTES.

direct, and restrain, but not to overthrow it. To regulate the paffion of Avarice, for inftance, into a parfimonious difpenfation of

175

180

the public revenues; to direct the paffion of Love, whofe object is worth and beauty,

To the firft good, first perfect, and firft fair,

τὸ καλόν τ' ἀγαθὸν, as his mafter Plato advises; and to re

ftrain Spleen to a contempt and hatred of Vice.

185

As fruits, ungrateful to the planter's care, On favage stocks inferted, learn to bear; The fureft Virtues thus from Paffions fhoot, Wild Nature's vigor working at the root. What crops of wit and honefty appear From fpleen, from obftinacy, hate, or fear! See anger, zeal and fortitude fupply; Ev'n av'rice, prudence; floth, philosophy; Luft, thro' fome certain ftrainers well refin'd, Is gentle love, and charms all womankind; Envy, to which th' ignoble mind's a flave, Is emulation in the learn'd or brave; Nor Virtue, male or female, can we name, But what will grow on Pride, or grow on Shame.

190

How oft, with Paffion, Virtue points her Charms !
Then fhines the Hero, then the Patriot warms.
Peleus' great Son, or Brutus, who had known,
Had Lucrece been a Whore, or Helen none ?
But Virtues oppofite to make agree,
That, Reason! is thy task; and worthy Thee.
Hard task, cries Bibulus, and reason weak.
-Make it a point, dear Marquefs! or a pique.
Once, for a whim, perfuade yourself to pay
A debt to reafon, like a debt at play.

Thus Nature gives us (let it check our pride)

The virtue nearest to our vice ally'd:

Reason the byas turns to good from ill,
And Nero reigns a Titus, if he will.
The fiery foul abhorr'd in Catiline,
In Decius charms, in Curtius is divine:
The fame ambition can destroy or fave,
And makes a patriot as it makes a knave.

This light and darkness in our chaos join'd,
What fhall divide? The God within the mind.

VARIATIONS.

196

For right or wrong have mortals fuffer'd more?
B- for his Prince, or **for his Whore?
Whose felf-denials nature most controul?
His, who would fave a Sixpence or his Soul?
Web for his health, a Chartreux for his Sin,
Contend they not which foonest shall grow thin?
What, we refolve, we can; but here's the fault,
We ne'er refolve to do the thing we ought.

200

pafs of things upon whatever principles we chance to have; and then it is only Opinion, a very unable judge and divider. Or else it fignifies, practically, the application of the eternal rule

Extremes in Nature equal ends produce,

205

In Man they join to some mysterious ufe;
Tho' each by turns the other's bound invade,
As, in fome well-wrought Picture, light and shade,
And oft fo mix, the diff'rence is too nice
Where ends the Virtue, or begins the Vice.

Fools! who from hence into the notion fall,

That Vice or Virtue there is none at all.

210

If white and black blend, foften, and unite
A thousand ways, is there no black or white?
Ask your own heart, and nothing is fo plain; 215
'Tis to mistake them, cofts the time and pain.
Vice is a monster of fo frightful mien,

As, to be hated, needs but to be feen;
Yet feen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.

VARIATIONS.

After 220. in the 1ft Edition, followed thefe,

A Cheat! a Whore! who ftarts not at the name,
In all the Inns of Court or Drury-lane ?

NOTES.

of right (received by us as the law of God) to the regulation of our actions; and then it is properly Confcience, the God (or the law

220

of God) within the mind, of power to divide the light from the darkness in this chaos of the paffions.

But where th' Extreme of Vice, was ne'er agreed: Afk where's the North? at York, 'tis on the Tweed; In Scotland, at the Orcades; and there,

At Greenland, Zembla, or the Lord knows where. No creature owns it in the first degree, 225

than he;

But thinks his neighbour farther gone
Ev'n those who dwell beneath its very zone,
Or never feel the rage, or never own;
What happier natures shrink at with affright,
The hard inhabitant contends is right.

Virtuous and vicious ev'ry Man must be,
Few in th' extreme, but all in the degree;
The rogue and fool by fits, is fair and wife;
And ev❜n the beft, by fits, what they despise.
'Tis but by parts we follow good or ill;
For, Vice or Virtue, Self directs it ftill;
Each individual feeks a fev'ral goal;

230

235

But HEAV'N's great view is One, and that the

Whole.

VARIATIONS.

After 226. in the MS.

The Col'nel fwears the Agent is a dog,
The Scriv❜ner vows th' Attorney is a rogue.
Against the Thief th' Attorney loud inveighs,
For whose ten pound the County twenty pays.
The Thief damns Judges, and the Knaves of State;
And dying, mourns fmall Villains hang'd by great.