60

And to their proper operation ftill,
Afcribe all Good, to their improper, Ill.
Self-love, the fpring of motion, acts the foul;
Reafon's comparing balance rules the whole.
Man, but for that, no action could attend,
And but for this, were active to no end:
Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar fpot,
To draw nutrition, propagaté, and rot;
Or, meteor-like, flame lawless thro' the void, 65
Deftroying others, by himself destroy'd.
Moft ftrength the moving principle requires;
Active it's task, it prompts, impels, inspires;
Sedate and quiet, the comparing lies,
Form'd but to check, delib'rate, and advise,
Self-love still stronger, as its objects nigh;
Reason's at diftance, and in prospect lie:
That fees immediate good by present sense;
Reason, the future and the confequence.

70

Thicker than arguments, temptations throng, 75 At best more watchful this, but that more ftrong, The action of the stronger to fufpend

Reafon ftill ufe, to Reafon ftill attend.

NOTES.

VER. 74. Reafon, the future and the confequence.] i. e. By experience, Reafon collects the future; and by argumentation, the confequence.

Attention, habit, and experience gains;

Each strengthens Reason, and Self-love restrains. 80
Let fubtle schoolmen teach thefe friends to fight,
More ftudious to divide than to unite;

And Grace and Virtue, Sense and Reason split,
With all the rafh dexterity of wit.

85

Wits just like fools, at war about a name,
Have full as oft no meaning, or the same.
Self-love and Reason to one end afpire,
Pain their averfion, Pleasure their defire;
But greedy That, its object would devour,
This tafte the honey, and not wound the flow'r: 90

VARIATIONS,

After ver. 86 in the MS.

Of good and evil Gods what frighted Fools
Of good and evil Reason puzzled Schools,
Deceiv'd, deceiving, taught

NOTES.

VER. 81. Let fubtle schoolmen, &c.] This obfervation on the folly of the fchoolmen, who confider reason and the paffions as two oppofite principles, the one good and the other evil, is seasonable and judicious; for this folly gives great fupport to the Manichæan or Zoroastrian error, the confutation of which was one of the author's chief ends in writing. For if there be two principles in Man, a good and bad, it is natural to think him the joint product of the two Manichæan deities (the first of which contributed to his Reason, the other to his Paffions) rather than the creature of one Individual Caufe. This was Plutarch's notion, and, as we may fee in him, of the more ancient

Pleafure, or wrong, or rightly understood,

Our greatest evil, or our greatest good.

95

III. Modes of Self-love the Paffions we may call:
'Tis real good, or feeming, moves them all :
But fince not ev'ry good we can divide,
And Reafon bids us for our own provide;
Paffions, tho' felfish, if their means be fair,
Lift under Reason, and deserve her care;
Thofe that imparted, court a nobler aim,
Exalt their kind, and take fome Virtue's name. 100
In lazy Apathy let Stoics boast

Their Virtue fix'd; 'tis fix'd as in a froft;
Contracted all, retiring to the breast;
But ftrength of mind is Exercise, not Reft;
The rifing tempeft puts in act the foul,
Parts it may ravage, but preferves the whole.
On life's vaft ocean diversely we sail,
Reason the card, but paffion is the gale.

VARIATIONS.

After ver. 108. in the MS.

A tedious Voyage! where how useless lies
The compass, if no pow'rful gufts arife?

NOTES.

105

Manichæans. It was of importance, therefore, to reprobate and subvert a notion that served to the support of so dangerous an error.

Nor God alone in the ftill calm we find,

He mounts the storm, and walks upon the wind. 110

Paffions, like elements, tho' born to fight,.

Yet, mix'd and foften'd in his work unite:
Thefe, 'tis enough to temper and employ;
But what compofes Man, can Man destroy?
Suffice that Reafon keep to Nature's road,
Subject, compound them, follow her and God.

VARIATIONS.

After ver. 112. in the MS.

The foft reward the virtuous, or invite ;
The fierce, the vicious punish or affright.

NOTES.

115

VER. 109. Nor God alone, &c.] Thefe words are only a fimple affirmation in the poetic drefs of a fimilitude, to this purpose: Good is not only produced by the fubdual of the paffions, but by the turbulent exercife of them. A truth conveyed under the most sublime imagery that poetry could conceive or paint. For the author is here only fhewing the providential iffue of the Paffions, and how, by God's gracious difpofition, they are turned away from their natural bias, to promote the happiness of Mankind. As to the method in which they are to be treated by Man in whom they are found, all that he contends for, in favour of them, is only this, that they should not be quite rooted up and deftroyed, as the Stoics, and their followers in all religions, foolishly attempted. For the reft, he conftantly repeats this advice,

The action of the ftronger to fufpend,
Reason still use, to Reason ftill attend.

Love, Hope, and Joy, fair Pleafure's smiling train, Hate, Fear, and Grief, the family of Pain,

Thefe mix'd with art, and to due bounds confin'd
Make and maintain the balance of the Mind: 120
The lights and fhades, whofe well accorded strife
Gives all the ftrength and colour of our life.
Pleafures are ever in our hands or eyes;

And when, in act, they cease, in prospect, rise:
Prefent to grafp, and future ftill to find,

The whole employ of body and of mind.
All spread their charms, but charm not all alike;
On diff'rent fenfes diff'rent objects strike;

NOTES.

125

VER. 127. All Spread their charms, &c.] Though all the Paffions have their turn in fwaying the determinations of the mind, yet every Man hath one MASTER PASSION that at length ftifles or absorbs all the reft. The fact he illuftrates at large in his epiftle to Lord Cobham. Here (from ver. 126 to 149.) he giveth us the cause of it. Those Pleasures or Goods, which are the objects of the Paffions, affect the mind by ftriking on the fenses; but, as through the formation of the organs of our frame, every man hath fome one sense stronger and more acute than others, the object which strikes that ftronger and acuter fenfe, whatever it be, will be the object moft defired; and confequently, the purfuit of that will be the ruling passion. That the difference of force in this ruling paffion fhall, at firft, perhaps, be very small, or even imperceptible; but Nature, Habit, Imagination, Wit, nay, even Reason itself fhall affift its growth, till it hath at length drawn and converted every other into itself. All which is delivered