So, caft and mingled with his very frame,
The Mind's disease, its RULING PASSION Came;
Each vital humour which fhould feed the whole,
Soon flows to this, in body and in foul :
Whatever warms the heart, or fills the head,
As the mind opens, and its functions spread,
Imagination plies her dang'rous art,
And pours it all upon the peccant part.
Nature its mother, Habit is its nurse;
Wit, Spirit, Faculties, but make it worse;
Reason itself but gives it edge and pow'r ;
As Heav'n's bieft beam turns vinegar more fow'r.
We, wretched fubjects tho' to lawful fway,
In this weak queen, fome fav'rite still obey :
Ah! if she lend not arms, as well as rules,
What can fhe more than tell us we are fools?
Teach us to mourn our Nature, not to mend,
A fharp accufer, but a helpless friend!
Or from a judge turn pleader, to perfuade
The choice we make, or juftify it made;
Proud of an eafy conqueft all along,
She but removes weak paffions for the ftrong:
So, when small humours gather to a gout,
The doctor fancies he has driv'n them out.
Yes, Nature's road muft ever be prefer'd ;
Reafon is here no guide, but still a guard;
'Tis hers to rectify, not overthrow,
And treat this paffion more as friend than foe:
A mightier Pow'r the strong direction fends,
And fev'ral Men impels to fev'ral ends :
Like varying winds, by other paffions toft,
This drives them conftant to a certain coast.
Let pow'r or knowledge, gold or glory, please,
Or (oft more strong than all) the love of eafe;
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 beft 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 int'reft body acts with mind.
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 honesty appear
From spleen, from obftinacy, hate, or fear!
See anger, zeal and fortitude fupply;
Ev'n av'rice, prudence; floth, philofophy;
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.
Thus Nature gives us (let it check our pride) 195
The virtue nearest to our vice ally'd:
Reafon the byas turns to good from ill,
And Nero reign a Titus, if he will.
The fiery foul abhor'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.
VER. 204. The God within the mind.] A Platonic phrase VARIATIONS.
After ver. 194. in the MS.
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, Reafon! is thy task, and worthy Thee.
Hard talk, 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 reason, like a debt at play.
For right or wrong, have mortals fuffer'd more?
B- for his Prince, or ** for his Whore?
Whofe felf-denials nature moft controul?
His, who would fave a Sixpence, or his Soul?
Web for his health, a Chartreux for his Sin,
Contend they not which fooneft fhall grow thin?
What we refolve, we can: but here's the fault,
We ne'er refolve to do the thing we ought.
Extremes in Nature equal ends produce,
In Man they join to fome mysterious ufe ;
Tho' each by turns the other's bounds invade,
As, in some 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 cr Virtue there is none at all.
If white and black blend, soften, and unite
A thousand ways, is there no black or white
Ask your own heart, and nothing is fo plain;
"Tis to mistake them, cofts the time and pain.
Vice is a monfter of fo frightful mein,
As, to be hated, needs but to be feen ;
Yet feen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
for Confcience; and here employed with great judgment and propriety. For Confcience either fignifies, speculatively, the judgment we pass of things upon whatever principles we chance to have; and then it is only Opinion, a very unable judge and divider. Or elfe it fignifies, practically, the application of the eternal rule 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 of God) within the mind, of power to divide the light from the darkness in this chaos of the paffions.
After ver. 220. in the first Edition followed thefe,
A Cheat! a Whore! who ftarts not at the name,
In all the Inns of Court or Drury-lane?
But where th' Extreme of Vice, was ne'er agreed : Ask where's the North? at York, 'tis on the Tweed; In Scotland, at the Orcades; and there,
At Greenland, Zemble, or the Lord knows where.
No creature owns it in the firft degree,
But thinks his neighbour further gone than he ;
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' ext.eme, 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 seeks a fev'ral goal;
But HEAV'N's great view is One, and that the Whole,
That counter-works each folly and caprice;
That disappoints th' effect of ev'ry vice ;
That, happy frailties to all ranks apply'd;
Shame to the virgin, to the matron pride,
After ver. 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 whofe ten pound the County twenty pays,
The Thief damns Judges, and the Knaves of State;
And dying, mourns small Villians hang'd by great.
|