Paffions, like elements, though born to fight,
Yet, mix'd and soften'd, in his work unite:
Thefe 'tis enough to temper and employ;
'But what composes Man, can Man destroy?
Suffice that Reafon keep to Nature's road,
Subject, compound them, follow her and God.
Love, Hope, and Joy, fair Pleasure's smiling train ;
Hate, Fear, and Grief, the family of Pain,
These mixt with art, and to due bounds confin'd,
Make and maintain the balance of the mind:
The lights and fhades, whose well-accorded ftrife
Gives all the strength and colour of our life.
Pleasures are ever in our hands or eyes;
And, when in act they ceafe, in prospect rife:
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 different fenfes, different objects strike;
Hence different Paffions more or lefs inflame,
As ftrong or weak, the organs of the frame;
And hence one mafter Paffion in the breast,
Like Aaron's ferpent, fwallows up the rest.
As Man, perhaps, the moment of his breath,
Receives the lurking principle of death;
The young disease, that must subdue at length,
Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength:
After ver. 112. in the MS.
The foft reward the virtuous, or invite;
The fierce, the vicious punish or affright.
So, caft and mingled with his very frame,
The Mind's difsease, its ruling Faffion came;
Each vital humour, which should 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 dangerous art,
And pours it all upon the peccant part.
Nature its mother, Habit is its nurse;
Wit, Spirit, Faculties, but make it worse;
Reafon itself but gives it edge and power;
As Heaven's bleft beam turns vinegar more four.
We, wretched fubjects though to lawful fway,
In this weak queen, fome favourite still obey:
Ah! if the 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 justify it made;
Proud of an eafy conqueft all along,
She but removes weak paffions for the strong:
So, when small humours gather to a gout,
The doctor fancies he has driv'n them out.
Yes, Nature's road muft ever be preferr'd;
Reason is here no guide, but ftill a guard;
'Tis hers to rectify, not overthrow,
And treat this passion more as friend than foe;
A mightier Power the ftrong direction sends,
And feveral Men impels to feveral ends :
Like varying winds, by other paffions toft,
This drives them conftant to a certain coaft.
Let power or knowledge, gold or glory, please,
Or (oft more ftrong than all) the love of eafe;
Through 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 Reafon 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.
As fruits, ungrateful to the planter's care,
On favage ftocks inferted learn to bear;
The fureft Virtues thus from Paffions shoot,
Wild Nature's vigour working at the root.
What of wit and honefty appear
From fpleen, from obftinacy, hate, or fear!
See anger, zeal and fortitude supply;
Ev'n avarice, prudence; floth, philofophy;
Luft, through some 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.
After ver. 194. in the MS.
How oft, with Paffion, Virtue points her Charms!
Then fhines the Hero, then the Patriot warms.
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 abhor'd in Catiline,
In Decius charms, in Curtius is divine:
The fame ambition can deftroy 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.
Extremes in Nature equal ends produce,
In man they join to fome myfterious use;
Though each by turns the other's bound invade,
As, in fome well-wrought picture, light and fhade,
And oft fo mix, the difference is too nice
Where ends the Virtue, or begins the Vice.
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 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 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 most control?
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.
Fools! who from hence into the notion fall,
That Vice or Virtue there is none at all.
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;
'Tis to mistake them, cofts the time and pain.
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
As, to be hated, needs but to be seen;
Yet feen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
But where th' Extreme of Vicè, 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,
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.
After ver. 220. in the first Edition followed thefe,
A Cheat! A Whore! who starts not at the name,
In all the Inns of Court or Drury-lane?
After ver. 226. in the MS.
The Colonel fwears the Agent is a dog,
The Scrivener vows th' Attorney is a rogue.
Against the Thief th' Attorney loud inveighs,
For whofe ten pounds the County twenty pays.
The Thief damns Judges, and the Knaves of State;
And dying, mourns fmall Villains hang'd by great.
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