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85

Wits, just like Fools, at war about a name,
Have full as oft no meaning, or the fame.
Self-love and Reason to one end aspire,
Pain their averfion, Pleasure their defire;
But greedy That, its object would devour,
This taste the honey, and not wound the flow'r: 90
Pleasure, 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 Reason bids us for our own provide; Paffions, tho' selfish, if their means be fair, Lift under Reason, and deserve her care; Those, that imparted, court a nobler aim, Exalt their kind, and take some Virtue's name. 100

In lazy Apathy let Stoics boaft

Their Virtue fix'd; 'tis fix'd as in a froft;
Contracted all, retiring to the breast;

But strength of mind is Exercise, not Rest:

VARIATIONS.

After 86. in the MS.

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

The rifing tempest puts in act the foul,
Parts it may ravage, but preferves the whole.

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105

On life's vast ocean diversely we fail,
Reason the card, but Paffion is the gale ;

109

Nor God alone in the still calm we find,
He mounts the storm, and walks upon the wind.
Passions, like Elements, tho' born to fight,
Yet, mix'd and soften'd, in his work unite :

VARIATIONS.

After VER. 108. in the MS.

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

After VER. 112. in the MS.

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

NOTES.

VER. 109. Nor God alone, ❘ author is here only shewing

&c.] These words are only a simple affirmation in the poetic dress of a fimilitude, to this purpose: Good is not only produced by the subdual of the Passions, but by the turbulent exercise of them. A truth conveyed under the most sublime imagery that poetry could conceive or paint. For the

the providential issue of the Passions, and how, by God's gracious disposition, they are turned away from their natural byas, 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

115

These 'tis enough to temper and employ;
But what composes Man, can Man destroy ?
Suffice that Reason 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 mix'd with art, and to due bounds confin'd,
Make and maintain the balance of the mind:
The lights and shades, whose well accorded strife
Gives all the strength and colour of our life.

Pleasures are ever in our hands or eyes ;
And when, in act, they cease, in profpect, rise :

120

Present to grafp, and future still to find,

125

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;

Hence diff'rent Paffions more or less inflame,

As ftrong or weak, the organs of the frame; And hence one MASTER PASSION in the breast, Like Aaron's ferpent, swallows up the reft.

130

NOTES.

only this, that they should | gions, foolishly attempted.

not be quite rooted up and
destroyed, as the Stoics, and
their followers in all reli-

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

For the rest, he constantly repeats this advice,

As Man, perhaps, the moment of his breath, Receives the lurking principle of death; The young disease, that must subdue at length, 135 Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his

strength:

140

So, cast and mingled with his very frame,
The Mind's disease, its RULING PASSION 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 dang'rous art,
And pours it all upon the peccant part.

145

Nature its mother, Habit is its nurse; Wit, Spirit, Faculties, but make it worfe; Reafon itself but gives it edge and pow'r; As Heav'n's blest beam turns vinegar more fowr;

NOTES.

VER. 133. As Man per- | 1. vii. N. H. This Antipater was in the times of Craffus, and is celebrated for the quickness of his parts by Cicero.

haps, &c.] Antipater Sidonius Poëta omnibus annis uno die natali tantum corripiebatur febre, et eo confumptus eft fatis longa senecta. Plin.

We, wretched subjects tho' to lawful sway,
In this weak queen, some fav'rite still obey:
Ah! if she lend not arms, as well as rules,
What can she more than tell us we are fools ?
Teach us to mourn our Nature, not to mend,
A sharp accuser, but a helpless friend!
Or from a judge turn pleader, to perfuade
The choice we make, or justify it made;
Proud of an easy conquest all along,
She but removes weak passions for the strong:
So, when small humours gather to a gout,
The doctor fancies he has driv'n them out.
Yes, Nature's road must ever be preferr'd;
Reason is here no guide, but still a guard :
'Tis her's to rectify, not overthrow,
And treat this passion more as friend than foe:

NOTES.

150

155

160

VER. 149. We, wretched | is this then, but an intimation that we ought to seek for a cure in that religion, which only dares profess to give it?

fubjects, &c.] St Paul himself did not chuse to employ other arguments, when difposed to give us the highest idea of the usefulness of VER. 163. 'Tis her's to Chriftianity. (Rom. vii.) But, rectify, &c.] The meaning it may be, the poet finds a of this precept is, That as remedy in Natural Religion. the ruling Passion is imFar from it. He here leaves, planted by Nature, it is reason unrelieved. What | Reason's office to regulate,

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