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 mysterious ufe;
Though each by turns the other's bound invade,
As, in fome well-wrought picture, light and shade,
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 reafon, 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 so plain;
'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.
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,
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 swears 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 small Villains hang'd by great,
Virtuous and vicious every 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 best, 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 feveral goal;
But Heaven's great view, is One, and that the Whole. That counter works each folly and caprice;
That disappoints th' effect of every vice;
That, happy frailties to all ranks apply'd :
Shame to the virgin, to the matron pride.
Fear to the statesman, rafhnefs to the chief:
To kings prefumption, and to crowds belief:
That, Virtue's ends from vanity can raife,
Which feeks no interest, no reward but praise;
And build on wants, and on defects of mind,
The joy, the peace, the glory of Mankind.
Heaven forming each on other to depend,
A mafter or a fervant, or a friend,
Bids each on other for affistance call,
'Till one Man's weakness grows the ftrength of all.
Wants, frailties, paffions, clofer ftill ally
The common intereft, or endear the tie.
To these we owe true friendship, love fincere,
Each home-felt joy that life inherits here;
Yet from the fame we learn, in its decline,
Those joys, thofe loves, thofe interefts, to refign;
Taught half by reason, half by mere decay,
To welcome death, and calmly pass away.
Whate'er the paffion, knowledge, fame, or pelf, Not one will change his neighbour with himself.
The learn'd is happy nature to explore,
The fool is happy that he knows no more;
The rich is happy in the plenty given,
The poor contents him with the care of Heaven.
See the blind beggar dance, the cripple fing,
The fot a hero, lunatic a king;
The starving chemist in his golden views
Supremely bleft, the poet in his Muse.
See fome strange comfort every
And pride beftow'd on all, a common friend :
See fome fit paffion every age fupply,
Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die.
Behold the child, by nature's kindly law,
Pleas'd with a rattle, tickled with a straw:
Some livelier play-thing gives his youth delight,
A little louder, but as empty quite :
Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage,
And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age:
Pleas'd with this bauble ftill, as that before;
Till tir'd he fleeps, and Life's poor play is o'er.
Meanwhile Opinion gilds with varying rays
Those painted clouds that beautify our days;
Each want of happiness by hope fupply'd,
And each vacuity of fense by Pride :
Thefe build as fast as knowledge can destroy;
In folly's cup ftill laughs the bubble, joy;
One profpect loft, another still we gain ;
And not a vanity is giv'n in vain ;
Ev'n mean Self-love becomes, by force divine,
The scale to measure others wants by thine.
See! and confess, one comfort still must rise;
'Tis this, Though Man's a fool, yet GOD IS WISE.
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