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 flower:
Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood,
Our greatest evil, or our greatest good.
III. Modes of Self-love the Paffions we may call :
"Tis real good, or feeming, moves them all :
But fince not every good we can divide,
And Reafon bids us for our own provide:
Paffions, though selfish, if their means be fair,
Lift under Reason, and deserve her care;
Thofe, that imparted, court a nobler aim,
Exalt their kind, and take some Virtue's name.
In lazy Apathy let Stoics boaft
Their Virtue fix'd; 'tis fix'd as in a frost;
Contracted all, retiring to the breast;
But strength of mind is Exercise, not Rest:
The rifing tempeft puts in act the foul,
Parts it may ravage, but preferves the whole.
On life's vaft ocean diverfely we fail,
Reason the card, but Paffion is the gale;
Nor God alone in the still calm we find,
He mounts the storm, and walks upon the wind.
After ver. 108. in the MS.
A tedious Voyage! where how useless ties
The compass, if no powerful gufts arise!
Paffions, like elements, though born to fight,
Yet, mix'd and foften'd, in his work unite:
These '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 shades, whose well-accorded ftrife
Gives all the ftrength and colour of our life.
Pleasures are ever in our hands or eyes;
And, when in act they cease, in profpect 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 reft.
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 ftrengthens with his ftrength:
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 disease, its ruling Paffion 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;
Reason 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 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 justify it made;
Proud of an easy 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 paffion more as friend than foe;
A mightier Power the ftrong direction fends,
And several Men impels to several ends :
Like varying winds, by other paffions toft,
This drives them conftant to a certain coast.
Let power or knowledge, gold or glory, please,
Or (oft more ftrong than all) the love of ease;
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 interest 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 shoot,
Wild Nature's vigour 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 avarice, prudence; floth, philofophy;
Luft, through 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.
After ver. 194. in the MS.
How oft, with Paffion, Virtue points her Charms! Then shines 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 destroy or fave,
And makes a patriot as it makes a knave.
This light and darkness in our chaos join'd,
What shall divide? The God within the mind.
Extremes in Nature equal ends produce,
In man they join to fome mysterious 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 opposite to make agree,
That, Reason! 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.
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