Reason the byas turns to good from ill, And Nero reigns a Titus, if he will. VARIATIONS. Whofe felf-denials nature moft controul? NOTES. 200 VER. 197. Reafon the byas, &c.] Left it fhould be objected, that this account favours the doctrine of Neceffity, and would infinuate that Men are only acted upon, in the production of Good out of Evil; the poet here teacheth, that Man is a free-agent, and hath it in his own power to turn the natural paffions into Virtue or into Vices, properly fo called: Reason the byas turns to good from ill, And Nero reigns a Titus, if he will. VER. 204. The God within the mind. ] A Platonic phrase for Confcience; and here employed with great judgment and propriety. For Confcience either fignifies, fpeculatively, the judgment we pafs of things upon whatever principles we chance to have; and then it is only Opinion, 5. Extremes in Nature equal ends produce, In Man they join to fome myfterious use; 205 Tho' each by turns the other's bounds invade, Fools! who from hence into the notion fall, That Vice or Virtue there is none at all. NOTES. 210 a very unable judge and divider. Or else 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. VER. 285. Extremes in Nature equal ends produce.] The poet here reasons to this effect, That though indeed Vice and Virtue fo invade each other's bounds, that fometimes we can fearch tell where one ends, and the other begins, yet great purposes are ferved thereby, no less than the perfecting the conftitution of the whole, as lights and shades, which run into one another in a well-wrought picture, make the harmony and spirit of the compofition. But, on this account, to say there is neither Vice nor Virtue, the poet fhews would be just as wife as to fay, there is neither black nor white; because the fhade of that, and the light of this, often run into one another: Afk your own heart, and nothing is fo plain; Ask your own heart, and nothing is fo plain? 215 'Tis to mistake them, cofts the time and pain. Vice is a monster of fo frightful mien, Yet feen too oft, familiar with her face, 220 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. But thinks his neighbour further gone than he; VARIATIONS. After ver. 220. in the 1ft Edition, followed these, After ver. 226. in the MS. 225 230 The Col'nel fwears the Agent is a dog, Virtuous and vicious ev'ry Man must be, 235 But HEAV'N's great view is One, and that the Whole. That disappoints th' effect of ev'ry vice; NOTES. 240 Few, VER. 231. Virtuous and vicious ev'ry Man muft be, in th' extreme, but all in the degree ;] Of this the Poet, with admirable fagacity, affigns the caufe, in the following line: For, Vice or Virtue, SELF directs it ftill. An adherence or regard to what is, in the fenfe of the world, a man's own intereft, making an extreme in either Vice or Virtue almoft impoffible. Its effect in keeping a good Man from the extreme of Virtue, needs no explanation; and in an ill Man, Self-intereft fhewing him the neceffity of fome kind of reputation, the procuring, and preferving that, will keep him from the extreme of Vice. That Virtue's ends from vanity can raise, Which feeks no int'reft, no reward but praise; 245 250 'Till one Man's weakness grows the strength of all. Wants, frailties, paffions, closer still ally The common int'reft or endear the tie. NOTES. VER. 249. Heav'n forming each on other to depend,] Hitherto the Poet hath been employed in difcourfing of the ufe of the Paffions, with regard to Society at large; and in freeing his doctrine from objections: This is the first general divifion of the fubject of this epiftle. He comes now to fhew the ufe of thefe Paffions, with regard to the more confined circle of our Friends, Relations, and Acquaintance: and this is the fecond general divifion. VER. 253. Wants, frailties, paffions, clofer ftill ally, The common int'reft, &c.] As thefe lines have been mifunderstood, I fhall give the reader their plain and obvious meaning. "To thele frailties (fays he) we owe all the endearments of private life; yet when we come to that age, which generally difpofes Men to think more feriously of the true value of things, and confequently of their provifion for a future ftate, the confideration, that the grounds of those joys, loves, and friendships, are wants, frailties, and paffions, proves the best expedient to wean us from the world; a difengagement fo friendly to that provision we are now making for another," The obfervation is new |