140 Offend her, and she knows not to forgive; Pictures, like these, dear madam, to design, Afks no firm hand, and no unerring line; Some wandering touches, fome reflected light, Some flying ftroke alone can hit them right: For how fhould equal colours do the knack? Chameleons who can paint in white and black? "Yet Chloe fure was form'd without a fpot."Nature in her then err'd not, but forgot. "With every pleasing, every prudent part, "Say, what can Chloe want?"-She wants a heart. 160 She freaks, behaves, and acts just as she ought; But never, never, reach'd one generous thought. Virtue fhe finds too painful an endeavour, Content to dwell in decencies for ever. So very reasonable, fo unmov'd, As never yet to love, or to be lov'd. She, while her lover pants upon her breast, One certain portrait may (I grant) be seen, Which heaven has varnish'd out, and made a queen: The fame for ever! and defcrib'd by all VARIATIONS. After ver. 148, in the MS. 190 This death decides; nor lets the bleffing fall 210 In men we various ruling paffions find; In women, two almost divide the kind; Thofe, only fix'd, they first or last obey, The love of pleasure, and the love of sway. That, nature gives; and where the leflon taught Is but to please, can pleasure seem a fault? Experience, this; by man's oppreffion curft, They feek the fecond not to lose the first. Men, fome to business, some to pleasure take; But every woman is at heart a rake: Men, fome to quiet, fome to public ftrife; But every lady would be queen for life. Yet mark the fate of a whole fex of queens: Power all their end, but beauty all the means : 220 In youth they conquer with fo wild a rage, As leaves them fcarce a subject in their age: For foreign glory, foreign joy, they roam; No thought of peace or happiness at home. But wifdom's triumph is well-tim'd retreat, As hard a fcience to the fair as great! Beauties, like tyrants, old and friendlefs grown, Yet hate repofe, and dread to be alone, Worn-out in public, weary every eye, Nor leave one figh behind them when they die. Pleasures the fex, as children birds, purfue, 231 Still out of reach, yet never out of view; Sure, if they catch, to spoil the toy at most, To covet flying, and regret when lost : At laft, to follies youth could fcarce defend, It grows their age's prudence to pretend; Afham'd to own they gave delight before, Reduc'd to feign it, when they give no more: As hags hold Sabbaths, lefs for joy than spite, So these their merry, miferable night; Still round and round the ghosts of beauty glide, And haunt the places where their honour dy'd. VARIATIONS. After ver. 198, in the MS. Fain I'd in Fulvia spy the tender wife; I cannot prove it on her for my life: And, for a noble pride, I blush no less, Inftead of Berenice to think on Befs. Thus while immortal Cibber only fings 140 [kings, (As Clarke and Hoadly preach) for queens and The nymph that ne'er read Milton's mighty line, May, if the love and merit verse, have mine. Ver. 207, in the first edition: In feveral men we feveral paflions find; Flaunts and goes down, an unregarded thing; 260 Oh bleft with temper, whofe unclouded ray Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day: She, who can love a fifter's charms, or hear Sighs for a daughter with unwounded ear; She who ne'er answers till a husband cools, Or, if the rules him, never shows she rules; Charms by accepting, by submit:ing sways, Yet has her humour most, when she obeys; Let fops or fortune fly which way they will, Difdains all lofs of tickets, or codille; Spleen, vapours, or fmall-pox, above them all, And mistress of herself, though China fail. 270 280 And yet, believe me, good as well as ill Woman's at beft a contradiction ftill. Heaven when it strives to polish all it can Its laft best work, but forms a fofter man; Picks from each sex, to make the favourite bleft. Your love of pleasure, our defire of rest: Blends, in exception to all general rules, Your tafte of follies, with our fcorn of fools: Referve with franknefs, art with truth ally'd, Courage with foftnefs, modesty with pride; Fix'd principles, with fancy ever new; Shakes all together, and produces-You. Be this a woman's fame with this unbleft, Toafts live a fcorn, and queens may die a jest. This Phœbus promis'd (I forget the year) When those blue eyes firft open'd on the sphere; Afcendant Phœbus watch'd that hour with care, Averted half your parents' fimple prayer; And gave you beauty, but deny'd the pelf That buys your fex a tyrant o'er itself. The generous God, who wit and gold refines, And ripens fpirits as he ripens mines, Kept drofs for ducheffes, the world fhall know it, To you gave fense, good humour, and a poet. EPISTLE III. TO ALLEN, LORD BATHURST, Of the Ufe of Richea. THE ARGUMENT. 290 TEAT it is known to few, moft falling into one of the extremes, avarice or profufion, ver. 1, &c. The point difcuffed, whether the invention of money has been more commodious or pernicious to mankind ver. 21 to 77. That riches, either to the avaricious or the prodigal, cannot afford happiness, fcarcely neceffaries, ver. 89 to 160, That avarice is an abfolute frenzy, without an end or purpose, ver. 113, &c. 152. Conjectures about the motives of avaricious men, ver. 121 to 153. That the conduct of men, with respect ⚫to riches, can only be accounted for by the order of Providence, which works the general good out of extremes, and brings all to its great end by perpetual revolutions, ver. 161 to 178. How a mifer acts upon principles which appear to him reasonable, ver. 179. How a prodigal does the fame, ver. 199. The due medium, and true ufe of riches, ver. 219. The man of Rofs, ver. 250. The fate of the profufc and the covetous, in two examples; both miferable in life and in death, ver. 300, &c. The story of Sir Balaam, ver. 339 to the end, THIS epiftle was written after a violent outcry against our Author, on a supposition that he had ridiculed a worthy nobleman merely for his wrong tafte. He juftified himself upon that article in a letter to the Earl of Burlington; at the end of which are thefe words: "I have "learnt that there are some who would rather "be wicked than ridiculous: and therefore it 66 may be fafer to attack vices than follies, "will therefore leave my betters in the quiet poffeffion of their idols, their groves, and their high-places; and change my subject from their pride to their meannefs, from their vanities "to their miferies; and as the only certain way "to avoid misconstructions, to leffen offence, and "not to multiply ill-natured applications, I may. probably in my next, make use of real names "inftead of fictitious ones." 66 66 P. WHO fhall decide, when doctors difagree, And foundest cafuifts doubt, like you and me? You hold the word, from Jove to Momus gives, That man was made the standing jeft of Hea ven : And gold but fent to keep the fools in play, But I, who think more highly of our kind, We find our tenets juft the fame at laft. 'Tis thus we eat the bread another fows, P. But lures the pirate, and corrupts the friend. 30 P. But bribes a fenate, and the land's betray'd. 40 60 Poor avarice one torment more would find; Could he himself have fent it to the dogs? 70 To spoil the nation's last great trade, quadrille! Is this too little? would you more than live? To fome, indeed, Heaven grants the happier fate, Perhaps you think the poor might have their part; Bond damns the poor, and hates them from his heart: 100 The grave Sir Gilbert holds it for a rule That every man in want is knave or fool: "God cannot love (fays Blunt, with tearless eyes) "The wretch he ftarves"-and pioufly denies : But the good bishop, with a meeker air, Admits, and leaves them, Providence's care. Yet to be just to thefe poor men of pelf, Some revelation hid from you and me. 1:0 Why fhe and Sappho raife that monftrous fum ? Alas! they fear a man will cost a plum. Wife Peter fees the world's refpe& for gold, And therefore hopes this nation may be fold: Glorious ambition! Peter, fwell thy ftore, And be what Rome's great Didius was before. The crown of Foland, venal twice an age, To just three millions ftinted modeft Gage. But nobler fcenes, Maria's dreams unfold, Hereditary realms, and worlds of gold. VARIATIONS. After ver. 50, in the MS. To break a truft were Peter brib'd with wine, Peter 'twould pofe as wife a head as thine. VARIATIONS. Ver. 77. Since then, &c.] In the former Ed. Well then, fince with the world we ftand or fall, Come take it, as we find it, gold and all. Congenial fouls; whofe life one avarice joins, 140 A wizard told him in thefe words our fate: "At length corruption, like a general flood, (bo long by watchful minifters withstood) "Shall deluge all; and avarice, creeping on, Spread like a low-borne mift, and blot the fun; "Statefman and patriot ply alike the stocks, "Peerefs and butler there alike the box. *And judges job, and bishops bite the town, "And mighty dukes pack cards for half a crown. "See Britain funk in lucre's fordid charms, "And France reveng'd of Anne's and Edward's "arms!" [brain, 'Twas no court badge, great fcrivener, fir'd thy Nor lordly luxury, nor city gain: No, 'twas thy righteous end, asham'd to fee Senates degenerate, patriots disagree, And nobly wishing party-rage to cease, To buy both fides, and give thy country peace. "All this is madness,” cries a sober sage: 151 But who, my friend, has reason in his rage? “The ruling paffion, be it what it will, "The ruling paffion conquers reafon ftill." Lefs mad the wildeft whimsey we can frame, Than even that paffion, if it has no aim; For though fuch motives folly you may call, The folly's greater to have none at all. Hear then the truth: "'Tis Heaven each paf"fion fends, 161 "And different men directs to different ends. 180 Benighted wanderers, the foreft o'er, 200 Not fo his fon: he mark'd this oversight, And then mistook reverse of wrong for right. (For what to fhun, will no great knowledge need : But what to follow, is a task indeed), Yet fure, of qualities deferving praise, More go to ruin fortunes, than to raise. What flaughter'd hecatombs, what floods of wine, Fill the capacious 'fquire, and deep divine! Yet no mean motives this profufion draws, His oxen perish in his country's cause; 'Tis George and Liberty that crowns the cup, And zeal for that great house which eats him up. The woods recede around the naked feat, 209 The Sylvans groan-no matter-for the fleet: Next goes his wool-to clothe our valiant bands: Laft, for his country's love, he fells his lands. To town he comes, completes the nation's hope, And heads the bold train-bands, and burns a Pope: And shall not Britain now reward his toils, Britain, that pays her patriots with her spoils? In vain at court the bankrupt pleads his cause, His thanklefs country leaves him to her laws. 220 The fenfe to value riches, with the art T' enjoy them, and the virtue to impart, Not meanly, nor ambitiously purfued, Not funk by floth, not rais'd by fervitude; To balance fortune by a juft expence, Join with economy, magnificence; With fplendour, charity; with plenty, health; Oh teach us, Bathurst! yet unfpoil'd by wealth ! That fecret rare, between th' extremes to move Of mad good-nature, and of mean self-love. B. To worth or want well-weigh'd, be bounty given, 230 And eafe, or emulate, the care of Heaven; P. Who ftarves by nobles, or with nobles eats? The wretch that trufts them, and the rogue that cheats. Is there a lord, who knows a cheerful noon VARIATIONS. After ver. 218, in the Ms. 240 Where one lean herring furnish'd Cotta's board, After ver. 226, in the MS. The fecret rare, which affluence hardly join'd, Whofe table, wit, or modeft merit share, But all our praises why should lords engross! From the dry rock who bade the waters flow? But clear and artlefs, pouring through the plain B. Thrice happy man! enabled to purfue P. Of debts and taxes, wife and children clear, This man poffet-five hundred pounds a-year. Bluth, grandeur, blush! proud courts, withdraw your blaze! Ye little ftars! hide your diminish'd rays. 281 B. And what no monument, infcription, ftone? His race, his form, his name almoft unknown? P. Who builds a church.to God, and not to fame, Will never mark the marble with his name: Go, fearch it there, where to be born and die, Of rich and poor makes all the history; Enough, that virtue til'd the space between; Prov'd by the ends of being, to have been. When Hopkins dies, a thousand lights attend The wretch, who living fav'd a candle's end; VARIATIONS. After ver. 250, in the MS. Trace humble worth beyond Sabrina's shore, The register inrolls him with his poor, 290 Shouldering God's altar a vile image flands, Behold what bleflings wealth to life can lend! In the worst inn's worft room, with mat half-hung, Of mimick'd statefmen, and their merry king. 310 As well his Grace reply'd, "Like you, Sir John? Virtue and wealth what are ye but a name!" P. Where London's column, pointing at the skies Like a tall bully, lifts the head, and lies; 340 There dwelt a citizen of fober fame, A plain good man, and Balaam was his name; Religious, punctual, frugal, and fo forth; His word would pafs for more than he was worth. One folid difh his week-day meal affords, An added pudding folemniz'd the Lord's: [fure, Conftant at church, and Change; his gains were His givings rare, fave farthings to the poor. The devil was piqu'd fuch fain:fhip to behold, And long'd to tempt him, like good Job of old: 350 VARIATIONS. Ver. 337. In the former editions. That knotty point, my Lord, fhall I discuse, Or tell a tale-A tale-it follows thus. |