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Court-virtues bear, like gems, the highest rate,
Born where Heav'n's influence scarce can penetrate:
In Life's low vale, the soil the virtues like,
They please as beauties, here as wonders strike.
Though the same sun with all-diffusive rays
Blush in the rose, and in the di'mond blaze,
We prize the stronger effort of his pow'r,
And justly set the gem above the flow'r.

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'Tis education forms the common mind;
Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclin'd.
Boastful and rough, your first son is a 'squire;
The next a tradesman, meek, and much a liar;
Tom struts a soldier, open, bold, and brave;
Will sneaks a scriv'ner, an exceeding knave.
Is he a
Churchman? then he's fond of
pow'r ;

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A Quaker? sly; a Presbyterian? sour;
A smart Freethinker? all things in an hour.
Ask men's opinion; Scoto now shall tell
How trade increases, and the world goes well:
Strike off his pension by the setting sun,
And Britain, if not Europe, is undone.

That gay Freethinker, a fine talker once,
What turns him now a stupid, silent dunce ?
Some god or spirit he has lately found,
Or chanc'd to meet a minister that frown'd.
Judge we by Nature? habit can efface,
Int'rest o'ercome, or policy take place.
By actions? those uncertainty divides;
By passions? these dissimulation hides.

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Opinions? they still take a wider: range :

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Find, if you can, in what you cannot change. Manners with fortunes, humors turn with climes,

Tenets with books, and principles with times. 173

PART III.

SEARCH then the ruling passion: there, alone,
The wild are constant, and the cunning known; 175
The fool consistent, and the false sincere ;
Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here.
This clue once found, unravels all the rest,
The prospect clears, and Wharton stands confest.
Wharton, the scorn and wonder of our days! 180
Whose ruling passion was the lust of praise;
Born with whate'er could win it from the wise,
Women and fools must like him, or he dies:
Though wond'ring senates hung on all he spoke,
The club must hail him master of the joke. 185
Shall parts, so various, aim at nothing new?
He'll shine a Tully, and a Wilmot too.
Then turns repentant, and his God adores,
With the same spirit that he drinks and whores;
Enough if all around him but admire,

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And now the punk applaud, and now the friar.
Thus with each gift of Nature and of Art,
And wanting nothing but an honest heart;

Grown all to all, from no one vice exempt,
And most contemptible, to shun contempt;— 195
His passion still, to covet gen'ral praise;

His life, to forfeit it a thousand ways ;

A constant bounty, which no friend has made;
An angel tongue, which no man can persuade;
A fool, with more of wit than half mankind, 200
Too rash for thought, for action too refin'd;

A tyrant to the wife his heart approves ;
A rebel to the very king he loves;

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He dies, sad outcast of each church and state,
And, harder still, flagitious, yet not great.
Ask you why Wharton broke through ev'ry rule?
'Twas all for fear the knaves should call him fool.
Nature well known, no prodigies remain ;
Comets are regular, and Wharton plain.

Yet, in this search, the wisest may mistake, 210 If second qualities for first they take.

When Catiline by rapines swell'd his store,

When Cæsar made a noble dame a whore,

In this the lust, in that the avarice,

Were means, not ends: ambition was the vice. 215
That very Cæsar, born in Scipio's days,

Had aim'd, like him, by chastity, at praise.
Lucullus, when frugality could charm,
Had roasted turnips in the Sabine farm.
In vain th' observer eyes the builder's toil,
But quite mistakes the scaffold for the pile.
In this one passion man can strength enjoy,
As fits give vigor, just when they destroy.

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Time, that on all things lays his lenient hand,

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Yet tames not this; it sticks to our last sand. 225
Consistent in our follies and our sins,
Here honest Nature ends as she begins.
Old politicians chew on wisdom past,
And totter on in bus'ness to the last;
As weak, as earnest; and as gravely out,
As sober Lanes'brow dancing in the gout.
Behold a rev'rend sire, whom want of
Has made the father of a nameless race,
Shov'd from the wall perhaps, or rudely press'd,
By his own son, that passes by unbless'd: 235
Still to his wench he crawls on knocking knees,
And envies ev'ry sparrow that he sees.

grace

A salmon's belly, Helluo, was thy fate;

The doctor call'd, declares all help too late.

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Mercy!' cries Helluo, mercy on my soul! 240 Is there no hope ?-Alas!—then bring the jowl.' The frugal Crone, whom praying priests attend, Still strives to save the hallow'd taper's end, Collects her breath, as ebbing life retires, For one puff more, and in that puff expires. 245 Odious! in woollen! 'twould a saint provoke, (Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke) No, let a charming chintz and Brussels lace Wrap my cold limbs, and shade my lifeless face: One would not, sure, be frightful when one's

'deadAnd--Betty-give this cheek a little red.'

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The Courtier smooth, who forty years had shin'd An humble servant to all human-kind,

Just brought out this, when scarce his tongue could stir, 'If-where I'm going-I could serve you, Sir?' 'I give and I devise' (old Euclio said,

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And sigh'd) my lands and tenements to Ned.' "Your money, Sir ?”—' My money, Sir, what

• all?

• Why—if I must-(then wept) I give it Paul.' "The manor, Sir ?" The manor! hold,' he

cry'd,

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'Not that I cannot part with that'—and dy’d. And you, brave Cobham! to the latest breath Shall feel your ruling passion strong in death; Such in those moments as in all the past,

Oh! save my country, Heav'n' shall be your last.

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