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Or puzzling contraries confound the whole;
Or affectations quite reverse the soul.
The dull, flat falsehood serves for policy;
And in the cunning, truth itself's a lie :
Unthought-of frailties cheat us in the wise;
The fool lies hid in inconsistencies.

See the same man, in vigour, in the gout;
Alone, in company; in place, or out;
Early at business, and at hazard late;
Mad at a fox-chase, wise at a debate;
Drunk at a borough, civil at a ball;
Friendly at Hackney, faithless at Whitehall.
Catius* is ever moral, ever grave;
Thinks who endures a knave, is next a knave,
Save just at dinner: then prefers, no doubt,
A rogue with venison to a saint without.

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Who would not praise Patritio's + high desert, His hand unstain'd, his uncorrupted heart, His comprehensive head? all interests weigh'd, All Europe saved, yet Britain not betray'd! He thanks you not; his pride is in piquet, Newmarket fame, and judgment at a bet.

What made (say, Montaigne, or more sage
Charron !)

Otho a warrior, Cromwell a buffoon?
A perjured prince a leaden saint revere?‡
A godless regent tremble at a star! §

The throne a bigot keep, a genius quit ;

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Faithless through piety, and duped through wit? Europe a woman, child, or dotard rule,

And just her wisest monarch made a fool?||

* Charles Dartineuf, a great epicure

+ Sydney, Lord Godolphin.

"Louis XI. of France wore in his hat a leaden image of the Virgin Mary, which, when he swore by, he feared to break his oath."

§ The superstitious Philip, Duke of Orleans, regent during the Minority of Louis XV

The czarina, the French king, the pope, and the King of Sardinia."

Know, God and nature only are the same; In man the judgment shoots at flying game; A bird of passage! gone as soon as found; Now in the moon perhaps, now under ground.

II.

In vain the sage, with retrospective eye, Would from the apparent What conclude the Why, Infer the motive from the deed, and show 101 That what we chanced was what we meant to do. Behold! if fortune or a mistress frowns, Some plunge in business, others shave their

crowns:

To ease the soul of one oppressive weight,
This quits an empire, that embroils a state:
The same adust complexion has impell'd
Charles to the convent, Philip to the field.
Not always actions show the man: we find,
Who does a kindness, is not therefore kind: 110
Perhaps prosperity becalm'd his breast;
Perhaps the wind just shifted from the east:
Not therefore humble he who seeks retreat;
Pride guides his steps, and bids him shun the
great:

Who combats bravely, is not therefore brave;
He dreads a death-bed like the meanest slave:
Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise;
His pride in reasoning, not in acting, lies.

But grant that actions best discover man; 119
Take the most strong, and sort them as you can.
The few that glare each character must mark;
You balance not the many in the dark.
What will you do with such as disagree?
Suppress them, or miscall them policy?
Must then at once, the character to save,
The plain rough hero turn a crafty knave?
Alas! in truth the man but changed his mind,
Perhaps was sick, in love, or had not dined.

Ask why from Britain Cæsar would retreat? Cæsar himself might whisper, he was beat. Why risk the world's great empire for a punk? Cæsar perhaps might answer, he was drunk : But, sage historians! 'tis your task to prove One action, conduct; one, heroic love.

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'Tis from high life high characters are drawn: A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn; A judge is just; a chancellor, juster still; A gownman, learn'd; a bishop, what you will; Wise, if a minister; but, if a king,

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More wise, more learn'd, more just, more every-
thing.
Court virtues bear, like gems, the highest rate,
Born where heaven'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 diamond blaze,
We prize the stronger effort of his power,
And justly set the gem above the flower.
"Tis education forms the common mind;
Just as the twig is bent, the tree 's inclined.
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 scrivener, an exceeding knave.
Is he a Churchman? then he's fond of power:
A Quaker? sly: a Presbyterian? sour:
A smart freethinker? all things in an hour.

Ask men's opinions: 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 chanced to meet a minister that frown'd.
Judge we by nature? Habit can efface,
Interest o'ercome, or policy take place :

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By actions? those uncertainty divides:
By passions? these dissimulation hides :
Opinions? they still take a wider range :
Find, if you can, in what you cannot change.
Manners with fortunes, humours turn with
climes,

Tenets with books, and principles with times.

III.

Search then the ruling passion: there, alone,
The wild are constant, and the cunning known;
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 con-
fess'd.

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 wondering senates hung on all he spoke,
The club must hail him master of the joke.
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;
His passion still, to covet general 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 refined;
*Philip, Duke of Wharton.

↑ John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester.

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

He dies, sad outcast of each church and state,
And, harder still! flagitious, yet not great.

Ask you why Wharton broke though every 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 rapine 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.
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 the observer eyes the builder's toil,
But quite mistakes the scaffold for the pile.

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In this one passion man can strength enjoy, As fits give vigour, just when they destroy. Time, that on all things lays his lenient hand, Yet tames not this; it sticks to our last sand. Consistent in our follies and our sins, Here honest Nature ends as she begins. Old politicians chew on wisdom past, And totter on in business to the last; As weak, as earnest, and as gravely out, As sober Lanesborow dancing in the gout.+ Behold a reverend sire, whom want of grace Has made the father of a nameless race, Shoved from the wall perhaps, or rudely press'd By his own son, that passes by unbless'd: Still to his wench he crawls on knocking knees, And envies every sparrow that he sees.

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*Servilia, the sister of Cato and mother of Brutus. + Lord Lanesborow, believing that dancing was a remedy for all evils, danced when a cripple with the gout.

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