And, binding Nature fast in Fate,
Left free the Human Will.

What Conscience dictates to be done,

Or warns me not to do,

This, teach me more than Hell to shun,
That, more than Heav'n pursue.

What Blessings Thy free Bounty gives,
Let me not cast away;

For God is paid when Man receives,
T'enjoy is to obey.

Yet not to Earth's contracted Span
Thy goodness let me bound,
Or think Thee Lord alone of Man,
When thousand Worlds are round:

Let not this weak, unknowing hand

Presume thy bolts to throw,
And deal damnation round the land
On each I judge thy Foe.

If I am right, thy grace impart,

Still in the right to stay; If I am wrong, oh teach my To find that better way.

heart

Save me alike from foolish Pride,
Or impious Discontent,
At aught thy wisdom has deny'd,
Or aught thy Goodness lent.

Teach me to feel another's Woe,
To hide the Fault I see;

15

20

25

30

35

That Mercy I to others show
That Mercy show to me.

40

Mean tho' I am, not wholly so
Since quicken'd by thy Breath;
Oh lead me wheresoe'er I go,

Thro' this day's Life or Death.

This day, be Bread and Peace my Lot:
All else beneath the Sun,
Thou know'st if best bestow'd or not,
And let Thy Will be done.

To Thee, whose Temple is all Space,
Whose Altar, Earth, Sea, Skies!
One Chorus let all Being raise!

All Nature's Incense rise!

45

50

[1738]

MORAL ESSAYS

IN FOUR EPISTLES TO SEVERAL PERSONS

Est brevitate opus, ut currat sententia, neu se
Impediat verbis lassas onerantibus aures:
Et sermone opus est modò tristi, sæpe jocoso,
Defendente vicem modò Rhetoris atque Poetæ,
Interdum urbani, parcentis viribus, atque
Extenuantis eas consultò.-HORACE.

[Close be your language; let your sense be clear,
Nor with a weight of words fatigue the ear;
From grave to jovial you must change with art,
Now play the critic's, now the poet's part;
In raillery assume a graver air,

Discreetly hide your strength, your vigour spare;
For ridicule shall frequently prevail,

And cut the knot when graver reasons fail.-FRANCIS.]

EPISTLE I

To Sir Richard Temple, Lord Cobham

ARGUMENT

OF THE KNOWLEDGE AND CHARACTERS OF MEN

I. That it is not sufficient for this knowledge to consider Man in the Abstract: Books will not serve the purpose, nor yet your own Experience singly, ver. 1. General maxims, unless they be formed upon both, will be but notional, ver. 10. Some Peculiarity in every man, characteristic to himself, yet varying from himself, ver. 15. Difficulties arising from our own Passions, Fancies, Faculties, etc., ver. 31. The shortness of Life to observe in, and the uncertainty of the Principles of action in men to observe by, ver. 37, etc. Our own Principle of action often hid from ourselves, ver. 41. Some few Characters plain, but in general confounded, dissembled, or inconsistent, ver. 51. Unimaginable weakness in the greatest, ver. 69, etc. The same man utterly different in different places and seasons, ver. 71. Nothing constant and certain but God and Nature, ver. 95. No judging of the Motives from the actions; the same actions proceeding from contrary Motives, and the same Motives influencing contrary actions, ver. 100. II. Yet to form Characters we can only take the strongest actions of a man's life and try to make them agree: the utter uncertainty of this, from Nature itself and from policy, ver. 120. Characters given according to the rank of men of the world, ver. 135. And some reason for it, ver. 140. Education alters the Nature, or at least Character, of many, ver. 149. Actions, Passions, Opinions, Manners, Humours, or Principles, all subject to change. No judging by Nature, from ver. 158 to ver. 178. III. It only remains to find (if we can) his Ruling Passion: that will certainly influence all the rest, and can reconcile the seeming or real inconsistency of all his actions,

ver. 175. Instanced in the extraordinary character of Clodio, ver. 179. A caution against mistaking second qualities for first, which will destroy all possibility of the knowledge of mankind, ver. 210. Examples of the strength of the Ruling Passion, and its continuation to the last breath, ver. 222, etc.

YES, you despise the man to Books confin'd,
Who from his study rails at human kind;
Tho' what he learns he speaks, and may advance

Some gen'ral maxims, or be right by chance.
The coxcomb bird, so talkative and grave,

5

That from his cage cries Cuckold, Whore, and Knave, Tho' many a passenger he rightly call,

You hold him no Philosopher at all.

And yet the fate of all extremes is such,
Men may be read, as well as Books, too much.
To observations which ourselves we make,
We grow more partial for th' Observer's sake;
To written Wisdom, as another's, less:
Maxims are drawn from Notions, those from Guess.
There's some Peculiar in each leaf and grain,

Some unmark'd fibre, or some varying vein:
Shall only Man be taken in the gross?

ΤΟ

15

Grant but as many sorts of Mind as Moss.

That each from other differs, first confess;

Next, that he varies from himself no less:
Add Nature's, Custom's, Reason's, Passion's strife,
And all Opinion's colours cast on life.

Our depths who fathoms, or our shallows finds,
Quick whirls, and shifting eddies, of our minds?
On human actions reason tho' you can,

It

may be Reason, but it is not Man:

His principle of action once explore,

That instant 'tis his Principle no more.

Like following life thro' creatures you dissect,

20

25

You lose it in the moment you detect.

Yet more; the diff'rence is as great between The optics seeing, as the objects seen.

All Manners take a tincture from our own;

Or come discolour'd through our Passions shown.
Or Fancy's beam enlarges, multiplies,
Contracts, inverts, and gives ten thousand dyes.
Nor will Life's stream for observation stay,

30

35

It hurries all too fast to make their way:

In vain sedate reflections we would make,

When half our knowledge we must snatch, not take.
Oft, in the Passions' wild rotation tost,

40

Our spring of action to ourselves is lost:
Tir'd, not determin'd, to the last we yield,
And what comes then is master of the field.
As the last image of that troubled heap,
When sense subsides, and Fancy sports in sleep,
(Though past the recollection of the thought)
Becomes the stuff of which our dream is wrought:
Something as dim to our internal view,
Is thus, perhaps, the cause of most we do.
True, some are open, and to all men known;
Others so very close, they're hid from none;
(So darkness strikes the sense no less than Light)
Thus gracious CHANDOS is belov'd at sight;
And ev'ry child hates Shylock, tho' his soul
Still sits at squat, and peeps not from its hole.
At half mankind when gen'rous Manly raves,
All know 'tis Virtue, for he thinks them knaves:
When universal homage Umbra pays,

45

50

55

All see 'tis Vice, and itch of vulgar praise.
When flatt'ry glares, all hate it in a Queen,

60

While one there is who charms us with his Spleen.
But these plain Characters we rarely find;