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Pleafure, or wrong or rightly understood,

Our greatest evil, or our greatest good.

III. Modes of felf-love the paffions we may call:
'Tis real good, or feeming, moves them all:
But fince not every good we can divide,
And reafon bids us for our own provide:
Paffions, tho' felfish, if their means be fair,
Lift under Reafon, and deferve her care;
Thofe, that imparted, court a nobler aim,
Exalt their kind, and take fome Virtue's name.
In lazy apathy let Stoics boast

Their virtue fix'd; 'tis fix'd as in a frost;
Contracted all, retiring to the breast;
But strength of mind is exercise, not rest:
The rifing tempest puts in act the foul,
Parts it may ravage, but preferves the whole.
On life's vaft ocean diverfely we fail,
Reason the chart, but paffion is the gale;
Nor God alone in the still calm we find,
He mounts the storm, and walks upon the wind.
Paffions, like elements, tho' born to fight,

Yet, mix'd and foften'd, in his work unite:
Thefe 'tis enough to temper and employ ;
But what compofes mar, can man destroy?
Suffice that reafon keep to nature's road,
Subject, compound them, follow her and Gor.
Love, Hope, and Joy, fair Pleasure's fmiling train,
Hate, Fear, and Grief, the family of Pain,

Thefe mix'd with art, and to due bounds confin'd,
Make and maintain the balance of the mind:

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The lights and fhades, whofe well accorded ftrife
Gives all the strength and colour of our life.

Pleafures are ever in our hands or eyes;

And when, in act, they cease, in prospect, rise: Prefent to grafp, and future still to find,

The whole employ of body and of mind.

All spread their charms, but charm not all alike;
On different fenfes, different objects strike;
Hence different paffions more or less inflame,
As ftrong or weak, the organs of the frame;
And hence one MASTER PASSION in the breast,
Like Aaron's ferpent, swallows up the rest.

As man, perhaps, the moment of his breath,
Receives the lurking principle of death;
The young difeafe, that must fubdue at length,
Grows with his growth, aud ftrengthens with his
So, caft and mingled with his very frame, [ftrength:
The mind's difeafe, its RULING PASSION came;
Each vital humour which should feed the whole,
Soon flows to this, in body and in foul:
Whatever warms the heart, or fills the head,
As the mind opens, and its functions spread,
Imagination plies her dang'rous, art,
And pours it all upon the peccant part.
Nature its mother, habit is its nurse;
Wit, fpirit, faculties, but make it worse ;
Reafon itself but gives it edge and power;
As heaven's bleft beam turns vinegar more four.
We, wretched fubjects tho' to lawful sway,
In this weak queen, some fav'rite still obey:

Ah! if the lend not arms, as well as rules,
What can fhe more than tell us we are fools?
Teach us to mourn our nature, not to mend,
A sharp accufer, but a helpless friend!
Or from a judge turn pleader, to perfuade
The choice we make, or justify it made ;
Proud of an eafy conqueft all along,

She but removes weak paffions for the strong:
So, when fmall humours gather to a gout,
The doctor fancies he has driven them out.

Yes, nature's road must ever be prefer'd;
Reason is here no guide, but ftill a guard;
"Tis hers to rectify, not overthrow,
And treat this paffion more as friend than foe;
A mightier power the ftrong direction fends,
And several men impels to feveral ends :
Like varying winds, by other passions tost,
This drives them conftant to a certain coaft.
Let power or knowledge, gold or glory, please,
Or (oft more strong than all) the love of case;
Thro' life 'tis follow'd, even at life's expence :
The merchant's toil, the fage's indolence,
The monk's humility, the hero's pride,
All, all alike, find reason on their fide.
Th' Eternal Art educing good from ill,
Grafts on this paffion our best principle:
'Tis thus the Mercury of man is fix'd

Strong grows the virtue with his nature mix'd; The drofs cements what else were too refin'd, And in one interest body acts with mind.

As fruits, ungrateful to the planter's care,
On favage ftocks inferted learn to bear;
The fureft virtues thus from paffions shoot
Wild nature's vigor working at the root.
What crops of wit and honefty appear
From fpleen, from obftinacy, hate, or fear!
See anger, zeal and fortitude supply;
Even avarice, prudence; floth, philofophy;
Luft, thro' fome certain ftrainers well refin'd,
Is gentle love, and charms all womankind;
Envy, to which th' ignoble mind's a flave,
Is emulation in the learn'd or brave;

Nor virtue, male or female, can we name,
But what will grow on pride, or grow on shame.
Thus nature gives us (let it check onr pride)
The virtue neareft to our vice ally'd:

Reafon the bias turns to good from ill,
And Nero reigns a Titus, if he will.
The fiery foul abhorr'd in Catiline,

In Decius charms, in Curtius is divine:
The fame ambition can destroy or fave,
And makes a patriot as it makes a knave.

This light and darkness in our chaos join'd,
What fhall divide? The GoD within the mind.
Extremes in nature equal ends produce,

In man they join to fome mysterious use;
Tho' each by turns the other's bounds invade,
As, in fome well-wrought picture, light and fhade,
And oft fo mix, the difference is too nice
Where ends the virtue, or begins the vice.

Fools! who from hence into the notion fall,
That vice or virtue there is none at all.
If white and black blend, foften, and unite
A thousand ways, is there no black or white?
Ask your own heart, and nothing is fo plain;
'Tis to mistake them, costs the time and pain.
Vice is a monster of fo frightful mien,

needs but to be feen;

As, to be hated,

Yet feen too oft,

familiar with her face,

We first endure, then pity, then embrace.

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.
No creature owns it in the firft degree,

But thinks his neighbour further gone than he :
Even those who dwell beneath its very zone,
Or never feel the rage, or never own;
What happier natures fhrink at with affright,
The hard inhabitant contends is right.

Virtuous and vicious every man must be,
Few in th' extreme, but all in the degree;
The rogue and fool by fits is fair and wife;
And even the beft, by fits, what they defpife.
'Tis but by parts we follow good or ill;
For, vice or virtue, felf directs it ftill;
Each individual feeks a feveral goal;

But HEAVEN'S great view is One, and that the Whole:
That counter-works each folly and caprice;

That difappoints th' effect of every vice;

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