Afk men's opinions: Scoto now shall tell
How trade increases, and the world goes well;
Strike off his penfion, by the setting fun,
And Britain, if not Europe, is undone.

That gay Free-thinker, a fine talker once,
What turns him now a ftupid filent dunce?
Some God, or fpirit, he has lately found;
Or chanc'd to meet a minifter that frown'd.

Judge we by nature? habit can efface,
Intereft o'ercome, or policy take place :
By actions? thofe uncertainty divides:
By paffions thefe diffimulation 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.

Search then the RULING PASSION: There, alone, The wild are constant, and the cunning known; The fool confiftent, and the false fincere; Priefts, princes, women, no diffemblers here. This clue once found, unravels all the rest, The profpect clears, and Whartou stands confeft. Wharton, the fcorn and wonder of our days, Whofe ruling paffion was the luft of praise : Born with whate'er could win it from the wife, Women and fools muft like him or he dies: Tho' wondring fenates hung on all he spoke, The club must hail him master of the joke. Shall parts fo various aim at nothing new? He'll shine a Tully and a Wilmot too.

Then turns repentant, and his God adores
With the fame spirit that he drinks and whores;
Enough if all around him but admire,

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 fhun contempt;
His paffion ftill, to covet general praise,
His Life, to forfeit it a thousand ways;
A conftant Bounty which no friend has made;
An angel Tongue, which no man can perfuade;
A Fool, with more of Wit than half mankind,
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;

He dies, fad out-cast of each church and state,
And, harder ftill! flagitious, yet not great.
Afk you why Wharton broke thro' every rule?
"Twas all for fear the Knaves fhould call him Fool,
Nature well known, no prodigies remain,
Comets are regular, and Wharton plain.

Yet, in this fearch, the wifest may mistake,
If fecond qualities for first they take.
When Catiline by rapine fwell'd his store;
When Caefar made a noble dame a whore;
In this the Luft, in that the Avarice
Were means, not ends; Ambition was the vice.
That very Caefar born in Scipio's days,
Had aim'd, like him, by chastity, at praise.

VOL. III.

Lucullus, when Frugality could charm,
Had roafted turnips in the Sabin farm.
In vain th' obferver eyes the builder's toil,
But quite mistakes the fcaffold for the pile.

In this one passion man can strength enjoy,
As fits give vigour, juft when they destroy.
Time, that on all things lays his lenient hand,
Yet tames not this; it sticks to our laft fand.
Confiftent in our follies and our fins,
Here honest Nature ends as she begins.

Old Politicians chew on wisdom past,
And totter on in business to the last;
As weak, as earneft; and as gravely out,
As fober Lanefb'row dancing in the gout.

Behold a reverend fire, whom want of grace
Has made the father of a nameless race,
Shov'd from the wall perhaps, or rudely prefs'd
By his own fon, that paffes by unbless'd:
Still to his wench he crawls on knocking knees,
And envies every sparrow that he fees.

A falmon's belly, Helluo, was thy fate;
The doctor call'd, declares all help too late :
"Mercy! cries Helluo, mercy on my foul!
"Is there no hope?-Alas!-then bring the jowl."
The frugal Crone, whom praying priests attend,
Still ftrives to fave the hallow'd taper's end,
Collects her breath, as ebbing life retires,
For one puff more, and in that puff expires.

"Odious in woollen! 'twould a faint provoke, (Were the last words that poor Narciffa spoke)

"No, let a charming Chintz, and Bruffels' lace "Wrap my cold limbs, and fhade my lifeless face : "One would not, fure, be frightful when one's dead— "And Betty-give this Cheek a little red.”

The courtier fmooth, who forty years had fhin'd An humble fervant to all human kind, Just brought out this, when scarce his tongue could stir, "If where I'm going-I could ferve you Sir?

“I give and I devife (old Euclio faid, And figh'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, "Not that, --I cannot part with that"-and dy’d.

...

And you! brave COBHAM, to the latest breath,
Shall feel your ruling paffion strong in death :
Such in those moments as in all the past,
"Oh, fave my Country, Heaven!" fhall be your last.

G3

Of the characters of Women (confider'd only as contra-diftinguished from the other Sex.) That these are yet more inconfiftent and incomprehenfible than thofe of Men, of which inftances are given even from fuch characters as are plaineft, and most ftrongly mark'd; as in the Affected, v. 7. &c. The Soft-natur'd ver. 29. The Cunning, v. 45. The Whimsical, v. 53. The Wits and Refiners, v.87. The Stupid and Silly, v, 101. How contrarieties run thro' them all. But tho' the particular characters of this Sex are more various than those of Men, the general characteriftic, as to the Ruling paffion, is more uniform and confin'd. In what that lies, and whence it proceeds, ver. 205, &c. Men are best known in public life, Woman in private, ver. 207. What are the