Thicker than arguments, temptations throng,
At beft more watchful this, but that more ftrong; The action of the ftronger to fufpend
Reason still use, to Reason still attend.
Attention, habit and experience gains;
Each strengthens Reason, and Self-love reftrains. Let fubtle schoolmen teach these friends to fight, More ftudious to divide than to unite;
And Grace and Virtue, Senfe and Reason split,
With all the rafh dexterity of wit.
Wits juft like fools, at war about a name,
Have full as oft no meaning, or the fame.
Self-love and Reafon to one end aspire,
Pain their averfion, pleasure their defire;
But greedy That, its object would devour,
This tafte the honey, and not wound the flow'r
Pleasure, or wrong, or rightly understood,
Our greatest evil, or our greatest good.
III. Modes of Self-love the paffions we may call : 'Tis real good, or feeming, moves them all
But fince not ev'ry good we can divide,
And Reafon bids us for our own provide;
Paffions, tho' selfish, if their means be fair,
Lift under Reason, and deserve her care;
Those that imparted, court a nobler aim,
Exalt their kind, and take fome virtue's name.
In lazy apathy let ftoics boast
Their virtue fix'd; 'tis fix'd as in a frost;
Contracted all, retiring to the breast:
But ftrength of mind is exercife, not reft;
The rifing tempeft puts in act the foul,
Parts it may ravage, but preferves the whole.
On life's vaft ocean diverfely we fail,
Reafon the card, but Paffion is the gale.
Nor God alone in the ftill 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 composes Man, can Man destroy?
Suffice that Reafon keep to Nature's road,
Subject, compound them, follow her and God.
Love, Hope, and Joy, fair Pleasure 's fmiling train,
Hate, Fear, and Grief, the family of Pain,
These mix'd with art, and to due bounds confin'd,
Make and maintain the balance of the mind:
The lights and fhades, whose well accorded ftrife
Gives all the strength and colour of our life.
Pleasures are ever in our hands or eyes;
And when, in act, they ceafe, in profpect, rife:
Present to grafp, and future ftill to find,
The whole employ of body and of mind.
All spread their charms, but charm not all alike;
On diff'rent fenfes diff'rent objects strike;
Hence diff'rent paffions more or less inflame,
As ftrong or weak the organs of the frame;
And hence one MASTER PASSION in the breaft,
Like Aaron's ferpent, fwallows up the reft.
As Man, perhaps, the moment of his breath, Receives the lurking principle of death;
The young disease, that muft fubdue at length,
Grows with his growth, and ftrengthens with his
So, caft and mingled with his very frame,
The mind's disease, its RULING PASSION Came;
Each vital humour which fhould 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, Spirit, Faculties, but make it worse :
Reafon itself but gives it edge and pow'r;
As Heav'n's bleft beam turns vinegar more four.
We, wretched fubjects tho' to lawful sway,
In this weak queen, fome fav'rite still obey:
Ah! if the lend not arms as well as rules,
What can the more than tell us we are fools?
Teach us to mourn our nature, not to mend
A fharp 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 from the ftrong
So, when small humours gather to a gout,
The doctor fancies he has driven them out.
Yes, Nature's road muft ever be preferr'd: Reason is here no guide but fill a guard; "Tis her's to rectify, not overthrow,
And treat this paffion more as friend than foe
A mightier pow'r the ftrong direction fends,
And fev'ral Men impels to fev'ral ends:
Like varying winds, by other paffions toft,
This drives them conftant to a certain coaft.
Let pow'r or knowledge, gold or glory, please,
Or (oft more strong than all) the love of eafe;
Thro' life 'tis follow'd, ev'n at life's expenfe;
The merchant's toil, the fage's indolence,
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