165 A mightier Pow'r the ftrong direction sends, Th' Eternal Art educing good from ill, NOTES. direct, and restrain, but not to overthrow it. To regulate the paffion of Avarice, for inftance, into a parfimonious difpenfation of 175 180 the public revenues; to direct the paffion of Love, whofe object is worth and beauty, To the firft good, first perfect, and firft fair, τὸ καλόν τ' ἀγαθὸν, as his mafter Plato advises; and to re ftrain Spleen to a contempt and hatred of Vice. 185 As fruits, ungrateful to the planter's care, On favage stocks inferted, learn to bear; The fureft Virtues thus from Paffions fhoot, 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 fupply; Ev'n av'rice, prudence; floth, philosophy; 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. 190 How oft, with Paffion, Virtue points her Charms ! Thus Nature gives us (let it check our pride) The virtue nearest to our vice ally'd: Reason the byas turns to good from ill, This light and darkness in our chaos join'd, VARIATIONS. 196 For right or wrong have mortals fuffer'd more? 200 pafs of things upon whatever principles we chance to have; and then it is only Opinion, a very unable judge and divider. Or else it fignifies, practically, the application of the eternal rule Extremes in Nature equal ends produce, 205 In Man they join to some mysterious ufe; Fools! who from hence into the notion fall, That Vice or Virtue there is none at all. 210 If white and black blend, foften, and unite As, to be hated, needs but to be feen; VARIATIONS. After 220. in the 1ft Edition, followed thefe, A Cheat! a Whore! who ftarts not at the name, NOTES. of right (received by us as the law of God) to the regulation of our actions; and then it is properly Confcience, the God (or the law 220 of God) within the mind, of power to divide the light from the darkness in this chaos of the paffions. 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 first degree, 225 than he; But thinks his neighbour farther gone Virtuous and vicious ev'ry Man must be, 230 235 But HEAV'N's great view is One, and that the Whole. VARIATIONS. After 226. in the MS. The Col'nel fwears the Agent is a dog, |