Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land?
All fear, none aid you, and few understand.
Painful pre-eminence! yourself to view
Above life's weakness, and its comforts too.
Bring then these blessings to a strict account;
Make fair deductions; see to what they mount:
How much of other each is sure to cost;
How much for other oft is wholly lost;
How inconsistent greater goods with these;
How sometimes life is risk'd, and always ease:
Think, and if still the things thy envy call,
Say, wouldst thou be the man to whom they fall?
To sigh for ribands, if thou art so silly,
Mark how they grace Lord Umbra, or Sir Billy.
Is yellow dirt the passion of thy life?
Look but on Gripus, or on Gripus' wife.
If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shin'd,
The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind:
Or ravish'd with the whistling of a name,
See Cromwell, damn'd to everlasting fame!
If all, united, thy ambition call,
From ancient story, learn to scorn them all.
There, in the rich, the honor'd, fam'd, and great,
See the false scale of happiness complete!
In hearts of kings, or arms of queens who lay,
How happy! those to ruin, these betray.
Mark by what wretched steps their glory grows,
From dirt and sea-weed, as proud Venice rose;
In each, how guilt and greatness equal ran,
And all that rais'd the hero, sunk the man:
Now Europe's laurels on their brows behold,
But stain'd with blood, or ill exchang'd for gold:
Then see them broke with toils, or sunk in ease,
Or infamous for plunder'd provinces.
O! wealth ill-fated; which no act of fame
E'er taught to shine, or sanctified from shame!
What greater bliss attends their close of life?
Some greedy minion, or imperious wife,
The trophied arches, storied halls invade,
And haunt their slumbers in the pompous shade.
Alas! not dazzled with their noontide ray,
Compute the morn and evening to the day;
The whole amount of that enormous fame,
A tale, that blends their glory with their shame!
Know then this truth (enough for man to know),
"Virtue alone is happiness below."
The only point where human bliss stands still,
And tastes the good without the fall to ill;
Where only merit constant pay receives,
Is blest in what it takea, and what it gives;
The joy unequall'd, if its end it gain,
And if it lose, attended with no pain:
Without satiety, though e'er so blest,
And but more relish'd as the more distress'd:
The broadest mirth unfeeling Folly wears,
Less pleasing far than Virtue's very tears:
Good, from each object, from each place acquir'd,
For ever exercis'd, yet never tir'd;
Never elated, while one man's oppress'd :
Never dejected, while another's blest;
And where no wants, no wishes can remain,
Since but to wish more virtue, is to gain.
See the sole bliss Heaven could on all bestow!
Which who but feels can taste, but thinks can know:
Yet poor with fortune, and with learning blind,
The bad must miss; the good, untaught, will find;
Slave to no sect, who takes no private road,
But looks through Nature, up to Nature's God;
Pursues that chain which links th' immense design,
Joins Heaven and Earth, and mortal and divine;
Sees, that no being any bliss can know,
But touches some above, and some below;
Learns from this union of the rising whole
The first, last purpose of the human soul;
And knows where faith, law, morals, all began,
All end in love of God, and love of man.
For him alone, Hope leads from goal to goal,
And opens still, and opens on his soul:
Till lengthen'd on to Faith, and unconfin'd,
pours the bliss that fills up all the mind.
He sees, why Nature plants in man alone
Hope of known bliss, and faith in bliss unknown:
(Nature, whose dictates to no other kind
Are given in vain, but what they seek they find :)
Wise is her present; she connects in this
His greatest virtue with his greatest bliss;
At once his own bright prospect to be blest;
And strongest motive to assist the rest.
Self-love thus push'd to social to divine, Gives thee to make thy neighbor's blessing thine. Is this too little for the boundless heart? Extend it, let thy enemies have part. Grasp the whole worlds of reason, life, and sense, In one close system of benevolence: Happier as kinder, in whate'er degree, And height of bliss but height of charity.
God loves from whole to parts: but human soul
Must rise from individual to the whole.
Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake,
As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake;
The centre mov'd, a circle straight succeeds,
Another still, and still another spreads;
Friend, parent, neighbor, first it will embrace;
His country next; and next all human race;
Wide and more wide, th' o'erflowings of the mind
Take every creature in, of every kind;
Earth smiles around, with boundless bounty blest,
And Heaven beholds its image in his breast.
Come then, my friend! my genius! come along!
Oh master of the poet, and the song!
And while the Muse now stoops, or now ascends,
To man's low passions, or their glorious ends,
Teach me, like thee, in various nature wise,
To fall with dignity, with temper rise;
Form'd by thy converse, happily to steer,
From grave to gay, from lively to severe;
Correct with spirit, eloquent with ease,
Intent to reason, or polite to please.
Oh! while along the stream of time thy name
Expanded flies, and gathers all its fame;
Say, shall my little bark attendant sail,
Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale?
When statesmen, heroes, kings, in dust repose,
Whose sons shall blush their fathers were thy
foes,
Shall then this verse to future age pretend
Thou wert my guide, philosopher, and friend?
That, urg'd by thee, I turn'd the tuneful art,
From sounds to things, from fancy to the heart;
For Wit's false mirror held up Nature's light;
Show'd erring Pride, WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT;
That reason, passion, answer one great aim;
That true self-love and social are the same;
That virtue only makes our bliss below;
And all our knowledge is, ourselves to know.
TO SIR RICHARD TEMPLE, L. COBHAM.
OF THE KNOWLEDGE AND CHARACTERS
OF MEN.
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, these 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?
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 colors cast on life.
Our depths who fathoms, or our shallows finds,
Quick whirls, and shifting eddies, of our minds?
On human actions reason though 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 through creatures you dissect,
You lose it in the moment you detect.
I. That it is not sufficient for this knowledge to The optics seeing, as the objects seen. Yet more; the difference is as great between consider man in the abstract: books will not All manners take a tincture from our own; serve the purpose, nor yet our own experience Or come discolor'd through our passions shown. singly. General maxims, unless they be formed Or Fancy's beam enlarges, multiplies, upon both, will be but notional. Some pecu- Contracts, inverts, and gives ten thousand dyes. liarity in every man, characteristic to himself, yet
varying from himself. Difficulties arising from It hurries all too fast to mark their way: our own passions, fancies, faculties. The shortness of life to observe in, and the uncertainty of the principles of action in men to observe by. Our own principle of action often hid from our selves. Some few characters plain, but in general confounded, dissembled, or inconsistent. The same man utterly different in different places and seasons. Unimaginable weaknesses in the greatest. Nothing constant and certain but God and Nature. No judging of the motives from the actions; the same actions proceeding from contrary motives, and the same motives influencing contrary actions. II. Yet, to form characters, we can only take the strongest actions of a man's life, and try Others, so very close, they're hid from none; True, some are open, and to all men known; to make them agree: the utter uncertainty of (So darkness strikes the sense no less than light,) this, from nature itself, and from policy. Charac- Thus gracious Chandos is belov'd at sight; ters given according to the rank of men of the And every child hates Shylock, though his soul world and some reason for it. Education alters Still sits at squat, and peeps not from its hole. the nature, or at least character of many. Actions, passions, opinions, manners, humors, or prin- All know 'tis virtue, for he thinks them knaves; At half mankind when generous Manly raves, ciples, all subject to change. No judging by When universal homage Umbra pays, nature. III. It only remains to find (if we can) All see 'tis vice, an itch of vulgar praise. his ruling passion: that will certainly influence When flattery glares, all hate it in a queen, all the rest, and can reconcile the seeming or While one there is who charms us with his spleen real inconsistency of all his actions. Instanced in the extraordinary character of Clodio. A caution against mistaking second qualities for first, which will destroy all possibility of the knowledge of mankind. Examples of the strength of the ruling passion, and its continuation to the last breath.
Nor will life's stream for observation stay,
In vain sedate reflections we would make,
When half our knowledge we must snatch, not take
Oft, in the passion's wild rotation tost,
Our spring of action to ourselves is lost:
Tir'd, not determin'd, to the last we yield,
As the last image of that troubled heap,
And what comes then is master of the field.
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.
YES, you despise the man to books confin'd,
Who from his study rails at human-kind;
Though what he learns he speaks, and may advance
Some general maxims, or be right by chance.
The coxcomb bird, so talkative and grave,
That from his cage cries cuckold, whore, and knave,
Though many a passenger he rightly call,
You hold him no philosopher at all.
Though strong the bent, yet quick the turns of mind,
But these plain characters we rarely find:
Or puzzling contraries confound the whole;
Or affectations quite reverse the soul.
The dull, flat falsehood serves for policy;
And, in the cunning, truth itself's a lie:
Unthought-of frailties cheat us in the wise;
The fool lies hid in inconsistencies.
See the same man, in vigor, in the gout
Alone, in company; in place, or out;
Early at business, and at hazard late;
Mad at a fox-chase, wise at a debate;
Drunk at a borough, civil at a ball;
Friendly at Hackney, faithless at Whitehall.
Catius is ever moral, ever grave,
Thinks who endures a knave, is next a knave
Save just at dinner-then prefers, no doubt,
A rogue with venison to a saint without.
Who would not praise Patricio's high desert,
His hand unstain'd, his uncorrupted heart,
His comprehensive head! all interests weigh'd,
All Europe sav'd, yet Britain not betray'd.
He thanks you not, his pride is in piquette,
Newmarket fame, and judgment at a bet.
What made (say, Montagne, or more sage Charron!)
Otho a warrior, Cromwell a buffoon?
A perjured prince a leaden saint revere,
A godless regent tremble at a star?
The throne a bigot keep, a genius quit,
Faithless through piety, and dup'd through wit?
Europe a woman, child, or dotard rule,
And just her wisest monarch made a fool?
Know, God and Nature only are the same: In man, the judgment shoots a flying game; A bird of passage! gone as soon as found, Now in the Moon perhaps, now under ground. In vain the sage, with retrospective eye, Would from th' apparent what conclude the why, Infer the motive from the deed, and show, That what we chanc'd, was what we meant to do. Behold if Fortune or a mistress frowns, Some plunge in business, others shave their crowns; To ease the soul of one oppressive weight, This quits an empire, that embroils a state: The same adust complexion has impell'd Charles to the convent, Philip to the field.
Not always actions show the man: we find Who does a kindness, is not therefore kind : Perhaps prosperity becalm'd his breast, Perhaps the wind just shifted from the east: Not therefore humble he who seeks retreat, Pride guides his steps, and bids him shun the great: Who combats bravely is not therefore brave, He dreads a death-bed like the meanest slave: Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise, His pride in reasoning, not in acting, lies.
But grant that actions best discover man; Take the most strong, and sort them as you can. The few that glare, each character must mark, You balance not the many in the dark. What will you do with such as disagree? Suppress them, or miscall them policy? Must then at once (the character to save) The plain rough hero turn a crafty knave? Alas! in truth the man but chang'd his mind, Perhaps was sick, in love, or had not din'd. Ask why from Britain Cæsar would retreat? Cesar himself might whisper, he was beat. Why risk the world's great empire for a punk? Cæsar perhaps might answer, he was drunk. But, sage historians! 'tis your task to prove One action, conduct; one, heroic love.
"Tis from high life high characters are drawn:
A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn;
A judge is just, a chancellor juster still;
A gownman learn'd; a bishop, what you will;
Wise, if a minister; but, if a king,
More wise, more learn'd, more just, more every thing.
Court-virtues bear, like gems, the highest rate,
Born where Heaven's influence scarce can penetrate:
In life's low vale, the soil the virtues like,
They please as beauties, here as wonders strike.
Though the same Sun with all diffusive rays
Blush in the rose, and in the diamond blaze,
We prize the stronger effort of his power,
And justly set the gem above the flower.
"Tis education forms the common mind; Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclin'd. Boastful and rough, your first son is a 'squire ; The next a tradesman meek, and much a liar: Tom struts a soldier, open, bold, and brave; Will sneaks a scrivener, an exceeding knave: Is he a churchman? then he's fond of power: A quaker? sly: a presbyterian? sour: A smart free-thinker? all things in an hour.
Ask men's opinions: Scoto now shall tell
How trade increases, and the world goes well;
Strike off his pension, by the setting sun,
And Britain, if not Europe, is undone.
That gay free-thinker, a fine talker once,
What turns him now a stupid, silent dunce?
Some god, or spirit, he has lately found;
Or chanc'd to meet a minister that frown'd.
Judge we by nature? habit can efface,
Interest o'ercome, or policy take place:
By actions? those uncertainty divides:
By passions? these dissimulation hides:
Opinions? they still take a wider range :
Find, if you can, in what you cannot change.
Manners with fortunes, humors 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 consistent, and the false sincere;
Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here.
This clue once found, unravels all the rest,
The prospect clears, and Wharton stands confest.
Wharton, the scorn and wonder of our days,
Whose ruling passion was the lust of praise;
Born with whate'er could win it from the wise,
Women and fools must like him, or he dies:
Though wondering senates hung on all he spoke,
The club must hail him master of the joke.
Shall parts so various aim at nothing new?
He'll shine a Tully and a Wilmot too.
Then turns repentant, and his God adores
With the same 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 shun contempt;
His passion still, to covet general praise;
His life, to forfeit it a thousand ways;
A constant bounty, which no friend has made;
An angel tongue, which no man can persuade;
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, sad outcast of each church and state,
And, harder still! flagitious, yet not great.
Ask you why Wharton broke through every rule!
'Twas all for fear the knaves should call him foo
Nature well known, no prodigies remain,
Comets are regular, and Wharton plain.
Yet, in this search, the wisest may mistake,
If second qualities for first they take.
When Catiline by rapine swell'd his store;
When Cæsar made a noble dame a whore;
In this the lust, in that the avarice,
Were means, not ends; ambition was the vice
That very Cæsar, born in Scipio's days,
Had aim'd, like him, by chastity, at praise.
Th' address, the delicacy-stoops at once,
And makes her hearty meal upon a dunce.
Flavia 's a wit, has too much sense to pray;
To toast our wants and wishes, is her way;
Nor asks of God, but of her stars, to give
The mighty blessing, "while we live, to live."
Then all for death, that opiate of the soul!
Lucretia's dagger, Rosamonda's bowl.
Say, what can cause such impotence of mind?
A spark too fickle, or a spouse too kind?
Some wandering touches, some reflected light,
Some flying stroke alone can hit them right:
For how should equal colors do the knack?
Chameleons who can paint in white and black?
Yet Chloe sure was form'd without a spot."-
Nature in her then err'd not, but forgot.
With every pleasing, every prudent part,
Say, what can Chloe want?"-She wants a heart.
She speaks, behaves, and acts just as she ought;
But never, never reach'd one generous thought.
Wise wretch! with pleasures too refin'd to please; Virtue she finds too painful an endeavor,
With too much spirit to be e'er at ease;
With too much quickness ever to be taught;
With too much thinking to have common thought:
You purchase pain with all that joy can give,
And die of nothing but a rage to live.
Turn then from wits; and look on Simo's mate,
No ass so meek, no ass so obstinate.
Or her, that owns her faults, but never mends,
Because she's honest, and the best of friends.
Or her, whose life the church and scandal share,
For ever in a passion, or a prayer.
Or her, who laughs at Hell, but (like her grace)
Cries, "Ah! how charming, if there's no such
place!"
Or who in sweet vicissitude appears
Of mirth and opium, ratafie and tears,
The daily anodyne, and nightly draught,
To kill those foes to fair-ones, time and thought.
Woman and fool are too hard things to hit;
For true no-meaning puzzles more than wit.
But what are these to great Atossa's mind?
Scarce once herself, by turns all woman-kind!
Who, with herself, or others, from her birth
Finds all her life one warfare upon Earth:
Shines, in exposing knaves, and painting fools,
Yet is, whate'er she hates and ridicules.
No thought advances, but her eddy brain
Whisks it about, and down it goes again.
Full sixty years the world has been her trade,
The wisest fool much time has ever made.
From loveless youth to unrespected age,
No passion gratified, except her rage,
So much the fury still outran the wit,
The pleasure mist her, and the scandal hit.
Who breaks with her, provokes revenge
Hell,
Content to dwell in decencies for ever.
So very reasonable, so unmov'd,
As never yet to love, or to be lov'd.
She, while her lover pants upon her breast,
Can mark the figures on an Indian chest;
And when she sees her friend in deep despair,
Observes how much a chintz exceeds mohair.
Forbid it, Heaven, a favor or a debt
She e'er should cancel-but she may forget.
Safe is your secret still in Chloe's ear;
But none of Chloe's shall you ever hear.
Of all her dears she never slander'd one,
But cares not if a thousand are undone.
Would Chloe know if you're alive or dead?
She bids her footman put it in her head.
Chloe is prudent-Would you too be wise?
Then never break your heart when Chloe dies.
One certain portrait may (I grant) be seen,
Which Heaven has varnish'd out, and made a queen:
The same for ever! and describ'd by all
With truth and goodness, as with crown and ball.
Poets heap virtues, painters gems at will,
And show their zeal, and hide their want of skill
"Tis well-but, artists! who can paint or write,
To draw the naked is your true delight.
That robe of quality so struts and swells,
None see what parts of Nature it conceals:
Th' exactest traits of body or of mind,
We owe to models of an humble kind.
If Queensberry to strip there's no compelling, 'Tis from a handmaid we must take a Helen From peer or bishop 'tis no easy thing To draw the man who loves his God, or king: Alas! I copy (or my draught would fail) from From honest Mah'met, or plain parson Hale.
But he's a bolder man who dares be well.
Her every turn with violence pursued,
Nor more a storm her hate than gratitude:
To that each passion turns, or soon or late;
Love, if it makes her yield, must make her hate:
Superiors? death! and equals? what a curse!
But an inferior not dependant? worse.
Offend her, and she knows not to forgive;
Oblige her, and she'll hate you while you live:
But die, and she'll adore you-Then the bust
And temple rise-then fall again to dust.
Last night, her lord was all that's good and great;
A knave this morning, and his will a cheat.
Strange! by the means defeated of the ends,
By spirit robb'd of power, by warmth of friends,
By wealth of followers! without one distress
Sick of herself, through very selfishness!
Atossa, curs'd with every granted prayer,
Childless with all her children, wants an heir.
To heirs unknown descends th' unguarded store,
Or wanders, Heaven-directed, to the poor.
Pictures, like these, dear madam, to design,
Asks no firm hand, and no unerring line;
But grant, in public, men sometimes are shown,
A woman's seen in private life alone:
Our bolder talents in full life display'd;
Your virtues open fairest in the shade.
Bred to disguise, in public 'tis you hide;
There, none distinguish 'twixt your shame or pride,
Weakness or delicacy; all so nice,
That each may seem a virtue, or a vice.
In men, we various ruling passions find;
In women, two almost divide the kind:
Those, only fix'd, they first or last obey,
The love of pleasure, and the love of sway.
That, Nature gives; and where the lesson taught
Is but to please, can pleasure seem a fault?
Experience, this; by man's oppression curst,
They seek the second not to lose the first.
Men, some to business, some to pleasure take;
But every woman is at heart a rake:
Men, some to quiet, some to public strife;
But every lady would be queen for life.
Yet mark the fate of a whole sex of queens!
Power all their end, but beauty all the means:
In youth they conquer with so wild a rage,
As leaves them scarce a subject in their age.
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