Teach us to mourn our nature, not to mend,
A fharp accufer, but a helpless friend

Or from a judge turn pleader, to perfuade cats guy
The choice we make, or juftify it made;
Proud of an eafy conqueft all along, lo
She but removes weak paffions for the ftrong:
So, when small humours gather to a gout,
The doctor fancies he has driv'n them out.
Yes, Nature's road muft ever be preferr'd;
Reafon is here no guide, but still a guard;
Tis hers to rectify, not overthrow,

And treat this paffion more as friend than foe: habevid
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 knowlege, gold or glory, please,
Or (oft more strong than all) the love of eafer;
Thro' life 'tis follow'd, ev'n at life's expence;
The merchant's toil, the fage's indolence,
The monk's humility, the hero's pride, bon
All, all alike, find Reafon on their fide.lat
Th' eternal art educing good from ill,
Grafts on this paffion our beft principle

'Tis thus the mercury of man is fix'd,ituoy and
Strong grows the virtue with his nature mix'd
The drofs cements what else were too refin'd, sustit
And in one int'reft body acts with mind.

As fruits, ungrateful to the planter's care, ur, On favage ftocks 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 niai sila A From fpleen, from obftinacy, hate, or fear!pobrsignal See anger, zeal and fortitude fupply;llo si atoq bo Ev'n av'rice, prudence; foth, philofophy; Luft, thro' fome certain ftrainers well refin'd,q ls 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, how its al But what will grow on pride, or grow on fhame.n Thus Nature gives us (let it check our pride)> 3 The virtue nearest to our vice ally'd:

2

Reason

Reason the byas 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 deftroy 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 myfterious ufe;
Tho' each by turns the other's bounds invade,
As, in fome well-wrought picture, light and fhade,
And oft fo mix, the diff'rence 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?
Afk your own heart, and nothing is fo plain;
'Tis to mistake them, cofts the time and pain.
Vice is a monfter of fo frightful mien,..
As, to be hated, needs but to be feen ;

Yet feen too oft, familiar with her face,annel
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 first degree,

But thinks his neighbour further gone than he;
Ev'n 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 ev'ry man must be,
Few in th' extreme, but all in the degree;
The rogue and fool by fits is fair and wife:
And ev❜n 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 fev'ral goal;

H

But HEAV'N's great view is one, and that the whole t
That counter-works each folly and caprice;
That disappoints th' effect of ev'ry vice;

F 3

That

That happy frailties to all ranks apply'd;
Shame to the virgin, to the matron pride,
Fear to the ftatefman, rafhnefs to the chief,
To kings prefumption, and to crowds belief:
That Virtue's ends from vanity can raife,
Which feeks no int'reft, no reward but praife;
And build on wants, and on defects of mind,
The joy, the peace, the glory of mankind.
Heav'n forming each on other to depend,
A mafter, or a fervant, or a friend,
Bids each on other for affiftance call,

'Till one man's weakness grows the ftrength of all.
Wants, frailties, paffions, clofer ftill ally
The common int'reft, or endear the tie.es
To thefe we owe true friendship, love fincere,
Each home-felt joy that life inherits here;
Yet from the fame we learn, in its decline,
Thofe joys, thofe loves, thofe int'refts to refign;
Taught half by reafon, half by mere decay,
To welcome death, and calmly pass away.

Whate'er the paffion, knowledge, fame, or pelf,
Not one will change his neighbour with himself.
The learn'd is happy nature to explore, 30 oct
The fool is happy that he knows no more;
bas
The rich is happy in the plenty giv❜n,
The poor contents him with the care of Heav'n.
See the blind beggar dance, the cripple fing,
The fot a hero, lunatic a king;

The ftarving chemift in his golden views
Supremely bleft, the poet in his muse.

See fome ftrange comfort ev'ry ftate attend,
And pride beftow'd on all, a common friend:
Sée fome fit paffion ev'ry age fupply,

Hope travels thro', nor quits us when we die.
Behold the child, by nature's kindly law,
Pleas'd with a rattle, tickled with a straw:
Some livelier play-thing gives his youth delight,
A little louder, but as empty quite :
Scarfs, garters, gold, amufe his riper ftage,
And beads and pray'r books are the toys of age:
Pleas'd, with this bauble ftill, as that before;
'Till tir'd he fleeps, and Life's poor play is o'er.
Mean-while Opinion gilds with varying rays
Thofe painted clouds that beautify our days;.

Each

Each want of happinefs by Hope fupply'd,
And each vacuity of fenfe by Pride:

Thefe build as faft as knowledge can destroy
In folly's cup ftill laughs the bubble, joy;
One profpect loft, another ftill we gain;
And not a vanity is giv'n in vain;

Ev'n mean Self-love becomes, by force divine,
The scale to meafure others' wants by thine.
See! and confefs, one comfort ftill muft rife;
'Tis this, Tho' Man's a fool, yet GOD IS WISE.

The whole UNIVERSE one SYSTEM of SOCIETY.

[POPE.]

L

OOK round our World; behold the chain of Love
Combining all below and all above.

See plaftic Nature working to this end,
The fingle atoms each to other tend,
Attract, attracted to, the next in place
Form'd and impell'd its neighbour to embrace.
See Matter next, with various life endu'd,
Prefs to one centre ftill, the gen❜ral Good.
See dying vegetables life fuftain,
See life diffolving vegetate again; tamet
All forms that perifh other forms fupply,
(By turns we catch the vital breath, and die)
Like bubbles on the fea of Matter borne,
They rife, they break, and to that fea return.
Nothing is foreign; Parts relate to whole;
One all-extending, all-preferving Soul
Connects each being, greateft with the leaft;
Made Beaft in aid of Man, and Man of Beaft;
All ferv'd, all ferving: nothing ftands alone;
The chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown.
Has God, thou fool, work'd folely for thy good,
Thy joy, thy paftime, thy attire, thy food?
Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn,
For him as kindly fpread the flow'ry lawn:
Is it for thee the lark afcends and fings?
Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings.
Is it for thee the linnet pours his throat?
Loves of his own and raptures fwell the note.

The

The bounding fteed you pompously beftride,
Shares with his lord the pleasure and the pride.
Is thine alone the feed that ftrews the plain?
The birds of heav'n fhall vindicate their grain.
Thine the full harveft of the golden year?
Part pays, and juftly, the deferving fteer:
The hog, that plows not, nor obeys thy call,
Lives on the labours of this lord of all.

Know, Nature's children fhall divide her care;
The fur that warms a monarch, warm'd a bear.
While Man exclaims, "See all things for my use !"
"See man for mine!" replies a pamper'd goofe:
And juft as fhort of reafon He muft fall,
Who thinks all made for one, not one for all.

N

The STATE of NATURE.

[POPE.]

OR think, in NATURE'S STATE they blindly trod;
The ftate of Nature was the reign of God:
Self-love and Social at her birth began,

Union the bond of all things, and of Man.
Pride then was not; nor Arts, that Pride to aid;
Man walk'd with beaft, joint tenant of the fhade;
The fame his table, and the fame his bed;
No murder cloath'd him, and no murder fed.
In the fame temple, the refounding wood,
All vocal beings hymn'd their equal God:
The fhrine with gore unftain'd, with gold undreft,
Unbrib'd, unbloody, ftood the blameless prieft :
Heav'n's Attribute was Universal Care,
And man's prerogative, to rule, but fpare.
Ah! how unlike the man of times to come!
Of half that live the butcher and the tomb
;
Who, foe to Nature, hears the gen'ral groan,
Murders their fpecies, and betrays his own."
But juft difeafe to luxury fucceeds,
And ev'ry death its own avenger breeds
The fury-paffions from that blood began,
And turn'd on Man, a fiercer favage, Man.)

REASON inftructed by INSTINCT in the Invention
of Arts, and in Forms of Society. [POPE.]
EE him from Nature rifing flow to Art!
To copy Inftinct then was Reason's part;

Thus