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"Tis thus the Mercury of Man is fix'd,
Strong grows the Virtue with his nature mix'd ;
The dross cements what else were too refin'd,
And in one int'rest body acts with mind.

As fruits, ungrateful to the planter's care,
On savage stocks inserted, learn to bear;
The surest Virtues thus from Passions shoot,
Wild Nature's vigour working at the root.
What crops of wit and honesty appear
From spleen, from obstinacy, hate, or fear!
See anger, zeal, and fortitude, supply;
Ev'n avarice, prudence; sloth, philosophy;
Lust, through some certain strainers well refin'd,
Is gentle love, and charms of womankind;
Envy, to which th' ignoble mind's a slave,
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.

180

185

190

VARIATIONS.

After Ver. 194 in the MS.

How oft with Passion, Virtue points her charms!
Then shines the Hero, then the Patriot warms.
Peleus' great Son, or Brutus, who had known,
Had Lucrece been a Whore, or Helen none!
But Virtues opposite to make agree,
That, Reason! is thy task; and worthy Thee.
Hard task, cries Bibulus, and Reason weak.
-Make it a point, dear Marquess! or a pique.
Once, for a whim, persuade yourself to pay
A debt to Reason, like a debt at play.
For right or wrong have mortals suffer'd more
B- for his prince, or ** for his Whore?
Whose self-denials Nature must control?
His, who would save a Sixpence, or his Soul?

Thus Nature gives us (let it check our pride) 195 The virtue nearest to our vice ally'd:

Reason the bias turns from good to ill,

And Nero reigns a Titus, if he will.
The fiery soul abhorr'd in Catiline,
In Decius charms, in Curtius is divine:

200

VARIATIONS.

Web for his health, a Chartreux for his Sin,
Contend they not which soonest shall grow thin?
What we resolve, we can: but here's the fault,
We ne'er resolve to do the thing we ought.

NOTES.

Ver. 197. Reason the bias, &c.] But lest it should be objected, that this account favours the doctrine of Necessity, and would insinuate that men are only acted upon, in the production of good out of evil; the Poet teacheth (from Ver. 196 to 203) that Man is a free agent, and hath it in his power to turn the natural passions into virtues or into vices, properly so called:

"Reason the bias turns to good from ill,

And Nero reigns a Titus, if he will."

Secondly, If it should be objected, that though he doth, indeed, tell us some actions are beneficial and some hurtful, yet he could not call those virtuous, nor these vicious, because, as he hath described things, the motive appears to be only the gratification of some passion; give me leave to answer for him, that this would be mistaking the argument, which (to Ver. 249 of this epistle) considers the passions only with regard to Society, that is, with regard to their effects rather than their motives: that, however, it is his design to teach that actions are properly virtuous and vicious; and though it be difficult to distinguish genuine virtue from spurious, they having both the same appearance, and both the same public effects, yet that they may be disentangled. If it be asked, by what means? He replies (from Ver. 202 to 205) by conscience;-the God within the mind;and this is to the purpose; for it is a Man's own concern, and no one's else, to know whether his virtue be pure and solid; for what is it to others, whether this virtue (while, as to them, the effect of it is the same) be real or imaginary? W.

The same ambition can destroy or save,
And makes a patriot as it makes a knave.

This light and darkness in our chaos join'd,
What shall divide? The God within the mind.

Extremes in Nature equal ends produce,

205

In Man they join to some mysterious use;
Tho' each by turns the other's bound invade,
As, in some well-wrought picture, light and shade,
And oft so 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, soften, and unite

210

A thousand ways, is there no black or white? Ask your own heart, and nothing is so plain; 215 "Tis to mistake them, costs the time and pain.

NOTES.

Ver. 205. Extremes in Nature equal ends produce, &c.] But still it will be said, Why all this difficulty to distinguish true virtue from false? The Poet shews why (from Ver. 204 to 211), That though indeed vice and virtue so invade each other's bounds, that sometimes we can scarce tell where one ends and the other begins, yet great purposes are served thereby, no less than the perfecting the constitution of the Whole, as lights and shades, which run into one another insensibly in a well-wrought picture, make the harmony and spirit of the composition. But on this account, to say there is neither vice nor virtue, the Poet shews (from Ver. 210 to 217), would be just as wise as to say, there is neither black nor white; because the shade of that, and the light of this, often run into one another, and are mutually lost:

"Ask your own heart, and nothing is so plain;

"Tis to mistake them, costs the time and pain."

This is an error of speculation, which leads men so foolishly to conclude, that there is neither vice nor virtue. W.

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As, to be hated, needs but to be seen;

Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.

220

But where th' Extreme of Vice, was ne'er agreed: Ask 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.

VARIATIONS.

After Ver. 220, in the 1st Edition, followed these,

A Cheat! a Whore! who starts not at the name,
In all the Inns of Court or Drury-lane?

After Ver. 226 in the MS.

The Col'nel swears the Agent is a dog,
The Scriv'ner vows th' Attorney is a rogue.
Against the Thief, th' Attorney loud inveighs,
For whose ten pound the County twenty pays.
The Thief damns Judges, and the Knaves of State;
And dying, mourns small Villains hang'd by great.

NOTES.

Ver. 217. Vice is a monster, &c.] There is another Error, an error of practice, which hath more general and hurtful effects; and is next considered (from Ver. 216 to 221). It is this, that though, at the first aspect, Vice be so horrible as to fright the beholder, yet, when by habit we are once grown familiar with her, we first suffer, and in time begin to lose the memory of her nature; which necessarily implies an equal ignorance in the nature of virtue. Hence men conclude, that there is neither one nor the other. W.

"Hence we find," says that amiable moralist Hutcheson, "that the basest actions are dressed in some tolerable mask :" "What others call avarice, appears to the agent a prudent care of a family or friends; fraud, artful conduct; malice and revenge, a just sense of honour; fire, and sword, and desolation, among enemies, a just, thorough defence of our country; persecution, a zeal for truth, and for the eternal happiness of men, which heretics oppose."

No creature owns it in the first degree,

But thinks his neighbour farther gone than he;
Ev'n those who dwell beneath its very zone,
Or never feel the rage, or never own;
What happier natures shrink 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 wise;
And ev❜n the best, by fits, what they despise.
'Tis but by parts we follow good or ill;

225

230

235

For, Vice or Virtue, Self directs it still ;

Each individual seeks a sev'ral goal;

But HEAV'N's great view is One, and that the Whole. That counter-works each folly and caprice;

That disappoints th' effect of ev'ry vice;

NOTES.

240

Ver. 231. Virtuous and vicious] A fine and just reflection, and well calculated to subdue and extinguish that petulant contempt and unmerited aversion which men too generally entertain of each other, and which gradually diminish and destroy the social and kind affections. "Our emulation," says the amiable and sagacious Hutcheson, "our jealousy or envy, should be restrained in a great measure by a constant resolution of bearing always in our minds the lovely side of every character." And Plato observes, in the Phædon, that there is something amiable in almost every man living. This charitable doctrine of putting candid constructions on actions that appear blamable, nay, detestable and deformed, is illustrated and enforced, with great strength of argument and of benevolence, by King, in the 5th ch. of the Origin of Evil, when he endeavours to evince the prevalence of moral good in the world.

Ver. 234. by fits, what they despise.] Xaλeñòv έodλòv ëμμevai, was a saying of Pittacus, quoted and commented upon by Plato, in the Protagoras.

Ver. 239. That counter-works each folly and caprice;] The men

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