And to their proper operation still, 60 Afcribe all Good, to their improper, Ill. 70 Thicker than arguments, temptations throng, 75 At beft more watchful this, but that more ftrong, The action of the ftronger to fufpend Reafon ftill ufe, to Reason ftill attend. NOTES. VER. 74. Reason, the future and the confequence.] i. e. By experience, Reafon collects the future; and by argumentation, the confequence, Attention, habit, and experience gains; Each strengthens Reafon, and Self-love reftrains. 80 And Grace and Virtue, Sense and Reason split, 85 Wits just like fools, at war about a name, VARIATIONS, After ver. 86 in the MS. Of good and evil Gods what frighted Fools NOTES. No VER. 81. Let fubtle fchoolmen, &c.] This obfervation on the folly of the schoolmen, who confider reason and the paffions as two oppofite principles, the one good and the other evil, is seasonable and judicious; for this folly gives great fupport to the Manichæan or Zoroastrian error, the confutation of which was one of the author's chief ends in writing. For if there be two principles in Man, a good and bad, it is natural to think him the joint product of the two Manichæan deities (the first of which contributed to his Reason, the other to his Paffions) rather than the creature of one Individual Caufe. This was Plutarch's notion, and, as we may fee in him, of the more ancient Pleasure, or wrong, or rightly understood, III. Modes of Self-love the Paffions we may call: 'Tis real good, or feeming, moves them all: 95 But fince not ev'ry good we can divide, Their Virtue fix'd; 'tis fix'd as in a froft; VARIATIONS. After ver. 108, in the MS. A tedious Voyage! where how useless lies NOTES. 105 Manichæans. It was of importance, therefore, to reprobate and fubvert a notion that served to the fupport of fo dangerous an error. Nor God alone in the still calm we find, He mounts the ftorm, and walks upon the wind. 110 Paffions, like elements, tho' born to fight, Yet, mix'd and foften'd in his work unite: VARIATION S. After ver. 112. in the MS. The foft reward the virtuous, or invite ; NOTES. 115 VER. 109. Nor God alone, &c.] Thefe words are only a fimple affirmation in the poetic dress of a fimilitude, to this purpofe: Good is not only produced by the fubdual of the paffions, but by the turbulent exercife of them. A truth conveyed under the most fublime imagery that poetry could conceive or paint. For the author is here only fhewing the providential iffue of the Paffions, and how, by God's gracious difpofition, they are turned away from their natural bias, to promote the happiness of Mankind. As to the method in which they are to be treated by Man in whom they are found, all that he contends for, in favour of them, is only this, that they should not be quite rooted up and deftroyed, as the Stoics, and their followers in all religions, foolishly attempted. For the reft, he conftantly repeats this advice, The action of the stronger to fufpend, Love, Hope, and Joy, fair Pleasure's smiling train, Hate, Fear, and Grief, the family of Pain, These mix'd with art, and to due bounds confin'd And when, in act, they cease, in prospect, rise: The whole employ of body and of mind. All spread their charms, but charm not all alike; NOTES. 125 VER. 127. All Spread their charms, &c.] Though all the Paffions have their turn in swaying the determinations of the mind, yet every Man hath one MASTER PASSION that at length ftifles or absorbs all the reft. The fact he illuftrates at large in his epistle to Lord Cobham. Here (from ver. 126 to 149.) he giveth us the cause of it. Those Pleasures or Goods, which are the objects of the Paffions, affect the mind by ftriking on the fenses; but, as through the formation of the organs of our frame, every man hath fome one sense stronger and more acute than others, the object which ftrikes that ftronger and acuter sense, whatever it be, will be the object moft defired; and confequently, the pursuit of that will be the ruling paffion. That the difference of force in this ruling paffion fhall, at firft, perhaps, be very small, or even imperceptible; but Nature, Habit, Imagination, Wit, nay, even Reason itself fhall affift its growth, till it hath at length drawn and converted every other into itself. All which is delivered |