Or (oft more strong than all) the love of ease;

Through life 'tis follow'd, ev'n at life's expense; The merchant's toil, the sage's indolence,

The monk's humility, the hero's pride,
All, all alike, find reason on their side.

172

Th' eternal art, educing good from ill,
Grafts on this passion our best principle:
"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 interest 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 vigor working at the root.
What crops of wit and honesty appear

175

180

185

170. Strong is an adj. agreeing with love, unless we understand the compound relative what. An adj. or participle, or relative, included in a parenthesis, may agree with its noun, or antecedent out of the same, and the contrary, but there can be no agreement or government of nouns and verbs in the like situation.

171. Through life it is followed, &c. i. e. the thing, whatever it be that pleases more than other things.

172. The merchant's toil, the sage's indolence, all find reason, &c.

177. The mercury of man - the temperament of the

mind.

179. The dross cements that, which otherwise would be, &c.

184. Wild nature's vigor working, &c. A substantive and participle are put absolute, in the nom. when the case depends on no other word.

185. What is often used as a demonstrative pro., signi fying how many, or how great.

From spleen, from obstinacy, hate, or fear!
See anger, zeal and fortitude supply;

190

Ev'n avarice, prudence; sloth, philosophy;
Lust, through some certain strainers well refin'd,
Is gentle love, and charms all 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. Thus nature gives us (let it check our pride)

The virtue nearest to our vice allied:

Reason the bias turns to good from ill,
And Nero reigns a Titus, if he will.
The fiery soul abhorr'd in Catiline,
In Decius charms, in Curtius is divine:
The same ambition can destroy or save,

196

200

And makes a patriot as it makes a knave.

IV. This light and darkness in our chaos join'd, What shall divide? The God within the mind. Extremes in nature equal ends produce,

205

193. Male and female are adjs. agreeing with virtue. 195. Thus nature gives us (-) the virtue, &c. Some have allowed an active verb to govern two objective cases, one of the person, and the other of the thing; but a prep. may always be understood to govern the person.

197. Reason turns the bias, &c.

198. Titus is the nom. c. after reigns.

199. The fiery soul, &c. The same restless spirit being regulated by more virtuous principles of action, and directed to proper objects of pursuit, proves, in Decius, a charm and a blessing to his country.

204. The God within the mind shall divide this light and darkness.

In man they join to some mysterious use;

Though each by turns the other's boundsinvade,
As in some well-wrought picture, light and shade,
And oft so mixt the difference 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.

210

If white and black blend, soften, and unite
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.
V. 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;
No creature owns it in the first degree,

But thinks his neighbor further 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.

225

230

VI. Virtuous and vicious every man must be;

Few in th' extreme, but all in the degree;

208. As light and shade invade each other's bounds. 218. To be hated is in the inf. mood absolute

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,

235

For, vice or virtue, self directs it still;

Each individual seeks a several goal; [the whole. VII. But Heaven's great view, is one, and that That, counter-works each folly and caprice;

That, disappoints th' effect of every vice :

240

That, happy frailties to all ranks applied;
Shame to the virgin, to the matron pride;
Fear to the statesman, rashness to the chief;
To kings presumption, and to crowds belief:
That, virtue's ends from vanity can raise,
Which seeks no interest, no reward but praise,
And build on wants, and on defects of mind,
The joy, the peace, the glory of mankind.

Heaven forming each on other to depend,

A master, or a servant, or a friend,

Bids each on other for assistance call,

245

250

Till one man's weakness grows the strength of all. Wants, frailties, passions, closer still ally

The common interest, or endear the tie.

256

To these we owe true friendship, love sincere,
Each home-felt joy that life inherits here;
Yet from the same we learn, in its decline,
Those joys, those loves, those interests, to resign;
Taught half by reason, half by mere decay,
To welcome death, and calmly pass away. 260

241. That applied happy faculties, &c.
245-7. That can raise and can build.

3

Whate'er the passion, knowledge, fame, or pelf, Not one will change his neighbor with himself. The learn'd is happy nature to explore,

The fool is happy that he knows no more;
The rich is happy in the plenty given,

The poor contents him with the care of Heav'n.
See the blind beggar dance, the cripple sing;
The sot a hero, lunatic a king;

The starving chymist in his golden views
Supremely blest, the poet in his muse.

See some strange comfort every state attend,
And pride bestow'd on all, a common friend:
See some fit passion every age supply;
Hope travels through, 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 plaything gives his youth delight,
A little louder, but as empty quite!

265

270

275

261. Let the passion be that, which it may be; or whatever may be considered as an indef. pro. in which sense it is often used.

267. It is a striking truth, that those people, whom we might suppose the most miserable, are apparently the most happy, and that, too, under mistaken views of their own character which is in itself sufficient evidence that all ideas of happiness are illusory, unless founded on a rational reference to the concerns of another world.

269. The starving chymist-reference is here made to the alchymists who, for a long time, were employed in vain search after the philosopher's stone, which they fondly hoped would turn every thing it touched into gold. See the poet in his muse supremely blest.

275-282. Man is here traced through his progress, from childhood to old age, together with the varied objects of his pleasure. Beads and prayer books-this is spoken in