41 And to their proper operation still 60 5 To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot: 66 70 That sees immediate good by present sense; Thicker than arguments, temptations throng; 75 The action of the stronger to suspend, Reason still use, to reason still attend. Attention, habit, and experience gains; 79 58. To their improper operation ascribe all ill. 62. Were active-an elegant poetical usage for would be active. 67-69. It should be kept in mind that in all the following part of this work, the poet treats of self-love as the noving, and reason as the comparing principle. 72. Reason's objects are at a distance. 74. Reason sees the future, &c. 79. Attention gains habit and experience 4 Each strengthens reason, and self-love restrains. Let subtle school-men teach these friends to F fight, More studious to divide than to unite; And grace and virtue, sense and reason split, With all the rash dexterity of wit. Wits, just like fools, at war about a name, 85 Have full as oft no meaning, or the same. Self-love and reason to one end aspire, Pain their aversion, pleasure their desire; 91 Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood, Our greatest evil, or our greatest good. 95 III. Modes of self-love the passions we may call; 'Tis real good, or seeming, moves them all : But since not every good we can divide, And reason bids us for our own provide; Passions, though selfish, if their means be fair, List under reason, and deserve her care; Those, that imparted, court a nobler aim, Exalt their kind, and take some virtue's name. In lazy apathy let stoics boast 101 81. Those skilled in the Divinity of the schools, or dealers in speculative Divinity. 83. Let them point out nice distinctions between grace and virtue, &c. 98. We call the passions modes of self-love. 99. Those that are imparted, court a nobler aim; or those, that being imparted, court, &c. exalt. Those in the nom. to exalt-that in the nom. to court. 101-6. Let stoics boast their virtue to be fixed; or, that S. Their virtue fix'd; 'tis fix'd as in a frost; 31 Contracted all, retiring to the breast; & Reason the card, but passion is the gale; 105 109 115 Love, hope, and joy, fair pleasure's smiling train, their virtue is fixed. It (their virtue) is all contracted, retiring to the breast, i. e. consists in a criminal indifference to everything. 114. Can man destroy that, which composes man? 115. Let it suffice that reason keep. The verb is here put in the subj. mood after that. 121. These are the lights and shades--or, these make the lights and shades. 125 Present to grasp, and future still to find, 130 134 As man, perhaps, the moment of his breath, Receives the lurking principle of death; The young disease, which must subdue at length, Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength. So, cast and mingled with his very frame, Nature its mother, habit is its nurse; 140 145 125. To grasp prosent pleasures, and to find future pleasures, are the whole employ-ment of body and of mind. 131. One master passion, &c. This idea we believe is first to be found in the writings of Longinus, the celebrated critic of other times, who attests the sublimity of the Scriptures, in the passage, "God said, let there be light, and there was light." 138. The mind's disease came to be, i. e. became, &c. 141. To whatever warms the heart, &c. imagination plies her dangerous art. Wit, spirit, faculties, but make it worse; Reason itself but gives it edge and power; e; As heaven's blest beam turns vinegar more sour. We, wretched subjects though to lawful sway, In this weak queen, some favorite still obey : 150 130 Ah! if she lend not arms, as well as rules, What can she more than tell us we are fools? is She but removes weak passions for the strong. * So, when small humors gather to a gout, 155 The doctor fancies he has driven them out. 160 166 Let power or knowledge, gold or glory, please, 150. This weak queen - Habit. 152. What can she do, or what can she tell us, &c 163. To rectify, not overthrow, is her part. The infinitive is frequently put after the verb is, of which it is the subject, and whose representative is the pronoun it. 165. The strong direction-self-love. |