Broome, Pope, Pitt, Thomson

Ill-fated Dryden! who, unmov'd, can see Th' extremes of wit and meanness join'd in thee? Flames that could mount, and gain their kindred Low creeping in the putrid sink of Vice: [skies A Muse whom Wisdom woo'd, but woo'd in vain, The pimp of Power, the prostitute to Gain: Wreaths, that should deck fair Virtue's form alone, To strumpets, traitors, tyrants, vilely thrown: 440 Unrival'd parts, the scorn of honest fame; And genius rise, a monument of shame!

More happy France: immortal Boileau there Supported Genius with a sage's care: Hom with her love propitious Satire blest, And breath'd her airs divine into his breast: Fancy and Sense to form his line conspire, And faultless Judgment guides the purest fire,

But see, at length, the British genius smile, And shower her bounties o'er her favour'd isle: 450 Behold for Pope she twines the laurel crown, And centers every poet's power in e: Each Roman's force adorns his various page; Gay smiles, collected strength, and manly rage, Despairing Guilt and Dulness loath the sight, As spectres vanish at approaching light; In this clear mirror with delight we view

Each image justly fine, and boldly true:
Here Vice, dragg'd forth by Truth's supreme decree,
Beholds and hates her own deformity;
While self-seen Virtue in the faithful line
With modest joys surveys her form divine.
But oh, what thoughts, what numbers shall I find,

460

Did friendship e'er mislead thy wandering Muse?
That friendship sure may plead the great excuse
That sacred friendship which inspir'd thy song,
Fair in defect, and amiably wrong.
Errour like this ev'n Truth cau scarce reprove;
"Tis almost virtue when it flows from love.

510

Ye deathless names, ye sons of endless praise, By virtue crown'd with never-fading bays! Say, shall an artless Muse, if you inspire, Light her pale lamp at your immortal fire? Or if, O Warburton, inspir'd by you, The daring Muse a nobler path pursue, By you inspir'd, on trembling pinions soar, The sacred founts of social bliss explore, In her bold numbers chain the tyrant's rage, And bid her country's glory fire her page; If such her fate, do thou, fair Truth, descend, And watchful guard her in an honest end : Kindly severe, instruct her equal line

520

To court no friend, nor own a foe but thine.
But if her giddy eye should vainly quit
Thy sacred paths, to run the maze of Wit;
If her apostate heart should e'er incline
To offer incense at Corruption's shrine;
Urge, urge thy power, the black attempt confound,
And dash the smoaking censer to the ground.
Thus aw'd to fear, instructed bards may see
That guilt is doom'd to sink in infamy.

530

But faintly to express the poet's mind!
Who yonder stars' effulgence can display,
Unless he dip his pencil in the ray?
Who paint a god, unless the god inspire?
What catch the lightning, but the speed of fire?
So, mighty Pope, to make thy genius known,
All power is weak, all numbers--but thy own. 470
Each Muse for thee with kind contention strove,
For thee the Graces left th' Idalian grove;
With watchful fondness o'er thy cradle hung,
Attun'd thy voice, and form'd thy infant tongue.
Next, to her bard majestic Wisdom came;
The bard enraptur'd caught the heavenly flame:
With taste superior scorn'd the venal tribe,
Whom fear can sway, or guilty greatness bribe;
At Fancy's call who rear the wanton sail,
Sport with the stream, and trifle in the gale: 480
Sublimer views thy daring spirit bound;
Thy mighty voyage was Creation's round;
Intent new worlds of wisdom to explore,
And bless mankind with Virtue's sacred store:
A nobler joy than wit can give, impart;
And pour a moral transport o'er the heart.
Fantastic wit shoots momentary fires,

And, like a meteor, while we gaze, expires:
Wit, kindled by the sulphurous breath of Vice,
Like the blue lightning, while it shines, destroys:
But genius, fir'd by Truth's eternal ray,
490
Burns clear and constant, like the source of day :
Like this its beam, prolific and refin'd,
Feeds, warms, inspirits, and exalts the mind;
Mildly dispels each wintery passion's gloom,
And opens all the virtues into bloom.
This praise, immortal Pope, to thee be given,
Thy genius was indeed a gift from Heaven.
Hail, bard unequal'd, in whose deathless line
Reason and wit with strength collected shine; 500
Where matchless wit but wins the second praise,
Lost, nobly lost, in truth's superior blaze.

ESSAY ON ΜΑΝ:

TO H. ST. JOHN, LORD BOLINGBROKE,

THE DESIGN.

HAVING proposed to write some pieces on human life and manners, such as (to use my lord Bacon's expression) "come home to men's business and bosoms," I thought it more satisfactory to begin with considering man in the abstract, his nature, and his state; since, to prove any moral duty, to enforce any moral precept, or to examine the perfection or imperfection of any creature whatsoever, it is necessary first to know what condition and relation it is placed in, and what is the proper end and purpose of its being.

The science of human nature is, like all other sciences, reduced to a few clear points: there are not many certain truths in this world. It is therefore in the anatomy of the mind as in that of the body; more good will accrue to mankind by attending to the large, open, and perceptible parts, than by studying too much such finer nerves and vessels, the conformations and uses of which will for ever escape our observation. The disputes are all upon these last; and I will venture to say, they have less sharpened the wits than the hearts of men against each other, and have diminished the practice, more than advanced the theory of morality. If I could flatter myself that this Essay has any merit, it is in steering betwixt the extremes of doctrines seemingly opposite, in passing over terms utterly unintelligible, and in forming a temperate yet not inconsistent, and a short, yet not imperfect, system of ethics,

This I might have done in prose; but I chose verse, and even rhyme, for two reasons. The one will appear obvious; that principles, maxims, or precepts so written, both strike the reader more strongly at first, and are more easily retained by him afterwards: the other may seem odd, but it is true; I found I could express them more shortly this way than in prose itself; and nothing is more certain, than that much of the force as well as grace of arguments or instructions depends on their conciseness. I was unable to treat this part of my subject more in detail, without becoming dry and tedious; or more poetically, without sacrificing perspicuity to ornament, without wandering from the precision, or breaking the chain of reasoning: if any man can unite all these without diminution of any of them, I freely confess he will compass a thing above my capacity.

What is now published is only to be considered as a general map of man, marking out no more

throughout the whole visible world, an universal order and gradation in the sensual and mental faculties is observed, which causes a subordina tion of creature to creature, and of all creatures to man. The gradations of sense, instinct, thought, reflection, reason; that reason alone countervails all the other faculties, ver. 207. VIII. How much farther this order and subordination of living creatures may extend above and below us; were any part of which broken, not that part only, but the whole connected creation must be destroyed, ver. 233. IX. The extravagance, madness, and pride of such a desire, ver. 250. X. The consequence of all the absolute submission due to Providence, both as to our present and future state, ver. 281, to the end,

EPISTLE I.

than the greater parts, their extent, their limits, AWAKE, my St. John! leave all meaner things

and their connection, but leaving the particular to be more fully delineated in the charts which are to follow. Consequently, these Epistles in their progress (if I have health and leisure to make any

progress) will be less dry, and more susceptible of poetical ornament. I am here only opening the

fountains, and clearing the passage. To deduce

the rivers, to follow them in their course, and to

observe their effects, may be a task more agree

able.

AN ESSAY ΟΝ ΜΑΝ,

IN FOUR EPISTLES, TO H. ST. JOHN,

LORD BOLINGBROKE.

ARGUMENT OF EPISTLE I.

OF THE NATURE AND STATE OF MAN WITH RESPECT TO
THE UNIVERSE.

Or man in the abstract.-I. That we can judge
only with regard to our own system, being igno-
rant of the relations of systems and things,
ver. 17, &c, II. That man is not to be deemed
imperfect, but a being suited to his place and
rank in the creation, agreeable to the general
order of things, and conformable to ends and
relations to him unknown, ver. 35, &c. III.
That it is partly upon his ignorance of future
events, and partly upon the hope of a future
state, that all his happiness in the present de-
pends, ver. 77, &c. IV. The pride of aiming at
more knowledge, and pretending to more per-
fection, the cause of man's errour and misery.
The impiety of putting himself in the place of
God, and judging of the fitness or unfitness, per-
fection or imperfection, justice or injustice, of
his dispensations, ver. 109, &c. V. The ab-
surdity of conceiting himself the final cause of
the creation, or expecting that perfection in the
moral world, which is not in the natural, ver.
131, &c. VI. The unreasonableness of his
complaints against Providence, while on the
one hand he demands the perfection of the an-
gels, and on the other the bodily qualifications
of the brutes; though, to possess any of the
sensitive faculties in a higher degree, would
vender him miserable, ver. 173, &c. VII, That

To low ambition and the pride of Kings.
Let us (since life can little more supply
Than just to look about us, and to die)
Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man;
A mighty maze! but not without a plan:
A wild, where weeds and flowers promiscuous shoot;
Or garden, tempting with forbidden fruit.
Together let us beat this ample field,
Try what the open, what the covert yield;
The latent tracts, the giddy heights, explorè
Of all who blindly creep, or sightless soar;
Eye Nature's walks, shoot Folly as it flies,
And catch the manners living as they rise:
Laugh where we must, be candid where we can;
But vindicate the ways of God to man.

[known

I. Say first, of God above, or man below,
What can we reason, but from what we know ?
Of man, what see we but his station here,
From which to reason, or to which refer?
Through worlds unnumber'd though the God be
'Tis ours to trace him only in our own.
He, who through vast immensity can pierce,
See worlds on worlds compose one universe,
Observe how system into system runs,
What other planets circle other suns,
What vary'd being peoples every star,
May tell why Heaven has made us as we are.
But of this frame the bearings and the ties,
The strong connections, nice dependencies,
Gradations just, has thy pervading soul
Look'd through? or can a part contain the whole!
Is the great chain, that draws all to agree,
And drawn supports, upheld by God, or thee?
II. Presumptuous man! the reason wouldst thou
find,

Why form'd so weak, so little, and so blind?
First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess,
Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less?
Ask of thy mother Earth, why oaks are made
Taller or weaker than the weeds they shade; 40
Or ask of yonder argent fields above,
Why Jove's Satellites are less than Jove?

Of systems possible, if 'tis confest,
That Wisdom infinite must form the best,
Where all must full or not coherent be,
And all that rises, rise in due degree;
Then, in the scale of reasoning life, 'tis plain,
There must be, somewhere, such a rank as man:

And all the question (wrangle e'er so long)
Is only this, if God has plac'd him wrong?
Respecting man, whatever wrong we call

May, must be right, as relative to all.
In human works, though labour'd on with pain,
A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain:
In God's, one single can its end produce;
Yet serves to second too some other use.
So man, who here seems principal alone,
Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown,
Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal;
Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.

His soul proud Science never taught to stray

50 Far as the solar walk, or milky way;
Yet simple Nature to his hope has given,
Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler Heaven;
Some safer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier island in the watery waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
To be, contents his natural desire,

When the proud steed shall know why man restrains

His fiery course, or drives him o'er the plains;
When the dull ox, why now he breaks the clod,
Is now a victim, and now Ægypt's god:

Then shall man's pride and dulness comprehend
His actions', passions', being's, use and end;
Why doing, suffering, check'd, impell'd; and why
This hour a slave, the next a deity.

Then say not Man's imperfect, Heaven in fault; Say rather, Man's as perfect as he ought: His knowledge measur'd to his state and place;

His time a moment, and a point his space,

If to be perfect in a certaiır sphere,
What matter, soon or late, or here, or there?
The blest to day is as completely so,

As who began a thousand years ago.

[Fate,

III. Heaven from all creatures hides the book of All but the page prescrib'd, their present state: From brutes what men, from men what spirits know: Or who could suffer being here below ? The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play? Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flowery food,. And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood. Oh blindness to the future! kindly given, That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heaven: Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall, Atoms or systems into rum hurl'd, And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

Hope humbly then, with trembling pinions soar Wait the great teacher, Death; and God adore, What future bliss, he gives not thee to know, But gives that hope to be thy blessing now. Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never Is, but always To be blest: The soul, uneasy, and confin'd from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind

He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire; But thinks admitted to that equal sky, His faithful dog shall bear him company.

110

120

IV. Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense, Weigh thy opinion against Providence; Call imperfection what thou fancy'st such; Say, here he gives too little, there too much: Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust, Yet say, if man's unhappy, God's unjust; If man alone ingross not Heaven's high care, Alone made perfect here, immortal there: Snatch'd from his hand the balance and the rod, Re-judge his justice, be the god of God. In Pride, in reasoning Pride, our errour lies; All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies. Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes, Men would be angels, angels would be gods Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell, Aspiring to be angels, men rebel: And who but wishes to invert the laws Of order, sins against th' Eternal Cause,

130

140

V. Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine, Earth for whose use? Pride answers, "Tis for mine; For me kind Nature wakes her genial power; Suckles each herb, and spreads out every flower; Annual for me, the grape, the rose, renew The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew; For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings; For me health gushes from a thousand springs; Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise; My foot-stool Earth, my canopy the skies.” But errs not Nature from this gracious end, From burning suns when livid deaths descend, When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep? "No" ('tis reply'd) "the first Almighty Cause Acts not by partial, but by general laws; Th' exceptions few; some change since all beguna And what created perfect?" Why then man? If the great end be human happiness,

Then Nature deviates; and can man do less? 150
As much that end a constant course requires
Of showers and sun-shine, as of man's desires;

As men for ever temperate, calm, and wise.

Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind; 100 As much eternal springs and cloudless skies,

VARIATIONS.

In the former editions, ver. 64.

Now wears a garland an Ægyptian god.

After ver. 68, the following lines in the first edition.
If to be perfect in a certain sphere,
What matter, soon or late, or here or there?
The blest to day is as completely so,
As who began ten thousand years ago.

After ver. 88, in the MS.

No great, no little; 'tis as much decreed That Virgil's gnat should die as Cæsar bleed.

Ver. 93, in the first folio and quarto,

What bliss above he gives not thee to know, But gives that hope to be thy bliss below.

If plagues or earthquakes break not Heaven's design, Why then a Borgia, or a Cataline;

[160

Who knows, but he whose hand the lightning forms,
Who heaves old Ocean, and who wings the storios;
Pours fierce ambition in a Cæsar's mind,
Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind?
From pride, from pride our very reasoning springs;
Account for moral as for natural things:

VARIATIONS.

After ver. 108, in the first edition :

But does he say the Maker is not good,
Till he 's exalted to what state he wou'd;
Himself alone high Heaven's peculiar care,
Alone made happy when he will, and where?

Why charge we Heaven in those, in these acquit?
In both, to reason right, is to submit.

Better for us, perhaps, it might appear, Were there all harmony, all virtue here; That never air or ocean felt the wind,

That never passion discompos'd the mind.

But all subsists by elemental strife;

And passions are the elements of life.

170

The general order, since the whole began,

Is kept in Nature, and is kept in man.

[soar,

VI. What would this man? Now upward will he

And, little less than angel, would be more;
Now looking downwards, just as griev'd appears
To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears.
Made for his use all creatures if he call,
Say what their use, had he the powers of all?
Nature to these without profusion, kind,
The proper organs, proper powers assign'd;
Each seeming want compensated of course,
Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force;
All in exact proportion to the state;
Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.
Each beast, each insect, happy in its own!
Is Heaven unkind to nian, and man alone?
Shall he alone, whom rational we call,

Be pleas'd with nothing, if not blest with all?

VIII, See, through this air, this ocean, and this

earth,

240

All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high, progressive life may go!
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
Vast chain of being! which from God began,
Natures ethereal, human, angel, man,
Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see,
No glass can reach; from Infinite to thee,
From thee to Nothing. On superior powers
Were we to press, inferior might on ours;
Or in the full creation leave a void,
Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd:
From Nature's chain whatever link you strike,
Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike,
And, if each system in gradation roll

Alike essential to th' amazing whole,
180 The least confusion but in one, not all

That system only, but the whole must fall, 250
Let Earth unbalanc'd from her orbit fly,
Planets and suns run lawless through the sky,
Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurl'd,
Being on being wreck'd, and world on world;
Heaven's whole foundations to their centre nod,
And Nature trerables to the throne of God.

All this dread order break for whom? for thee!

The bliss of man (could Pride that blessing find) Vile worm! oh madness! pride! impiety!

Is not to act or think beyond mankind;

No powers of body or of soul to share,
But what his nature and his state can bear,

Why has not man a microscopic eye?

190

T' inspect a mite, not comprehend the Heaven?

For this plain reason, man is not a fly.

Say what the use, were finer optics given,

The whispering zephyr, and the purling rill!
Who finds not Providence all good and wise,
Alike in what it gives, and what denies?

VII. Far as creation's ample range extends,
The scale of sensual, mental powers ascends:
Mark how it mounts to man's imperial race,
From the green myriads in the peopled grass: 210
What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme,
The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam;
Of smell, the headlong lioness between,
And hound sagacious on the tainted green;
Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood,
To that which warbles through the vernal wood!
The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line:
in the nice bee, what sense so subtly true
From poisonous herbs extracts the healing dew!
How Instinct varies in the grovelling swine,
Compar'd half-reasoning elephant with thine!
Twixt that, and Reason, what a nice barrier!
For ever separate, yet for ever near!
Remembrance and Reflection how allied;
What thin partitions Sense from Thought divide!
And middle natures, how they long to join,
Yet never pass th' insuperable line!
Without this just gradation, could they be
Subjected, these to those, or all to thee?
The powers of all subdued by thee alone,
Is not thy Reason all these powers in one?

220

All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul;
That chang'd through all, and yet in all the same;
Great in the Earth, as in th' ethereal frame; 270
Warms in the Sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows, in the stars, and blossoms in the trees;
Lives through all life, extends through all extent;
Spreads undivided, operates unspent;
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart,
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,
As the rapt seraph that adores and burns:
To him no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all. 280

X. Cease then, nor order imperfection name:

Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.
Know thy own point: this kind, this due degree
Of blindness, weakness, Heaven bestows on thee.
Submit. In this, or any other sphere,
Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear:
Safe in the hand of one disposing Power,
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.
All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;
All Chance, Direction, which thou canst not see;
All Discord, Harmony not understood;
All partial Evil, universal Good.
And, spite of Pride, in erring Reason's spite,
One truth is clear, WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT.

Ver. 238, Ed. 1st.

VARIATIONS.

Ethereal essence, spirit, substance, man.

230 After ver. 282, in the MS.

290

Reason, to think of God, when she pretends,
Begins a censor, an adorer ends.

ARGUMENT OF EPISTLE II.

OF THE NATURE AND STATE OF MAN WITH RESPECT TO HIMSELF, AS AN INDIVIDUAL,

I. THE business of man not to pry into God, but to study himself. His middle nature: his powers and frailties, ver. 1 to 19. The limits of his capacity, ver. 19, &c. II. The two principles of man, self-love and reason, both necessary, ver. 53, &c. Self-love the stronger, and why, ver. 67, &c. Their end the same, ver. 81, &c. III. The passions, and their use, ver. 93 to 130. The predominant passion, and its force, ver. 132 to 160. Its necessity, in directing men to different purposes, ver. 165, &c. Its providential use, in fixing our principle, and ascertaining our virtue, ver. 177. IV. Virtue and vice joined in our mixed nature; the limits near, yet the things separate and evident: what is the office of reason, ver. 202 to 216. V. How odious vice in itself, and how we deceive ourselves into it, ver. 217. VI. That, however, the ends of Providence and general good are answered in our passions and imperfections, ver. 238, &c. 'How usefully these are distributed to all orders of men, ver. 241. How useful they are to society, ver. 251. And to individuals, ver. 263. In every state, and every age of life, ver. 273,

&c.

EPISTLE IL.

I. Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,
The proper study of mankind is man.
Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reasoning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much:
Chaos of thought and passion, all confus'd;
Still by himself abus'd or disabus'd;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless errour hurl'd:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!

Ver. 2. Ed. 1st.

VARIATIONS,

The only science of mankind is man.

After ver. 18, in the MS.

For more perfection than this state can bear In vain we sigh, Heaven made us as we are, As wisely sure a modest ape inight aim To be like man, whose faculties and frame He sees, he feels, as you or I to be An angel thing we neither knew nor see. Observe how near he edges on our race; What human tricks! how risible of face! It must be so why else have I the sense Of more than monkey charms and excellence! Why else to walk on two so oft essay'd ? And why this ardent longing for a maid? So pug might plead, and call his gods unkind Till set on end, and married to his mind,

Go wondrous creature! mount where Science

guides, Go, measure Earth, weigh air, and state the tides; Instruct the planets in what orbs to run, Correct old Time, and regulate the Sun, Go, soar with Plato to th' empyreal sphere, To the first good, first perfect, and first fair; Or tread the mazy round his followers trod, And quitting sense call imitating God; As eastern priests in giddy circles run, And turn their heads to imitate the Sun. Go teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule

Then drop into thyself, and be a fool!

Superior beings, when of late they saw A mortal man unfold all Nature's law, Admir'd such wisdom in an earthly shape, And show'd a Newton as we shew an ape.

Could he, whose rules the rapid comet bind, Describe or fix one movement of his mind! Who saw its fires here rise and there descend, Explain his own beginning or his end? Alas, what wonder! Man's superior part Uncheck'd may rise, and climb from art to art; 40 But when his own great work is but begun, What Reason weaves, by Passion is undone.

Trace Science then, with Modesty thy guide; First strip off all her equipage of Pride; Deduct what is but Vanity or dress, Or Learning's luxury, or Idleness;

Or tricks to show the stretch of human brain,
Mere curious pleasure, or ingenious pain;
Expunge the whole, or lop th' excrescent parts
Of all our vices have created arts;
Then see how little the remaining sum,
Which serv'd the past, and must the times to come!
II. Two principles in human nature reign;
Self-love, to urge, and Reason, to restrain;
Nor this a good, nor that a bad we call,
Each works its end, to move or govern all:
And to their proper operation still,
Ascribe all good, to their improper, ill.

Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul,
Reason's comparing balance rules the whole.
Man, but for that, no action could attend,
And, but for this, were active to no end :
Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot;
To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot,
Or, meteor-like, flame lawless through the void,
Destroying others, by himself destroy'd.

Most strength the moving principle requires :
Active its task, it prompts, impels, inspires.
inspires.
Sedate and quiet the comparing lies,
Form'd but to check, deliberate, and advise.
Self-love, still stronger, as its objects nigh;
Reason's at distance, and in prospect lie:

VARIATIONS,

Go, reasoning thing! assume the doctor's chair, As Plato deep, as Seneca severe :

Fix moral fitness, and to God give rule,

Then drop into thyself, &c.

Ver. 21, Edit, 4th and 5th.

Show by what rules the wandering planets stray, Correct old Time, and teach the Sun his way.

Ver. 35, Edit. 1st.

Could he, who taught each planet where to roll, Describe or fix one movement of the soul? Who mark'd their points, to rise or to descend, Explain his own beginning, or his end

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