All other creatures keep in beaten ways,
Man only moves in an eternal maze:

He lives and dies, not tamed by cultivation,
The wretch of reason, and the dupe of passion;
Curious of knowing, yet too proud to learn;
More prone to doubt than anxious to discern;
Tired with old doctrines, prejudiced at new;
Mistaking still the pleasing for the true;
Foe to restraints approved by general voice,
Yet to each fool-born mode a slave by choice;
Of rest impatient, yet in love with ease;

When most good natured aiming how to tease:
Disdaining by the vulgar to be awed,

Yet never pleased but when the fools applaud:
By turns severe, indulgent, humble, vain;
A trifle serves to lose him or to gain.

Then grant this trifle, yet his vices shun,

Not like to Cato or to Clinias' son*:

This for each humour every shape could take,
Even virtue's own, though not for virtue's sake;
At Athens rakish, thoughtless, full of fire,
Severe at Sparta, as a Chartreux friar;
In Thrace a bully, drunken, rash, and rude;
In Asia gay, effeminate, and lewd;

While the rough Roman, Virtue's rigid friend,
Could not to save the cause he died for bend:
In him 'twas scarce an honour to be good,
He more indulged a passion than subdued.
See how the skilful lover spreads his toils,
When eager in pursuit of beauty's spoils!
Behold him bending at his idol's feet;
Humble, not mean; disputing, and yet sweet;
In rivalship not fierce, nor yet unmoved;
Without a rival studious to be loved;

Alcibiades.

For ever fearful, though not always witty,
And never giving cause for hate or pity:
These are his arts, such arts as must prevail,
When riches, birth, and beauty's self will fail:
And what he does to gain a vulgar end

Shall we neglect to make mankind our friend?
Good sense and learning may esteem obtain ;
Humour and wit a laugh, if rightly ta'en:
Fair virtue admiration may impart;

But 'tis good nature only wins the heart:
It moulds the body to an easy grace,
And brightens every feature of the face :
It smooths the' unpolish'd tongue with eloquence,
And adds persuasion to the finest sense.
Yet this, like every disposition, has

Fix'd bounds, o'er which it never ought to pass;
When stretch'd too far its honour dies away,
Its merit sinks, and all its charms decay;
Among the good it meets with no applause,
And to its ruin the malicious draws;
A slave to all, who force it or entice,
It falls by chance in virtue or in vice;
'Tis true, in pity for the poor it bleeds,
It clothes the naked, and the hungry feeds;
It cheers the stranger, nay, its foes defends,
But then as oft it injures its best friends.

Study with care politeness, that must teach
The modish forms of gesture and of speech:
In vain Formality, with matron mien,
And Pertness apes her with familiar grin:
They against nature for applauses strain,
Distort themselves, and give all others pain:
She moves with easy though with measured pace,
And shows no part of study but the grace.

Yet even by this man is but half refined,
Unless philosophy subdues the mind:
"Tis but a varnish that is quickly lost,

Whene'er the soul in passion's sea is toss'd.
Would you both please and be instructed too,
Watch well the rage of shining to subdue;
Hear every man upon his favourite theme,
And ever be more knowing than you seem.
The lowest genius will afford some light,
Or give a hint that had escaped your sight.
Doubt till he thinks you on conviction yield,
And with fit questions let each pause be fill'd:
And the most knowing will with pleasure grant
You're rather much reserved than ignorant.

The rays of wit gild wheresoe'er they strike,
But are not therefore fit for all alike;
They charm the lively, but the grave offend,
And raise a foe as often as a friend;

Like the resistless beams of blazing light,
That cheer the strong and pain the weakly sight.
If a bright fancy therefore be your share,

Let judgment watch it with a guardian's care; "Tis, like a torrent, apt to overflow,

Unless by constant government kept low;
And ne'er inefficacious passes by,

But overturns or gladdens all that's nigh.

Or else like trees, when suffer'd wild to shoot,
That put forth much, but all unripen'd fruit,
It turns to affectation and grimace,
As like to wit as dulness is to grace.

How hard soe'er it be to bridle wit,
Yet memory oft no less requires the bit:
How many, hurried by its force away,
For ever in the land of gossips stray!

Usurp the province of the nurse to lull,
Without her privilege of being dull!

Tales upon tales they raise ten stories high,
Without regard to use or symmetry:

So R, till his destined space is fill'd,
Heaps bricks on bricks, and fancies 'tis to build.
A story should, to please, at least seem true,
Be apropos, well told, concise, and new:
And whensoe'er it deviates from these rules,
The wise will sleep, and leave applause to fools.
But others, more intolerable yet,

The waggeries that they've said or heard repeat;
Heavy by memory made, and what's the worst,
At second-hand as often as at first.

And can even Patience hear, without disdain,
The maiming register of sense once slain?
While the dull features, big with archness, strive
In vain the forced half-smile to keep alive.

Some know no joy like what a word can raise,
Haul'd through a language's perplexing maze;
Till on a mate that seems to' agree they light,
Like man and wife, that still are opposite;
Not lawyers at the bar play more with sense,
When brought to the last trope of eloquence,
Than they on every subject, great or small,
At clubs or councils, at a church or ball;
Then cry we rob them of their tributes due:
Alas! how can we laugh and pity too?

While others to extremes as wild will run,
And with sour face anatomize a pun:
When the brisk glass to freedom does entice,
And rigid wisdom is a kind of vice.

But let not such grave fops your laughter spoil;
Ne'er frown where sense may innocently smile.

Cramp not your language into logic rules, To rostrums leave the pedantry of schools; Nor let your learning always be discern'd, But choose to seem judicious more than learn'd. Quote seldom, and then let it be at least

Some fact that's proved, or thought that's well express'd;

But lest, disguised, your eye it should escape,
Know pedantry can put on every shape:

For when we deviate into terms of art,
Unless constrain'd, we act the pedant's part.
Or if we're ever in the selfsame key,
No matter of what kind the subject be;
From laws of nations down to laws of dress,
For statesmen have their cant, and belles no less.
As good hear Bentley dictate on epistles,
Or Burman comment on the Grecian whistles,
As old Obesus preach upon his belly,
Or Phileunucha rant on Farinelli,
Flirtilla read a lecture on a fan,

Or W-d set forth the praise of Kouli-Kan.
But above all things raillery decline,
Nature but few does for that task design:
"Tis in the ablest hand a dangerous tool,
But never fails to wound the meddling fool;
For all must grant it needs no common art
To keep men patient when we make them smart.
Not wit alone, nor humour's self, will do,
Without good nature, and much prudence too,
To judge aright of persons, place, and time;
For taste decrees what's low and what's sublime;
And what might charm to-day, or o'er a glass,
Perhaps at court, or next day, would not pass.