Strike off his Penfion, by the fetting fun,
And Britain, if not Europe, is undone.
That gay Free-thinker, a fine talker once,
What turns him now a ftupid filent dunce?
Some God, or Spirit, he has lately found:
Or chanc'd to meet a Minifter that frown'd.
Judge we by Nature? Habit can efface,
Intereft o'ercome, or policy take place :
By Actions? those Uncertainty divides :
By Paffions? thefe Diffimulation hides:
Opinions? they still take a wider range:
Find, if you can, in what you cannot change.
Manners with Fortunes, Humours turn with Climes, Tenets with Books, and Principles with Times.
Search then the Ruling Passion: There, alone,
The Wild are conftant, and the Cunning known; 175
The Fool confiftent, and the False sincere;
Priefts, Princes, Women, no diffemblers here.
This clue once found, unravels all the reft,
The profpect clears, and Wharton ftands confeft.
Wharton, the fcorn and wonder of our days,
Whofe ruling Paffion was the Luft of Praise :
Born with whate'er could win it from the Wife,
Women and Fools muft like him, or he dies:
Though wondering Senates hung on all he spoke,
The Club muft hail him mafter of the joke.
Shall parts fo various aim at nothing new?
He'll fhine a Tully and a Wilmot too.
Then turns repentant, and his God adores
With the fame spirit that he drinks and whores;
Enough if all around him but admire
And now the Punk applaud, and now the Frier.
Thus with each gift of nature and of art,
And wanting nothing but an honest heart;
Grown all to all, from no one vice exempt;
And moft contemptible, to fhun contempt;
His Paffion still, to covet general praise;
His Life, to forfeit it a thousand ways;
A conftant Bounty which no friend has made;
An Angel Tongue, which no man can perfuade;
A Fool, with more of Wit than half mankind,
Too rafh for Thought, for Action too refin'd:
A Tyrant to the wife his heart approves ;
A Rebel to the very king he loves;
He dies, fad outcast of each church and state,
And, harder ftill! flagitious, yet not great.
Ask you why Wharton broke through every rule?
'Twas all for fear the Knaves fhould call him Fool.
Nature well known, no prodigies remain,
Comets are regular, and Wharton plain.
Yet, in this fearch, the wifeft may mistake,
If fecond qualities for first they take.
When Catiline by rapine swell'd his store;
When Cæfar made a noble dame a whore ;
In this the Luft, in that the Avarice,
Were means, not ends; Ambition was the vice.
In the former Editions, ver. 208.
Nature well known, no Miracles remain.
Altered, as above, for very obvious reasons.
That very Cæfar, born in Scipio's days,
Had aim'd, like him, by Chastity, at praise.
Lucullus,. when Frugality could charm,
Had roafted turnips in the Sabine farm.
In vain th' obferver eyes the builder's toil,
But quite mistakes the scaffold for the pile.
In this one paffion man can strength enjoy,
As Fits give vigour, just when they destroy.
Time, that on all things lays his lenient hand,
Yet tames not this; it sticks to our last sand.
Confiftent in our follies and our fins,
Here honeft Nature ends as she begins.
Old Politicians chew on wisdom past,
And totter on in business to the last;
As weak, as earnest; and as gravely out,
As fober Lanesborow dancing in the gout.
Behold a reverend fire, whom want of
Has made the father of a nameless race.
Shov'd from the wall perhaps, or rudely press'd
By his own fon, that passes by unbless'd:
Still to his wench he crawls on knocking knees,
And envies every sparrow that he fees.
A falmon's belly, Helluo, was thy fate;
The doctor call'd, declares all help too late :
"Mercy! cries Helluo, mercy on my foul!
"Is there no hope?— Alas!—then bring the jowl."
The frugal Crone, whom praying priests attend,
Still ftrives to fave the hallow'd taper's end,
Collects her breath, as ebbing life retires,
For one puff more, and in that puff expires.
"Odious! in woollen! 'twould a faint provoke, (Were the last words that poor Narciffa fpoke) "No, let a charming Chintz, and Bruffels lace, "Wrap my cold limbs, and fhade my lifeless face: "One would not, fure, be frightful when one's dead"And-Betty-give this Cheek a little Red."
The Courtier smooth, who forty years had shin'd An humble fervant to all human-kind,
Juft brought out this, when scarce his tongue could stir, "If-where I'm going-I could serve you, Sir !" 255 "I give and I devise (old Euclio faid,
And figh'd) " my lands and tenements to Ned."
Your money, Sir?" My money, Sir, what all?
"Why, if I must-(then wept) I give it Paul."
The manor, Sir?" The manor! hold, he cry'd. 260
"Not that,—I cannot part with that”—and dy’d.
And you! brave Cobham, to the latest breath,
Shall feel your ruling paffion strong in death :
Such in thofe moments as in all the past,
"Oh, fave my Country, Heaven!" shall be
Of the Characters of WOMEN.
THERE is nothing in Mr. Pope's works more highly finished than this Epiftle: Yet its fuccefs was in no proportion to the pains he took in compofing it. Something he chanced to drop in a fhort advertisement prefixed to it, on its first publication, may perhaps account for the small attention given to it. He faid that no one character in it was drawn from the life. The public believed him on his word, and expressed little curiofity about a Satire, in which there was nothing perfonal.
NOTHING as once
OTHING fo true as what you once let fall,
Matter too foft a lafting mark to bear,
And beft diftinguish'd by black, brown, or fair.
How many pictures of one Nymph we view,
All how unlike each other, all how true!
Arcadia's Countess, here, in ermin'd pride,
Is there, Pastora by a fountain fide.
Here Fannia, leering on her own good man,
And there, a naked Leda with a Swan.
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