tions, passions, opinions, manners, humours, or principles, all subject to change. No judging by nature. 3. It only remains to find (if we can) his ruling passion: that will certainly influence all the rest, and can reconcile the seeming or real inconsistency of all his actions. Instanced in the extraordinary character of Clodio. A caution against mistaking second qualities for first, which will destroy all possibility of the knowledge of mankind. Examples of the strength of the ruling passion, and its continuation to the last breath. PART I. YES, you despise the man to books confin'd, And yet the fate of all extremes is such, Add nature's, custom's, reason's, passion's strife, And all opinion's colours cast on life. Our depths who fathoms, or our shallows finds, Quick whirls and shifting eddies of our minds? On human actions reason though you can, It may be reason, but it is not man: His principle of action once explore, That instant 'tis his principle no more. Like following life through creatures you dissect, You lose it in the moment you detect. Yet more; the difference is as great between The optics seeing as the objects seen. All manners take a tincture from our own, Or come discolour'd through our passions shown; Or fancy's beam enlarges, multiplies, Contracts, inverts, and gives ten thousand dyes. Nor will life's stream for observation stay, It hurries all too fast to mark their way: In vain sedate reflections we would make, Our spring of action to ourselves is lost: And what comes then is master of the field. Is thus, perhaps, the cause of most we do. True, some are open, and to all men known; Others so very close they're hid from none (So darkness strikes the sense no less than light); Thus gracious Chandos is belov'd at sight; And every child hates Shylock, though his soul Still sits at squat, and peeps not from its hole. At half mankind when generous Manly1 raves, All know 'tis virtue, for he thinks them knaves: When universal homage Umbra pays, All see 'tis vice, and itch of vulgar praise. When flattery glares, all hate it in a queen,2 8 While one there is who charms us with his spleen. But these plain characters we rarely find; Though strong the bent, yet quick the turns of mind: Or puzzling contraries confound the whole; Or affectations quite reverse the soul. See the same man in vigour, in the gout; Thinks who endures a knave is next a knave, 1 The principal character in Wycherley's Plain Dealer. Save just at dinner-then prefers, no doubt, 4 Who would not praise Patricio's high desert, His hand unstain'd, his uncorrupted heart, His comprehensive head? all interests weigh'd, All Europe sav'd, yet Britain not betray'd! He thanks you not, his pride is in piquet, Newmarket fame, and judgment at a bet. What made (say, Montaigne, or more sage Charron) Otho a warrior, Cromwell a buffoon? A perjur'd prince 5 a leaden saint revere, 8 Faithless through piety, and dup'd through wit? Know, God and nature only are the same: 4 Lord Godolphin. 5 Louis XI. of France. 6 Philip Duke of Orleans, Regent in the minority of Louis XV. 7 Philip V. of Spain, who after renouncing the throne for religion, resumed it to gratify his queen; and Victor Amadeus II. king of Sardinia, who resigned the crown, and trying to reassume it, was imprisoned till his death. 8 The Czarina, the king of France, the Pope, and the above-mentioned king of Sardinia. PART IL IN vain the sage, with retrospective eye, That what we chanc'd was what we meant to do. Not always actions show the man: we find Perhaps the wind just shifted from the east: Who combats bravely is not therefore brave; But grant that actions best discover man; Take the most strong, and sort them as you can: The few that glare each character must mark; You balance not the many in the dark. |