But, fage hiftorians! 'tis your task to prove
One action Conduct; one, heroic Love.

'Tis from high Life high Characters are drawn ; A Saint in Crape is twice a Saint in Lawn;

136

A Judge is juft, a Chanc❜lor juster still;
A Gownman, learn'd; a Bishop, what you will;
Wife, if a Minifter; but, if a King,

More wife, more learn'd, more juft, more ev'ry thing.
Court-virtues bear, like Gems, the higheft rate, 141
Born where Heav'n's influence scarce can penetrate:
In life's low vale, the foil the Virtues like,
They please as beauties, here as wonders ftrike.
Tho' the fame Sun with all-diffufive rays
Blush in the Rofe, and in the Di'mond blaze,
We prize the stronger effort of his pow'r,
And justly fet the Gem above the Flow'r.

145

'Tis Education forms the common mind, Just as the Twig is bent, the Tree's inclin'd. 150 Boaftful and rough, your first fon is a 'Squire; The next a Tradefman, meek, and much a lyar; Tom ftruts a Soldier, open, bold, and brave; Will fneaks a Scriv'ner, an exceeding knave: 154 Is he a Churchman? then he's fond of pow'r : A Quaker? y: A Presbyterian? fow'r : A fmart Free-thinker? all things in an hour.

Afk men's Opinions: Scoto now shall tell

How Trade increases, and the World goes well;
Strike off his Penfion, by the setting 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,
Int'reft o'ercome, or Policy take place:
By Actions? those Uncertainty divides:

160

165

By Paffions? these Diffimulation hides:

Opinions? they still take a wider range:

170

Find, if you can, in what you cannot change. Manners with Fortunes, Humours turn with

Climes,

Tenets with Books, and Principles with Times,

NOTES.

VER. 172, 173. Manners | defcribes the complicated with Fortunes, Humours turn caufes. Humours bear the with Climes, Tenets with fame relation to Manners, Books, and Principles with that Principles do to Tenets ; Times] The poet had hi- that is, the former are modes therto reckoned up the fe- of the latter; our Manners veral fimple caufes that hin- are warped from nature by der our knowledge of the our Fortunes or Stations; natural characters of men. our Tenets, by our Books or In these two fine lines he Profeffions; and then each

176

Search then the RULING PASSION, There, alone, The Wild are conftant, and the Cunning known; The Fool confiftent, and the Falfe fincere; Priefts, Princes, Women, no diffemblers here. This clue once found, unravels all the reft, The profpect clears, and Wharton stands confest. Wharton, the scorn and wonder of our days, 180 Whose ruling Paffion was the Luft of Praise : Born with whate'er could win it from the Wife, Women and Fools must like him or he dies; Tho' wond'ring Senates hung on all he spoke, The Club must hail him master of the joke.. 185 Shall parts fo various aim at nothing new?

He'll shine 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 Fryer.
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 most contemptible, to fhun contempt;
His Paffion ftill, to covet gen'ral praise,
His Life, to forfeit it a thousand ways;

190

195

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, 200
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 out-caft of each church and ftate,

And, harder ftill! flagitious, yet not great.

NOTES.

205

VER. 200. A Fool, with | call Abfurdity; and this Abmore of Wit] Folly, joined with much Wit, produces that behaviour which we

furdity the poet has here admirably described in the words,

Too rafh for Thought, for Action too refin'd:

by which we are made to understand, that the perfon defcribed gave a loose to his Fancy when he should have ufed his Judgment;

and pursued his Speculations
when he should have trufted
to his Experience.
VER. 205. And, harder
flagitious, yet nas

fill,

Afk you why Wharton broke thro' ev'ry rule? 'Twas all for fear the Knaves fhould call him Fool.

Nature well known, no prodigies remain,

Comets are regular, a..d Wharton plain.

Yet, in this fearch, the wifeft may mistake, 210

If fecond qualities for first they take.

Nature well known, no Miracles remain. Alter'd, as above, for very obvious reasons.

NOTES.

great] To arrive at what | the world calls Greatness, a man must either hide and conceal his vices, or he must openly and fteddily practife them, in the purfuit and attainment of one important end. This unhappy Nobleman did neither.

VER. 207. 'Twas all for

fear, &c.] To underftand this, we must observe, that the Luft of general praise made the perfon, whose Character is here fo admirable drawn, both extravagant and flagitious; his Madness was to please the Fools,

Women and Fools must like him, or he dies. And his Crimes to avoid the cenfure of the Knaves,

'Twas all for fear the Knaves fhould call him Fool. Prudence and Honefty being | terefted, and confequently the two qualities that Fools most industrious, to mifre and Knaves are most in- present.