Tho' wond'ring Senates hung on all he spoke,

The Club must hail him mafter of the joke. 185
Shall parts fo various aim at nothing new?
He'll shine a Tully and a Wilmot too.

190

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 honeft 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;

195

A constant Bounty which no friend has made; An angel Tongue, which no man can persuade; A Fool, with more of Wit than half mankind, 200 Too rafh for Thought, for Action too refin'd:

NOTES.

the groffness of his appetite for it; where the strength of the Paffion had deftroyed all the delicacy of the Senfation.

VER. 187. John Wilmot, E. of Rochester, famous for his Wit and Extravagancies in the time of Charles the Second. P. VER. 189. With the fame spirit] Spirit, for principle, not paffion.

VER. 200. A Fool, with more of Wit] Folly, join'd with much Wit, produces that behaviour which we call Abfurdity; and this Abfurdity the poet has here admirably described in the words,

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 still! flagitious, yet not great. 205
Ask you why Wharton broke thro' ev'ry rule?
"Twas all for fear the Knaves should call him Fool.
Nature well known, no prodigies remain,
Comets are regular, and Wharton plain.

VARIATIONS.

In the former Editions, 208.

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

NOTES.

by which we are made to understand, that the person described gave a loose to his Fancy when he fhould have used his fudg ment; and pursued his Speculations when he fhould have trufted to his Experience.

VER. 205. And, harder fill! flagitious, yet not great.) To arrive at what the world calls Greatness, a man must either hide and conceal his vices, or he must openly and fteddily practise them, in the purfuit and attainment of one important end. This unhappy nobleman did neither.

VER. 207. 'Twas all for fear &c.] To understand this, we muft obferve, that the Luft of general praise made the perfon, whofe Character is here fo admirably drawn, both extravagant and flagitious; his Madness was to please the Fools,

Women and Fools muft 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 the two qualities that Fools and Knaves are most interested, and confequently moft industrious, to mifrepresent.

VER. 209. Comets are regular, and Wharton plain.] This

Yet, in this fearch, the wifeft may mistake, 210
If fecond qualities for first they take:

When Catiline by rapine swell'd his store;
When Cæfar made a noble dame a whore;

214

In this the Luft, in that the Avarice
Were means, not ends; Ambition was the vice.

COMMENTARY.

VER. 210. Yet, in this fearch, &c.] But here (from 209 to 222) he gives one very neceffary caution, that, in developing the Ruling Paffion, we must be careful not to mistake a subsidiary paffion for the principal; which, without great attention, we may be very liable to do; as the fubfidiary, acting in fupport of the principal, has frequently all its vigour and much of its perfeverance: This error has mifled feveral both of the ancient and modern historians; as when they supposed Lust and Luxury to be Characteristics of Cæfar and Lucullus; whereas, in truth, the Ruling Paffion of both was Ambition; which is fo certain, that, at whatsoever different time of the Republic these men had lived, their Ambition, as the Ruling Paffion, had been the

NOTES.

illustration has an exquifite beauty, arifing from the exactness of the analogy: For, as the appearance of irregularity, in a Comet's motion, is occafioned by the greatness of the force which pushes it round a very eccentric orb; fo it is the violence of the Ruling Paffion, that, impatient for its object, in the impetuofity of its course towards it, is frequently hurried to an immenfe diftance from it, which occafions all that puzzling inconfiftency of conduct we observe in it.

VER. 213-A noble Dame a whore ;] The fifter of Cato, and mother of Brutus.

VER. 215. Ambition was the vice.] Pride, Vanity, and Ambition are fuch bordering and neighbouring vices, and hold fo much in common, that we generally find them going together, and therefore, as generally mistake them for one another. This does not a little contribute to our confounding

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 Sabin farm.
In vain th' obferver eyes the builder's toil,
But quite mistakes the scaffold for the pile.

In this one Paffion man can ftrength enjoy,
As Fits give vigour, juft when they destroy.

COMMENTARY.

220

fame; but a different time had changed their fubfidiary ones of Luft and Luxury, into their very oppofites of Chastity and Frugality. 'Tis in vain therefore, says our author, for the observer of human nature to fix his attention on the Workman, if he all the while mistakes the Scaffold for the Building.

VER. 222. In this one Paffion &c.] But now it may be objected to our philofophic poet, that he has indeed fhewn the true means of coming to the Knowledge and Characters of men by a Principle certain and infallible, when found, yet, by his own. account, of fo difficult investigation, that its Counterfeit, and it is always attended with one, may be easily mistaken for it. To

NOTES.

Characters; for they are, in reality, very different and di ftinct; fo much fo, that 'tis remarkable, the three greatest men in Rome, and contemporaries, poffeffed each of these separately, without the least mixture of the other two: The men I mean were Cæfar, Cato, and Cicero: For Cæfar had Ambition without either vanity or pride; Cato had Pride without ambition or vanity; and Cicero had Vanity without pride or ambition.

VER. 223. As Fits give vigour, just when they destroy.] The fimilitude is extremely appofite; as moft of the inftances he has afterwards given of the vigorous exertion of the Ruling Paffion in the last moments, are from fuch who had haftened their death by an immoderate indulgence of that Paffion.

Time, that on all things lays his lenient hand,

Yet tames not this; it sticks to our last sand. 225
Confiftent in our follies and our fins,

Here honest Nature ends as she begins.
Old Politicians chew on wisdom påst,
And totter on in bus'nefs to the laft;
As weak, as éarneft; and as gravely out,
As fober Lanefb'row dancing in the gout.
Behold a rev'rend fire, whom want of
Has made the father of a nameless race,

COMMENTARY.

230

grace

remove this difficulty, therefore, and confequently the objection that arifes from it, the poet has given (from 221 to 228) one certain and infallible criterion of the Ruling Paffion, which is this, that all the other paffions, in the courfe of time, change and wear away; while this is ever constant and vigorous; and ftill going on from ftrength to ftrength, to the very moment of its demolishing the miserable machine that it has now at length over-worked. Of this great truth, the poet (from 227 to the end) gives various inftances in all the principal Ruling Paffions of our nature, as they are to be found in the Man of Business, the Man of Pleasure, the Epicure, the Parfimonious, the Toast,

NOTES.

VER. 227. Here honeft Nature ends as he begins.] Human nature is here humourously called honeft, as the impulse of the ruling paffion (which the gives and cherishes) makes her more and more impatient of disguise.

VER. 231. Lanefb'row.] An ancient Nobleman, who continued this practice long after his legs were difabled by the gout. Upon the death of Prince George of Denmark, he demanded án audience of the Queen, to advife her to preferve her health and dispel her grief by Dancing. P.