The monk's humility, the hero's pride,
All, all alike, find reason on their fide.
Th' Eternal Art, educing good from ill,
Grafts on this paffion our beft principle:
'Tis thus the mercury of Man is fix'd,
Strong grows the virtue with his nature mix'd;
The drofs cements what else were too refin'd,
And in one int'rest body acts with mind.

As fruits, ungrateful to the planter's care,
On favage ftocks inferted, learn to bear;
The fureft virtues thus from paffions shoot,
Wild nature's vigour working at the root.
What crops of wit and honesty appear
From fpleen, from obftinacy, hate, or fear!
See anger, zeal and fortitude supply;
Ev'n av'rice, prudence; floth, philofophy;
Luft, thro' fome certain ftrainers well refin'd,
Is gentle love, and charms all womankind;
Envy, to which th' ignoble mind's a flave,
Is emulation in the learn'd or brave;

Nor virtue, male or female, can we name,

But what will grow on pride, or grow on fhame. Thus Nature gives us (let it check our pride)

The virtue nearest to our vice ally'd:

Reason the bias turns to good from ill,
And Nero reigns a Titus, if he will.
The fiery foul abhorr'd in Catiline,
In Decius charms, in Curtius is divine:
The fame ambition can destroy or fave,
And makes a patriot as it makes a knave.
This light and darkness in our chaos join'd,
What shall divide? The God within the mind.
Extremes in nature equal ends produce,

In Man they join to fome mysterious use ;
Tho' each by turns the other's bounds invade,
As, in fome well-wrought picture, light and shade,

And oft fo mix, the diff'rence is too nice
Where ends the virtue, or begins the vice.

Fools! who from hence into the notion fall,

That vice or virtue there is none at all.

If white and black, foften, and unite
A thousand ways, is there no black or white?
Afk your own heart, and nothing is fo plain?
"Tis to mistake them cofts the time and pain.

Vice is a monster of fo frightful mien,
As, to be hated, needs but to be seen :
Yet feen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
But where th' extreme of vice, was ne'er agreed:
Afk where's the north? at York, 'tis on the Tweed;
In Scotland, at the Orcades; and there,

At Greenland, Zembla, or the Lord knows where
No creature owns it in the firft degree,

But thinks his neighbour further gone than he;
Ev'n those who dwell beneath its very zone,
Or never feel the rage, or never own;
What happier nature shrinks at with affright,
The hard inhabitant contends is right.

Virtuous and vicious ev'ry Man must be,
Few in th' extreme, but all in the degree:

The rogue and fool, by fits, is fair and wife;
And ev'n the beft, by fits, what they despise.
'Tis but by parts we follow good or ill;
For, vice or virtue, felf directs it ftill;

Each individual feeks a fev'ral goal;

But HEAV'N's great view is one, and that the whole.
That counter-works each folly and caprice;

That disappoints th' effect of ev'ry vice;
That, happy frailties to all ranks apply'd;
Shame to the virgin, to the matron pride,
Fear to the statesman, rashness to the chief,
To kings prefumption, and to crowds belief:
That virtue's ends from vanity can raise,
Which feeks no int'reft, no reward but praise;
And build on wants, and on defects of mind,
The joy, the peace, the glory of Mankind.
Heav'n forming each on other to depend,

A mafter, or a fervant, or a friend,

Bids each on other for affiftance call,

"Till one Man's weakness grows the ftrength of all.

Wants, frailties, paffions, closer still ally
The common int'reft or endear the tie.

To these we owe true friendship, love fincere,
Each home-felt joy that life inherits here ;
Yet from the fame we learn, in its decline,
Those joys, thofe loves, those int'rests, to resign;
Taught half by reafon, half by mere decay,
To welcome death, and calmly pafs away.

Whate'er the paffion, knowledge, fame, or pelf, Not one will change his neighbour with himself. The learn'd is happy nature to explore,

The fool is happy that he knows no more;
The rich is happy in the plenty giv'n,

The poor contents him with the care of Heav'n.
See the blind beggar dance, the cripple fing,

The fot a hero, lunatic a king;

The ftarving chemift in his golden views
Supremely bleft, the poet in his muse.
See fome strange comfort ev'ry ftate attend,
And pride bestow'd on all, a common friend;