Early at Bus'ness, and at Hazard late;
Mad at a Fox-chase, wise at a Debate;
Drunk at a Borough, civil at a Ball;
Friendly at Hackney, faithless at Whitehall.
Catius is ever moral, ever grave,
Thinks who endures a knave, is next a knave,
Save just at dinner-then, prefers, no doubt,
A Rogue with Ven'son to a Saint without.

Who would not praise Patritio's high desert 2,
His hand unstain'd, his uncorrupted heart,
His comprehensive head! all Int'rests weigh'd,
All Europe sav'd, yet Britain not betray'd.
He thanks you not, his pride is in Piquet,
New-market-fame, and judgment at a Bet3.

What made (say Montagne, or more sage Charron1!)
Otho a warrior 5, Cromwell a buffoon?

A perjur'd Prince a leaden Saint revere",
A godless Regent tremble at a Star??
The throne a Bigot keep, a Genius quit,
Faithless thro' Piety, and dup'd thro' Wit?
Europe a Woman, Child, or Dotard rule,
And just her wisest monarch made a fool"?

Know, GOD and NATURE only are the same:
In Man, the judgment shoots at flying game,
A bird of passage! gone as soon as found
Now in the Moon perhaps, now under ground.
In vain the Sage, with retrospective eye,
Would from th' apparent What conclude the Why,
Infer the Motive from the Deed, and shew,
That what we chanc'd was what we meant to do.
Behold! If Fortune or a Mistress frowns,
Some plunge in bus'ness, others shave their crowns:
To ease the Soul of one oppressive weight,
This quits an Empire, that embroils a State:

1 Charles Darlineuf. Carruthers. [See Imitations of Horace, Bk. 11. Ep. II. v. 87, note.]

2 Lord G-n. Warburton. [Lord Godolphin, appointed Lord Treasurer at the accession of Queen Anne, a Whig and the patron of Addison. Most of the time which he could save from public business was spent in racing, card-playing, and cock-fighting.' Macaulay.]

3 After v. 86 in the former Editions, 'Triumphant leaders, at an army's head, Hemm'd round with glories, pilfer cloth or bread; As meanly plunder as they bravely fought, Now save a People, and now save a groat.' [Alluding to the Duke of Marlborough]

4 [See note to Essay on Man, Ep. 111. v. 46. p. 209.]

[The Roman Emperor Otho, the effeminate associate of Nero's debauches, for a time displayed a manful spirit against Vitellius.]

6 A perjur'd Prince] Louis XI. of France, wore in his Hat a leaden image of the Virgin Mary, which when he swore by, he feared to

break his oath. P.

7 A godless Regent tremble at a Star?] Philip Duke of Orleans, Regent of France in the minority of Louis XV., superstitious in judicial astrology, tho' an unbeliever in all religion. Warburton.

8 The throne a Bigot keep, a Genius quit,] 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. P.

9 [The reference appears to be to the succession of Czarinas in Russia, and to the protracted reign of Louis XIV., and the minority of his successor, in France. If her wisest monarch signify Louis XIV., the agent who subjected him to the process referred to might possibly be Mme. de Maintenon; but it is impossible to find chapter and verse for such vague allusions as those in the text.]

The same adust complexion has impell'd
Charles to the Convent, Philip to the Field1.

Not always Actions shew the man: we find
Who does a kindness, is not therefore kind;
Perhaps Prosperity becalm'd his breast,
Perhaps the Wind just shifted from the east:
Not therefore humble he who seeks retreat,

Pride guides his steps, and bids him shun the great:
Who combats bravely is not therefore brave,

He dreads a death-bed like the meanest slave:

Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise,

His pride in Reas'ning, not in Acting lies.

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.
What will you do with such as disagree?
Suppress them, or miscall them Policy?
Must then at once (the character to save)
The plain rough Hero turn a crafty Knave?
Alas! in truth the man but chang'd his mind,
Perhaps was sick, in love, or had not din'd.
Ask why from Britain Cæsar would retreat?
Cæsar himself might whisper he was beat.
Why risk the world's great empire for a Punk??
Cæsar perhaps might answer he was drunk.
But, sage historians! 'tis your task to prove
One action Conduct; one, heroic Love.

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'Tis from high Life high Characters are drawn;

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A Saint in Crape is twice a Saint in Lawn;

A Judge is just, a Chanc'llor juster still;

A Gownman, learn'd; a Bishop, what you will;
Wise, if a Minister; but, if a King,

More wise, more learn'd, more just, more ev'rything.
Court-virtues bear, like Gems, the highest rate,

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Born where Heav'n's influence scarce can penetrate:

Boastful and rough, your first Son is a Squire;
The next a Tradesman, meek, and much a liar;
Tom struts a Soldier, open, bold, and brave;
Will sneaks a Scriv'ner, an exceeding knave:
Is he a Churchman? then he's fond of pow'r :
A Quaker? sly: A Presbyterian? sour:
A smart Free-thinker? all things in an hour.
Ask men's Opinions: Scoto now shall tell
How Trade increases, and the World goes well;
Strike off his Pension, by the setting sun,
And Britain, if not Europe, is undone.

That gay Free-thinker, a fine talker once,
What turns him now a stupid silent dunce?
Some God, or Spirit he has lately found:
Or chanc'd to meet a Minister that frown'd.
Judge we by Nature? Habit can efface,
Int'rest o'ercome, or Policy take place:
By Actions? those Uncertainty divides:
By Passions? these Dissimulation hides:
Opinions? they still take a wider range:

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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 PASSION2: there, alone,
The Wild are constant, and the Cunning known;
The Fool consistent, and the False sincere;
Priests, Princes, Women, no dissemblers here.
This clue once found, unravels all the rest,

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The prospect clears, and Wharton stands confest".
Wharton, the scorn and wonder of our days,
Whose ruling Passion was the Lust of Praise:

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Born with whate'er could win it from the Wise,
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.
Shall parts so various aim at nothing new?
He'll shine a Tully and a Wilmot too 4.
Then turns repentant, and his God adores

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With the same spirit that he drinks and whores 5;
Enough if all around him but admire,

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And now the Punk applaud, and now the Friar.

1 In the first edition: 'J-n now shall tell;' meaning perhaps Johnston, the Scottish Secretary... a neighbour of Pope's at Twickenham. Carruthers.

Search then the Ruling Passion:] See Essay on Man, Ep. II. v. 133. & seq. Warburton. 3 [Philip Duke of Wharton, the notorious son of an only less notorious father (Addison's patron), after a life of mad dissipation and adventure, died

in the year 1731 in a Spanish convent in the habit of the monks who had given him a last refuge. His career is described in Vol. II. of Lord Stanhope's Hist. of Engl.]

4 John Wilmot, E. of Rochester, famous for his Wit and Extravagancies in the time of Charles the Second. P. [See note p. 181.]

5 With the same spirit] Spirit, for principle, not passion. Warburton.

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 shun contempt:
His Passion still, to covet gen'ral praise,
His Life, to forfeit it a thousand ways;

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,
Too rash for Thought, for Action too refin'd:
A Tyrant to the wife his heart approves;
A Rebel to the very king he loves;

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He dies, sad outcast of each church and state,
And, harder still! flagitious, yet not great.

Ask you why Wharton broke thro' ev'ry rule?

'Twas all for fear the Knaves should call him Fool1.

Nature well known, no prodigies remain2,

Comets are regular, and Wharton plain.

Yet, in this search, the wisest may mistake,

If second qualities for first they take.

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When Catiline by rapine swell'd his store;
When Cæsar made a noble dame3 a whore;
In this the Lust, in that the Avarice

Were means, not ends; Ambition was the vice.
That very Cæsar, born in Scipio's days,
Had aim'd, like him, by Chastity at praise.
Lucullus, when Frugality could charm,
Had roasted turnips in the Sabine farm 5.

In vain th' observer eyes the builder's toil,
But quite mistakes the scaffold for the pile.
In this one Passion 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.
Consistent in our follies and our sins,
Here honest Nature ends as she begins.

Old Politicians chew on wisdom past,
And totter on in bus'ness to the last;
As weak, as earnest; and as gravely out,
As sober Lanesb'row dancing in the gout.
Behold a rev'rend sire, whom want of grace
Has made the father of a nameless race,

[Goethe makes Werther as the supposed author of the Letters from Switzerland express a similar idea: 'one would always rather appear vicious than ridiculous to anyone else.]

2 In the former Editions, v. 208, 'Nature well known, no Miracles remain.' Alter'd as above, for very obvious reasons. Warburton.

3 [Servilia, the sister of Cato and the mother of Brutus. According to Sueton. Julius, c. 51.] [Alluding to the famous story of Scipio the elder and Sophonisba.]

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5 [L. Licinius Lucullus, who after his Eastern campaigns introduced many luxuries into Roman life.]

6 Lanesb' row.] An ancient Nobleman, who continued this practice long after his legs were disabled by the gout. Upon the death of Prince George of Denmark, he demanded an audience of the Queen, to advise her to preserve her health and dispel her grief by Dancing. P. [Viscount Lanesborough died at Dublin in 1736. He is often alluded to as the dancing peer in Irish pasquinades of the day. Carruthers.]

Shov'd from the wall perhaps, or rudely press'd
By his own son, that passes by unbless'd:
Still to his wench he crawls on knocking knees,
And envies ev'ry sparrow that he sees.

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A salmon's belly, Helluo1, was thy fate;
The doctor call'd, declares all help too late:
"Mercy!" cries Helluo, mercy on my soul!"
"Is there no hope?-Alas!-then bring the jowl2."
The frugal Crone, whom praying priests attend,
Still tries to save the hallow'd taper's end,
Collects her breath, as ebbing life retires,
For one puff more, and in that puff expires 3.
"Odious! in woollen! 'twould a Saint provoke,"
(Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke)4
"No, let a charming Chintz, and Brussels lace
"Wrap my cold limbs, and shade my lifeless face:
"One would not, sure, be frightful when one's dead-
And-Betty-give this Cheek a little Red 5."

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The Courtier smooth, who forty years had shin'd
An humble servant to all human kind,

Just brought out this, when scarce his tongue could stir,

"If-where I'm going-I could serve you, Sir?"

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"I give and I devise (old Euclio said,
And sigh'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,
"Not that, I cannot part with that"-and died.
And you brave COBHAM, to the latest breath
Shall feel your ruling passion strong in death:
Such in those moments as in all the past,
"Oh, save my Country, Heav'n!" shall be your last 6.

[A Latin word signifying a glutton.] 2 [Warton traces this story to Athenæus, Bk. VIII., where it is told of the poet Philoxenus; but thinks Pope derived it from La Fontaine.]

3 A fact told him by Lady Bolingbroke, of an old Countess at Paris. Warburton. [It is rather an odd circumstance that, although the professed subject of this Epistle is 'the Characters of Men,' Pope has taken two of the examples to illustrate his theory from Women, the 'frugal crone' and 'poor Narcissa,' and yet he says, in the next Epistle, on Women,

'In Men, we various Ruling Passions find; In Women, two almost divide the kind, The Love of Pleasure, and the Love of Sway.' Neither of these Passions belonged to the Women, whose examples he has introduced to illustrate the Character and Ruling Passion of Men.

Bowles.]

-the last words that poor Narcissa spoke)] This story, as well as the others, is founded on fact, tho' the author had the goodness not to

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mention the names. Several attribute this in particular to a very celebrated Actress, who, in detestation of the thought of being buried in woollen, gave these her last orders with her dying breath. P. [According to Warton the actress in question was the famous Mrs Oldfield, and Betty, her friend and confidante, Mrs Saunders.]

5 [No reader of Dickens will fail to remember the last words of Cleopatra in Dombey and Son, just as the next illustration but one will remind many of Tennyson's Northern Farmer. Euclio's very words are said by Warton to have been used by Sir William Bateman on his deathbed. But Wakefield states Euclio to have been designed for Sir Charles Duncombe of Helmsley; which is probable from Imit. of Horace, Sat. II. v. 183.]

6 [Whatever were the precise last words of William Pitt, this was the spirit which dictated them. Compare the Epitaph (XIII.) on Atterbury.]