Mark by what wretched steps their glory grows,
From dirt and seaweed as proud Venice rose;
In each how guilt and greatness equal ran,
And all that raised the hero sunk the man:
Now Europe’s laurels on their brows behold,
But stained with blood, or ill exchanged for gold;
Then see them broke with toils, or sunk in ease,
Or infamous for plundered provinces.
O wealth ill fated! which no act of fame
300 E’er taught to shine, or sanctified from shame!
What greater bliss attends their close of life?
Some greedy minion, or imperious wife
The trophied arches, storied halls invade,
And haunt their slumbers in the pompous shade.
Alas! not dazzled with their noontide ray,
Compute the morn and evening to the day;
The whole amount of that enormous fame,
A tale that blends their glory with their shame!
VII. Know then this truth (enough for Man to know),
310 ‘Virtue alone is happiness below.’
The only point where human bliss stands still,
And tastes the good without the fall to ill;
Where only merit constant pay receives,
Is blest in what it takes and what it gives;
The joy unequalled if its end it gain,
And, if it lose, attended with no pain;
Without satiety, though e’er so blessed,
And but more relished as the more distress’d:
The broadest mirth unfeeling folly wears,
320 Less pleasing far than virtue’s very tears;
Good, from each object, from each place acquired,
For ever exercised, yet never tired;
Never elated, while one man’s oppressed;
Never dejected, while another’s blessed:
And where no wants, no wishes can remain,
Since but to wish more virtue, is to gain.
See the sole bliss Heav’n could on all bestow!
Which who but feels can taste, but thinks can know;
Yet poor with fortune, and with learning blind,
330 The bad must miss, the good, untaught, will find:
Slave to no sect, who takes no private road,
But looks through Nature, up to Nature’s God;
Pursues that chain which links th’ immense design,
Joins Heav’n and earth, and mortal and divine;
Sees, that no being any bliss can know,
But touches some above, and some below;
Learns, from this union of the rising whole,
The first, last purpose of the human soul;
And knows where faith, law, morals, all began,
340 All end, in love of God and love of Man.
For him alone, hope leads from goal to goal,
And opens still, and opens on his soul,
Till lengthened on to faith, and unconfined
It pours the bliss that fills up all the mind.
He sees, why Nature plants in man alone
Hope of known bliss, and faith in bliss unknown
(Nature, whose dictates to no other kind
Are giv’n in vain, but what they seek they find).
Wise is her present: she connects in this
350 His greatest virtue with his greatest bliss;
At once his own bright prospect to be blest,
And strongest motive to assist the rest.
Self-love thus pushed to social, to divine,
Gives thee to make thy neighbour’s blessing thine.
Is this too little for the boundless heart?
Extend it, let thy enemies have part.
Grasp the whole world of reason, life, and sense,
In one close system of benevolence:
Happier as kinder, in whate’er degree,
360 And height of bliss but height of charity.
God loves from whole to parts, but human soul
Must rise from individual to the whole.
Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake,
As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake;
The centre moved, a circle straight succeeds,
Another still, and still another spreads;
Friend, parent, neighbour, first it will embrace;
His country next, and next all human race;
Wide and more wide, th’ o’erflowings of the mind
370 Take ev’ry creature in of ev’ry kind;
Earth smiles around, with boundless bounty blest,
And Heav’n beholds its image in his breast.
Come then, my friend, my genius, come along:
O master of the poet, and the song!
And while the Muse now stoops, or now ascends.
To Man’s low passions, or their glorious ends,
Teach me, like thee, in various Nature wise,
To fall with dignity, with temper rise;
Formed by thy converse, happily to steer
380 From grave to gay, from lively to severe;
Correct with spirit, eloquent with ease,
Intent to reason, or polite to please.
Oh! while along the stream of time thy name
Expanded flies, and gathers all its fame,
Say, shall my little bark attendant sail,
Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale?
When statesmen, heroes, kings, in dust repose,
Whose sons shall blush their fathers were thy foes,
Shall then this verse to future age pretend
390 Thou wert my guide, philosopher, and friend?
That, urged by thee, I turned the tuneful art
From sounds to things, from fancy to the heart;
For wit’s false mirror held up Nature’s light,
Showed erring pride, ‘WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT’;
That REASON, PASSION, answer one great aim;
That true SELF-LOVE and SOCIAL are the same;
That VIRTUE only makes our bliss below;
And all our knowledge is, OURSELVES TO KNOW.
Epistles to Several Persons
Est brevitate opus, ut currat sententia, neu se
Impediat verbis lassas onerantibus aures:
Et sermone opus est modo tristi, sæpe jocoso,
Defendente vicem modo Rhetoris atque Poetæ,
Interdum urbani, parcentis viribus, atque
Extenuantis eas consultô.
Epistle I
To Sir Richard Temple, Lord Cobham
ARGUMENT
Of the Knowledge and Characters of MEN
That it is not sufficient for this knowledge to consider Man in the abstract: books will not serve the purpose, nor yet our own experience singly, v. 1. General maxims, unless they be formed upon both, will be but notional, v. 10. Some Peculiarity in every man, characteristic to himself, yet varying from himself, v. 15. Difficulties arising from our own Passions, Fancies, Faculties, etc. v. 31. The shortness of life, to observe in, and the uncertainty of the principles of action in men, to observe by, v. 37, etc. Our own Principle of action often hid from ourselves, v. 41. Some few Characters plain, but in general confounded, dissembled, or inconsistent, v. 51. The same man utterly different in different places and seasons, v. 71. Unimaginable weaknesses in the greatest, v. 70, etc. Nothing constant and certain but God and Nature, v. 95. No judging of the Motives from the actions; the same actions proceeding from contrary motives, and the same motives influencing contrary actions, v. 100. II. Yet to form Characters, we can only take the strongest actions of a man’s life, and try to make them agree; the utter uncertainty of this, from Nature itself, and from policy, v. 120. Characters given according to the rank of men of the world, v. 135. And some reason for it, v. 140. Education alters the nature, or at least character of many, v. 149. Actions, Passions, Opinions, Manners, Humours, or Principles all subject to change. No judging by Nature, from v. 158 to 178. III
. 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, v. 175. Instanced in the extraordinary character of Clodio, v. 179. A caution against mistaking second qualities for first, which will destroy all possibility of the knowledge of mankind, v. 210. Examples of the strength of the Ruling Passion, and its continuation to the last breath, v. 222, etc.
Yes, you despise the man to books confined,
Who from his study rails at human kind;
Though what he learns, he speaks, and may advance
Some gen’ral maxims, or be right by chance.
The coxcomb bird, so talkative and grave,
That from his cage cries Cuckold, Whore, and Knave,
Though many a passenger he rightly call,
You hold him no philosopher at all.
And yet the fate of all extremes is such,
10 Men may be read, as well as books, too much.
To observations which ourselves we make,
We grow more partial for th’observer’s sake;
To written wisdom, as another’s, less:
Maxims are drawn from notions, these from guess.
There’s some peculiar in each leaf and grain,
Some unmarked fibre, or some varying vein;
Shall only Man be taken in the gross?
Grant but as many sorts of mind, as moss.
That each from other differs, first confess;
20 Next, that he varies from himself no less;
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 foll’wing life through creatures you dissect,
30 You lose it in the moment you detect.
Yet more: the diff’rence is as great between
The optics seeing, as the objects seen.
All manners take a tincture from our own,
Or come discoloured 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
40 When half our knowledge we must snatch, not take.
Oft, in the passions’ wild rotation tossed,
Our spring of action to ourselves is lost:
Tired, not determined, to the last we yield,
And what comes then is master of the field.
As the last image of that troubled heap,
When sense subsides, and fancy sports in sleep
(Though past the recollection of the thought),
Becomes the stuff of which our dream is wrought;
Something, as dim to our internal view,
50 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’ed at sight;
And ev’ry child hates Shylock, though his soul
Still sits at squat, and peeps not from its hole.
At half mankind when gen’rous Manly raves,
All know ’tis virtue, for he thinks them knaves:
When universal homage Umbra pays,
60 All see ’tis vice, and itch of vulgar praise.
When flatt’ry glares, all hate it in a queen,
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.
The dull, flat falsehood serves for policy,
And in the cunning, truth itself’s a lie.
Unthought-of frailties cheat us in the wise;
70 The fool lies hid in inconsistencies.
See the same man, in vigour, in the gout;
Alone, in company; in place, or out;
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,
80 A rogue with ven’son to a saint without.
Who would not praise Patritio’s high desert,
His hand unstained, his uncorrupted heart,
His comprehensive head? all int’rests weighed,
All Europe saved, yet Britain not betrayed.
He thanks you not, his pride is in picquette,
Newmarket fame, and judgement at a bet.
What made (say Montaigne, or more sage Charron!)
Otho a warrior, Cromwell a buffoon?
A perjured prince a leaden saint revere?
90 A godless regent tremble at a star?
The throne a bigot keep, a genius quit,
Faithless through piety, and duped through wit?
Europe a woman, child, or dotard rule,
And just her ablest monarch made a fool?
Know, GOD and NATURE only are the same:
In Man, the judgement 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,
100 Would from th’apparent What conclude the Why,
Infer the motive from the deed, and show
That what we chanced, 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:
The same adust complexion has impelled
Charles to the convent, Philip to the field.
Not always actions show the man: we find
110 Who does a kindness, is not therefore kind;
Perhaps prosperity becalmed 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 deathbed 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:
120 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 changed his mind,
Perhaps was sick, in love, or had not dined.
Ask why from Britain Caesar would retreat?
130 Caesar himself might whisper he was beat.
Why risk the world’s great empire for a punk?
Caesar perhaps might answer he was drunk.
But, sage historians! ’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;
A judge is just, a chanc’lor juster still;
A gownman, learn’d; a bishop, what you will;
Wise, if a minister; but, if a king,
140 More wise, more learn’d, more just, more ev’rything.
Court-virtues bear, like gems, the highest rate,
Born where Heav’n’s influence scarce can penetrate:
In life’s low vale, the soil the virtues like,
They please as beauties, here as wonders strike.
Though the same sun with all-diffusive rays
Blush in the rose, and in the diamond blaze,
We prize the stronger effort of his pow’r,
And justly set the gem above the flow’r.
’Tis education forms the common mind,
150 Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.
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 freethinker? all things in an hour.
Ask men’s opinions: Scoto now shall tell
How trade increases, and the world goes well;
160 Strike off his pension by the setting sun,
And Britain, if not Europe, is undone.
That gay freethinker, a fine talker once,
What turns him now a stupid silent dunce?
Some god or spirit he has lately found;
Or chanced to meet a minister that frowned.
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;
170 Opinions? they still take a wider range:
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 PASSION: there, alone,
The wild are constant, and the cunning known;
The Rape of the Lock and Other Major Writings Page 18
