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He then fpeaks of the paffions. and their ufe, and more especially of the predominant or ruling paffion; of its neceffity, in directing men to different purfuits, and its providential use, in fixing our principles, and ascertaining our virtue.

Paffions, like elements, tho' born to fight,
Yet, mix'd and foften'd, in his work unite:
Thefe, 'tis enough to temper and employ ;
But what compofes man, can man destroy?
Suffice that reafon keep to nature's road,
Subject, compound them, follow her and God.
Love, hope, and joy, fair pleasure's fmiling train,
Hate, fear, and grief, the family of pain;
Thefe mix'd with art, and to due bounds confin'd,
Make and maintain the balance of the mind:
The lights and fhades, whofe well-accorded ftrife
Gives all the ftrength and colour of our life.
Pleasures are ever in our hands or eyes.
And when in act they ceafe, in prospect rife:
Prefent to grafp, and future ftill to find,
The whole employ of body and of mind.
All spread their charms, but charm not all alike;
On diff'rent Senfes diff'rent objects strike;
Hence diff'rent paffions more or lefs enflame,
As ftrong or weak, the organs of the frame;
And hence one master-paflion in the breast,
Like Aaron's ferpent, fwallows up the reft.

As man, perhaps, the moment of his breath,
Receives the lurking principle of death;
The young disease, that muft fubdue at length,
Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his ftrength:
So caft, and mingled with his very frame,

The mind's difeafe, its ruling paffion came;

Each vital humour which should feed the whole,

Soon flows, to this, in body and in foul:
Whatever warms the heart, or fills the head,
As the mind opens, and its functions spread,
Imagination plies her dang'rous art,

And pours it all upon the peccant part.

Virtue and vice, he obferves, are joined in our mixt nature, and their limits are near, tho' separate and evident.

He points out the office of reafon, describes vice as odious in itself, and yet fhews by what means we deceive ourfelves into it. He proves that not only the ends of Providence are answer'd in our paffions and imperfections, but that the general good is often promoted by them, and fhews how usefully they are diftributed to all orders of men ; points out their ufe to fociety, and to individuals in every state, and every age of life, and thus concludes the epistle.

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 starving chymift in his golden views
Supremely bleft, the poet in his mufe.

See fome ftrange comfort ev'ry ftate attend,.
And pride bestow'd on all, a common friend :
See fome fit paffion ev'ry age fupply,
Hope travels thro', nor quits us when we die.
Behold the child, by nature's kindly law,
Pleas`d with a rattle, tickled with a straw :
Some livelier play-thing gives his youth delight,
A little louder, but as empty quite:

Scarfs, garters, gold, amufe his riper ftage;
And beads and pray'r-books are the toys of age:
Pleas'd with this bauble ftill, as that before;
"Till tir'd he fleeps, and life's poor play is o'er ;
Mean while opinion gilds with various rays
Those painted clouds that beautify our days;
Each want of happiness by hope fupply'd,
And each vacuity of fenfe by pride:
These build as fast as knowledge can destroy;
In folly's cup ftill laughs the bubble, joy;
One profpect loft, another ftill we gain;
And not a vanity is giv'n in vain;

Ev'n mean felf-love becomes by force divine,
The scale to measure others wants by thine.
See! and confess, one comfort ftill must rise,
'Tis this, Tho' man's a fool, yet God is wife.

In his third epistle, he treats of the nature and state of man with respect to fociety, and confiders the whole univerfe as one system thereof, in which nothing fubfifts wholly for itself, nor yet wholly for another, but wherein the happiness of animals is mutual.

Look round our world; behold the chain of love
Combining all below and all above.

See plaftic Nature working to this end,
The fingle atoms each to other tend,
Attract, attracted to the next in place,
Form'd and impell'd its neighbour to embrace.
See matter next, with various life endu'd,
Prefs to one centre ftill, the gen'ral good.
See dying vegetables life sustain,
See life diffolving vegetate again :
All forms that perifh other forms supply
(By turns we catch the vital breath, and die)
Like bubbles on the fea of matter born,
They rife, they break, and to that fea return.
Nothing is foreign: parts relate to whole;
One all-extending, all-preferving foul
Connects each being, greatest with the leaft;
Made beaft in aid of man, and man of beast;
All ferv'd, all serving: nothing stands alone;
The chain holds on, and, where it ends, unknown.
Has God, thou fool! work'd folely for thy good,
Thy joy, thy paftime, thy attire, thy food?
Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn,
For him as kindly fpreads the flow'ry lawn.
Is it for thee the lark afcends and fings?
Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings:
Is it for thee the linnet pours his throat?
Loves of his own and raptures fwell the note:
The bounding feed you pompously beftride,
Shares with his lord the pleasure and the pride:
Is thine alone the feed that ftrews the plain ?
The birds of heav'n fhall vindicate their grain:
Thine the full harvest of the golden year?
Part pays, and justly, the deferving steer :
The hog, that plows not, nor obeys thy call,
Lives on the labours of this lord of all.

Know, Nature's children all divide her care; The fur that warms a monarch, warm'd a bear. While man exclaims, See all things for my ufe!' • See man for mine!' replies a pamper'd goofe : And just as short of reafon he must fall,

Who thinks all made for one, not one for all.

He then proceeds to fhew, that reafon or inftinct operates alike to the good of each individual, and enforces fociety in all animals. He confiders how far fociety is carried by inftinct, and how much farther by reafon; he beautifully defcribes the state of nature, and fhews how reason was inftructed by instinct in the invention of arts, and in the forms of fociety.

Thus then to man the voice of nature speak-
Go, from the creatures thy inftruction take:
Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield;
Learn from the beaft the phyfic of the field;
The arts of building from the bee receive;
Learn of the mole to plow, the worm to weave;
Learn of the little nautilus to fail,

Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale.
Here too all forms of focial union find,
And hence let reason, late inftruct mankind
Here fubterranean works and cities fee;
There towns aereal on the waving tree:
Learn each small people's genius, policies,
The ant's republic, and the realm of bees;
How thofe in common all their wealth beftow,
And anarchy without confufion know;
And these for ever, tho' a monarch reign,
Their fep'rate cells and properties maintain.
Mark what unvary'd laws preferve each state,
Laws wife as Nature, and as fixt as Fate.
In vain thy reason finer webs fhall draw,
Entangle Juftice in her net of Law,

And right, too rigid, harden into wrong;
Still for the ftrong too weak, the weak too ftrong.
Yet, go! and thus o'er all the creatures sway,
Thus let the wifer make the reft obey;
And for thofe arts mere inftin&t could afford,
Be crown'd as monarchs, or as gods ador'd.'

He thence traces out the origin of political focieties; of monarchy, and patriarchal governments, and fhews that true religion and government had both their foundation in the principle of love, and that fuperftition and tyranny arofe from the principle of fear. He confiders the influence of felf-love, as operating to the focial and public good; treats of the restoration of true religion and government on their first principles; then defcants on mix'd governments and their various forms; and laftly, points out the true end of all, in the following admirable lines.

For forms of government let fools conteft;
Whate'er is best adminifter'd is beft:
For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight;
His can't be wrong whofe life is in the right:
In faith and hope the world will disagree,
But all mankind's concern is charity :

All must be falfe that thwart this one great end,
And all of God, that blefs mankind or mend.

Man, like the gen'rous vine, fupported lives;
The ftrength he gains is from th' embrace he gives.
On their own axis as the planets run,

Yet make at once their circle round the fun;
So two confiftent motions act the foul;

And one regards Itfelf, and one the Whole.
Thus God and nature link'd the gen'ral frame,
And bade felf-love and focial be the fame.

In his fourth epiftle he treats of the nature and ftate of man with respect to happiness, explodes all falfe notions of happiness, philofophical and popular, and affirms that it is the end of all men, and attainable by all, for God intends happiness to be equal; and to be fo, it must be focial, fince all particular happiness depends on general, and fince he governs by general, not particular laws.

Take Nature's path, and mad opinions leave,
All states can reach it, and all heads conceive;
Obvious her goods, in no extream they dwell;
There needs but thinking right, and meaning well;
And mourn our various portions as we please,
Equal is common fense, and common ease.
Remember, man, the univerfal caufe
Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral laws;'

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