Behold! if fortune or a mistress frowns, Some plunge in business, 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 impell'd Charles[5] to the convent, Philip[6] to the field.

Not always actions show the man: we find Who does a kindness, is not therefore kind; 110 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 reasoning, not in acting, lies.

But grant that actions best discover man; Take the most strong, and sort them as you can: 120 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?

Caesar himself might whisper he was beat. 130 Why risk the world's great empire for a punk?[7]

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 chancellor 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 everything, 140 Court-virtues bear, like gems, the highest rate, Born where Heaven'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 power, And justly set the gem above the flower.

'Tis education forms the common mind, Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined. 150 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 scrivener, an exceeding knave: Is he a Churchman? then he's fond of power: 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, 160 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 chanced to meet a minister that frown'd.

Judge we by nature? Habit can efface, Interest o'ercome, or policy take place: By actions? those uncertainty divides: By passions? these dissimulation hides: Opinions? they still take a wider range: 170 Find, if you can, in what you cannot change.

Manners with fortunes, humours turn with climes, Tenets with books, and principles with times.

III. Search, then, the ruling passion: 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, The prospect clears, and Wharton stands confess'd.

Wharton, the scorn and wonder of our days, 180 Whose ruling passion was the lust of praise: Born with whate'er could win it from the wise, Women and fools must like him or he dies; Though wondering 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[8] too.

Then turns repentant, and his God adores With the same spirit that he drinks and whores; Enough if all around him but admire, 190 And now the punk applaud, and now the friar.

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 general 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, 200 Too rash for thought, for action too refined; A tyrant to the wife his heart approves; A rebel to the very king he loves; He dies, sad outcast of each church and state, And, harder still! flagitious, yet not great.

Ask you why Wharton broke through every rule 'Twas all for fear the knaves should call him fool.

Nature well known, no prodigies remain, Comets are regular, and Wharton plain.

Yet, in this search, the wisest may mistake, 210 If second qualities for first they take.

When Catiline by rapine swell'd his store; When Caesar made a noble dame a whore;[9]

In this the lust, in that the avarice Were means, not ends; ambition was the vice.

That very Caesar, 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.

In vain the observer eyes the builder's toil, 220 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 business to the last; As weak, as earnest, and as gravely out, 230 As sober Lanesborough[10] dancing in the gout.

Behold a reverend sire, whom want of grace Has made the father of a nameless race, Shoved 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 every sparrow that he sees.

A salmon's belly, Helluo, was thy fate; The doctor call'd, declares all help too late: 'Mercy!' cries Helluo, 'mercy on my soul! 240 Is there no hope? Alas! then bring the jowl.'

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.

'Odious! in woollen! 'twould a saint provoke,'

(Were the last words that poor Narcissa[11] spoke), '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-- 250 And, Betty, give this cheek a little red.'

The courtier smooth, who forty years had shined 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?'

'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 cried), 260 '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, Heaven!' shall be your last.

VARIATIONS.

After VER. 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.

VER. 129, in the former editions--

Ask why from Britain Caesar made retreat?

Caesar himself would tell you he was beat.

The mighty Czar what moved to wed a punk?

The mighty Czar would tell you he was drunk.

In the former editions, VER. 208--

Nature well known, no _miracles_ remain.

EPISTLE II.--TO A LADY.

OF THE CHARACTERS OF WOMEN.

Nothing so true as what you once let fall-- 'Most women have no characters at all.'

Matter too soft a lasting mark to bear, And best distinguish'd by black, brown, or fair.

How many pictures of one nymph we view, All how unlike each other, all how true!

Arcadia's Countess, here, in ermined pride, Is there, Pastora by a fountain side.