TO MR THOMAS SOUTHERN,
ON HIS BIRTHDAY, 1742.
RESIGN'D to live, prepared to die,
With not one sin, but poetry,
This day Tom's fair account has run
(Without a blot) to eighty-one.
Kind Boyle, before his poet lays
A table, with a cloth of bays;
And Ireland, mother of sweet singers,
Presents her harp still to his fingers.
The feast, his towering genius marks
In yonder wild-goose and the larks!
The mushrooms shew his wit was sudden!
And for his judgment, lo a pudden !
Roast beef, though old, proclaims him stout,
And grace, although a bard, devout.
May Toм, whom Heaven sent down to raise
The price of prologues and of plays,
Be every birthday more a winner,
Digest his thirty-thousandth dinner;
Walk to his grave without reproach,
And scorn a rascal in a coach.
Est brevitate opus, ut currat sententia, neu se
Impediat verbis lassis onerantibus aures:
Et sermone opus est modo tristi, sæpe jocoso,
Defendente vicem modo Rhetoris atque Poetæ
Interdum urbani, parcentis viribus, atque
Extenuantis eas consulto.
TO SIR RICHARD TEMPLE, LORD COBHAM.
OF THE KNOWLEDGE AND CHARACTERS OF MEN.
I. 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.
General maxims, unless they be formed upon both, will be but notional.
Some peculiarity in every man, characteristic to himself, yet varying
from himself. Difficulties arising from our own passions, fancies, facul-
ties, &c. The shortness of life, to observe in, and the uncertainty of the
principles of action in men, to observe by. Our own principle of action
often hid from ourselves. Some few characters plain, but in general con-
founded, dissembled, or inconsistent. The same man utterly different in
different places and seasons. Unimaginable weaknesses in the greatest.
Nothing constant and certain but God and Nature. No judging of the
motives from the actions; the same actions proceeding from contrary
motives, and the same motives influencing contrary actions. 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. Characters given according to the rank of men of the
world. And some reason for it. Education alters the nature, or at least
the character, of many. Actions, passions, opinions, manners, humours,
or principles, all subject to change. No judging by nature.
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. Instanced in the extraordinary character of Clodio.
A caution against mistaking second qualities for first, which will destroy
all possibility of the knowledge of mankind. Examples of the strength
of the ruling passion, and its continuation to the last breath.
I. YES, you despise the man to books confined,
Who from his study rails at humankind;
Though what he learns he speaks, and may advance
Some general maxims, or be right by chance.
The coxcomb bird, so talkative and grave,
That from his cage cries, LIAR, THIEF, 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,
Men may be read, as well as books, too much.
To observations which ourselves we make,
We grow more partial for the observer's sake;
To written wisdom, as another's, less ⚫
Maxims are drawn from notions, those from guess.
There's some peculiar in each leaf and grain,
Some unmark'd 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;
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 following life through creatures you dissect,
You lose it in the moment you detect.
Yet more; the difference is as great between
The optics seeing, as the objects seen.
All manners take a tincture from our own;
Or come discolour'd through our passions shewn.
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,
When half our knowledge we must snatch, not take.
Oft, in the passions' wide rotation toss'd,
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 the 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,
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 beloved at sight;
And every child hates Shylock, though his soul
Still sits at squat, and peeps not from its hole.
At half mankind when generous MANLY raves,
All know 'tis virtue, for he thinks them knaves:
When universal homage Umbra pays,
All see 'tis vice, and itch of vulgar praise.
When flattery 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;
The fool lies hid in inconsistencies.
See the same man, in vigour, in the gout;
Alone, in company; in place, or out;
Early at business, 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 venison to a saint without.
Who would not praise Patritio's high desert,
His hand unstain'd, his uncorrupted heart,
His comprehensive head! all interests weigh'd,
All Europe saved, yet Britain not betray'd?
He thanks you not, his pride is in piquet,
Newmarket fame, and judgment at a bet.
What made (say Montaigne, or more sage Charron !)
Otho a warrior, Cromwell a buffoon?
A perjured prince a leaden saint revere, +
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 wisest monarch made a fool?
Know, GOD and NATURE only are the same:
In man, the judgment shoots at flying game;
Louis XI. of France, when he swore by it, he feared to break his oath. Philip, Duke of Orleans, regent in the minority of Louis XV., superstiDus in judicial astrology, though an unbeliever in all religion.
§ Philip V. of Spain.
Victor Amadeus II., King of Sardinia.
A bird of passage! gone as soon as found;
Now in the moon perhaps, now under ground.
II. In vain the sage, with retrospective eye,
Would from the apparent what conclude the why,
Infer the motive from the deed, and shew,
That what we chanced was what we meant to do.
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 to the convent, Philip + to the field.
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 deathbed 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.
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 Cæsar would retreat?!
Cæsar himself might whisper he was beat.
Why risk the world's great empire for a WOMAN?+
Cæsar perhaps might SAY he was BUT HUMAN.
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.
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,
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