Ask men's opinions : Scoto now shall tell
How trade increases, and the world goes well ;
Strike off his pension, by the setting fun,
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 fpirit, he has lately found;
Or chanc'd 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 :
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 fool consistent, and the false fincere; Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here. 'This clue once found, unravels all the rest, The prospect clears, and Whartou stands confeft. Wharton, the scorn and wonder of our days, 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 : Tho' wondring 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 lhine a Tully and a Wilmot too.

Then turns repentant, and his God adores
With the same spirit that he drinks and whores;
Enough if all around him but admire,
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 fun 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,
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;
He dies, fad out-cast of each church and state,
And, harder still! Aagitious, yet not great.
Ask you why Wharton broke thro' 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, If second qualities for first they take. When Catiline by rapine swell’d his store ; When Caefar made a noble dame a whore ; In this the Lust, in that the Avarice Were means, not ends; Ambition was the vice. That very Caefar born in Scipio's days, Had aim'd, like him, by chastity, at praise.

VOL. III.

Lucullus, when Frugality could charm,
Had roasted turnips in the Sabin farm.
In vain th' observer eyes the builder's toil,
But quite mistakes the scaffold for the pile.

In this one pasion 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 fand.
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,
As fober Lanesb’row dancing in the gout.

Behold a reverend fire, whom want of grace
Has made the father of a nameless race,
Shov'd from the wall perhaps, or rudely pressid
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 falmon's belly, Helluo, was thy fate ; The doctor callid, declares all help too late : “ Mercy! cries Helluo, merey on my soul ! “ Is there no hope ?--Alas!-then bring the jowl."

The frugal Crone, whom praying priests attend, Still strives 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 faint provoke, (Were the last words that poor Narcisla spoke)

And

“ No, let a charming Chintz, and Brussels' lace " Wrap my cold limbs, and shade my liieless face : « One would not, sure, be frightful when one's dead

- Betty-give this Cheek a little red.” The courtier smooth, who forty years had thin'd An humble servant to all human kind, Juit brought out this, when scarce his tongue could stir, “ 1f-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 cry'd, “ Not that --I cannot part with that”-and dy'd,

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.

OF the characters of Women (consider'd only as con

tra-distinguished from the other Sex.) That these are yet more inconsistent and incomprehensible than those of Men, of which instances are given even from such characters as are plainest, and most strongly mark'd ; as in the Affected, v. 7. &c. The Soft-natur'd ver. 29. The Cunning, v. 45. The Whimsical, v. 53. The Wits and Refiners, v. 87. The Stupid and Silly, v, 101. How contrarieties

run thro' them all. But tho' the particular characters of this Sex are more

various than those of Men, the general characteristic, as to the Ruling passion, is more uniform and confin’d. In what that lies, and whence it proceeds, ver. 205, &c. Men are best known in public life, Woman in private, ver. 207. What are the