A Judge is just, a Chanc'lor juster still; More wise, more learn'd, more just, more ev'ry thing. 140 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, "Tis Education forms the common mind, Just as the Twig is bent, the Tree's inclin'd. 145 150 NOTES. Ver. 137. A Judge is just, a Chanc'lor juster still; A Gownman, learn'd; a Bishop, what you will; Each profession is here equally turned into ridicule; but not with equal justice. The Lawyer at the Bar pleads indifferently for right and wrong. On the Bench he is the most zealous Patron and Investigator of Truth. The Divine, on the contrary, while in a private station, consults only the honour of his Religion; but when advanced to a public, he is only anxious that the Ministry be not blamed. Whence comes this difference? Not from their own dispositions, but from that of the times in which, Justice is supposed to be necessary to civil Society; and Religion, of no such use. Therefore the Lawyer, when advanced into the Magistracy, is invariably attached to the Right; and the Churchman in Authority must give no offence. W. Ver. 141. Court-Virtues bear, like Gems, &c.] This whole reflection, and the similitude brought to support it, have great delicacy of ridicule, together with all the charms of Wit and Poetry. W. Boastful and rough, your first son is a 'Squire; Ask men's Opinions: Scoto now shall tell That gay Free-thinker, a fine talker once, 160 NOTES. Ver. 151. Boastful and rough,] How much knowledge of life, of manners, and characters, is contained in the eleven succeeding lines! We are not to ascribe so much to the powerful influence of education alone, as does Helvetius in his fanciful Treatise de L'Esprit, who imagines and asserts that all men are born with equal talents, and that it is education alone that causes any difference or superiority in different men. It is the common mind that is formed by education; which has not the same effect on minds, on which nature and contitution have imprinted deep and strong marks of original genius. It is impossible not to lament that Gray did not finish the design he sketched out, of an Essay on the Alliance of Education and government, which, from the specimens we find in his life (page 193), would doubtless have been a masterpiece of didactic poetry. Ver. 156. A Presbyterian? sour:] If it be asked, why Presbyterian Divines, of the Puritan stamp, took more satisfaction, in their sermons and discourses, to quote the Old Testament than the New; it may be said, that their gloomy sour temper found most solace in the terrors of the God of Israel; and their pride was most indulged in having, like the Jews, a God to themselves. W. This is not applicable to the present mode of preaching used by the dissenting ministers. Some God, or Spirit he was lately found; Judge we by Nature? Habit can efface, 165 VARIATIONS. Ver. 165. Or chanc'd to meet Sir Robert when he frown'd. NOTES. Ver. 164, 165. Some God, or Spirit he has lately found: Disasters the most unlooked-for, as they were what the Freethinker's speculations and practice were principally directed to avoid. The Poet here alludes to the ancient classical opinion, that the sudden vision of a God was wont to strike the irreverent observer speechless. He has only a little extended the conceit, and supposed, that the terrors of a Court-Deity might have the like effect on one of these devoted worshippers.-Scribl. Ver. 166. Judge we by Nature?] We find here, in the compass of eight lines, an anatomy of human nature; more sense and observation cannot well be compressed and concluded in a narrower space. This passage might be drawn out into a voluminous commentary, and be worked up into a system concerning the knowledge of the world. There seems to be an inaccuracy in the use of the last verb; the natural temperament is by no means suddenly changed, or turned, with a change of climate, though undoubtedly the humours are originally formed by it. "Influenced by," would be a more proper expression than “turn with,” if the metre would admit it. I have seen a collection of all the passages, in Horace and Pope, that relate to men and manners, placed together and compared with each other. The superiority was given to Pope, for a deeper knowledge of human nature than could be found in Horace. We may justly apply to Pope what Cicero says so finely of Thucydides: "Omnes dicendi artificio, mea sententia, facile vicit, ut verborum prope numerum sententiarum numero consequatur; ita porro verbis aptus et pressus, ut nescias utrum res oratione, an verba sententiis illustrentur." Opinions? they still take a wider range: Find, if you can, in what you cannot change. 170 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: NOTES. Ver. 171. in what you cannot change.] "Combien diversement jugeons nous de choses?" says honest Montaigne. "Combien de fois changeons nous nos fantasies? Ce que je tien aujourdhuy, ce que je croy, je le tien et le croy, de toute ma creance; mais ne m'est-il pas advenu, non une fois mais cent; mais mille et tous les jours, d'avoir embrassé quelque autre chose?" Montaigne furnished many hints for this Epistle. Ver. 172. Manners with Fortunes,] Are there any two lines in Horace or Boileau so replete with strong sense, and so condensed and crowded with matter, as these two of our Author? I have often amused myself by thinking what sort of magistrates Dante and Montaigne made, when the former was mayor of Florence, and the latter of Bourdeaux. Did their manners change with their stations? Ver. 174. the RULING PASSION :] Two eminent writers have attacked our Author's notion of a Ruling Passion, Mr. Harris and Dr. Johnson: The former says, "One talks of a universal passion; as if all passions were not universal. Another talks of a Ruling Passion; and means, without knowing it, certain ruling opinions. Thus, when specious falsehood assumes the lyre, we are charmed with the music, and worship her as truth." "Of any passion," says Johnson, "thus innate and irresistible, the existence may reasonably be doubted. Human characters are by no means constant; men change, by change of place, of fortune, of acquaintance; he who is at one time a lover of pleasure, is at another a lover of money. Those, indeed, who attain any excellence, commonly spend life in one pursuit; for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms. But to the particular species of excellence men are directed, not by an ascendant planet or predominating humour, but by the first VOL. III. The Fool consistent, and the False sincere ; 176 NOTES. 180 book which they read, some early conversation which they heard, or some accident which excited ardour and emulation. "It must be at least allowed, that this ruling passion, antecedent to reason and observation, must have an object independent on human contrivance; for there can be no natural desire of artificial good. No man, therefore, can be born, in the strictest acceptation, a lover of money; for he may be born where money does not exist: nor can he be born, in a moral sense, as a lover of his country; for society, politically regulated, is a state contradistinguished from a state of nature; and any attention to that coalition of interests which makes the happiness of a country, is possible only to those whom inquiry and reflection have enabled to comprehend it. "This doctrine is in itself pernicious as well as false: its tendency is to produce the belief of a kind of moral predestination or overruling principle which cannot be resisted; he that admits it is prepared to comply with every desire that caprice or opportunity shall excite, and to flatter himself that he submits only to the lawful dominion of nature, in obeying the resistless authority of his Ruling Passion. Pope has formed his theory with so little skill, that, in the examples by which he illustrates and confirms it, he has confounded passions, appetites, and habits.” I shall add, that the expression, Ruling Passion, was first used by Roscommon. See how much is attributed to the effects of a Ruling Passion. Essay on Man, Epistle ii. v. 132. Ver. 177. Priests, Princes, Women, no DISSEMBLERS here.] Insinuating that one common principle, the pursuit of Power, gives a conformity of conduct to the most distant and different characters. W. Ver. 181. the Lust of Praise:] This very well expresses the grossness of his appetite for it; where the strength of the passion had destroyed all the delicacy of the sensation. W. |