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Ask mens Opinions: J * * n now shall tell
How trade increases, and the world goes well;
Strike off his Pension by the setting Sun,
And Britain, if not Europe, is undone.
Manners with Fortunes, Humours change with Climes,
Tenets with Books, and Principles with Times.
Judge we by Nature? Habit can efface,
Int'rest o'ercome, or Policy take Place:
By Actions? those Uncertainty divides:
By Passions? these Dissimulation hides:
Affections? they still take a wider range:
Find, if you can, in what you cannot change?
'Tis in 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 Clodio stands confest.
Clodio, 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.
How trade increases, and the world goes well;
Strike off his Pension by the setting Sun,
And Britain, if not Europe, is undone.
Manners with Fortunes, Humours change with Climes,
Tenets with Books, and Principles with Times.
Judge we by Nature? Habit can efface,
Int'rest o'ercome, or Policy take Place:
By Actions? those Uncertainty divides:
By Passions? these Dissimulation hides:
Affections? they still take a wider range:
Find, if you can, in what you cannot change?
'Tis in 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 Clodio stands confest.
Clodio, 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'
