How then do those mistake who arm her laws With rigour not their own, and hurt the cause They mean to help, whilst with a zealot rage They make that goddess, whom they'd have engage Our dearest love, in hideous terror rise! Such may be honest, but they can't be wise. In her own full and perfect blaze of light, Virtue breaks forth too strong for human sight; The dazzled eye, that nice but weaker sense, Shuts herself up in darkness for defence: 110 But to make strong conviction deeper sink, To make the callous feel, the thoughtless think, Like God, made man, she lays her glory by, And beams mild comfort on the ravish'd eye: In earnest most, when most she seems in jest, She worms into, and winds around, the breast, To conquer Vice, of Vice appears the friend, And seems unlike herself to gain her end. The sons of Sin, to while away the time Which lingers on their hands, of each black crime 120 To hush the painful memory, and keep The tyrant Conscience in delusive sleep, Read on at random, nor suspect the dart Until they find it rooted in their heart. 'Gainst vice they give their vote, nor know at first That, cursing that, themselves too they have cursed; They see not, till they fall into the snares, Deluded into virtue unawares. Thus the shrewd doctor, in the spleen-struck mind, When pregnant horror sits, and broods o'er wind, 130 Discarding drugs, and striving how to please, Lures on insensibly, by slow degrees, The patient to those manly sports which bind The slacken'd sinews, and relieve the mind; The patient feels a change as wrought by stealth, And wonders on demand to find it health. Some few, whom Fate ordain'd to deal in rhymes In other lands, and here, in other times, Whom, waiting at their birth, the midwife Muse Sprinkled all over with Castalian dews, 140 To whom true Genius gave his magic pen, Whom Art by just degrees led up to men; Some few, extremes well shunn'd, have steer'd between These dangerous rocks, and held the golden mean; Sense in their works maintains her proper state, But never sleeps, or labours with her weight; Grace makes the whole look elegant and gay, But never dares from Sense to run astray: So nice the master's touch, so great his care, The colours boldly glow, not idly glare; 150 Mutually giving and receiving aid, They set each other off, like light and shade, And, as by stealth, with so much softness blend, 'Tis hard to say where they begin or end: Both give us charms, and neither gives offence; Sense perfects Grace, and Grace enlivens Sense. Peace to the men who these high honours claim, Health to their souls, and to their memories fame! Be it my task, and no mean task, to teach A reverence for that worth I cannot reach: 160 Let me at distance, with a steady eye, Observe and mark their passage to the sky; From envy free, applaud such rising worth,