"Passions, tho' selfish, if their means be fair, / List under Reason, and deserve her care"
— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)
Author
Place of Publication
London
Date
1733-4
Metaphor
"Passions, tho' selfish, if their means be fair, / List under Reason, and deserve her care"
Metaphor in Context
Modes of Self-love the Passions we may call;
'Tis real good, or seeming, moves them all;
But since not every good we can divide,
And Reason bids us for our own provide;
Passions, tho' selfish, if their means be fair,
List under Reason, and deserve her care;
Those, that imparted, court a nobler aim,
Exalt their kind, and take some Virtue's name.
(Epistle II, ll. 93-100)
'Tis real good, or seeming, moves them all;
But since not every good we can divide,
And Reason bids us for our own provide;
Passions, tho' selfish, if their means be fair,
List under Reason, and deserve her care;
Those, that imparted, court a nobler aim,
Exalt their kind, and take some Virtue's name.
(Epistle II, ll. 93-100)
Categories
Provenance
HDIS
Citation
Over 165 entries in ESTC (1733, 1734, 1735, 1736, 1743, 1744, 1745, 1746, 1747, 1748, 1749, 1750, 1751, 1753, 1754, 1755, 1756, 1758, 1760, 1761, 1762, 1763, 1764, 1766, 1767, 1768, 1770, 1771, 1772, 1774, 1776, 1777, 1778, 1780, 1781, 1783, 1784, 1785, 1786, 1787, 1788, 1789, 1790, 1791, 1792, 1794, 1795, 1796, 1797, 1798, 1799, 1800).
See An Essay on Man, Being the First Book of Ethic epistles. To Henry St. John, L. Bolingbroke. (London: Printed by John Wright, for Lawton Gilliver, 1734). <Link to ESTC><Link to ESTC><Link to ESTC><Link to ECCO-TCP>
See also An Essay on Man: In Epistles to a Friend. (Dublin: Printed by S. Powell, for George Risk, George Ewing, and William Smith, 1734). <Link to ECCO-TCP>
Reading The Poems of Alexander Pope. A One-Volume Edition of the Twickenham Text with Selected Annotations, ed. John Butt. (New Haven: Yale UP, 1963).
See An Essay on Man, Being the First Book of Ethic epistles. To Henry St. John, L. Bolingbroke. (London: Printed by John Wright, for Lawton Gilliver, 1734). <Link to ESTC><Link to ESTC><Link to ESTC><Link to ECCO-TCP>
See also An Essay on Man: In Epistles to a Friend. (Dublin: Printed by S. Powell, for George Risk, George Ewing, and William Smith, 1734). <Link to ECCO-TCP>
Reading The Poems of Alexander Pope. A One-Volume Edition of the Twickenham Text with Selected Annotations, ed. John Butt. (New Haven: Yale UP, 1963).
Date of Entry
11/04/2003
