Date: 1733-4

"Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul; / Reason's comparing balance rules the whole."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1733-4

"Th' Eternal Art educing good from ill, / Grafts on this Passion our best principle: / 'Tis thus the Mercury of Man is fix'd, / Strong grows the Virtue with his nature mix'd."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1733-4

"Strong grows the Virtue with his nature mix'd; / The dross cements what else were refin'd, / And in one interest body acts with mind."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1733-4

"Self-Love but serves the virtuous Mind to wake, / As the small Pebble stirs the peaceful Lake, / The Centre mov'd, a Circle strait succeeds, / Another still, and still another spreads."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1735

"A man's true merit 'tis not hard to find, / But each man's secret standard in his mind, / That casting-weight pride adds to emptiness, / This, who can gratify? For who can guess?"

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1735

"The Bard whom pilf'red Pastorels renown, / Who turns a Persian tale for half a crown, / Just writes to make his barrenness appear, / And strains, from hard-bound brains, eight lines a year."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1735, 1736

"In Men, we various Ruling Passions find, / In Women, two almost divide the kind; / Those, only fix'd, they first or last obey, / The Love of Pleasure, and the Love of Sway."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737

"From threshing Corn, he turns to thresh his Brains; / For which Her M------y allows him Grains."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1737

"I learn to smooth and harmonize my Mind, / Teach ev'ry Thought within its bounds to roll, / And keep the equal Measure of the Soul."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737

"My Mind resumes the thread it dropt before; / Thoughts, which at Hyde-Park-Corner I forgot, / Meet and rejoin me, in my pensive Grott. "

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)