And we who vainly boast her rightful sway
In our weak etc.
[1195] M.S.:
Can reason more etc.
[1196] From La Rochefoucauld: "Reason frequently puts itself on the side of the strongest passion; there is no violent passion which has not its reason to justify it."—Warton.
[1197] Pope copied Mandeville: "Man's strong habits and inclinations can only be subdued by passions of greater violence."
[1198] Cowley's poem on the late civil war:
The plague, we know, drives all diseases out.—Wakefield.
Ruffhead and Bowles unite in condemning the colloquial familiarity of Pope's simile.
[1199] MS.:
This bias nature to our temper lends.