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Page:The Hind and the Panther - Dryden (1687).djvu/105

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The Hind and the Panther.
95
Be judge your self, if int'rest may prevail,
Which motives, yours or mine, will turn the scale.
While pride and pomp allure, and plenteous ease,
That is, till man's predominant passions cease,
Admire no longer at my slow encrease.

By education most have been misled,
So they believe, because they so were bred.
The Priest continues what the nurse began,
And thus the child imposes on the man.
The rest I nam'd before, nor need repeat:
But int'rest is the most prevailing cheat,
The sly seducer both of age and youth;
They study that, and think they study truth:
When int'rest fortifies an argument
Weak reason serves to gain the wills assent;
For souls, already warp'd, receive an easie bent.

Add long prescription of establish'd laws,
And picque of honour to maintain a cause,

And