Yet to confult his dignity and fame,
He should have leave to exercife the name;
And hold the cards while commons play'd the game.
For what can power give more than food and
To live at ease, and not be bound to think?
These are the cooler methods of their crime,
But their hot zealots think 'tis lofs of time;
On utmost bounds of loyalty they stand,
And grin and whet like a Croatian band;
That waits impatient for the last command.
Thus outlaws open' villainy maintain,
They steal not, but in fquadrons scour the plain :
And if their power the paffengers fubdue,
The most have right, the wrong is in the few.
Such impious axioms foolishly they show,
For in fome foils republics will not grow:
Our temperate ifle will no extremes sustain,
Of popular sway or arbitrary reign:
But flides between them both into the best,
Secure in freedom, in a monarch bleft,
And tho the climate vex'd with various winds,
Works thro our yielding bodies on our minds.
The wholesome tempest purges what it breeds,
To recommend the calmnefs that fucceeds.
But thou, the pander of the people's hearts, O crooked foul, and ferpentine in arts, Whofe blandishments a loyal land have whor'd, And broke the bonds fhe plighted to her lord; What curfes on thy blafted name will fall! Which age to age their legacy fhall call ;
For all muft curfe the woes that must descend on all.
Religion thou haft none: thy Mercury
Has pafs'd thro every fect, or theirs through thee. But what thou giveft, that venom still remains; And the pox'd nation feels thee in their brains. What else inspires the tongues and fwells the breafts
Of all thy bellowing renegado priests,
That preach up
thee for God; difpenfe thy laws;
And with thy ftum ferment their fainting cause?
Fresh fumes of madness raife; and toil and sweat
To make the formidable cripple great.
Yet fhould thy crimes fucceed, should lawless
Compafs thofe ends thy greedy hopes devour,
Thy canting friends thy mortal foes would be,
Thy God and theirs will never long agree;
For thine, if thou hast any, must be one
That lets the world and human-kind alone:
A jolly god, that paffes hours too well
To promise heaven, or threaten us with hell.
That unconcern'd can at rebellion fit,
And wink at crimes he did himself commit.
A tyrant theirs; the heaven their priesthood paints
A conventicle of gloomy fullen faints;
A heaven like Bedlam, flovenly and fad;
Fore-doom'd for fouls, with falfe religion, mad.
Without a vifion poets can forefhow
What all but fools by common fense may know:
If true fucceffion from our ifle should fail,
And crowds profane with impious arms prevail,
Not thou, nor those thy factious arts engage
Shall reap that harveft of rebellious rage,
With which thou flattereft thy decrepid age.
The fwelling poifon of the several sects,
Which wanting vent, the nation's health infects,
Shall burst its bag; and fighting out their
The various venoms on each other prey.
The prefbyter puff'd up with fpiritual pride,
Shall on the necks of the lewd nobles ride:
His brethren damn, the civil power defy;
And parcel out republic prelacy.
But short shall be his reign: his rigid yoke
And tyrant power will puny fects provoke ;
And frogs and toads, and all the tadpole train Will croak to heaven for help, from this devouring
The cut-throat fword and clamorous gown fhall jar,
In fharing their ill-gotten spoils of war:
Chiefs fhall be grudg'd the part which they
pretend;
Lords envy lords, and friends with every friend
About their impious merit fhall contend.
The furly commons fhall refpect deny,
And juftle peerage out with property.
Their general either shall his truft betray,
And force the crowd to arbitrary fway;
Or they fufpecting his ambitious aim,
In hate of kings fhall caft anew the frame;
And thrust out Collatine that bore their name.
Thus inborn broils the factions would engage,
Or wars of exil'd heirs, or foreign rage,
Till halting vengeance overtook our age:
And our wild labors wearied into rest,
Reclin'd us on a rightful monarch's breast.
Pudet hæc opprobria, vobis
Et dici potuiffe, & non potuiffe refelli.
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