For what can power give more than food and drink,
To live at ease, and not be bound to think?
These are the cooler methods of their crime,
But their hot zealots think 'tis loss 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 squadrons scour the plain :
And if their power the passengers 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 fway or arbitrary reign :
But flides between them both into the best,
Secure in freedom, in a monarch blest,
And though the climate vex'd with various winds,
Works through our yielding bodies on our minds,
The wholesome tempest purges what it breeds,
To recommend the calmness that fucceeds.
But thou, the pander of the people's hearts,
O crooked foul, and ferpentine in arts,
Whose blandishments a loyal land have whor'd,
And broke the bonds she plighted to her lord;
What curses on thy blasted name will fall !
Which age to age their legacy shall call;
For all must curse the woes that must descend on all.
Religion thou haft none: thy Mercury
Has pafs'd through every fect, or theirs through thee.
But what thou giv'st, that venom still remains;
And the pox'd nation feels thee in their brains.
What else inspires the tongues and swells the breasts
Of all thy bellowing renegado priests,
That preach up thee for God; dispense thy laws;
And with the stum ferment their fainting caufe ?
Fresh fumes of madness raise; and toil and sweat
To make the formidable cripple great.
Yet should thy crimes succeed, should lawless power
Compass those 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 passes 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, slovenly and fad;
Fore-doom'd for fouls, with false religion, mad.
Without a vision poets can forefhow
What all but fools by common sense 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 harvest of rebellious rage,
With which thou flatterest thy decrepit age.
The swelling poison of the several sects,
Which, wanting vent, the nation's health infects,
Shall burft its bag; and fighting out their way
The various venoms on each other prey.
The prefbyter puff'd up with spiritual 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 sects provoke;
And frogs and toads, and all the tadpole train,
Will croak to heaven for help, from this devouring crane,
The cut-throat fword and clamorous gown shall jar,
In sharing their ill-gotten spoils of war:
Chiefs shall be grudg'd the part which they pretend;
Lords envy lords, and friends with every friend
About their impious merit shall contend,
The furly commons shall refpect deny,
And justle peerage out with property.
Their general either shall his trust betray,
And force the crowd to arbitrary fway;
Or they, fufpecting his ambitious aim,
In hate of kings shall cast 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 labours wearied into reft,
Reclin'd us on a rightful monarch's breast.
Pudet hæc opprobria, vobis
"Et dici potuifle, & non potuiffe refelli."
N times when princes cancel'd nature's law,
And declarations which themselves did draw;
When children us'd their parents to dethrone,
And gnaw their way, like vipers, to the crown;
Tarquin, a savage, proud, ambitious prince,
Prompt to expel, yet thoughtless of defence,
The envied scepter did from Tullius snatch,
The Roman king, and father by the match.
To form his party, histories report,
A fanctuary was open'd in his court,
Where glad offenders safely might resort.
Great was the crowd, and wondrous the success,
For those were fruitful times of wickedness;
And all, that liv'd obnoxious to the laws,
Flock'd to prince Tarquin, and embrac'd his cause.
'Mongst these a pagan priest for refuge fled;
A prophet deep in godly faction read;
A sycophant, that knew the modish way
To cant and plot, to flatter and betray,
To whine and fin, to scribble and recant,
A shameless author, and a lustful faint.
To serve all times he could distinctions coin,
And with great ease flat contradictions join :
A traitor now, once loyal in extreme,
And then obedience was his only theme:
He fung in temples the most paffive lays,
And wearied monarchs with repeated praise;
But manag'd aukwardly that lawful part;
To vent foul lies and treason was his art,
And pointed libels at crown'd heads to dart.
This priest, and others learned to defame,
First murder injur'd Tullius in his name;
With blackest calumnies their sovereign load,
A poison'd brother, and dark league abroad;
A fon unjustly top'd upon the throne,
Which yet was prov'd undoubtedly his own;
Though, as the law was there, 'twas his behoof,
Who dispossess'd the heir, to bring the proof.
This hellish charge they back'd with dismal frights,
The lofs of property and facred rights,
And freedom, words which all false patriots use,
As fureft names the Romans to abufe.
Jealous of kings, and always malecontent,
Forward in change, yet certain to repent.
Whilft thus the plotters needful fears create,
Tarquin with open force invades the state.
Lewd nobles join him with their feeble might,
And atheist fools for dear religion fight.
The priests their boafted principles disown,
And level their harangues against the throne.
Vain promises the people's minds allure,
Slight were their ills, but desperate the cure.
'Tis hard for kings to steer an equal course,
And they who banish one, oft gain a worse.
Those heavenly bodies we adinire above,
Do every day irregularly move;
|