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Good heav'ns, how faction can a patriot paint!
My rebel ever proves my people's faint.
Wou'd they impofe an heir upon the throne ?
Let Sanhedrims be taught to give their own.
A King's at leaft a part of government;
And mine as requifite as their confent:
Without my leave a future king to chufe,
Infers a right the prefent to depose.

True, they petition me t' approve their choice:
But Efau's hands fuit ill with Jacob's voice.
My pious fubjects for my fafety pray;
Which to fecure, they take my pow'r away.
From plots and treafons Heav'n preferve my years,
But fave me moft from my petitioners.
Unfatiate as the barren womb or grave;

God cannot grant fo much as they can crave.
What then is left, but with a jealous eye
To guard the small remains of royalty?
The law fhall fill direct my peaceful fway,
And the fame law teach rebels to obey :
Votes fhall no more establish'd pow'r controul,
Such votes as make a part exceed the whole.
No groundless clamours fhall my friends remove,
Nor crowds have pow'r to punish ere they prove;
For gods and god-like kings their care express,
Still to defend their fervants in diftrefs.
Oh, that my power to faving were confin'd!
Why am I forc'd, like Heav'n, against my mind,
To make examples of another kind?

Muft I at length the fword of justice draw?
Oh curft effects of neceffary law!

How ill my fear they by my mercy scan!
Beware the fury of a patient man.

Law they require, let law then fhew her face;
They could not be content to look on grace,
Her hinder parts, but with a daring eye
To tempt the terror of her front, and die.
By their own arts, 'tis righteously decreed,
Thofe dire artificers of death shall bleed.
Against themselves their witneíles will fwear,
'Till viper-like, their mother-plot they tear;
And fuck for nutriment that bloody gore,
Which was their principle of life before.
Their Belial with their Beelzebub will fight:
Thus on my foes, my foes fhall do me right.
Nor doubt th' event: For factious crowds engage,
In their firft onfet, all their brutal rage.

Then let 'em take an unrefifted courfe:

Retire, and traverse, and delude their force:
But when they ftand all breathleis, urge the fight,
And rife upon them with redoubled might:

For lawful pow'r is fill fuperior found;

When long driv'n back, at length it stands the ground,
He faid: Th' Almighty nodding gave confent;
And peals of thunder hook the firmament.
Henceforth a series of new time began,

The mighty years in long proceffion ran :
Once more the god like David was reftor'd,
And willing nations knew their lawful lord.

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Part of the Second Part of

ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL.

N. B. The rest of this POEM, written by Mr Tate, is extant in the Second Part of Mifcellany POEMS, published by Mr Dryden.

N

EXT thefe, a troop of busy spirits prefs,

Of little fortunes, and of confcience less.
With them the tribe, whofe luxury had drain'd
Their banks, in former sequestrations gain'd;
Who rich and great by past rebellions grew,
And long to fish the troubled streams anew.
Some future hopes, fome prefent payment draws,
To fell their confcience, and efpoufe the caufe.
Such ftipends thofe vile hirelings best befit,
Priefts without grace, and poets without wit.
Shall that falfe Hebronite efcape our curfe,
Judas, that keeps the rebels pension purfe;
Judas, that pays the treafon-writer's fee;
Judas, that well deferves his name-fake's tree:
Who at Jerufalem's own gates erects
His college for a nursery, of fects;

Young prophets with an carly care fecures,
And with the dung of his own arts manures.
What have the men of Hebron here to do?
What part in Ifrael's promis'd land have you?
Here Phaleg the Lay-Hebronite is come,
?Caufe like the reft he could not live at home;

Who from his own poffeffions could not drain
An omer even of Hebronitifh grain;

Here ftruts it like a patriot, and talks high
Of injur'd fubjects alter'd property:

An emblem of that buzzing infect just,

'That mounts the wheel, and thinks fhe raifes duft:
Can dry bones live; or fkeletons produce
The vital warmth of cuckoldizing juice?
Slim Phaleg cou'd, and, at the table fed,
Return'd the grateful product to the bed.
A waiting-man to trav'lling nobles 'chofe,
He his own laws would faucily impofe;
'Till baftinado'd back again he went,
To learn thofe manners he to teach was fent.
Chaftis'd, he ought to have retreated home,
But he reads politics to Abfalom.

For never Hebronite, tho' kick'd and scorn'd;
To his own country willingly return'd.
But leaving famish'd Phaleg to be fed,
And to talk treafon for his daily bread,
Let Hebron, nay let Hell produce a man,
So made for mischief as Ben-Jochanan.
A Jew of humble parentage was he,
By trade a Levite, though of low degree.
His pride no higher than the desk aspir'd,
But for the drudgery of priests was hir'd,
To read and pray in linen ephod brave,
And pick up fingle fhekels from the grave.
Married at laft, but finding charge come fafter,
He could not live by God, but chang'd his mafter;"
Infpir'd by want, was made a factious tool;

They got a villain, and we loft a fool.

M &

Still violent, whatever cause he took,
But most against the party he forfook.
For renegadoes, who ne'er turn by halves,
Are bound in confcience to be double knaves.
So this profe prophet took most monstrous pains,
To let his mafter fee he earn'd his gains.
But as the dev'l owes all his imps a fhame,
He chofe th' apoftate for his proper theme;
With little pains he made the picture true,
And from reflection took the rogue he drew.
A wond'rous work, to prove the Jewish nation
In ev'ry age a murm'ring generation;

To trace 'em from their infancy of finning,
And fhew 'em factious from their firft beginning:
To prove they could rebel, and rail, and mock,
Much to the credit of the chofen flock;
And frong authority, which muft convince,
That faints owe no allegiance to their prince:
As 'tis a leading card to make a whore,
To prove her mother had turn'd up before.
But, tell me, did the drunken patriarch blefs
The fon that fhew'd his father's nakedneis?
Such thanks the present church thy pen will give,
Which proves rebellion was fo primitive.
Muft antient failings be examples made?

Then murderers from Caen may learn their trade.
As thou the heathen and the faint haft drawn,
Methinks th' apoftate was the better man:
And thy hot father (waving my respect)
Not of a mother-church, but of a sect.
And fuch he needs must be of thy inditing;

This comes of drinking affes milk, and writing.

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