That claims successive bear no binding force,
That coronation oaths are things of course;
Maintains the multitude can never err;
And sets the people in the papal chair.
The reason 's obvious, interest never lies;
The most have still their interest in their eyes;
The power is always theirs, and power is ever wise.
Almighty crowd, thou shortenest all dispute,
Power is thy essence, wit thy attribute !
Nor faith nor reason make thee at a stay,
Thou leap'st o'er all eternal truths in thy pindaric way!
Athens no doubt did righteously decide,
When Phocion and when Socrates were tried ;
As righteously they did those dooms repent;
Still they were wise whatever way they went:
Crowds err not, though to both extremes they run ;
To kill the father and recall the son.
Some think the fools were most as times went then, But now the world 's o'erstock'd with prudent men. The common cry is e'en religion's test.
The Turk's is at Constantinople best;
Idols in India; Popery at Rome ;
And our own worship only true at home.
And true, but for the time 'tis hard to know
How long we please it shall continue so.
This side to-day, and that to-morrow burns ;
So all are God-a'mighties in their turns.
A tempting doctrine, plausible and new;
What fools our fathers were, if this be true!
Who to destroy the seeds of civil war,
Inherent right in monarchs did declare;
And, that a lawful power might never cease
Secur'd succession to secure our peace.
Thus property and sovereign sway, at last,
In equal balances were justly cast:
But this new Jehu spurs the hot mouth'd horse;
Instructs the beast to know his native force;
To take the bit between his teeth, and fly
To the next headlong steep of anarchy.
Too happy England, if our good we knew,
Would we possess the freedom we pursue!
The lavish government can give no more:
Yet we repine, and plenty makes us poor.
God tried us once; our rebel fathers fought,
He glutted them with all the power they sought:
Till master'd by their own usurping brave,
The free born subject sunk into a slave.
We loath our manna, and we long for quails;
Ah, what is man when his own wish prevails!
How rash, how swift to plunge himself in ill;
Proud of his power, and boundless in his will!
That kings can do no wrong we must believe;
None can they do, and must they all receive?
Help, Heaven! or sadly we shall see an hour,
When neither wrong nor right are in their power!
Already they have lost their best defence,
The benefit of laws which they dispense.
No justice to their righteous cause allow'd;
But baffled by an arbitrary crowd.
And medals grav'd their conquest to record,
The stamp and coin of their adopted lord.
The man who laugh'd but once, to see an ass Mumbling to make the cross-grain'd thistles pass, Might laugh again to see a jury chaw
The prickles of unpalatable law.
The witnesses that, leech-like, liv'd on blood,
Sucking for them were med'cinally good;
But when they fasten'd on their fester'd sore,
Then justice and religion they forswore;
Their maiden oaths debauch'd into a whore.
Thus men are rais'd by factions, and decried;
And rogue and saint distinguish'd by their side.
They rack e'en scripture to confess their cause,
And plead a call to preach in spite of laws.
But that's no news to the poor injur'd page,
It has been us'd as ill in every age:
And is constrain'd with patience all to take,
For what defence can Greek and Hebrew make?
Happy who can this talking trumpet seize;
They make it speak whatever sense they please;
'Twas fram'd at first our oracle to inquire;
But since our sects in prophecy grow higher, 165
The text inspires not them, but they the text inspire.
London, thou great emporium of our isle,
O thou too bounteous, thou too fruitful Nile!
How shall I praise or curse to thy desert?
Or separate thy sound from thy corrupted part?
I call'd thee Nile; the parallel will stand:
Thy tides of wealth o'erflow the fatten❜d land;
Yet monsters from thy large increase we find,
Engender'd on the slime thou leav'st behind.
Sedition has not wholly seiz'd on thee,
Thy nobler parts are from infection free.
Of Israel's tribes thou hast a numerous band,
But still the Canaanite is in the land.
Thy military chiefs are brave and true;
Nor are thy disenchanted burghers few.
The head is loyal which thy heart commands,
But what's a head with two such gouty hands?
The wise and wealthy love the surest way,
And are content to thrive and to obey.
But wisdom is to sloth too great a slave;
None are so busy as the fool and knave.
Those let me curse; what vengeance will they urge,
Whose ordures neither plague nor fire can purge?
Nor sharp experience can to duty bring,
Nor angry heaven, nor a forgiving king!
In gospel-phrase their chapmen they betray;
Their shops are dens, the buyer is their prey.
The knack of trades is living on the spoil;
They boast e'en when each other they beguile.
Customs to steal is such a trivial thing,
That 'tis their charter to defraud their king.
All hands unite of every jarring sect;
They cheat the country first, and then infect.
They for God's cause their monarchs dare dethrone,
And they'll be sure to make his cause their own.
Whether the plotting Jesuit laid the plan
Of murdering kings, or the French Puritan,
Our sacrilegious sects their guides outgo,
And kings and kingly power would murder too.
What means their traitorous combination less,
Too plain to evade, too shameful to confess!
But treason is not own'd when 'tis descried:
Successful crimes alone are justified.
The men, who no conspiracy would find,
Who doubts, but had it taken, they had join'd, 210
Join'd in a mutual covenant of defence;
At first without, at last against their prince?
If sovereign right by sovereign power they scan,
The same bold maxim holds in God and man:
God were not safe, his thunder could they shun,
He should be forc'd to crown another son.
Thus when the heir was from the vineyard thrown,
The rich possession was the murderers' own.
In vain to sophistry they have recourse :
By proving theirs no plot, they prove 'tis worse;
Unmask'd rebellion, and audacious force:
Which though not actual, yet all eyes may see
'Tis working in the immediate power to be;
For from pretended grievances they rise,
First to dislike, and after to despise.
Then Cyclop-like in human flesh to deal,
Chop up a minister at every meal:
Perhaps not wholly to melt down the king;
But clip his legal rights within the ring.
From thence to assume the power of peace
And ease him by degrees of public care.
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